Four Seasons in Ezekiel’s Vision of the
Valley of Dry Bones
By Donna Diorio
March 7, 2013
Yesterday
while writing the Priority Prayer Focus for my Weekly Summary of Prayer Requests
for Israeli Ministries and the brief, Arrows from Zion, the
Holy Spirit gave me a new way of looking at Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of
Dry Bones. I've picked out these four
pictures to correspond with the seasonal concept I saw.
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The first drawing is of Israel
depicted as Ezekiel first saw them - the horrific sight of a valley piled high with
the bones of dead Jews. We often think of the Holocaust but the Jewish
people have suffered many purges, many deaths in their almost 2,000 years of
exile from the land they were promised.
In their
spiritual exile from God, the Jews have been spiritually dead men walking,
alienated from their own Messiah. By the
viewpoint of God, as the apostle Paul explains in Romans 9-11, this spiritual
exile was a necessity to open salvation to the rest of the nations, but God's
plan would culminate in all Israel being saved.
This could
be viewed as the winter season when the foliage is stripped from the branches,
the land is barren of fruit and the landscape mostly looks dead. In Ezekiel's
vision, God asked the prophet if the bones could even live again. What he was really asking is, ‘Do YOU believe
that I can make these dry bones come to fully life for My purposes?’ Many have heard the LORD ask them the same
question as He has called them out to stand with Israel as He is in the process
of restoring them to the full life He has for them.
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So God called the prophet to
prophesy over that valley full of dead men's dry bones that God Himself was
breathing life into them calling their bones to reassemble, and then tendons
and ligaments uniting muscle to bone, then flesh to cover it all - but there
was no breath, prophetically noting that just calling Jews back to Israel does
not complete what God is going to do to give them the fullness of life. There is no fullness of life without the
spiritual breath. In Him – in Yeshua -
we live and move and have our being. The second depiction is the newspaper headline declaring the Modern State of Israel being born in a day. The long exile of the Jews from their promised land officially ended May 14, 1948. In Ezekiel's vision this would correlate with the spring season where God stood the dry bones on their feet and began to cover their bones with muscle and flesh - a functioning State of Israel to re-gather the Jews from exile back to the place of their promise.
Most of the Christians that God has called to
stand in the place of Ezekiel prophesying to the Jewish people remain stalled
in the first season and the second season. For Israel to truly become ‘Israel
of God’ Christians will have to move into the summer and fall season where the
seeds of the gospel are being harvested.
In different
seasons there are different things to pray and prophesy, and there are
different practical things to do in expressing our faith related to our prayers
and prophecy.
In the winter and spring seasons of the raising up of the Dry Bones, Christians played essential roles in helping the Jewish people to accomplish the incredible and even the unprecedented re-birth of a state by a people in exile nearly 2,000. Any Jewish history tells the stories of critical Christians who came to the side of the Jews to establish its statehood, its army, the declarations in the nations that paved the way for the birth of Israel.
In the winter and spring seasons of the raising up of the Dry Bones, Christians played essential roles in helping the Jewish people to accomplish the incredible and even the unprecedented re-birth of a state by a people in exile nearly 2,000. Any Jewish history tells the stories of critical Christians who came to the side of the Jews to establish its statehood, its army, the declarations in the nations that paved the way for the birth of Israel.
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Then at the re-capture of the
Jerusalem, Israel entered into the summer season of Ezekiel's vision as
depicted well in the third painting of a man beginning to rise up with flesh
and blood, lifting his hand toward Heaven.
June 7,
1967, the date Israel regained control over the capital city Jerusalem, is the
official date that Ezekiel's vision entered into a new season. Many Christians have not noted the season
change and are still operate under the prophesy, the intercession and the
practical functioning of aid that was called for in the spring season.
Any gardener
will tell you that there are things to do year round, in all four seasons, in
order to keep the land prepared - but the duties change from season to
season. This is also true spiritually. The season changed when Jerusalem again came
under the control of Israel - those dry bones that were standing reassembled
with flesh and blood but no spiritual breath.
In 1967 the
"kairos" time spoken of in Luke 21:24 came to pass marking a new
season in the restoration of the Dry Bones God gave Ezekiel in a vision. Elsewhere in the world, Jews began to receive
the knowledge of the Son of God, discovering that Israel's Messiah was that
man, Yeshua. 1967 is regarded as the
year that the Messianic Jewish movement was birth - and it is no coincidence to
the Luke 21:24 prophecy.
God began
breathing spiritual life into Jewish men and women who gathered together to the
faith in Jesus retaining their Jewish identity.
This was controversial in the Church. Still is. Even for those who dedicated themselves to
standing by Israel, mostly they have been stuck in the spring season mode,
planting when they should be harvesting.
Mostly the Israel-supporting Church has ignored that God has been
breathing spiritual life into the Jews so that there are an estimated one
million Messianic Jews in the world today.
