Ezekiel 37:1-14 – Dead Bones Together – Bible study

Ezekiel 37:1-14 Dead Bones Together What we are reading is a prophecy given by Ezekiel that describes the rebirth of that nation. The majority (3/4s) of this prophecy was fulfilled 70 years ago. 1/4 of it still remains to be fulfilled. I will read more in this message than I normally do because I want us to see how this is not just my opinion but is a historical fact. On May 14 of this year, Israel celebrated its 70 birthday. It had been 70 years (1948) since Israel was granted its land and sovereignty by the United Nations in accordance with U. N. General Assembly Resolution 181, signed on November 29, 1947. Israel declared itself a sovereign nation on May 14, 1948 and on the very next day, was plunged into a 9 month war. When the dust settled, Israel had lost 4,000 soldiers and 2,400 civilians. The Arabs had lost 20,000. http://enm.ibjm.org/issue/201804-2a8d6ee539a68f540074cb4be4d6603c/ mobile/index.html#p=4 In addition, in that war the Arabs lost nearly 60% of the area originally allocated to them for a proposed Arab state, including Jaffa, the Lydda and Ramle areas, Galilee, some parts of the Negev, a wide strip along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, and some territories in the West Bank. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestine_war To give you some understanding of what has happened, let me give you a very general time table. 1. Moses lived around 1500 BC. 2. David lived around 1000 BC. 3. Ezekiel lived around 600 BC. 4. The Old Testament closed around 400 BC. 5. Jesus was born around 0. 6. Israel ceased to be a nation in 135 AD. Ezekiel saw the rebirth of Israel as a nation 2500 years before it happened. In fact, Ezekiel saw it more than 700 years before Israel ever ceased to be a nation. But that is not all that Ezekiel saw. Let us spend a few moments looking at the prophecies in this vision. I. \#1-2\ Ezekiel saw Israel as a valley of dried, dead, scattered bones. A. What do the scattered bones represent? They represent Israel. 1. \#5\ "I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. " – The "you" is not Ezekiel but Ezekiels people. 2. Notice 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. B. Why did God chose to illustrate the Jews as a valley of scattered bones? The bones speak of: 1. Dead – No one ever did mouth to mouth and chest compressions on a skeleton. When you see dried bones, you know that is dead. 2. Violent Dead – Maybe not with animals. There are stories of some animals going to a specific place to die and the place of their death being covered with hundreds of bones, but people dont do that. If you come across a place of scattered bonesoutside of a cemeteryknow that a violent event happened to them all. 3. Long Dead – These were dried bones. They were sunbaked from years of laying in the valley. 4. This valley of bones described what the nation of Israel would be when God brought them back into the land. a. Dead b. Violently dead c. Dead for a long time C. Israel has had many defeats in its history. 1. I know of no Biblical neighbor that has not conquered and controlled the land at one time or another. 2. In addition, many of their distant neighbors have ruled over them, including the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Greece, Rome, and Persian. 3. Some were more cruel than others but all defeated, devastated, and destroyed Israel. D. But lets just consider their last exile from the land. 1. It occurred in 135 AD under the Roman Emperor Hadrian. 2. Hadrian was against what he termed "foreign religion." a. He took the temple from the Jews to build a temple to the Roman God, Jupiter, renamed Jerusalem after himself and Jupiter, and forbade some of the Jewish customs. b. The Jews rebelled in 132 AD and were very successful for several years, but the Romans cut off their food supply, waited for the Jews to weaken, and then attacked in large numbers. c. The final battle was at Betar, a fortified city south of Jerusalem. (1) It was inhabited by perhaps as many as 2,000 Jews including the Sanhedrin who relocated there. (2) When conquered, Hadrian killed every Jew in the city and would not allow them to be buried for 6 days. (3) He plowed the city of Jerusalem with oxen and completed his plans to rename it after his god and build a temple there. (4) He changed the name of Israel to Syria Palestina. That is why it is referred to Palestine by some today. (5) He forbade the Jews to enter Jerusalem and sold many of the people into slavery. (6) That began a period for the Jews called the Dispersal which lasted for 2,000until 1948. (7) For 2,000 years, the Jews were scatted without a homeland. (8) Even worse, hatred for the Jews followed them so that they were persecuted and attacked where ever they settled. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-bar-kokhba-revolt-132-135-ce http://www.thetower.org/article/remembering-hadrian-destroyer-of- the-jews/ d. The best example of that is the Holocaust. (1) The Holocaust was conducted from 1941 through 1945while the Jews were dispersed. (2) But Hitler still managed to find and kill an estimated 6 million Jews by some of the most horrific means, building huge gas chambers to cruelly kill them, mass shooting, in addition to the abuse and starvation he inflicted upon them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust D. Is there any wonder that God referred to Israel as a valley or dried, dead bones. II. Ezekiel saw Israels despair. 