The Valley No.7 New life in the valley

And we shall read together the first 14 verses. The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about and behold there were very many in the open valley and lo they were very dry. And he said unto me, son of man can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God thou knowest.

Again he said unto me, prophesy upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and ye shall live and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I prophesied there was a noise and behold the shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone and when I beheld lo the sinews and the flesh came up upon them and the skin covered them above but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, prophesy unto the wind, prophesy son of man and say to the wind thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds O breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army.

Then he said unto me, son of man these bones are the whole house of Israel, behold they say our bones are dried and our hope is lost we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them thus saith the Lord God, behold all my people I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel and ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my spirit in you and you shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord. Amen.

Would you turn in your Bibles please to the 37th chapter of the prophecy of Ezekiel and from time to time during my address I shall be referring to specific verses in that reading that we had earlier. One of the most cherished and precious beliefs of Christian people is the thought that God is involved in our world. God is concerned about mankind not just as a whole but all men and women as individuals and both the Old Testament and the New Testament converge as they underline this specific declaration that the God of the Christian faith the God of Old Testament Judaism is a personal God who is involved at every end and turn in the affairs of his people.

And it's because the Bible testifies to this fact throughout its pages that one comes across such lovely verses as these. Our God is a very present help in time of trouble our God is nigh unto them that call upon him and in the New Testament the words of our Savior lo I am with you always. One could multiply these verses and further underline this truth that the the God of the Christian faith is a God who is personal who's related to you and to me a God who's not divorced from us.

We do not believe in the God of the deist someone who's tucked away in the heavens remote and removed impersonal no the God of the Christian faith is nigh to those who call upon him. He is an involved God and I think that involvement is clearly shown to us particularly in one parable which our Savior related. You remember how on the Jericho road that valley road between Jerusalem and the lower city of Jericho by the side of the Dead Sea someone was in trouble someone was left as good as dead having been attacked by thieves by robbers and down that road comes the Good Samaritan one who is involved one who stands for God who stands for our Lord Jesus Christ and shows what God's plan is for mankind shows how he is able to step into a situation even though it's bizarre and horrific and and redeem that situation and transform it completely and what the Bible teaches in an academic fashion in its pages is truth that is practical that is to be applied to our hearts our God I say is an involved God he's concerned concerned about you and me.

