Hope in the Valley
Read Ezekiel 37:1-10.
Ezekiel is in a valley situation going through a personal valley while encouraging people who have given up hope of ever getting out of the valley. The Jewish exiles had hope that they would be delivered from captivity and return to Jerusalem fairly quickly. (Hoping for a thing does not make it true.) Ezekiel had to convince the captive Jews that there would not be an immediate deliverance from their present condition of captivity.
The real truth of the matter was driven home when Nebuchadnezzar utterly destroyed Jerusalem during his third siege (586 B.C.). Because they had been holding onto a false hope and then their beloved Jerusalem was destroyed, the people were without hope. They did not, in their mind, have a future.
You can live without a lot of things, but you cannot live without hope. To live means to thrive and to persevere. When there is no hope, a person may exist, but for tomorrows with no promise on the horizon, the will to carry on does not exist.
This priest called in the ranks of prophets, laid out a reason to hope while they were yet in the valley. This priest-prophet, who was already captive like those he was ministering to, was going through his own private valley. He lost his beloved wife and yet he had to still hold up the banner of hope to a hopeless people.
We read this extraordinary vision which was given to Ezekiel, and we are transported to a dry place where there is no substance, nothing but dry bones. There is no life, and the question was put before Ezekiel by God Himself: “Can these bones live again?” I love the answer given by this prophet: “You know, Lord!”
The dry bones represented God’s exiled people, their current predicament and their future. And these same words have a message for us now. Our nation, the United States of America, has dried up because there is a lack of hope of things getting better! What things you may ask? You can fill in the blank with a number of issues that quickly come to my mind: sexism, ageism, racism, Black on Black crime, the divorce rate, poverty, child abuse, or every man living according to his own sense of righteousness. Then we all are like Ezekiel, and we have our personal valleys from time to time!
If you dwell on these things, hope becomes a distant memory. The Word of God is a powerful tool to put things in perspective and to regain hope! Philippians 4:8 AMP: “Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things.”
God told the prophet to “Prophesy to these bones…” and God told the prophet Ezekiel exactly what to say: “Behold, I will make breath enter you so that you may come to life…”
When Ezekiel spoke the words that God had commanded, something happened!
You see, the Word of God is life!
Just to be clear, we do need to look at Ezekiel 37. When there is sin, there must be a cleansing, and cleansing occurs when there is a turning from what is evil and observing the statutes of God.
You can find it stated so succinctly in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