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. A. It was not just Israels death that Ezekiel was prophesying. It was their despair. B. Not many of us were alive to witness the despair that the Jews must have felt through the entire 2,000 years, but especially during years of the Holocaust. 1. If you were alive, perhaps you can tell us something about it. 2. If not, we will have to take Ezekiels word for it. C. The despair has certainly ended. In the Everlasting Nation, a Jewish magazine published by the International Board of Jewish Missions, Allen Lord wrote: Like in every other city in Israel, our city of Holon got ready for the big celebration. Street lights were strung-up in the downtown center. Billboards proclaimed the message that beginning 6:00 PM, April 18, 2018, Israel would celebrate its 70th birthday! (The) Israeli Culture Minister promised "a massive party" of what she called "70 Hours of Celebrations, which began on Wednesday evening, April 18, and ended Saturday evening, April 21. D. That in itself tells us that this prophesy has now been fulfilled. 1. The days of despair are over. 2. Why? Because the bones have come together already. III. Ezekiel saw Israel come together. A. \#7\ The bones coming together would be the scattered people coming back into the land. Eze 27:7 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 37:12 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. B. \#8-9\ The sinews and flesh coming upon them would be Israel becoming functional as a living nation again. 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. 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. 1. Between November 1947 and May 1948, Israel created from nothing a government with elected officials. 2. They had to create a defense and they created a good one. a. I have already mentioned the first war Israel was forced to fight the day after its inception. b. Since that time, Israel had fought 8 recognized wars, 2 intifadas, and a series of armed conflicts. http://enm.ibjm.org/issue/201804-2a8d6ee539a68f540074cb4be4d6603c/ mobile/index.html#p=4 c. As of June 20th, over 130 missiles have been fired into Israel from surrounding enemies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_ Israel,_2018 d. but that is a low number. Once source said since 2005, more than 11,000 rockets have been fired into the small country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn6t_qiZrDw 3. They had to create an infrastructure and they created a good one. Is 35:1 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. a. Israel, although largely without water today, has flourished into one of the greatest agricultural wonders of the world. b. Israel not only grows enough food to feed itself, but it also feeds many of the Arabssome of whom are their own enemies! c. If you go to Israel today, you will find it much like America with modern transportation, housing, hotels, and all of the comforts of home. 4. But even with all of these things, they needed life. They needed their own language. In anticipation of the day when Israel would become a nation, a Jew by the name of Ben Yehudah researched to rediscover the dead Hebrew language. That was not easy as Hebrew had not been spoken in almost 2 millennials and existed only in a few preserved documents. Born in 1840, 19 years of age, he sensed his lifes work. He started to build the first modern-day Hebrew lexicon. He searched through ancient manuscripts and documentsmost the Old Testamentand found 7,701 Hebrews words, but he did not know how to pronounce them. He researched to learn what he could and created sounds for the others. In 1881, he and his wife moved to Israel. They committed to speak only the Hebrew languagealthough no one knew the language but them. Yehudad had to create words for words that did not exist. Eventually, his dictionary grew to over 100,000 words. He started a Hebrew newspaper and schools to teach the language to the children. Class after class, year after year, generation after generation, interest grew until on the day of Israels independence, their Declaration of Independence was written in other languages, but it was also written in Hebrew. It was read and announced in other languages, but it was also read and announced in the Hebrew language. Perhaps more than anything else, the revival of the Hebrew language has breathed life into the dead bones of Israel! http://enm.ibjm.org/issue/201804-2a8d6ee539a68f540074cb4be4d6603c/ mobile/index.html#p=11 IV. Ezekiel saw Israel with Gods Spirit Again 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. A. But this is the one prophecy of this vision which has still not come to pass. It is not even begun to come to pass. B. Israel is alive with connected bones and muscles and flesh, but it has no spirit. 1. Spiritually, it is dead. 2. They are dead because they have not turned to Christ. 3. As I mentioned just last week, that will not happen until until the middle of the tribulationbut it will happen. C. As surely as the dead bones have assembled and are alive, they will have a living spirit. 1. I hope you are not here to see that because it will mean that you are lost and missed the rapture of the church. 2. Today, if that is you, please trust Jesus as your Savior.