Jeff Schreve - To The King Whose Word is Power
Summary:
In this message from Ezekiel 37, the preacher uses the vision of the valley of dry bones to show how God brings hope and new life to His hopeless people in exile, who felt their future was gone forever. The key idea is that even in the most impossible, dead situations—whether personal struggles or national despair—God revives through His powerful Word and the life-giving breath of His Spirit. Ultimately, no matter how dry and scattered life feels, honest assessment, hearing God’s Word, and yielding to the Holy Spirit lead to resurrection, restoration, and a mighty army standing for Him.
Introduction: A Valley of Dry Bones
If you have your Bible, please turn to Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 37. We want to talk today about a very famous passage of Scripture made into a song: it’s the valley of dry bones. It was in 1917 when the submarine USS S-4 was commissioned into service by the United States Navy. It served for ten years, and then in December of 1927, off the coast of Cape Cod, it was accidentally and inadvertently rammed by a Coast Guard destroyer as the sub was coming up out of the water.
The Coast Guard did not see it and didn’t know it was there, and rammed the sub. The sub was damaged severely and began to sink. They called for rescuers to try and come to save the men on the sub, and the concern was that because of the damage, they would run out of oxygen. Divers were sent down to try and rescue the men, and they were communicating with six men in the torpedo area of the sub. They communicated through Morse code as they tapped on the hull of the submarine, and the last thing that the men inside the doomed submarine ever tapped out were these four words: «Is there any hope? Is there any hope?»
The Sadness of Hopelessness
Bernard Baruch, the great statesman of yesteryear, said that the saddest word in the English language is «hopeless.» Hopeless—the saddest word. Freddie Prinze, the comic from the late 1970s, committed suicide and in his suicide note, he wrote these words: «There is no hope for me; there’s no hope.» When people lose hope and think there is no hope, that’s when people say, «I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I’m going to take my own life.» Why? Because there’s no hope that anything is going to get better; there’s no hope for a brighter tomorrow. There is no hope.
You know, hopelessness is one of those things that can come in degrees; it can come in various areas of life. We can run into hopelessness in terms of marriage. «Lord, this situation is hopeless. I don’t think this marriage is ever going to get better. I don’t think my spouse is ever going to really be the spouse that I need them to be to meet my needs.» We can feel hopeless when we’re wanting to be married and there’s nobody on deck, nobody on the horizon, and no one’s on the radar screen. You can lose hope and just say, «God, I guess it’s not going to happen for me. There’s not Mr. Right or Ms. Right,» and you lose hope. You can lose hope in your career. You can lose hope as a Christian because there’s a sin that has a stronghold on you that seems to always eat your lunch, and you never seem to be able to break free. You just get so discouraged that you say, «God, I guess there’s no hope for me.»
One of the great verses in Scripture is Romans 15:13, which says, «Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.» God is the God of hope, but God knows that there are situations we encounter in life that seem hopeless.
Historical Context: Israel’s Despair
Now, in the Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel was a priest, and he was writing at a time when hope was dimming and had pretty much gone out for the house of Israel, for the people of God. If you know your Bible history, you know that Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was taken over by the Assyrians in 722 BC. But Judah, the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with the capital city in Jerusalem, stayed more faithful to the Lord for a longer period of time. But then they strayed so far from the Lord that He allowed Babylon to come in. In 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar came in and subdued the people of Judah, taking captives such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to Babylon. He set up his vassal kingdom there. Judah had a king, but that king was just under the thumb of Nebuchadnezzar.
In 597, Nebuchadnezzar came back to remind them who was boss and took more captives back to Babylon. When there was an uprising, Nebuchadnezzar came in 587 BC, and in 586 BC he broke down the walls of Jerusalem, destroyed Solomon’s Temple, and wiped the city out. The people were devastated. You know the book of Lamentations is Jeremiah’s book that talks about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, and he is grieving from the depths of his being. The people of God were saying, «It’s hopeless! Our whole future is gone. God made promises to us, but they’re gone because there’s nothing left. Nothing can happen with what God promised; that’s not going to take place. Just look around you; we are exiles in Babylon, and Jerusalem is destroyed.» It sure looked bleak, but God had a message in Ezekiel 37 directly to His people, to the house of Israel, and it’s a message to us today, to us who are facing hopelessness and impossible situations. It’s a message about the power of God and His Word.
