Lessons From Ezekiel – Lesson 31
1 Cor 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The natural man is the man still in his sins. He does not have the Holy Spirit indwelling him. The natural man is still at enmity with God. He is too proud to humble himself, admit he is a sinner and that he can’t work his way to heaven. And we know that God resists the proud.
The things of the Spirit of God the Bible clearly teaches that he cannot know them.
Lost men try and fail. They fail to understand and they fail with God. However, they can be very successful at building false religions with even millions of followers. And they can do that while they totally botch and totally miss the meaning of scriptures.
Mormons are an example of this. There are about 17 million Mormons in the world. And they say that about 35 percent of those are practicing. That works out to about 6 million people.
Mormons use very little of the Bible. Almost none. I went to a Mormon funeral once and it lasts a long time with a long lunch in the gym. So I had time and snuck away and went into all the Sunday school class rooms.
Not only could I not find one Bible in the building, but not even one Bible verse in any of the Sunday school rooms. Not one verse. Not even part of one verse. They had room decorations and beautiful bulletin boards but zero verses.
What do they teach then? They stick with the book of Mormon and what they call the doctrines and covenants and other writings like the pearl of great price and writings of present and past leaders.
But there are a few Bible passages that they do teach and one of them that they teach to all Mormons is found in Ezekiel chapter 37.
In fact Ezekiel chapter 37 was one of the main kick off verses for Mormon missionaries. In the old days they would go door to door and do cold calls (today they mostly only visit by appointment) and when they would find someone who would talk to them they would take them to Ezekiel chapter 37.
I have heard some people witness that got ahold of an old Mormon missionary bible and if you would open it and lay it down it wanted to open to Ezekiel chapter 37. It was kind of creased to that spot. They said you could just tell that Ezekiel chapter 37 was one of the few places that it was ever opened up to.
It is kind of odd in a way, and kind of interesting, that they would start their speal by totally botching a Bible passage.
I mean you are trying to gain credibility by showing that you use and believe the KJV Bible and are actually showing your total ineptitude and ignorance of the Bible.
It is a little shocking. But what is even more shocking is that it worked. They went from a small cult to 17 million. And it is a little surprising that the 6 million who are actively practicing and know and teach Ezekiel chapter 37 don’t read it one day and go what?
What we say it means does not line up with what it says at all.
1st what do the Mormons say about Ezekiel 37.
This is from their website. I pulled this on Friday. This is their current teaching on it and it has not changed since they first started knocking doors with it.
There is a whole lot of error in that paragraph. One huge error is that Israel will receive the everlasting gospel covenant which to them is the Mormon teachings. Another error is them claiming that God prophesized about giving the book of Mormon. Another error is the Lord’s hand accepting the book of Mormon.
Another error is that Israel will inherit the land in the Resurrection. No they have the land now, at least part of it, and the deed to the land has always been theirs since the promise to Abraham. And they will have all the land once the millennial reign starts.
Ezekiel Chapter 37 is divided into 2 sections. We are going to look at the first one before we sing and then the second one after we sing.
The first section is about the valley full of dry bones. And it is once again very fitting for Ezekiel. We have seen it over and over again going thru the book how things with Ezekiel are very visual and dramatic.
Over the top a little. That is the way that God choose to use Him. And as we read this you no doubt will think. Yep that is Ezekiel all right.
EZE 37:1 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,
EZE 37:2 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.
The bones are out in an open valley. So they are exposed. All the moisture is gone. They are very dry.
EZE 37:3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
Smart answer Ezekiel. Looking upon them your eyes would say no, your logic would say no, your human reasoning would say no. But Ezekiel has learned much thru the years with walking with God.
This is not Ezekiel’s first vision. He has seen amazing things. So he does not jump to a conclusion. At this point he still does not know what the vision is about. And Ezekiel has faith in God’s ability and power to do anything. So he answers thou knowest.
EZE 37:4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
God tells Ezekiel to preach to the dead dry bones. And so Ezekiel just does it. No hesitation. We have seen God tell Ezekiel go preach to the trees and he did and go preach to the mountains and he did. There was always a reason and Ezekiel has learned this so when told preach to the bones, Ezekiel does it without hesitation.
He simply and promptly obeys. That is a huge example for us right there. Ezekiel did not have to have the explanation before he obeyed. He is ok if the explanation comes after the obedience. Total understanding is not a requirement for obedience.
When God makes His will known to us. We should just obey His will. Maybe He will let us know what it is all about later and maybe He won’t.
Ezekiel’s attitude is have faith and trust in the Lord. Amen and Amen. So Ezekiel just immediately preaches.
EZE 37:5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
EZE 37:6 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.
EZE 37:7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
EZE 37:8 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.
Even for Ezekiel this vision is, wow. It would have been something to see. He watched as the dry bones start to move and then assemble and then all the parts of the joints and the muscles and skin came upon them.
It went from dry bones to complete bodies. And remember this is an open valley full of bones. So now there is a multitude of bodies there. Still lying down.
EZE 37:9 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.
EZE 37:10 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.
This was an amazing thing to see. If there is instant replay in Heaven, this is one of the things I would like to see. A huge amount of people completely restored to life from dry bones.
So what does it mean? We do not have to guess, the meaning comes next. We are clearly told. I recently read a published sermon on the dry bones and wow was that preacher way off on the meaning. I guess he stopped reading at verse 10 or just plain ignored verse 11.
EZE 37:11 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.
The dry bones represent the whole house of Israel. They do not represent another cult group in the future and they don’t represent your lukewarm church. God says they represent the whole house of Israel.
God used the illustration of dry bones because the people of Israel were saying our bones are dried and our hope is lost.
They were using the expression our bones are dried to express how they were feeling after losing the land. Their hope was lost. They of course did not mean it literally. They were using an expression that expressed how they were feeling.
Since Jerusalem fell God has been giving them promise after promise and trying to give them direction and purpose and hope. But it is a journey and we see here that Israel had not yet taken that journey to hope.
So God gives this specific vision to address their problem of not having hope. Of not yet accepting the truth and the fact of the promises that God has been giving them. And God does this in a very visual powerful way.
The dry bones represented Israel with no hope. Such a sad state that humanly speaking it was impossible to be alive with hope again. The bones were dead. And God shows with Him it is not impossible.
He will put it all back together and breathe life into them once again.
EZE 37:12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O 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.
You could say that these people were spiritually dead. Israel was likened here to dead dry bones. And God is going to breathe life into them. This is not talking about Israel getting the land back after the resurrection.
There are only three resurrections that involve multiple people at once. There was 1 when Jesus died. The earth quaked and the vail was rent from top to bottom and some dead people were seen up and walking around.
The second one will be the rapture. And the 3rd will be after the 1,000 years for the great white throne judgment. And Israel does not get the land after any of those.
The people God is talking to here are spiritually dead and God will breathe life into them and they will get the land back in 70 years.
The second part of this chapter, which we will go over after we sing, will make this even more clear. Verse 12 is not talking about a literal resurrection. It is figurative language dealing with the figurative staying the Jews had about their bones being dry and without hope and them being spiritually dead.
EZE 37:13 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,
EZE 37:14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye 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.