Can these Bones Live Again?

Let us have a fresh look into the possibility of local churches arising out of the dust of impotent obscurity to become power-houses of his Divine Presence again.
As one Ravenhill, once said, “Is your relationship with God in your local church like a weekend, girlfriend”?
Vance Havner said, “The greatest hindrance to revival is Sunday morning meetings – they are always the same”.

Let’s look at these set of scriptures:

2 Kings 13:20-22
₂₀Elisha died, and they buried him. Bands of the Moabites invaded the land in the spring of the next year.
₂₁As a man was being buried [on an open bier], such a band was seen coming; and the man was cast into Elisha's grave. And when the man being let down touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.
₂₂Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.

Ezekiel 37:3-11
"₃And He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, You know!”

• Can the church revive?
• Can the people stand up again?
• Can the church be seen – not as corpse or a memory but a vibrating reality of throbbing power?

“₄Again He said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”

• Hear, hear … the word of the Lord.
• 2Chron 7:14 “If my people, who are called by my name…”
• Prov 4:20-23 “ My son, pay attention to My sayings…”

“₅Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath and spirit to enter you, and you shall live.”

• New life.
• It will enter into you after repentance.
• Repentance rips the heart afresh.

_"6And I will lay sinews upon you and bring up flesh upon you"

• Sinews – new and renewed relationships.
• New cords of peace, purpose, pursuit, power, preaching.

“and cover you with skin, …”

• New color, (john the Baptiser came from bush – no robes of self-righteousness and ritual, a voice from the wilderness.)
• A bugled message naked from the throne of mercy, with no additives, of man’s hand. 
• New shape. Traditionless, cultureless, fearsome.

“and I will put breath and spirit in you, and you [dry bones] shall live;…”
“and you shall know, understand, and realize that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].
₇So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a [thundering] noise and behold, a shaking and trembling and a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
₈And I looked and behold, there were sinews upon [the bones] and flesh came upon them and skin covered them over, but there was no breath or spirit in them.

• A form, or structure has no life of its own.
• No inherent possessive power of revelation.

₉Then said He to me, Prophesy to the breath and spirit, son of man, and say to the breath and spirit, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath and spirit, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.
₁₀So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath and spirit came into [the bones], and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.”

• Breath and Spirit. Fire and wind – the climate of the church.
• Mary supplied the womb, Holy Spirit supplied the seed, and seed supplied the blood.
• Whose child are you carrying?

When the Word and the Spirit meet, there is cataclysmic consequences.
₁₁Then He said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.  (Church!)
Behold, they say, Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost; we are completely cut off.

• The world says we are a bag of dried bones.
• We have no life – no spirit?  
• We are dry – no revelation?

Revival is seen here as the church arising up out of the dust of history, and standing up as one man. A church becoming a pulsating, trembling dynamo of eternal.