Dry Bones in Our Valley
“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one” (Ezekiel 22:30).
God was searching for a person among the people of Israel who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before God for the land so that He would not destroy it, but God found no one.
What was the description of the land? The people practiced oppression and committed robbery. They wronged the poor and needy, and oppressed the foreigner without justice. Do we have a lot of that going on right now, around the world? Not just specific areas that may be on the news right now, but this has been going on for a long time. It becomes very, very weighty. It’s a form of taxation and slavery that governs the hearts and minds of the people of the land. It’s not just an issue in one country, but in every country around the world. There's a strong oppressive spirit that gives a message to the people that they are to work hard, but they don’t get to keep what they earned. It’s the government that decides how much a person can keep through taxation slavery.
My question is, where's the church in all of this, the body of Christ? Why are they not rising up? Why are they not standing in the gap? Where is this one man that, that God is talking to today? In Ezekiel 22, God is talking to Ezekiel, this one man for the Israel nation in the land. As believers in Christ, and Christ is in us today we can BE the one New Man in the earth because we are in Christ here to do the greater works than what Jesus did as a man before the cross.
“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (Ephesians 2:15).
What did Jesus do? Jesus MADE PEACE! What Jesus did was create a new creation in Christ at the Resurrection! We are that new creation. This is more than the potter and the wheel concept but the seed of the husband, Jesus Christ impregnating humanity with the breath of God, the Holy Spirit for us to go forth and multiply PEACE!
Jesus is coming alongside us to be that second witness when we speak His Word into the land. The challenge that I see often with what we refer to as the church today is an awareness of your salvation. Jesus Christ died once and for all, and that “all” is “all” we find in Luke 3:6. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” All flesh, not just those that receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but ALL flesh. This is the finished work Jesus accomplished on the cross. Just because someone does not believe in Jesus does not change the fact of what Jesus finished – once and for ALL. The foundation of our theology must line up with the finished work Jesus did (John 19:30) if we are going to move into manifesting the greater works in the earth.
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
“And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword” (Revelation 6:4).
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9)
Then there's sanctification. See, if Jesus died once and for all, he didn't leave any out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the sanctification of the awareness has taken place. Now we go to John 3:16 when Nicodemus comes in the night to talk with Jesus and Jesus is says, “You must be born again.” He was telling Nicodemus that we must have the awareness that we are a King's kid, that God is your Father before you were conceived in your mother’s womb. How that happens is not by our own awareness, or a church member or Christian telling us to say a certain prayer or do a certain ritual. Jesus never did that. Do you realize that Jesus never once went to anybody and said, you need to say a sinner's prayer or else I'm going to send you to hell. He never said anything like that. It's Presence. And when the Presence of the Lord is radiating through you, that radiance of Christ in you overshadows any lower realm frequencies. God is Light, Life, and Love. There is no darkness, no negativity, no death or sickness when the Presence of Christ in us is radiating with the ALL of God.
“Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them” (Acts 5:15). Peter radiated with the glory of God just by walking the streets. His shadow was so filled with the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit that those following him were healed by the glory of God’s Presence in Peter. Creation groans with desire to migrates to that glorious radiation found in the children of God who know who they are in Christ and ready to do the Father’s business in the earth (Romans 8:19). We can start changing the world, but we must know we are born of God in Christ. Then there is the season of growing up as children of God, to the maturing of Christ, to be the bride of Christ. After over two-thousand years since Jesus resurrected from the grave forming the body of Christ, the church, these stages of maturing in the church should be manifesting fruit as sons of God doing the Father’s business as Jesus did.
There will always be new people that need an awakening of who they already are as children of God – being born again. The challenge we have as a church is maturing in Christ- sons of God – to also be a bride of Christ. Most leaderships in the church spends energy getting a “lost soul saved”, or teaching Christ Psychology - don't steal, don't cheat, kind of messages from the ten commandments of Passover, and never using the foundation of a relationship with Jesus Christ today as the resurrection Life. The church has not brought the children of God into the maturity of who they already are. Most are waiting for all the better goods of Heaven on the other side when they die. They’ve been taught that a believer receives a little bit of God while they are in their natural body, and the rest on the other side. We are not any earthly good for the kingdom of God to be manifested in the earth with this belief. If our relationship with God is all about ourselves and what God can do for us, then we miss the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to rule and reign within us. The Holy Spirit is not by Himself. God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three in one. If you know the Holy Spirit - if you are spirit filled and you are being led by the spirit, you have Jesus with you as the resurrection Christ, AND you have God with you wherever you go. The God head as your head here in your natural body, the Christ head to rule and reign your world, but it needs to line up with the heart matter of your soul.
