'Can These Bones Live?'

In Ezekiel 37 the prophet records a vision from God. In the vision, he was transported to a valley and saw that it was full of human bones. God had Ezekiel walk among them; everywhere he looked were dead, dry bones.

God asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

The natural answer would of course be, “No!” But Ezekiel, familiar as he was with God and His power, answered, “Lord God, only You know.”

God told Ezekiel to prophesy: “Thus says the Lord God to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.’”

As Ezekiel spoke, he heard a rattling as bones began to join to one another. He saw sinews and muscle and skin grow on them. Finally, when Ezekiel spoke again at God’s command, breath entered these regenerated bodies, “and they came to life and stood on their feet.”

The message of the vision was that God would take the house of Israel, dead and without hope in their exile, and would restore them to life. “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land” (verse 14). Within a few decades of Ezekiel’s prophecy, God fulfilled that promise.

Spiritually speaking, every day we live in this world, you and I walk among dead bones. All around us are people who are lost, “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). But just as God told Ezekiel to prophesy to those dry bones, God calls on us to share a message with those who are lost in sin — the good news of Jesus — by which they can be redeemed and made spiritually alive (see Ephesians 2:4-5).

The question is, “Can these live?” And sometimes we’re inclined to answer, “No way.” We may tell ourselves that this person or that one is just too worldly, too sinful, too far gone to be reached with the gospel, and so we decide to make no effort to share it with them.

But think about Ezekiel. God told him to speak to the bones, so he spoke. He knew he couldn’t give them life, but God could — so he spoke. The power wasn’t in the preacher, but the preaching brought the power to bear, and the dead came to life. So it is with us. God tells us to share the gospel with the lost. We cannot save them, but God can. The power is not in us, but in the message (see Romans 1:16). Our responsibility is to share it. Will we?

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