Bones Without a Grave

In 2004, I am standing in front of the very Chapel I got saved in, back in 1977: Prodigal Son Chapel.

How can you and I revive the dry bones in our spiritual life?  There is only one way.  It is to recognize what is dry, dead, or in need of God’s Breath to be breathed upon it. It is your soul, and your heart that has been in the valley of dry bones for far too long. 

The bones in Ezekiel 37, were bones without a grave; without a headstone, and void of any eulogies or memorials attached to their demise.  No family arrived to bury them.  They never would. 

They were soldiers without a 21-gun salute. 

Imagine for a moment what Ezekiel was seeing, sensing, and feeling in this vision.  Even smelling.  All his senses were activated beyond normal.  It is an open vision. 

Verses 1-3 from Ezekiel 37:  “The Hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down amid the valley; and it was full of bones.  Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were many in the open valley; and indeed, they were very dry.  And He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?”” 

And I answered, “O Lord God, You know.” 

“What was Ezekiel seeing with his own eyes?” 

He saw firsthand, the thousands upon thousands, slaughtered and battle tested, warriors who had succumbed to the pressures of a war.  They died on a battlefield, and their bones were scattered from the horizon line, and as far as the eye could see, all around. 

None were alive to bury their own comrades.  Everyone was dead.   

Eagles had gathered when they all died.  They devoured the soldier’s carcasses.  No one was left behind to scare or fray the birds of prey away.  Wolves had eaten the flesh of these mighty warriors and ultimately, drank the blood of princes.   

Rain, wind, and scorching sun bleached the bones and whitened them.  They were so dry, that they became brittle over time.  No hope at all in this vision. 

Ezekiel referred to the facts in verse 2 when he declared, “There were very many in the open valley and indeed they were very dry.” 

Imagine along with me for a moment; this scene filled with silence.  The exception was the sound of howling wind blowing through the dry bones.  Whistling sounds that reminded Ezekiel of this death and destruction that had taken place. 

Zephaniah 3:17 declares:  “The Lord your God is in your midst.  The mighty one will save.  He will rejoice over you with gladness.  He will quiet you with His love.  He will rejoice over you with singing. 

What singing song sound does the wind make, that we can follow along with during this graveyard scene? 

OH, did Ezekiel’s soul need quieting.   

Just then, right in the midst of his emotional and spiritual turmoil, a voice thundered in from the Lord God to Ezekiel in verse 3.  “‘Son of man, can these bones live?’”  God needed an answer from this man of God. 

Are you serious God?  (That is what I would have thought). Stop and ponder this.  I am sure Ezekiel was exhausted (in the spirit) as he had been taken by God in the Spirit and sat down amid dry bones.  To do what? 

He was about to find out. 

Think about those sounds of the wind flowing fast through the eye sockets of the thousands of skulls, laying in heaps.  One on top of the other.  That sound must have sounded like a chorus from some death march. 

Wind whistling a tune of terror.  The smells of dry, scorched sun-beaten bones.  They may have had no smell now, but they did at one time as each soldier died.  The decay process was fast with eagles and wolves. 

No remnants of flesh now, yet there was the smell of death in Ezekiel’s mind, as he must have thought what the horrible smells were after all this death had happened.  

Bones scattered as far as the eye could see.  Bones without a grave. 

Was Ezekiel supposed to answer God by saying, “Sure, these bones can live, if you want them to?  Just speak God, and it will be done.” 

This isn’t the way the Lord planned this out. 

God had another way to make dry bones live.   

Have you ever thought how you would answer God in this moment?   

Are your parched bones in your life, crying out to God to live?  Do you find yourself with a femur bone of failure in your daily living?  Do you feel alone in the midst of a crowd with a lacrimal bone in your face named loneliness? 

Is there a compound fracture near your heart, behind your ribs of rejection? 

ONLY you know.  Well, God knows about every bone in your spiritual body that is in a war right now.  You will live and not die, to the Glory of God. 

Your spiritual bones may be broken in pieces.  Many are cracked, dry and parched by life, and all the stress it brings. 

The Lord Jesus Christ is asking mankind today, “Can your bones live?” 

Ezekiel answered God with a “safe” answer.  “O Lord God, You know.” 

Of course He knows.  He knows the beginning and end of all things concerning you and me. 

He knows our thoughts before we think them.  He knows what we will do with our thoughts.  He knows our true condition in our hospital traction-harness that temporarily holds us together after a broken leg.  Like in a real hospital, we are laying in a bed with our bones in a cast.  But not in this valley of dry bones.  There was never to be the Red Cross, or a blood drive to heal the wounds of all those soldiers. 