We've been talking a great deal in our morning meditations of late about valleys and valley roads and we must confess that often life can only be seen in terms of a passing through a valley and there are many experiences that are unpleasant and if we had to choose we would do without them and the Bible recognizes this for the Bible is a realistic book. I suppose that the writer of the Ecclesiastes could be accused of being a pessimist but with his pessimism there is an admixture of realism when he says that man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upwards and Job as he goes through a valley experience with so many difficulties in his situation that he can hardly read the will of God in his life he cries out in in the depths of depression I loathe my life and would not live forever. Isaiah refers to going down the valleys and he thinks in terms of a stream that's bubbling and gurgling its way down the valley for a little while and then suddenly one of these freaks of nature occurs and that stream becomes a raging torrent and the person in the valley has great difficulty getting through the floodwater but whenever the Bible tells us realistically about the difficulties in life it always comes back to the point that I was mentioning some moments ago that with these difficulties God is present in the problems that surround us God is there with the three in the fiery furnace with David as he goes through the valley of the shadow with Moses as he leads the the Israelites out of Egypt and finds all the problems that that are there in the Sinaitic Peninsula God is still present with his people a very present help not just a present help a very present help in the time of trouble and even though Isaiah speaks about passing through the waters he has to go on and say that when we pass through the waters he will be with us in the midst of the turmoil when the stream becomes a torrent God is there keeping his people and enabling them to make progress even though they're up against great difficulties and it seems to me that there is no passage in the Old Testament especially where the thought of the involvement of God is more clearly and dramatically portrayed than in this 37th chapter of Ezekiel's prophecy for here you find the experience of a man who is taken by God into a valley and there's something rather startling rather sensational happens he sees a valley of death transformed into a valley of life and I want us to examine the experience of the prophet Ezekiel for a moment or two because I want to demonstrate to you from this passage that there is the possibility indeed there is the certainty in the valley of life of finding something of God's power of God's ability to transform a situation the valley of life could well be called the valley of death but within the valley of shadows according to the teaching of this prophet there is the possibility of eternal life being granted to men and women and their circumstances being transformed by a direct act of God so come with me for a moment and let us try in our imaginations to envisage the situation that confronts this strange character one of the most strange characters in the in the Old Testament Ezekiel as he's in this valley he's carried there by the the Spirit of God this place is a grotesque place there is a silence that is eerie about it and round about in the valley there are the remains of men who once were alive for this valley was not always so dead it was not always so silent there was an occasion when the valley walls witnessed when the hills of the valley rather witnessed a tremendous battle there was a time when the clashing of spears and metal against metal resounded from the hilltops there was a time when the when the sun was reflected on a hundred and one pieces of armor of as men engaged with other men in a fight but all that has long since gone there is no more the sound of the chariot wheels no longer can be heard the cry of warriors instead there is just a silence the testimony to the fact that a battle had once raged there is seen by the bones of the human remains of these men we see Ezekiel moving around this grotesque place perhaps stopping a moment and picking up a bone and he examines it and he sees that it's very dry it's been bleached by the burning hot rays of the Eastern Sun and then suddenly and dramatically the silence of the valley is disturbed by a voice by the voice of God and God says to Ezekiel son of man can these bones live the thought is staggering that life could come again into the valley of death that these scattered remains of human beings could be brought together and skeletons be formed and and flesh and blood and muscles come on these these folks and they be raised to to a new life son of man can these bones live and of course the question is preposterous preposterous on the human level for this is absurd it is the the thinking of someone whose mind is deranged to to anticipate that that such a thing could ever happen but the questioner as Ezekiel recognizes is not human he is divine his power is not limited it is infinite so full marks to Ezekiel when in response to the question he says in verse 3 Oh Lord God thou knowest Oh Lord God thou knowest within thy grasp within thy power there is that which could cause a resurrection to come to this place you could transform this situation Lord it's impossible for men or for women to envisage this but as far as you're concerned you could do it now one must slot this chapter into its context immediately and bring out the fact that in the 11th to the 14th verses this whole dramatic parable is to convince Ezekiel that the Israelites who the people from Judah who are in exile can be brought back into their own land they've been away from their country for years at least ten have gone by and they've lost hope that they would ever be returned to Israel but the dramatic parable indicates that these people could be returned they could come back to their own country the nation of Israel could be revived it could be resurrected indeed it will be revived it will be resurrected because God is God and God has promised that he shall do this but beyond that immediate historical understanding of this parable it seems to me that there is teaching enshrined here that will be of help for you and for me this morning because you have the setting forth within this passage of Scripture of spiritual principles whereby we shall understand the whole doctrine of salvation and indeed we can grasp what I would call the biblical view of the world for the Bible teaches us that men and women are not dissimilar although they are alive they are not in one sense dissimilar to the picture that confronts Ezekiel as he moves around the valley of death you say how do you work that out I don't understand you well I work it out like this my friend by returning to the teachings of Scripture and particularly the teachings of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ and this was amplified in the rest of the New Testament confirms the fact that men and women though alive are nonetheless dead you say that's a paradox that contradicts it's a contradictory statement but it only is