In a garden,
if you are stuck in thinking that spring is still the season you are in when it
is actually the end of the summer you will have missed many of the things that
make for a plentiful harvest in the fall.
In the last two seasons, our practical assistance, like our prophecy and
intercession, is geared toward the moving of the Holy Spirit in Israel.
It is time for the Church to awaken to fact that God is not standing still in His vision for the valley of Dry Bones. It is time for the Church to lift up their eyes and see the season has shifted from primarily speaking prophetically to the flesh and bones issues of Israel, into speaking spiritual life to enter the walking dead.
It is time for the Church to awaken to fact that God is not standing still in His vision for the valley of Dry Bones. It is time for the Church to lift up their eyes and see the season has shifted from primarily speaking prophetically to the flesh and bones issues of Israel, into speaking spiritual life to enter the walking dead.
For many
Christians, the spiritual reality that Israel is spiritually dead has been
glossed over. In the desire to raise Christian help for Israel's fight to
survive in the politics of the international community, many have
over-emphasized flesh and blood issues over spiritual life issues. Most Christians are hungry only for analysis
of the politics of opposition that Israel faces - the flesh and blood issues –
while the spiritual life issues are low priority and back burner.
There are too many ministries willing to speak only to the flesh and blood issues and never to the spiritual life issues of Israel. Not only is that not what people want to hear, but it is also not was Israel wants these high profile Israel supporters speaking of! Should we obey God or man?
There are too many ministries willing to speak only to the flesh and blood issues and never to the spiritual life issues of Israel. Not only is that not what people want to hear, but it is also not was Israel wants these high profile Israel supporters speaking of! Should we obey God or man?
If this lack
of interest continues in what God is doing to infuse Jews with the spiritual
life of Yeshua, then many who believe they are fully supportive of Israel will
not even have a part in the harvest season as God commanded the prophet
Ezekiel. In verse 11 God tells the
prophet, Son of man, these bones are the
whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is
lost: we are cut off for our parts.
The answer to that hopelessness does not lie in political support, but in spiritual birth.
The answer to that hopelessness does not lie in political support, but in spiritual birth.
Recently I
read that during the last elections Israelis voted primarily based on economic
considerations because they knew that no Prime Minister, no matter who he was,
could do anything to move the needle on peace negotiations or national
security. Israelis have lost hope for
resolution with their Arab neighbors and the terror groups that masquerade as
Palestinian governments.
The answer
God gives the prophet Ezekiel is this (37:9): Prophesy to the Ruach (Spirit), prophesy,
son of man, and say to the Ruach, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four
winds, O Ruach, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
That is not
just the normal air we breathe, it is the life-giving Spirit of God that comes
into us as we enter into the faith of Yeshua.
God says that in the summer season, we are to be prophesying in the Holy
Spirit for the Holy Spirit to enter into the walking dead, the Jews who are
standing on their re-assembled dry bones, covered with muscle and flesh, but
lacking the life-giving Holy Spirit of Messiah.
Surely there
are some Christians who have entered into the season change and are prophesying
in keeping with the summer season and doing the accompanying practical aid
necessary to bring in an abundant harvest in the fall - but the majority are
still operating in the spring season, oblivious to the spiritual need or how God is answering the spiritual
need among the Jewish people. Awake, thou that sleepest!
In Matthew
16:2-3, Yeshua rebuked the crowd of Jews saying, "When it is evening you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky
is red'; and in the morning, 'It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red
and threatening.' Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but
you cannot discern the signs of the times.'
This is the
same thing happening today, only it is the Church that is failing to discern
the season of Israel's harvest.
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In the final picture you see the
raised hands of young Messianic Jews and Israeli Arabs worshiping the LORD
together in Tel Aviv at one of the several annual conferences for young
believers in Israel. The Holy Spirit of
God is breathing spiritual life into the dry and hopeless bones of Jews
throughout Israel and in all the places they are in the world.
Will we
recognize the shift of God's season in dealing with Israel's salvation? Will we move from the intercessions and
practical aid, and prophesying of the spring season of Israel onto the season
that is now taking place in Israel? It is
time to adjust our priorities from strengthening the flesh and blood issues of
Israel to prioritizing the spiritual life issues.
The season
has changed, but many Christians have not even noticed.
If you want to hold up Israel for the outpouring of God's best, then you must recognize the change of season and enter into prophesying life to the walking, but spiritually dead.
If you want to hold up Israel for the outpouring of God's best, then you must recognize the change of season and enter into prophesying life to the walking, but spiritually dead.
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republish this writing providing
author’s name and Arrows from Zion blog are included.
Donations: PayPal acct is donna@israelprayer.com
or make check to Donna Diorio PO Box 111302 Carrollton TX 75006
I do not have tax exempt status.
author’s name and Arrows from Zion blog are included.
Donations: PayPal acct is donna@israelprayer.com
or make check to Donna Diorio PO Box 111302 Carrollton TX 75006
I do not have tax exempt status.
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