Ezekiel 37:3

CAN THESE BONES LIVE?

‘Can these bones live?’

Ezekiel 37:3

I need not dwell upon any description of the actual vision itself.

I. In the first place, under the figure of resurrection of dry bones, is foretold the general restoration of the Jews from their several dispersions.—I know that at the present time the Jews have become a byword amongst the nations. The Jewish people are scattered. They have no Temple: no altar of sacrifice, with its clouds of beautiful incense rising up towards heaven. In reality they possess no home. They are tolerated amongst the nations as strangers, and as aliens from the Christian Commonwealth of Israel. And whether we look at the indifferent, unbelieving, irreligious portion of their community, or at such as those true Jews, who, for instance, in the Wailing Place at Jerusalem, chant their pathetic Litanies as they bedew the old Temple stones with their tears—I say the sight of a Jew, whoever he may be, must kindle within a Christian’s heart a reverential flame; for he thinks of the answer which he, as a Bible student, must give with regard to them to the question which forms my text to-night—‘Can these bones live?” I won’t answer this question in my own words. Let the great Apostle of the Gentiles answer it, for his words are the words of inspiration which no man dare dispute. St. Paul in his 11th chapter of the Romans and the 25th and following verses, says—‘I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved.’

‘Can these dry bones live?” Yes! When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then ‘all Israel shall be saved.’ ‘O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!’

II. Now I apply my text in another way. ‘Can these bones live?’—We may speak of cities, and nations, and empires—places that, as we term it, ‘have had their day,’ and now are like dead bones lying on desert sand, bleaching in the sun. There was, for instance, Babylon—Babylon the great, the mighty—now no more! It has faded away out of the world’s vast history, and its ruins are to us to-day but as a wonderful fossil—a thing of a mighty past!

But take an instance still more familiar to us. Let us take Rome. What city could be compared to ‘dry bones’ better than the Rome of to-day! I think I know the present Rome well, for I have visited it four separate times. I look at Rome in a religious light. I think of her as she was in centuries long past by; when, as I may term it, she lived. I look at her now. A stranger, who in England hears her claims set forth by Ultramontane partisans and ‘verts’ who have lapsed from ‘the faith,’ would suppose the Rome of to-day to be the very centre of all religion, and what I may perhaps be allowed to call, for want of a better name, Churchism. But, speaking from actual experience, four times repeated, I know of no city so irreligious. Mahometan Cairo is a pattern of outward religious observance, as I have myself noticed, when compared with Rome. Its churches are deserted; its bishop is ridiculed in the very shop windows of its streets; and I know of no city across our ‘silver streak of sea’ in which a stranger spends a Sunday so bereft of religious opportunities of grace, and where his faith in religion is so terribly shaken.

But can these dry bones live? Yes! In the day of the restitution of all things, even Rome itself may live again; life may be breathed once more into its venerated ruins; and its glory will perhaps shine once more like stars in the firmament of heaven.

III. But while I speak to you of these things, there are, if I mistake not, other thoughts in many of your minds.—‘Can these bones live?’ What dry bones are these? Ah! the answer lives very near your own heart. It intertwines itself with the deepest love and affection in your soul. It is not of cities, with their gorgeous ruins and grand histories, that your heart is now thinking; nor, indeed, of that depressed Jewish nation, that was once the instrument to convey to Gentiles the everlasting truth; but when I speak of the dry bones living again, and the resurrection in the valley, your thoughts reach out to those loved ones who have gone before, whose dead bones are lying, so to speak, in the valley of the shadow of death, keeping Sabbath rest while the great world works on. Have we parted from our friends for ever, or is there before us a day of resurrection when the dry bones in the valley shall live again, and when the breath of God from the four winds shall breathe upon the slain and cause them once more to live?

Yes; through the Incarnation of Jesus, our separations and farewells are only transitory things. They are all to be healed again in the coming age. And this is why at the grave we commit our lost ones to the tomb ‘in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Yes; they shall live again in the day of the endless morning. There shall be, perhaps, not so far distant as some of us think, a shaking of the dry bones in earth’s deep valley. The four winds shall arise and breathe upon the slain once more, and they shall stand up an exceeding great army, Oh! what a day of reunions will that be! those whom death had separated, friendships which had been silenced by the grave, loves which had been removed by death, hopes which had fallen shattered in the tomb, will be brought together again, and reunited. It will be a general day of reunions. The mother will meet her child again; the father the wife; brother will meet brother; friend meet friend. The old familiar face will be recognised once more—the same well-remembered features, clearly unmarked by pain or ruffled by care. And then before us will lie an eternity in which farewells and partings are to be unknown. A great unending future—so calm, so full of peace—into which the hand of death shall never enter.

Rev. E. Husband.