contradictory if you have no understanding of the teaching of the Bible with regard to death you see the Bible tells us there are two forms of death there is natural death when the man's heart stops beating when he can no longer continue his earthly routine that man is dead Scripture testifies to this concept of death you remember news comes to Jesus and his companions the situation in Bethany and Jesus says quite bluntly as he sums up all that is happening in that village Lazarus is dead that's one teaching that the Bible sets down most clearly about death but that's not the whole thing men have to die like animals and like plants die because it is a law of nature but beyond the law of nature a man is accountable to God and there is a law of the Spirit there is God's own law and man dies because of this and this is not physical death it is spiritual death and spiritual death is a state that commences not at the grave but rather is a condition in which men and women are in as they reject the law of God perhaps the most classic of illustrations to underline this is the experience of Adam when thrust out of the garden you remember he had been prohibited from eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and yet he he rejected God's specific command and God had said that when Adam if Adam disobeyed him he would die and Adam did disobey him but he didn't die didn't die for many long years if the year in Genesis is equivalent to our own year well what did happen as far as Adam was concerned he died spiritually he died to in his relationship with God he is thrust out of the garden and that is symbolic of Adam being unrelated being divorced from God and Adam as you find his story recorded in the succeeding chapters of Genesis is a man who is spiritually dead and as Adam is spiritually dead because of his sins so the Bible teaches all men and all women are spiritually dead and the grotesque valley that Ezekiel finds himself in I tell you is parabolic of the condition that human society is is in today men and women who are dead men and women who need something to remedy their situation who require the ministry of the Good Samaritan because they have been set upon by thieves and by robbers and they are left with their spiritual remains whitening and bleaching under the hot Sun of the trials and temptations of this world so I put it to you that there is a great deal in this unusual experience that Ezekiel has that is relevant to your situation and to mine you see although you may find that this teaching is distasteful to you what you cannot gain say is that Jesus Christ looked upon life as I am suggesting you are to see it from this passage of Scripture in the prophecy of Ezekiel for example Jesus said of his own ministry I am come that ye may have life now on the logical front that is an absurd statement if he was referring to just physical life after all those who were listening to him were alive if they weren't alive physically it would have been ridiculous in talking to them they couldn't have heard so what does Jesus mean when he says I have come that ye may have life well he is addressing man's spiritual need he is by implication stating what I have put dramatically to you from Ezekiel's prophecy that men and women spiritually are dead and he comes into this world to engage in a rescue mission to remedy the situation because as he sees mankind he sees it in a dead position and this I say is not only the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ but it is amplified as we would expect it is taken up by the by the New Testament Church the Apostle Paul for example writing to the Ephesians reminds them of the situation in which they were in before he reached them at Ephesus with the gospel of the Lord Jesus and in that second chapter of this epistle he recapitulates upon their condition and he reminds them that they were dead verse one they were dead in trespasses and in sins spiritually speaking they were in a terrible state and he goes on in the fifth verse to to underline this he says even when we were dead in sins Jesus Christ have quickened us together God hath quickened us together with Christ Jesus when when our Savior if we go back to his ministry for a moment when on one occasion he is confronted by the Sadducees and they try to manipulate a situation in which he condemns himself the Lord Jesus exposes the the malice that there is in their own heart he exposes their evil thinking he exposes that hypocrisy and the gentle Savior says something about these men that strikes us as being harsh and out of keeping with the temperament that we recognize he had of the Sadducees he says to them that they are like whited sepulchres full of dead men's bones in other words spiritually there is dead as dead as the bleaching human remains in Ezekiel's valley they are dead and they don't recognize their condition their desperate spiritual state well I could go on drawing upon more verses of Scripture to underline the argument that I'm putting to you that the biblical view of society even if you find it distasteful is a view that says that men and women spiritually speaking are like the bones in Ezekiel's valley they are dead so the question that needs to be raised is the same one as the Lord put to Ezekiel can these bones live is there any possibility of doing something about the condition in which men and women find themselves in so that spiritually they can be brought back to life is there any possibility of retrieving the paradise that was lost by Adam and was lost by him for all mankind and of course the answer to that question is exactly the same one that the Prophet gave God when it was originally put to him O Lord God thou knowest O Lord it is impossible for me as a sinner to be brought to eternal life it is impossible for me to be quickened spiritually unless you do it for I realize that the problem that confronts me the situation in which I find myself is so horrific it is so serious that unless there is outside help unless there is supernatural help then in the valley of death I shall remain and I shall know eternal death forever but you see and this is the glory of the gospel and this is the glory of going through life down the valley and discovering this Jesus Christ didn't leave us to decay and rot it wasn't within the purpose of God to to bring mankind into this world and to to allow sin to wreak havoc upon him so that he's in such an irreparable condition nothing can be done to remedy it but here I go back to the parable our Savior related of the good Samaritan he comes down the valley of death he comes down the valley of life and there he sees men and women in their condition in this earth and what does he do about it well he remedies it he stops and he looks and he brings onto the picture onto the scene his own miraculous ministry and he remakes and he rebuilds society and this is what Jesus Christ claimed that he was able to do he says I have come to to bring life and when the Savior was living out his earthly life when he was teaching men and women when he was retaining his purity up to that last moment when his body was offered on Calvary's cross he was in effect