Reading Ezekiel 37:1-14
I want us to stand as we read Ezekiel 37 in honor of God’s Word. Ezekiel 37, verse 1: «The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them roundabout, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and lo, they were very dry. He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live? ' I answered, 'O Lord God, you know.' Again, He said to me, 'Prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you that you may come to life; and you will know that I am the Lord.'
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may come to life.' So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, „Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished; we are completely cut off.“ Therefore prophesy and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I, the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will put my Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, ' declares the Lord.»
You may be seated. The people were without any hope; they said their future was gone. But God is the God of hope. What is God’s answer to a hopeless, impossible situation? Maybe you’re facing that in your finances, maybe you’re facing that in your marriage, maybe you’re facing that in your health, maybe you’re facing that in your future. What is God’s answer?
Point 1: Honest Assessment
Well, first of all, God says to understand the importance of honest assessment, honest assessment. It’s very interesting: the Lord takes Ezekiel and puts him in a valley of dry bones. It’s a valley that undoubtedly had seen battle, and because of the battle and what was going on in the land, they weren’t able to bury the dead. Those who fell in battle died there; the animals came and the birds came, ate the flesh, and picked the bones clean. All that was left was a bunch of bones in a valley, and a valley is a depressed place.
You know we sing that song, «Down in the Valley.» The valley is a low place. «Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,» he didn’t take him to a mountaintop; he took him to a valley. It was filled with bones, and he said, «What do you see there?» Ezekiel was walking around, and he said, «Lo, there were very many bones, and they were very dry.» He was doing an assessment, his eyes were open to the situation, and this situation is bad; it is bleak, and can these bones live? God asks Ezekiel. Well, the answer is no way; there’s no way these bones are going to live. There isn’t any flesh on them; they’ve been bleached out by the sun—no way. So he’s doing an assessment.
Did you know that it is important to do a personal assessment, a personal inventory? It’s important to really look in the mirror and see what’s going on spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically. Listen, all of us have issues and problems. All of us, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners, have things in our lives that aren’t quite right. We all have areas where we say, «Now I’m working on this, I’m working on that.» You know the Christian life—you don’t arrive; you grow in the Christian life. You get stronger in the Christian life, but you never arrive because we are people who have sin working in our members, and we’re constantly, as it says in Galatians chapter 5, to walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
For the flesh sets its desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you may not do the things that you please. So within you, there is a battle going on, whether you’ve been a Christian for two days or for fifty-five years. There are always things we need to work on; nobody arrives in the Christian life. Remember when Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, «Judge not, lest you be judged»? He said to watch out that you don’t point out the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log in your own eye. Many of us like to do that; we have the little jingle, «Sin and others I can see, but praise the Lord, there’s none in me.» We like to be everybody’s personal Holy Spirit, like, «You’re not doing this right, you’re not doing that right, you’re not doing the other right.» But how many times do you look in the mirror at yourself?
In the business book «Good to Great» by Jim Collins, one of the things he says is that if you have a company and you want to take a good company to become a great company, one of the things you have to do is confront the brutal facts, face the brutal facts. You have to look in the mirror and see where you are. When I was selling chemicals for an alkyl chemical company, we would sit down with prospective clients and we’d always ask them this question: «Where are you now? What’s going on in your water treatment program?» Where are you now, and let’s really assess where you are—not where you want to be, but where you are now. The second question is, «Where do you want to be?» The third question is, «How are you going to get there?» So honest assessment is critical.
I was reading just a few weeks ago in the book of Genesis. Rebecca, who was Isaac’s wife, got pregnant with twins, and the twins were fighting inside her womb. She said, «If it be so, why am I this way?» and she went and inquired of the Lord. Now, she was talking about the struggle in her womb, but I underlined that in my Bible. I thought that is really good: «Lord, why am I this way? Why do I have…» Perhaps you would say, «Why do I have such a problem with my anger? Why do I have such a problem with comparing myself to other people? Why do I have such an insecurity in me? Why do I always think that I look bad? All I can see is my body and my body doesn’t look right to me, no matter what I do; it just doesn’t look like—Lord, why am I this way?» She inquired of the Lord.