So, what's happening here that God is searching for a man?
He finds Ezekiel, but this is more than just a man. He's searching for Christ. He's searching for the last Adam, and He couldn't find it in the land. The oppressiveness was so strong among the people. Prophecy needed to go forth to give them hope and break the chain of oppressive bondage. As we study this verse in Ezekiel 22, let us also turn to Ezekiel 37. This chapter has always been my favorite chapter since I was a little girl. I was a pastor's kid and when I was little, I had to sit on the front pew with my mom. People in the church would be able to see how I was behaving. When my father preached on the dry bones in this chapter, those sermons resonated in a three-year-old little girl's spirit - God was working in me at that time. Now, if I hear a pastor or a teacher preaching from Ezekiel 37, I want to know if they are preaching a someday occurrence or are they preaching a now message where God is having a conversation with Ezekiel for change to occur NOW.
God asked Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37:3, “Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, oh Lord God, thou knowest.” Ezekiel is in the middle of a valley of dooby down dry bones. There's no skin, there's no flesh, no facial recognition in this valley. With the overwhelming appearance Ezekiel is in the midst of I doubt he even gave any thought to if those bones were male or female. This would reflect the most depressive place filled with hopelessness - sunk as low as you can. You don't know which way to turn you because you're surrounded by mountains all around that are just engulfing. These mountains in our life could be referred to as issues, maybe a divorce, maybe a death, maybe an illness or sickness, or you just got kicked out of your country. Maybe you are in an escape mode trying to keep from drowning in the middle of the ocean. Maybe it's a COVID issue. All of these things are such great mountains that are tormenting creating a great fear that you can't see the love of God.
Infact, you can't find God’s presence at all, even in nature. That's what dry bones are all about because bones carry the marrow that forms new blood cells. So, we're talking about the place in the body for new blood cells to be able to form, but they're totally dry. New blood cells are not forming for the body – our natural body is dead, and so is the church, the body of Christ. Blood cells are what carry the oxygen- the breath- the life; the life of the flesh is in the blood. If we are those dry bones, Christians are not Christ-ones. The blood of Jesus is probably not flowing very strong if at all. Our soul may declare being a Christian, but the body is dry bones. The Spirit of the Lord is not guiding because fear is stronger than God’s presence in the body of Christ causing oppressiveness upon us and in our land.
So as, as Ezekiel finds himself in this vision, and in this place, God tells him to prophesy over these dry bones and say to them. Why didn't God just speak to those bones? Because the Spirit of the Lord was speaking to Ezekiel and Ezekiel responded to God in glorification, God, you know, you're right. God does know, and because He knew HE wanted Ezekiel to speak. And as you speak Ezekiel, you prophesy and say to those dry bones, those dead bones, this is not a cemetery. This is the oppressiveness of people that are alive. People that are naturally alive in their natural bodies, but they are spiritually dead. They may know that they're going to heaven, but they are so spiritually dead that they're not any earthly good.
“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” (Ezekiel 37:4-6).
Where is the word of the Lord coming from in this conversation between God and Ezekiel? Ezekiel could not change the wording of what God told him to speak. He had to say “thus saith the Lord” and “I will” in the prophecy he spoke to the dry bones. He could not say, “Hey, dry bones, God says, or Scripture – Torah says.” He had to speak in “first person” as the oracle of God. Job 22:28, “Decree a thing and it will be established for you and light will shine on your ways.” Ezekiel had to die to himself and BE the manifestation of Christ for God to use him as an earthen vessel in the land to bring heavenly blessings for humanity.
When we know that we are the body of Christ, and we have a purpose and a calling, we can rise and say to those mountains “not on my watch” with an apostolic anointing, and those mountains will be removed. Speak to those dry bones and they will come to life. “And I will put” (this is Christ in me speaking), I will put sinews, what are sinews? They are tendons I will place on those dry bones.”
We have a whole mess of just dry bones in our valley of the shadow of death. With the age of information and television, we have seen historical pictures of skulls and bones all on top of each other. We can compound this mess trying to figure out what skull goes to which bones. This message has been taught where it sounds like Ezekiel is speaking to the natural flesh when we refer to sinews. There is more to this because everything about the Bible, everything about the Scriptures is Spirit. What is the application for us from the spiritual realm that we can activate into our natural world for today?