you Well, good morning to you. Today I'd like to encourage you from Ezekiel chapter 37, and this incredible vision that Ezekiel has, and it's called the vision of the dry bones, and the valley of the dry bones. And you remember this account, I'm sure, where Ezekiel is taken to this like a wasteland, and All along the floor of this wilderness wasteland are a bunch of scattered dry bones, and the Lord in his vision asks him, can these bones live? And Ezekiel just shrugs his shoulders and says, Lord, God, you know, you know. And then he says to the, the Lord says to the prophet, he gives his prophesy to these bones and say to them, oh, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones. Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. I will put sinews upon you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall know and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. So Ezekiel says, all right, I'll do what you tell me to do. And he prophesies as he was commanded, and as he prophesied, there was this noise and suddenly a rattling, and the bones came together bone to bone. And he says, 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. And he said to me, prophesy to the breath, or the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, or the wind, or the spirit. Thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe on these slain that they may live. So I prophesied, and as he commanded me, and breath came into them, they lived and stood upon their feet an exceeding great army. What an incredible vision that Ezekiel saw. What's the point of it? The point of it is that God's people were like these dry bones scattered in the wilderness. He says in verse 11, Now why are they saying that? Because at the time of Ezekiel's living and prophesying, Ezekiel himself was in the Babylonian captivity. So he wasn't in Israel. Israel as a nation no longer existed. The people of Israel were scattered abroad. Some were in Babylonian captivity, some hundreds of years earlier were taken into the Assyrian captivity, and some are left in the land, but they're under bondage. And it's just a miserable, miserable mess. And as they say, our hope is lost and we are cut off. In other words, we're not going to live as a nation. We're not going to live as a people of God. We're hopeless. It isn't going to happen. We're doomed. And the Lord comes to him, to Ezekiel, and he says, this is what you need to prophesy to my people. Say to them, thus says the Lord God, 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. 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 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 has spoken it and performed it says the Lord The Lord says, yeah, it looks hopeless right now, doesn't it? But I'm going to do something that will utterly astound you, that will make you know that I am the Lord. I'm going to bring you back to life. I'm going to bring you back to your land. I'm going to give you life and hope once again. And this is the promise of the Lord, and the Lord actually did that. He brought them back from exile, re-established the people in the land, and has a glorious future for his people. And this applies to us in the New Testament as well, because circumstances are obviously different. We're not the nation of Israel, and so on. But How many times have you felt a little discouraged about the situation with the church? Somebody wrote a book some time ago, quite a few years ago now, entitled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. You can see evidence of that by some of the shenanigans and the silly, silly stuff that goes on in the name of Christ in local churches. It's just ridiculous. It can be disheartening. You can also think about the opposition that the mainstream society gives to the church, wanting to keep everybody that's truly a believer, wants to follow Christ at arm's length, and all the rest of that. It can feel rather hopeless. Well, our hope is not in our circumstances. Our hope is in the Lord who gave himself for us. He has promised that he will give us life, and he will establish us, and he will give us a hope in an eternity, a hope that will not end, a home that will last forever. So we may never see, and we will not likely see, a great dominance of the church in our lifetime, in our world. But that doesn't mean we should have no hope. We should have ample hope because of what God in Christ Jesus has promised to do for and to give to his church. He can take dry, scattered bones, bring them together, put the flesh on them, put the breath in them, and live to be a great army. I think even in our day, the Lord can bring a revival to his people so that there is a great army for the Lord that goes forth with the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, and wages war against the wicked one effectively by God's grace. Let's take courage in that. Our Father and our God, we thank you for what you can do when it seems so hopeless and we are so apparently helpless. Encourage us with this today, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, have a good rest of your day, and I trust the Lord will bless you in it.