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Following is an excerpt of "Revival In A Bone Yard (8 of 12)" by Jerry Vines added on 08/14/2002.
This content is part of a series.
Revival in a Bone Yard (8 of 12)
Ezekiel Series
Jerry Vines
Ezekiel 37
6/19/02

I suppose that Ezekiel 37, the vision of the valley of
the dry bones, is the most familiar chapter in all of
the book of Ezekiel. It was the setting for a very
familiar Black spiritual. “Them bones going to walk
around.” Because of the knowledge of that song and
because this passage of Scripture has been dealt with
on so many occasions, it is very, very familiar.

It is found in the concluding section of the book of
Ezekiel which gives to us Judah’s future. God is
trying to say to his people—there is a future. The
Bible is a book of judgment. We read much judgment in
the Bible. But the Bible is also a book of hope. If it
was only judgment there would be, indeed, great
despair. But the Bible doesn’t leave us with a message
of judgment. The Bible leaves us with a message of
hope.

The children of Israel had just about lost their hope.
In fact we are told specifically in verse 11 that the
primary purpose for this vision is to encourage the
children of Israel. Despair and pessimism filled the
air. Some of the people of God who were in captivity
were saying—it’s all over, there’s no hope, God can’t
do anything for us, the end is come.

Yet, God gives to Ezekiel this vision of the valley of
dry bones to let the people know that there is hope
and that there is a future for Israel. We are going to
see that God promises that one day Israel will be
restored to their land. They would experience a
resurrection. They would also experience a
restoration. God would restore to them the temple. We
will study about that at the end of Ezekiel. God will
do a wonderful spiritual work and there will be a
spiritual revival among the people of Israel and there
are predictions made about this.

The glory of the Lord is one day going to return. In
chapters 9 - 11, in the early chapters, Ezekiel saw
this vision of the glory of the Lord departing from
the mercy seat and out to the door and out to the
mount of olives and departed. But when you come to the
concluding chapters of the book of Ezekiel you will
find out that God predicts that one day God’s glory
would return and God’s glory would fill the temple and
God’s glory and presence would be with the people
again.

So, the primary reference is to the children of
Israel. But I’m going to make some practical
applications tonight and I think we are certainly
proper to do this if we understand the primary
reference. To make application to the nations, to make
application to the church, to make application to the
family, to make application to our personal life.

Let’s consider the revival in a bone yard. First of
all, in the opening verse, I want us to take a look at
the bones.

I. The Bones.

In these opening verses Ezekiel tells us that the Lord
gave him a vision of a valley of dry bones. We don’t
know if this was a literal v ...

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