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This is a very familiar passage — which makes me nervous to preach, because you've probably heard it taught before. But I believe God has burdened my spirit with something, and I've got to get it out.
I used to hear preachers say that and I didn't understand what it meant. But I was up at 4 this morning and the Lord was still talking to me. I said, "God, I've got to get some sleep." And He was still showing me things. So I've got to get this out.
Let's read Ezekiel chapter 37, verses 1–14:
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. Then he caused me to walk around them, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
So I answered, "O Lord God, You know."
Again He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these 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."'"
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.
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Also He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live."'"
So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
I'm going to tag this text right there at verse 10. My message this morning is simply this: I just need a second wind.
Father, I thank You in this moment, for truly You are more than able. I surrender my whole self to You. God, please don't allow Your people to be afflicted by the frailty of my lips. But if You speak through me, they will hear from heaven. We give You glory and honor, as it belongs to only You, in Jesus' name. Amen.
The more I search to know and experience God, the more I find Him in His creation. Psalm 19:1 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Paul says in Romans that since the creation of the world, the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.
We must be careful, though. God is the God over nature, not a God of nature. There are religions that look at what God created — the sun, the moon, the stars — and begin to worship the creation instead of honoring the sovereign Creator. We must always recognize that He is the God over creation. But we do see Him revealed in the elements.
Water is the first requirement of life — nothing survives without it. Water cleanses, quenches, sustains, and flows.
Water is also the only substance that can come in three forms and still be water — liquid, solid, or gas. He can be God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and yet still be God.
Jeremiah 2:13 — God names Himself the fountain of living waters. Psalm 23:2 — He leads me beside still waters and restores my soul. Isaiah 51:1 — "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters."
In John 4, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman she can keep coming back to the same well and stay thirsty, but if she takes the water He gives, she'll never thirst again. Jesus quenches every thirst. He satisfies the dry and washes the filthy.
Fire gives light and warmth. It purifies, refining and burning off the things that are not like God. Anything fire touches, it transforms — and it consumes.
In Exodus 3, Moses turns aside to see a bush on fire but not burned up, because the consuming fire of God can get all inside of you and not burn you up. God led Israel by a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13). Deuteronomy 4:24 calls Him a consuming fire. Malachi 3 says He is like a refiner's fire.
In Daniel 3, three Hebrew boys walk into a fiery furnace thinking they'll be consumed — but they didn't know they had company. They went into the fire with the Fire Starter.
Earth is the foundation — what our feet stand on, our stability, the thing that doesn't move. Earth is also the soil that brings forth food. Anything planted in soil has to grow; anything planted in God has to grow.
If you're not growing, that means you're not planted deep enough.
To get real growth, you can't stay on the top layer. To get deep in God, you have to get into service. You can't just come when you feel like it. If you want to be planted in God, you have to show up — even when it's inconvenient — because you're going deep in the roots, so that when you grow up, nothing can move you.
Earth is also rock — our shelter, refuge, and permanence.
Psalm 24:1 — "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." Deuteronomy 32:4 — "He is the Rock, His work is perfect." Psalm 18:2 — "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer." Psalm 61 — "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."
In Acts, Peter tells the leaders that the stone they rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This Rock is Jesus. God is the foundation like earth that we stand on. He is the Potter who forms us from the clay.
All of this — water, fire, earth — happens around us. But I'm missing one more element: the wind.
There is no picture for the wind. It has no color, no shape. I can show you what the other elements look like, but what does the wind look like? It's why Jesus says the wind blows where it wishes, and you never know where it's coming from.
Here's what's amazing about the wind: it is the only element that can manipulate the other three.
Water sustains you. Fire refines you. Earth grounds you and forms you. God works those three around you. But the wind — God breathes in you.
If you want to know where the wind is, look at what's moving. That's your only indication. And if you want to know if God is present, just look at what is moving.
Wherever the wind is, stuff starts to move.
Meteorologists tell us that wind is air moving from high pressure to low pressure, to balance out the difference. The wind starts where it's high, looks to where it's low, and rushes to that low place. So I came this morning to tell you: if you're in a low place, the wind is looking for you.
In Scripture, the word "wind" is connected to the Hebrew word ruach. You can't define ruach with just one word, because for us it is three things: spirit, breath, and wind.