Hey, honest assessment— all of us have issues and struggles and problems, and we need to honestly look at them. Then all of us desperately need God to intervene; we are desperate for God to intervene. Verse 3: «He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live? '» Well, when God asks you a question like that, the obvious answer is «No way, José!» Although you don’t call God José. It’s «No way! God, can these bones live?» I mean, there’s no life in those bones. So, «No,» but Ezekiel says, «O Lord God, you know.» That’s a good safe answer. «I don’t know.» I’m going to put down E on the multiple choice: «don’t know!» «But God, you know,» and what he’s saying is, «God, apart from a miracle of yours, these bones can’t live. So you know what you’re going to do, and you can do anything,» and so, «O Lord God, you alone know.»
Hey, all of us desperately need God to intervene in our lives because we can’t do it on our own. We can’t face the issues on our own. As we take an honest assessment of our lives, we say, «This is too big for me; this is too hard for me.» So many men struggle with lust. How are you going to conquer that in your life? It’s too big; it’s too strong. It is the flesh beating and taking over, causing you to do things. As Paul said in Romans 7, «The good that I do, I don’t do; and the evil that I don’t want to do, I do. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?» Hey, we need the Lord to intervene. We desperately need Him to intervene, and here’s the good news: when you face a situation that seems impossible, impossible is really «I’m possible» with God.
Impossible is «I’m possible» with God. Can these bones live? «O Lord, you know.» It’s impossible with man, as Jesus said, «But with God all things are possible.»
Point 2: The Power of God’s Word
So, understand the importance of honest assessment. Number two: understand the importance of the Word of God. Again, He said to me, verse 4: «Prophesy over these bones; speak to these bones and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.'» O dry bones, listen to what the Lord is saying to you. He did, and he spoke to the bones. He preached to the bones and said, «O hear the word of the Lord,» and then things began to change. There was a noise, and stuff started to come together. As the song says, «The ankle bone connected to the shin bone; the shin bone connected to the knee bone; the knee bone connected to the thigh bone.» Now, «Hear the word of the Lord!»
There’s power in the word of the Lord, and God wants us to see that. See, it’s the Word of God that is alive and powerful. What was Ezekiel supposed to say to the bones? «Hear the word of the Lord!» He wasn’t supposed to say, «Hey, Ezekiel, come up with something that you can say to the bones.» No, he spoke the Word of the Lord. There’s power in the Word of God.
Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. The King James says it’s quick and powerful. The New Living Translation says that the Word of God is full of living power. That’s in this book; it’s full of power. See, the Bible is not like other books. You and I read other books, but this book reads us because it is alive and it is active. The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Now let me give you an example of how powerful the Word of God is: Dean Sieberhagen, who was in our church—a dear friend from seminary back in the 90s, and he was in our church over Christmas time—he’s a professor at Southwestern Seminary. I got to meet his dad when I was at Southeastern Seminary in the 90s going to seminary, and Dean’s dad was on fire for the Lord. They are from South Africa, and his dad told me a story I’ve never forgotten. He said that there was a fella in South Africa who came to know Christ, and he was so excited about the Lord and he was so excited about God’s Word. He said, «There’s power in the Word of God.» So what he did was he began to take Scripture verses and he began to put them on three-by-five cards, and he would stand on the street corner and he’d hand out three-by-five cards of Scripture verses. There is power in the Word of God! He handed out one Scripture verse to a guy; it was Genesis 5:27—not John 3:16, but Genesis 5:27. It says this: «So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.» That’s what the guy got!
I mean, that’s a far cry from John 3:16, huh? Nobody puts Genesis 5:27 under his eyes for the football team, you know? They don’t have Genesis 5:27 in the stadium, no! But that’s what this guy got. This shows you the power of the Word of God. That guy got that Scripture verse and said, «No way. No way did this guy Methuselah live 969 years.» He said, «I’m going to look that up.» He had the reference Genesis 5:27; he looked up Genesis 5:27. Well, that’s what it says.