preserving the power that he would release that Calvary to remake men and women and this is precisely what he has done at Calvary through his death he has allowed to come into this world a power that can transform ordinary people Ezekiel was to see in his vision the the the bones coming back together bone upon bone the whole skeleton being framed Ezekiel was to see this mighty army being resurrected and I say that this is what Jesus Christ has accomplished the church is his army he has brought the church out of the valley of death he has given her power he has given a spiritual vitality he has brought back to life those who were dead and this is how I understand Paul and I don't think you can understand him in any other way when he says of the of God the Father through the ministry of Jesus Christ that he has quickened us together there we were says Paul we were dead in the valley we were bones that were scattered around but Jesus Christ comes along and he quickens us is it not significant that when Paul is writing to the Ephesians and later on as I shall show you to the Colossians he has to employ the verb resurrection to describe the spiritual experience of of salvation he says of God that he has raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly places and when he's writing to the to the Colossians the argument is is practically the same he speaks to them in the second chapter and the thirteenth verse in terms of men and women who were dead he says you were dead in your sins you were dead in the uncircumcision of your flesh yet he God has quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses he God has raised us to raised us up in Christ Jesus he has quickened us listen to the to the Apostle again in whom all also are ye circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ says the Apostle this is what you were like you were dead in your condition you were like uncircumcised people but but God in in his power God in his love has has brought life to you he has raised you up by Jesus Christ and by his ministry on the cross so I say that Jesus Christ is to be seen in terms of the the good Samaritan who goes into the valley of death and there he quickens men and women there he restores them you say but how can I know this restoration how can I know within my life this experience that is dramatically portrayed in the in the ministry of the Prophet well I put it to you that you can know it this morning and you can know it because of certain things that is that are contained in this this chapter certain instructions that are put to the Prophet that we too have complied with you see when the Prophet says that that God can transform the situation then the Lord says to Ezekiel prophesy upon these bones in other words he tells them to he tells him to preach he is to preach to men and women in his world he is to preach to the Jews in exile and God has ordained the ministry of preaching as being a vehicle through which salvation shall be communicated shall be transmitted to men and to women here they are in the valley of death and someone comes and they preachers about G and they preach about Jesus Christ they talk about the power that he is released into the world they say that Jesus died on the cross to save men and women to make them new creatures to raise them from the dead and as people respond to this then there is a possibility indeed there is a certainty by the power of the Holy Spirit that men and women shall be raised from their sinfulness from their deadness and so the preachers and these bones we gather come together bone upon bone the skeleton is formed but there is still life to be injected into these new formed bodies and we read in verse 7 or rather we read in verse 6 that verse 9 I'll get it soon we read in verse 9 that the the Prophet is told again by the Lord prophesy unto the wind prophesy son of man and say to the wind thus saith the Lord come from the four winds or breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live what does this mean well you see the Prophet is here addressing God the Holy Spirit was often symbolized in the form of the wind in Scripture and he is in effect saying O Holy Spirit will you take my words and as my words are preached will thou give them a power will thou charge them with a dynamic that will cause men and women to respond to the message of salvation that I bring that will respond to the message of life and as the Holy Spirit works upon the the ministry of the Prophet so symbolically he sees the the emerging of this great and mighty army and I put it to you my friends that this is precisely what happens today as men and women listen to the recounting of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ as the Spirit works upon the word so faith is created within the heart and men come into a new experience of God and spiritually speaking this is life from the dead this is being raised this is is life in the valley life that makes the valley experience so bearable and so I must put it to you do you know this experience here you are here we all are going through the valley of life a very difficult place a place of battles a place where evil forces that live and endeavor to rob us of all spiritual hope but Jesus Christ comes along he passes through the valley the good Samaritan he comes with his message of hope with the gospel of good news and those who respond those who confess him as Lord and Savior so they're quickened and I put it to you do you know this quickening have you invited Jesus Christ into your heart have you made him your Lord have you made him your master this is how to know life Jesus said I am come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly the gospel is addressed to dead people people who are spiritually dead but when they're raised to life in Jesus Christ then life in the valley becomes bearable it becomes often wonderful and there is that great and glorious hope that at the end of the valley there is the experience of being with God eternally for the Bible tells us that the path of the just the path of those who have been raised in the valley of life is like a shining light that shines more and more until the eternal day can these bones live can people in the tabernacle find eternal life God knows and by the power of the Spirit operating upon the preacher the the ministry of the word then new life is created in the hearts of men and women and may you experience that resurrection too in your own life if you have not known it heretofore amen and again our father we would thank thee for the thought of thine involvement in this world for the way that thou didst come to redeem the situation the way that thou didst bring life into a valley of death and many of us here perhaps the vast majority rejoice in the abundant life of Jesus Christ that he imparts to all who trust in him do we ask that more and more we shall cherish this experience and know his companionship as we live out our earthly lives so our God and father we thank thee for our meditation this morning we ask that as we depart now that we may leave with thy blessing the blessing of the triune God Father Son and Holy Spirit now and always amen