Everywhere we look—in our lives, families, churches, communities, and nation—we see darkness. We live in a sin-wrecked and sin-damaged world.This reality became clear to a prophet named Ezekiel. God took him to a valley, and all he saw was death—the dried, decaying bones of a once-great army that had perished.God wanted His prophet to understand the actual spiritual condition of Israel:

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them round about ... and lo, they were very dry (Ezekiel 37:1-2 NASB).

But with God, there is always more to the story. God’s prophet (as well as all of us for all of time) was about to learn a lesson in spiritual physics.

Can Dead Things Live?

“Son of man, can these bones live?” God asked the prophet. “O Lord GOD, You know” (v. 3). God did know, and only God knew.But Ezekiel was wise enough to believe that God could do anything. He deferred the answer back to the Creator of every bone and sinew on the earth, the Author of life and death.God asks the same question of us. “Do you believe that something completely dead can be resurrected? Do you believe in Me? Do you believe that there is a realm greater than the physical? A realm in which I can make dead things come back to life?”Let’s make this personal: Do you believe God can bring a godless, sinful person to spiritual life? Do you think He could bring your prodigal child home? Do you believe He can resurrect a hopeless marriage? A lifeless church? A nation that has turned its back on God?Here is the heart of the question: Do you believe in SPIRITUAL AWAKENING? That a sovereign God can move upon the dead—with no help whatsoever from those who are about to be resurrected—and make them live?If God finds you unbelieving, then your usefulness to Him and His purposes has just been capped … because everything on our side of spiritual equations operates by faith. “He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief,” the Bible sadly records regarding the people of Christ’s hometown (Matthew 13:58).I wonder what history will record about my city, and yours … and about each of us and the level of our faith in spiritual awakening.

“Prophesy Over These Bones”

The Lord needed a vehicle, a human instrument who would so believe in divine power to awaken the dead that he would actually stand and do the seemingly ridiculous.

[God] said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD’” (vv. 4-6).

God needs believing prophets, but also proclaiming prophets. Men who will stand with such faith that they can look dry skeletons in the eye and confess that God is going to raise them up!Are you that man? Is God calling you, in this day of such incredible spiritual darkness, to stand over dead things and, in pure faith and obedience to God’s prompting, proclaim to dead things that they are about to come to life?(Don't miss Part 2 on January 6, 2017!)