So he looked at some verses ahead of that one; he looked at some verses after that one. He kept reading to find out more things about Methuselah and his family in this book, and as he read and read and read, he came to see that he was a sinner in need of a Savior. He put his faith and trust in Jesus Christ from one verse, Genesis 5:27. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and the Word of God is that which causes a commotion in lives.
Look at verse 7—I love this! So he said, «So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise and behold, a rattling.» The bones came together bone to its bone. The bones were all strewn about, and all of a sudden, as he says, «O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord,» there’s a noise, and those dead dry bones begin to rattle, and then they begin to come together. There is a commotion. That word «rattling» literally means a commotion, a vibration, an uproar. When you start preaching the Word of God, you start sharing the Word of God, and there’s going to be a reaction. People may hate it, but they’re going to react to it because it’s alive.
Why in our world today, why are people so against Christianity? People in America, the left in America are so against Christianity, yet so for Islam. Why is that? Because Islam is a lie and Christianity is the truth, and the devil hates the truth. He believes a lie all day long. You start sharing the Word of God with people, and there’s an uproar. People will say, «Push it! Putting Scripture on a billboard? Well, that’s hate speech!» If you put certain verses up, if you put Romans chapter 1 on a billboard, that’s 'hate speech.' No, that’s the Word of the Living God that says, 'If you don’t turn around, there are going to be consequences.' And they’re going to be severe, and they’re going to be eternal.
Hey, there is a commotion that comes with the Word of God. When you preach the Word, Paul and Silas went to Thessalonica; they preached the Word and they preached Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Him, and man, there was a commotion there. The people got upset; there was an uproar in the city, and they said this: «These men who have upset the world have come here also.» What a testimony that it would be said of you and me that we upset the world by doing what? By preaching and teaching and sharing the Word of the Living God.
Hey, there’s a commotion when we preach the truth! The Word is alive and powerful, and the Word causes a stirring and a commotion, and the Word of God is what people desperately need—it’s what they desperately need! Those bones were all strewn about until Ezekiel began to preach: «Hear the word of the Lord,» thus says the Lord! All of a sudden there was a rattling, and those bones came together. Maybe you’re here, and your life is just a mess—it’s just spread out all over the place. You say, «Man, it’s like a bomb went off in my life, and I have this broken relationship, and that broken relationship,» and «this dead and this problem» is just all a mess. The Word of the Lord is able to take your life, which is a mess and those dry bones which are scattered all over the valley, and bring them together.
He can bring order to your chaos as you put yourself under the Word of the Lord. You know what the command is to every preacher? Preach the Word. Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4, «I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and by His kingdom, preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when men will not endure sound doctrine, but they will want to have their ears tickled; they will turn aside from the truth and turn aside to myths.»
We are living in that generation where people don’t want to hear the truth. They get mad if you speak the truth. Listen, we are called, every preacher is called, every church is called to preach the truth and speak the truth in love, but don’t back off on the truth! Because it’s the truth that sets people free. We live in a world today where people are coming to church, and preachers are standing up in church, and they’re saying, «Well, hey, you know, it’s okay that you’re a certain way; it’s okay that you have this sin in your life, you just come to the Lord with your sin and He’ll bless you.» Baloney! He doesn’t bless sin.
I don’t care what’s in your life; if you’re going to hold on to that sin, you can’t come to Jesus. You have to say, «God, I repent of this sin. I turn from this sin, and I come to You.» The moment you come that way, He receives you and washes you white as snow. God’s Word is power. He says this in Jeremiah 23:29: «Is not my word like fire?» declares the Lord, «and like a hammer that shatters a rock?» That’s God’s Word that we can share!
Point 3: The Role of the Holy Spirit
So the Lord says: «Hey! You’re facing a hopeless situation. Honestly assess. Understand that you must honestly assess where you are. Understand, number two, that there’s power in the Word. Understand, number three, about the Spirit of God.» So Ezekiel preaches, «O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord,» and the bones come together. It says in verse 8, «And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.» Then He said to me, «Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they may come to life.'»
