Foretold | Part 3 · Rewind

Foretold | Part 3 · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Oct 7, 2019

Big Idea

God brings His hope to us, but He also plans to bring His hope through us.

God specializes in bringing life out of what looks like hopeless death, just as He did for the valley of dry bones and for Israel itself. But He doesn't just save us out of death, He also sends us on mission, and refusing that sending is why many believers who know the truth still feel dry and stuck.

Key points

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1Ezekiel was a prophet unafraid to bring a hard, even strange message
Pastor Bill contrasts Ezekiel with Jeremiah's weeping tenderness; Ezekiel used dramatic, weird acts (like acting out Jerusalem's fall) to warn the exiles that the city and temple would be destroyed. The people didn't want to hear it, but the message came true, and God then took Ezekiel through a period of silence before his message turned to hope.
2
2In the valley of dry bones, God shows He alone can bring life from death
God carries Ezekiel to a valley of scattered, sun-bleached bones and asks if they can live again; Ezekiel wisely answers that only God knows. God tells him to preach to the bones, and as he does, they form bodies with flesh and skin but no breath, showing that hearing the word alone doesn't create true life.
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3It takes both the preached word and the Spirit's breath to bring real life
Ezekiel has to prophesy a second time, calling the breath (the Spirit) to enter the bodies, and only then do they stand up alive as a great army. Pastor Bill applies this to church today: you can know all the words of God and still not have true life until the Holy Spirit illuminates it and brings you to life.
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4The 'already' of this prophecy was Israel's real, historic restoration
God explains the vision means the exiled nation of Israel will be raised from graves of exile and return to their land, and history bears this out: Israel returned after seventy years, and improbably existed again after near-annihilation in 1948, exactly as the Bible foretold centuries earlier, naming Cyrus long before he existed.
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5The 'not yet' is that God raised Israel so hope could come through them to the whole world in Jesus
Pastor Bill ties the prophet, priest, and king roles in Israel's story to Jesus, and shows that Israel's survival mattered because Messiah, the ultimate hope, was to be born through them, not just given to them.
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6Ephesians 2 explains what it means for us personally to move from dead to alive
Paul says we were all dead in sin and disobedience, following the spirit of Satan rather than God, but God, rich in mercy, gave us life through Christ's resurrection by grace alone through faith, not works. Pastor Bill unpacks 'believe' in the Greek as embrace and surrender, not mere intellectual agreement.
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7Saved people are also sent people, and resisting the sending keeps us dry
Pastor Bill says that in thirty years of pastoring, believers who stay stuck nine times out of ten go to church but refuse to be the church. He uses the army image from Ezekiel 37 and stories of military boot camp and his own family's chores to show that joining a mission always comes with training and responsibility, not just benefits.

Application

Pastor Bill frames it as being saved and sent: God brings hope to us so He can bring hope through us.

Stop just going to church, be the church
If your faith feels dry and stuck, Pastor Bill says it's likely because you attend but resist serving; join the mission rather than just soaking up truth.
Take the sneak peek volunteer tour
Sign up at rockpoint.io for next week's tour as a simple first step to find a place to serve and connect, even in small ways.
Get saved before you get busy serving
If you've never truly surrendered to Jesus, don't start serving out of guilt or legalism; embrace Christ first so service flows from His grace, not from earning it.
Embrace, don't just believe, in Jesus
Move from merely agreeing with truths about Jesus to surrendering your whole life to Him as your only hope, praying and turning to Him right now if you never have.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“I want to look at the most one of the most famous passages of hope in Ezekiel. It's in Ezekiel chapter 37. And here's what we're gonna unpackage in this passage today”
From the transcript
“Here we are in Ezekiel chapter 37. It starts off with this. The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones”
From the transcript
“so then look what he says. So then verse four. Then he said to me, speak a prophetic message to these bones”
From the transcript
“so I spoke this message in verse seven, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons”
From the transcript
“if you keep reading, says verse 11, he now explains. This is the already this is what he meant by this to these people at that time. He says this, when he said to me, son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel”
From the transcript
“let me skip over now to a New Testament passage that that kind of explains this illustration in the not yet part. What was the ultimate expression of what God's doing when he says, I'm gonna bring life out of death? And it's found in Ephesians chapter two”
From the transcript
“it says this, once you were dead, starting verse one, you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins”
From the transcript
“but man, this is one of the best buts in the Bible right there. Verse four. But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead”
From the transcript
“then it gets even more it explains it deeper here in verse eight. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this. It's a gift from God”
From the transcript
“And verse 10 says, for we are God's masterpiece, he has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the things he has planned for us long ago”

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

There is something deeply honest about the image God shows Ezekiel at the opening of this vision. He doesn't lead the prophet to a place of quiet beauty or easy hope. He sets him down in the middle of a valley full of dry bones — bleached, scattered, hopelessly dead. And then He asks what feels like an almost cruel question: 'Can these bones live?' Ezekiel, to his credit, doesn't pretend. He answers, essentially, 'Only You know.' That is not defeat — that is the beginning of wisdom. Before God does anything new in us, He tends to be honest with us about what we are working with. The valley is not a place of shame; it is a place of starting over. If you have ever felt spiritually hollow — going through the motions, finding that faith feels dry and distant — this image was written for you. God did not show Ezekiel the valley to condemn it. He showed it to him because He was about to do something only He could do. The condition of those bones was not the final word. It was the setup for a miracle. Whatever feels dry in your life right now, God sees it clearly — and He is not discouraged by what He sees.

For reflection

Where in your spiritual life do you feel the most like those dry bones — distant, stuck, or going through the motions?

Pray

Pray for honesty before God about the areas of your heart that feel dry or distant from Him.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message takes us into one of the strangest scenes in all of Scripture — a valley full of dry bones — and asks what God might be doing there. As we dig in together, we're looking at what it actually means to go from dead to alive.

Discussion questions

1
In Ezekiel 37:1-3, God brings Ezekiel into a valley of bones described as 'very dry' and asks him, 'Can these bones live?' What do you think God is doing by asking that question — what does it reveal about the situation, and about Ezekiel?
2
In Ezekiel 37:4-10, God tells Ezekiel to preach to the bones, and something begins to happen — but it isn't complete until the breath comes. What does the two-step process here — Word first, then Spirit — suggest about how God brings people to life?
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Ephesians 2:8-9 says salvation is 'by grace through faith' and 'not a result of your own efforts.' Pastor Bill drew a distinction between intellectually agreeing with facts about Jesus and actually surrendering to Him as your only hope. What does that distinction look like in practice — how might we describe the difference to someone who asked us?
4
Ephesians 2:10 calls believers God's 'masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.' What does it change about how we think of serving and sharing our faith if we read it as something we were created for, rather than something expected of us?
5
Pastor Bill described a person who goes to church without being the church — present, but not yet sent. What do you think keeps people stuck in that place, and what might it look like for a community like ours to help each other move from receiving to participating?
6
Looking across both Ezekiel 37 and Ephesians 2, what picture of God emerges — what does He seem most determined to do, and for whom?

Pray together

Ask God to breathe life where things feel dry — in our own hearts, in our community, and in the people around us He is calling us toward.

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Topics

God's Mission New Life in Christ Salvation by Faith Spiritual Rebirth The Holy Spirit

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