In the original language of the Old Testament, ruach is translated as spirit, breath, or wind. It's what God breathed into man. It's tied to another Hebrew word, neshamah. In Genesis 2:7, God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. In Genesis 7:22, these two words marry together as "the breath of life."
So wind, breath, and spirit all speak of life — vitality. When the wind is blowing and moving, there is action happening.
But here is my question this morning: What do you do when God takes you to a place where there is no wind? What happens when God takes you somewhere you can't see or feel anything moving?
This is where we find ourselves in Ezekiel. Ezekiel was born into Israel's priestly lineage — his father was a priest. He was raised a priest, but called to be a prophet. When the Babylonians pulled Israel into captivity, they pulled Ezekiel with them, and it was there that God called him as a prophet.
In chapter 37, the hand of the Lord came upon Ezekiel and took him to a valley of bones.
If you just read this without studying, it won't bother you. But here's the tension: as a priest, Ezekiel was forbidden by the law to go where dead things are.
Numbers 19 — "Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain by a sword, or one who has died, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days."
So God is taking His priest to a place that will make him unclean — breaking His own rules? Something in Ezekiel's prophetic calling was pulling him to a place others would run from.
Sometimes in ministry, you've got to lay your title to the side and follow the call. God said to Ezekiel, "I'm taking you from the mountain to the valley, because there are some callings you can't fulfill from up there."
We want to be comfortable. We'd rather stay on the mountaintop to prophesy. But some problems you can't prophesy to until you face them — you've got to come down to where the bones are.
This reminds me of what Jesus did. When God had to save me, redeem me, wash me, He said, "I can't do it from up there. I've got to come down to where it's unclean, where the bones are, because I've got to be where the problem is." In order to understand the condition, I had to change my position.
Notice something in the text. At first Ezekiel simply sees a valley of bones. But it's not until he walks around in them that he says the bones were very dry.
Some things you will never know until you are in the community of it.
I'm tired of people who have a solution for everything but are nowhere to be found when the work starts — people who look on from afar, who've never been in the situation you're in. How are you going to prophesy to me when you don't even know my condition?
You've got an answer for what the church should be doing, but you don't come to church on time. You've got an answer for what the pastor should preach, but you barely know your Scripture.
Sometimes we applaud those on the mountain as if their word is stronger than the ones who see you every day, praying and interceding for you. When you're down and out, you need them — but then you revere the one on the mountain. Because sometimes, when we're looking up, we forget to look around.
I started asking the text: how does a bone become very dry? Living bones have vitality and strength, but in dry bones the life has been sucked out.
Then it dawned on me: every bone used to be a body. We catch the story at the bones, but the bones didn't just appear there. Ezekiel was walking around thinking, That used to be a Sunday school teacher. That used to be a deacon. That used to be a preacher. That used to be the girl who ran around the church all the time.
How did she become a dry bone? By serving and showing up, not realizing that over time life started pulling the marrow. Trauma pulled the marrow. Grief pulled the marrow. And over time the bones dried up.
The other thing that dries bones out is being uncovered. Bones left exposed to the elements dry up.
That's why the enemy doesn't want you to come to church — as long as he can keep you uncovered, as long as he can keep you in isolation, he's trying to get your bones to dry up.
You think you're running from the people in the sanctuary because you don't want anyone to know your business. But the enemy is tricking you, because over time your vitality is being pulled from you.
Dry bones crack easily. Dry bones get offended easily. Dry bones get mad easily. If you don't give a dry bone its way, it'll break. So I wondered: when did you realize your bones were drying up?
You may be sitting there in your fancy clothes and still be dry bones.
Then God asks Ezekiel a question — which is striking, because nowhere else does God ask Ezekiel a question before telling him to prophesy.
God only asks questions for our benefit, so that we'll examine our posture:
Ezekiel answers, "O Lord God, You know." Theologians will often say that's an answer of humility. But the text started talking to me a little more.
Ezekiel was married — and not to an old woman, but to the desire of his eye, the love of his life. This was not an easy prophetic call. God used Ezekiel as a living example of coming judgment upon Israel. Through all those trials, the one thing Ezekiel could do was look to his wife for strength.
But around Ezekiel chapter 24, God tells him He is going to take his wife that very night — and Ezekiel cannot mourn. He can't let even a tear drop. He has to suffer in silence, with no time to prepare for the grief.