So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. What is He talking about here? The word in Hebrew for breath is «ruach.» It’s also translated spirit. The same word for spirit is «ruach.» In the New Testament, the word for breath is «pneuma,» and the word for spirit, the Greek word, is «pneuma.» The breath and the spirit are interchangeable. Genesis chapter 1 says that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the surface, and the «ruach» of God was moving on the surface—the breath of God, the Spirit of God was moving.
Why is the flesh that has come on the bones in the sinew that has come on the bones and the bones that have come together, ankle bone to the leg bone, the leg bone to the knee bone, knee bone to the shin bone—all those bones coming together—why is there not life? Because there has to be the Spirit; there has to be the Spirit that is breathed into those bones. You know, God formed Adam in Genesis chapter 2; he formed him from the dust of the ground, and Adam was all there; his body was all made. But then He said, «And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,» and Adam became a living soul.
We have to have the breath of God in order to be alive, and God, this is how He works: it’s the Spirit who gives life. Jesus said in John chapter 6, «The flesh profits little; it profits nothing. It’s the Spirit who gives life.» The Holy Spirit is the one who gives life. So the bones didn’t come to life until He said, «Prophesy to the breath; hear the word of the Lord.» The breath came upon them.
This is how this works: as we gather in whatever our hopelessness might be, whatever our situation might be, the answer is found in the Word of God when the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and speaks it to our heart. Listen, I can preach truth, but only the Holy Spirit can impart truth, and if the Holy Spirit doesn’t impart truth, it’s just truth that’s going over you, and it’s not landing in your heart.
Hey, it’s the Holy Spirit who gives life, and it’s the Holy Spirit who gives us victory, not only life. Some of you are here, and no doubt there are people here in this room, people under the sound of my voice, and you’re just dead. See, you go to church, you put on your glad rags, you come, and you say, «Oh, I’m here! I’m going to sing the songs. I’m going to praise. I’m going to do all these things.» But it’s all in your head, and it’s not in your heart. The Pharisees had all that; it’s all in their head, not in their heart.
The devil has that. Scripture says in James, «You believe God is one?» Whoopty-doo! Paraphrase: whoop-dee-doo! The demons also believe, and they shudder! They tremble! They know God is real. The devil knows that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. He knows that He died on the cross and rose again from the dead. The devil is not an atheist, but he knows things about God—it’s all in his head, and it’s not real in his heart! He’s never trusted the Lord; he hates the Lord, but he knows He’s real. Some of you are here; you know the Lord is real, but you’ve never put your faith and trust in Him. You don’t have life; you’re just dead bones, old dry bones.
You have to yield yourself to the Word of God, to the Spirit of God, and the Spirit brings life, and the Spirit brings victory. Verse 14: «And I will put my Spirit, my 'ruach, ' the Lord says, within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, ” declares the Lord.
Conclusion and Invitation
You’re facing a hopeless situation or you’re like those guys on the ship, tapping out in the deep recesses and the deep secrets of your heart. You’re not verbalizing this, but you’re tapping it out and you’re wondering, „Is there any hope?“ The hope is found in Jesus Christ! The hope is found in the Word of God! The hope is found in the power of the Holy Spirit!
As you get honest about where you are in life, as you come before the Lord and come before His Word and yield yourself to His Spirit—that’s when life comes. That’s when victory comes. That’s when the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you. There’s a wonderful song that has been written from Ezekiel 37: we cry out to dry bones, „Come alive! Come alive!“
Listen, we’re going to sing that as our invitation song. If you’re here today and you’re facing a situation that seems impossible, a situation that seems hopeless, you may have a son or a daughter or a mom or a dad or a loved one or a neighbor or a friend who’s facing a serious situation that seems so hopeless. Maybe you want to come and pray for them. Maybe you want to come and pray that God would continue to use this church in a great way to speak His Word, not only in this community, not only in the Ark-La-Tex but beyond, in every city in America and around the world. That God would use First Baptist Texarkana to send out His light and His truth to change lives.
Hey, maybe you’re here and you’re lost; you’re just dry bones. You’re going through the motions but it’s not real. Today can be the day for you. Thus says the Lord: if you’ll come to Him in repentance and faith, He’ll save you, and He’ll change you forever. He’ll put His Spirit inside of you; there will be light, life, abundance, and victory as you walk with Him in trusting.