God Knows and Lives

Fulfilled prophesies provide strong evidence for the veracity of the Bible and demonstrate God's power to know and do all He has promised.  It is one thing to accurately predict the outcome of a game, whether a medical treatment will be effective, or how tall someone will grow to be, but it is entirely another thing to predict something that is obviously impossible.  Speaking of His physical body, Jesus said to those who questioned His authority:  "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."  The apostle remarked in John 2:22, "Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said."  We observe Jesus and the Scripture foretold His death and resurrection, and the knowledge, promises and power Jesus displayed to do what is impossible moved people to believe in Him.

This morning I read Ezekiel 37 when God used an illustration with a valley filled with dry bones.  God asked the prophet Ezekiel, "Son of man, can these bones live?"  If I was Ezekiel, I would have quickly answered "No."  The bones were dry and turning to dust; how could they support a physical body or the marrow produce red blood cells?  If Ezekiel focused on what we he knew from observation, experience and human anatomy, impossibilities would abound.  Yet he fixed his attention upon God and said, "O Lord God, you know." (Ezekiel 37:3)  God said the dry bones would know He was the LORD when He brought life into them again.  God commanded Ezekiel to prophecy to the bones and by the power of God they were covered with muscles, sinews, skin and God breathed life into the great army that stood on their feet before Him.

God explained the significance of the vision to the prophet in Ezekiel 37:11-14:  "Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, 'Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!' ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. ¹⁴ I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it," says the LORD.'"  God spoke of the Jewish nation as feeling dry, having lost hope and cut off.  Yet God would do for them as those dry bones, for He would revive them and bring them into their land again.  This came to pass after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, and it came to pass in 1947 when Israel regained their land and became a sovereign nation again.  This also will have a future fulfilment, for at the end of the Great Tribulation Jesus will return to judge the nations and establish His throne in Jerusalem.  He will gather His people to Himself from wherever they had been scattered.

I find it intriguing some dead believers literally rose from the dead when Jesus died on the cross as it is written in Matthew 27:51-53:  "Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, ⁵² and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many."  Like the centurion who witnessed the death of Jesus on the cross, Ezekiel said people would know He was the LORD when God opened their graves and brought them out alive.  Ezekiel 37:24-26 goes on to say, "David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. ²⁵ Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children's children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. ²⁶ Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore."

Jesus is revealed to be the Son of David, God's Servant spoken of by Isaiah and the prophets, the KING OF KINGS who will rule over the nations, the Good Shepherd who lay down His life for the sheep.  It was humanly impossible for dry bones to live, but with God all things are possible.  It was not believed possible God could take human form, die on the cross and rise from the dead, but Jesus Christ has done all this and more!  As those dead believers were raised to life, so the Jews would inhabit Jerusalem again, and one day Jesus will return and rule the nations.  Jesus has made a new covenant in His own blood that Jew and Gentile can have peace with God by receiving Jesus by grace through faith.  How awesome is our God who does the impossible, who speaks of what will be when it never could be.  It is encouraging to know even if we feel dry, without hope or cut off, in God there is assurance of new, abundant life by faith in Jesus, the Son of David who reigns forever.