Sometimes in ministry the call is so uncomfortable that if we knew what it cost, we might never have answered.
Proverbs 17:22 — "A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones."
Now it makes sense why Ezekiel couldn't definitively answer God. He couldn't say yes; he couldn't say no. He just said, "God, You know." Because sometimes, even in ministry, you don't realize your own bones are drying up.
You used to serve all the time, but life hit you unexpectedly, and the bones stopped recovering like they used to. You're trying to have faith, but sometimes when your bones dry up, so does your faith. And now you find yourself lying in the valley with the rest of the bones — and nobody comes to check on the bones.
But God didn't answer Ezekiel according to his response — He answered according to the solution. He said, "Son of man, prophesy to the bones and tell them, 'Hear the word of the Lord.'"
Wait — bones don't have ears. How can they hear when they have nothing to listen with, when they're dead, forgotten, lifeless?
The word does not need someone to be able to hear it, because the word is powerful enough by itself. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
Sometimes you've got to prophesy even when they can't hear you, because the word in your mouth is strong enough to go to every place that needs to hear it.
Prophesy to the thing that looks like it isn't listening. Say: "I don't care how dead you look. I don't care how lifeless you are. I don't care that you haven't moved in years. You've got to hear the word of the Lord."
Ezekiel began to prophesy not knowing how it would turn out — not knowing the solution, not knowing if it would work. The reason some of you haven't started talking is that you've been waiting for God to confirm it'll be all right first.
But God says: Use the little faith you have. I don't have to know the outcome. I don't have to know what it'll look like. But if He told me to open my mouth, I'm going to use my faith and talk to it.
And the Bible says, "As I prophesied, suddenly..." All you need is a suddenly.
Anything God is going to do is preceded by a sound.
I'm going to keep prophesying until I hear the sound. I'm going to keep praying until I hear the sound.
You stopped praying too soon. You stopped interceding too early. The sound was coming.
The Bible says as Ezekiel prophesied, suddenly there was a noise and a rattling, and the bones started coming together — bone to bone.
That's what happens when God sends a sound. Things that were fragmented, broken, and pulled apart, God slowly starts bringing back together.
But there was still a problem. Ezekiel did everything God told him to do, and the bones came together — yet he looked down and said, "There's no breath in them."
Why would God have Ezekiel go through all these steps, and still the bones don't stand, don't breathe, have no life? God said, "That's because you don't know My formula."
"I don't fill it until I form it."
Look at God's track record. When He created the sea, He didn't put fish in it until He had formed it first. When He made you, He scooped down into the clay and got it all together — a beautiful image, made in His likeness. But just like those bones, it lay there lifeless until He took His breath, took the wind, and blew into Adam, and he became a living soul.
So the only reason those bones were still in the valley with no life is because they just needed a second wind.
That's the only reason you haven't moved yet. It's the only reason you haven't seen life, the only reason that business hasn't resurrected, the only reason that marriage is still on the rocks. You just need a second wind.
Ezekiel said, "I prophesied to the wind — to the east, the north, the south, and the west."
Why did God have him prophesy to all four sides? Because everywhere you turn around, I'm going to send the wind. Every time you turn, God is getting ready to send life to you, to send blessings your way.
Every time you turn around, you'll feel the wind. Life is coming on every side.
And the Bible says that as Ezekiel prophesied to the four winds, the bones that were lifeless stood up like an army.
I came this morning to tell you: the wind has come your way so that you can live again.
It's time for you to live again. You've been down too long. You've been sick too long. The wind has come so that you can live.
I'm pulling you out of the valley. I'm pulling you out of the grave, out of depression, out of despair. It's your time to live again.
You thought you were forgotten. You thought you'd be left for dead. But God said, "I'm sending the wind, and you're going to live again."
Because your bones are no longer brittle — life is back in your bones.
I command you to live. I command your bones, every dead dream, every dead desire — live! I know you forgot about it, I know you left it, but right now I'm speaking to the wind, I speak the wind of God your way, and I command you to live.
I almost titled this message "Live Again," because the wind is all through the text. When the wind came — God's Spirit, His breath, the ruach — it came so the army could stand up.
I know life can beat you up. You got dressed up and didn't even realize your bones were starting to dry. But you came to the place where the wind blows. The wind is causing you to live again — to dream again, to smile again, to laugh again.
