I am sure you know the song with the chorus: “Dem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones, now hear the word of the Lord.” We may think this song of hope is a very old spiritual, although in fact it was written less than a century ago. It has been recorded by various artists and also used in different television programmes. The song has introduced many people to the passage from Ezekiel chapter 37 we read tonight, which recounts the prophet’s vision of a Valley of Dry Bones. It brings a message of hope to hopeless situations. God can bring dead dry bones back to life. This speaks to us about the nation of Israel scattered in Exile in Babylon. It points us to the wonderful salvation we have received through our Lord Jesus Christ. And the vision also gives us hope as we look at the discouraging state of the church in our nation today.
Let’s start with the APPLICATION TO ISRAEL IN EXILE
Scattered across Babylonia, the Israelites faced a hopeless situation. As hopeless as a valley filled with the dead dry bones of warriors who had fallen in a battle long, long ago. That was how the Israelites would have seen themselves. Could there be any hope in such a desperate situation?
Ezekiel 37:1 The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me to and fro among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’
Can these bones live? Humanly speaking of course the answer is no. Never. From a human point of view, with Jerusalem ransacked and the Temple destroyed, the nation of Israel was finished. But the prophet realises that what is impossible for human beings is not necessarily possible with God.
‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘Sovereign LORD, you alone know.’
With God there is always hope. Anything is possible for God. Jeremiah was probably familiar with the prophecies of Isaiah from centuries earlier.
Isaiah 26 19 But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.
Even as early as Isaiah and Jeremiah the Israelites believed in the possibility of resurrection.
4 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, “Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.” ’
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
At God’s command the dead dry bones joined together again to make skeletons. Flesh and skin covered the bones so the bodies were complete again. But they were still dead. God needed to do something more to bring the dead bodies back to life.
9 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” ’ 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

The breath of God gives life. Just as it had been in the beginning when God created human beings.
Genesis 2 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
It was the God’s breath which gave life to Adam and Eve and it was the breath of God which gave life to the bodies in the valley of dry bones.
At this point we should remind ourselves that there is a single Hebrew word which means wind, breath and spirit. That word is rûaḥ. It is translated into Greek as pneuma, which similarly means either wind, breath or spirit. So when God commands Ezekiel to prophesy, this is what it means.
9 … “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: come, breath/wind/spirit, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” ’ 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath/wind/spirit entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
God’s divine energy, the breath of God, the Spirit of God, gives life even to the bodies of the dead and brings them back to life again.
This vision was a message of hope for Israel. They felt their situation was hopeless, but nothing is beyond God’s saving power.
11 Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.” 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.” ’
Here is the promise for Israel. Their dry bones will live again! God will put his Spirit into his people and they will come to life again.
We see the same promise of the Holy Spirit again in Ezekiel 39.
Ezekiel 39 29 I will no longer hide my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

So there is hope for Israel. God will bring his salvation by pouring His Spirit out on each one of his chosen people. New life for dry bones.
But this promise of life in the graveyard has a wider APPLICATION TO EVERY HUMAN BEING.
Without God our situation is desperate and hopeless. By nature every human being is dead in trespasses and sins. But just as God could bring a valley of dry bones back to life, God can bring life from death through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The breath of God, the Holy Spirit gives us life. This was in the background of what Jesus said to Nicodemus.
John 3 3 Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ …
5 … ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’
The wind, the breath of God, gave life to the dry bones in the valley. So the wind of God, the breath of God, the Holy Spirit brings new birth and new life to those who believes in Jesus. Spirit gives birth to spirit.
So we receive new life in Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit. We thought about these wonderful promises in Ezekiel 36 last week.
EZEKIEL 36 24 ‘ “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
Made clean from all impurities, a new heart which is not hard as flint but instead is inclined to obey God, the Holy Spirit helping us to serve God and a special relationship with God. These are the gifts of salvation promised in Ezekiel offered to everybody who puts their trust in Jesus Christ our Saviour.
So the vision of the valley of dry bones spoke to Israel and it speaks to every person who puts their trust in Jesus as Saviour. But this passage has always had a third significance for Christians.
We should think of its APPLICATION TO CHURCHES
When we look at the state of the church in Britain today, some might think it was pretty hopeless. We could easily be depressed by the spread of secularisation and religious pluralism along with the rise of materialism, consumerism and celebrity culture. We can see post-modern relativism and post truth creeping into the church as they have across society. We see numerical decline even in Baptist churches, with average memberships dropping by 10% every decade. And we may be most discouraged by the ways that so many churches are being led astray by false teaching and false teachers, abandoning beliefs held by Christians across the centuries in important issues such as the nature of salvation, the uniqueness of Christ as the only way to the Father, and the nature of Christian marriage. Many people might think the church in Britain today looks more like a valley of dry bones than the living vibrant body of Christ. Churches today don’t look very much like the first Christians in the book of Acts. We look much more like the Exiles scattered across Babylon, trying desperately to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land. Without God’s intervention, the churches are indeed in a hopeless situation. But Ezekiel’s vision gives us a message of great hope.
3 He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘Sovereign LORD, you alone know.’
Humanly speaking, the church seems to be, if not long dead, then certainly dying. At best, the church sometimes looks like Ezekiel’s description of the dry bones when God’s salvation was only half way through.
7And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Sometimes the church looks like skeletons with tendons and flesh and skin and bones, but with no breath in them. But nothing is impossible with God. He can bring our dry bones back to life. And he can breathe the breath of life, His Holy Spirit, back into us again, just as he did in Ezekiel’s vision and just as He did for the Israelites in Exile.
9 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” ’ 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
What the church needs, what we all need, is the Holy Spirit of God to breathe life into us again. We need to come to life and stand up on our feet as the vast army of the Lord! We need revival!
13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live,
We need a fresh Pentecost – a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit, fulfilling the promises in Ezekiel and in the book of Joel.
Joel 2:28 I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
We need God to renew his church! We need God’s love and power breaking in and sweeping us away! The mighty river of God’s love flowing through us cleansing and refreshing and sweeping aside the barriers in our lives.
I am reminded of the words of A.W. Tozer I have often quoted.
“Orthodox Christianity has fallen to its present low estate from lack of spiritual desire. Among the many who profess the Christian faith, scarcely one in a thousand reveals any passionate thirst for God. We fear extremes and shy away from too much ardor in religion as if it were possible to have too much love or too much faith or too much holiness.
Pray on, fight on, sing on. Do not underrate anything God may have done for you before. Thank God for everything up to this point but do not stop here. – Press On into the deep things of God. Insist upon tasting the profounder mysteries of redemption. Refuse to be aver¬age or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment. Unless you do these things you will reach at last (and unknown to you) the graveyard of orthodoxy and be doomed to live out your days in spiritual mediocrity!” (AW Tozer Root of the Righteous pp 55-56)
We need the breathe of life to sweep through us. God can bring a valley of dry bones back to life. We need to come to life and stand up on our feet as the vast army of the Lord! Come Holy Spirit.
Come Holy Spirit. Lord send revival. And Lord, let it begin with me!