The bones in Ezekiel’s vision can’t live without Ezekiel saying himself, the words of life that God said for him to prophesy. 

Verse 4 declares, “He spoke to me and said, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!’   

Thus says the Lord God to these bones:  ‘Surely, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live.  Then you shall know I am the Lord your God.’” 

God wanted Ezekiel to declare by prophesying himself.  God could have done it all.  He wanted Ezekiel to believe it could happen, and commanded him to say with his own mouth, LIVE. 

Ezekiel had to do his part.  God moved when he moved. 

A rattling came in verses 7-8.  “So, I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone.  Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.”

God had Ezekiel prophesy to the breath to come from the four winds so these slain may live.  And they did live. 

Just like all of us who are broken in some way or another; we need new life.  A rattling in our spirits to see pieces of old bones of discouragement, old bones of disappointments, come alive.  Those smaller bones, in our mind, that set themselves without proper surgery.  And we wonder why we can’t get spiritually ahead in this life.  It is because every fracture, every bone that is broken in our heart, and every one that seems like it is miniscule to us, needs to be reset by God.  He is the healer.  He does not apply a cast on your leg.  He can heal without plaster.  His Hands heal quickly.  If our doubts and unbelief's keep us from believing, then the first bone to be put in place, is the bone of faith. 

Live without the titanium plate of terror, screwed into our bones with metal.  No scars.  No surgical procedures.  Just His presence and His love to bring to life all our dead areas that continue to cause us pain.  Yes, they are dead, dry bones.  But even though they are dead, they live in our memories to haunt us, until God breathes new life into us, and heals us. 

Those old baked by the sun bones.  Insecurities and loneliness.  Bones that broke in a divorce.  Kicked around in life until our tail bones were broken by someone else who pulverized our hopes.  They literally kicked us out the doors of opportunity and peace.  Who allowed this to happen?  No one really.  It is just this temporal life with temporary trials. 

Some of us had an entire skeleton of addictions. 

The bad habits caused pain and hopelessness.  They lay in their own valley, scorched by the hot sun.  Those bones seemed to try and live at one time when we sought treatment in our recovery process.  We made it two years clean and sober, but not free indeed.  After we dove back into the swimming pool of sadness and regret, we woke up.  Prayerfully, we came out of our sick and twisted coma.  Jesus raised the dead.  When He did, He also fixed the thing that caused them to die.  He fixed their bones that were headed to a graveyard with no headstone.  Bones of disease.  He healed them.  Bones of suicidal thinking.  He touched that too and replaced that bone-lie from Satan with the Joy of the Lord.  Never to be replaced again. 

If treatment from a doctor, or a program would fix permanently, all the things that beset human beings; there would be no need for the Cross of Calvary. 

But the Cross hung up high on Golgotha’s hill.  There were two more.  One on each side of the big one Jesus hung on. 

The moment He said, “It is finished,” we had and still have the opportunity to live again.  Live with hope.  Live without deadness in our spirits.  Live and not die in a graveyard with no granite headstone.  No more parched bones without a grave. 

We can be remembered by our walk with Jesus.  Not where we walked that displeased Him.  No. Our walk is not perfect.  But it is when we stop walking with Him, is when the bones in our spirit begin the death rattle. 

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.” Psalm 18:2. 

Rocks.  No one can ever throw stones at you again.  They can try, but they will fail to hurt you with their words again.  You are in the refuge.  You are in the fortress.  Take one last look at your valley of dry bones.  Turn around and begin to take them and bury them from your heart.  The only sounds we will hear will be the sounds of life.  Not death. 

We will overcome by the Blood of the Lamb, and the words of our testimony. 

God does not want us to dry up.  He wants us to live and give Him Glory in our pain.  How so?  By seeing the pain become parched by the SON of the Living God, Jesus.  He will be gentle with us.  His rays of SON-shine will melt away the clouds of despair and pain in our lives. 

There is no pain that He can’t heal.  There is no bone that He cannot mend.  There is no heart, that He will ignore.  Your heart.  He is looking down at you from Heaven’s view.  He sees all your skinless bones.  He sees the lack of muscle to move your arms into the air and worship Him.  “Prophesy to your bones now.”  Tell them to live.  He will do His part.  You and I must do ours.   

Speak to the mountain to be removed.  Ask Him to raise the valleys in your life that are full of dead bones.  If the mountains are removed, and the valleys lifted, then that is the New Plumbline for you to begin again.  It is His will for us to live without any broken bones or broken promises.  His promises, He will keep. 

 Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins