Sunday, 14th November 2021
Pastor Jonathan Chow (Guest Speaker)
‘The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.’ (Ezekiel 37:1) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me should be a very extraordinary experience, but here the Spirit led Ezekiel to the valley of the dry bones. When the Spirit of God came upon Jesus, He also led Jesus to the wilderness. Some time we wonder why when God’s Spirit come to us, He would lead us to go down instead of to go up? Are we in a state of the dry bones? We are trying to make our own lives happier, to live more like a happy Christian, but after we have tried hard, every day still seems to be the same, to a point we will accept the dry bones in our lives.
We would pray for a sick person or a person who just died, but we would never pray for the dry bones. We feel there is no hope in the dry bones, we choose to live with them. But the Spirit of the Lord, in that moment, took Ezekiel to the valley of bones. Sometimes, God would take us to places that we no longer want to go anymore, we are not expecting anything anymore, the driest part of our lives, the most hurtful experience of our past, the places we don’t want to touch…
‘And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”’ (Ezekiel 37:3) We used to believe God would do something in the valley of dry bones, but we don’t anymore. Ezekiel did not know the answer, maybe he did not want to think about it, therefore he said to God he did not know. From failure to the dry bones, this process is too painful, we dare not to think about it. Ezekiel chose to tell God he didn’t know, then God told him to prophesy to the dry bones.
If God asked us to talk to the dry bones, how would we react? We would not want to say the words God wanted us to say, because we would only wanted to speak negative words and disappointed words to the dry bones. But God wanted Ezekiel to say to the dry bones, “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:5-6)
What happened next was the Work of God, but before God doing His Work, how we respond to Him is very critical. Ezekiel was willing to speak the exact words from God to the dry bones, and God allowed the miracle to happen. The world will give us a lot of excuses to give up, but God gives us dreams. Never give up on our dreams and the promises God has given to us. God has led us this far, not for us to stay in the failures, not to compromise with the world’s values, but to be the salt and light of God, and to witness the power of the resurrection of the dry bones!