Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Analytical
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Conscientiousness
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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/(Greeting)/
When I was thirty-eight I died of a heart attack.
/(Tell the story briefly)/
I was physically dead.
Completely unable to do anything.
Completely unaware.
Someone else had to pump my heart, and someone else had to breath for me.
I did not hear anything, see anything, feel or smell anything.
I had no thoughts whatsoever.
Try to imagine nothingness.
/(Pray Psalm 23)/
Theme: Love or die
This morning we are going to take a journey into the valley of death.
Ezekiel 37.1
/(Read the text) /
Background info – why is Israel “dead”
/(Walk through the text verse by verse ~/ show the three conspirators)/
Conclude
/(Pray)/
The God of Israel had made a promise to them through the covenant with Abraham.
The promise was to be their God.
He promised blessings to them.
(Genesis 17).
But they found themselves cut off.
The darkness in the valley is overwhelming.
There is utter devastation.
*Who is Israel?*
But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants will be named.”
That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.
(Romans 9:6-8)
*The answer is that we are Israel.*
Jesus left his high home to walk in our valley of death.
What do we look like to God before he gives life?
In our own power what are we capable of doing?
Background
Ezekiel lived in a time of great international upheaval.
The northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrian empire.
Assyria itself fell to the Babylonian state that had emerged.
In 605 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar had been carrying out a policy of deportation for a while.
The intent was to train them for positions in his kingdom: “… he probably also intended for them to contribute to the Babylonian economy
God worked through Ezekiel during the Babylonian exile.
Reason for the exile: Israel had turned to idolatry.
So, God’s purpose of bringing them back to him seems to have been realized through the experience of being uprooted from their homeland.
At the end of the captivity large numbers were ready to endure the hardships of reestablishing a community dedicated to the worship of Yahweh, and those who stayed behind gave substantial sums to finance the venture.
God’s promises of restoration that were made to Israel made previously in Ch 36.
Restoration must have seemed extremely unlikely given the circumstances.
They had been defeated, dispersed, and exiled into enemy territory.
They had lost their land, kingdom, and temple.
They were in every sense a “dead nation”
The Scene
*bones are as dead as doorknobs*.
absolute, complete death.
There is no ‘meat’ on them.
They are dry, disconnected, and unrecognizable.
There is no movement on the valley floor.
In the spirit, Ezekiel is lifted above the plain and shown a vast amount of destruction and devastation.
Ezekiel is a priest that has been taken among the exiles in Babylon (1:3)
His name means God Strengthens and he is called by God to speak to the exiles.
Theme of Ezekiel is the glory of the Lord.
God communicates this through the prophecies of judgment and salvation.
Judgment is expressed in the calamity predicted and experienced by both Israel and the surrounding nations, while salvation is found in the comfort and consolation of Israel.
The purpose of all the prophecy, calamity, and restoration is that the people will know that Yahweh is Lord.
It is for his own sake that he acts, not Israel’s (36:32).
Throughout Ezekiel God offers both judgment and hope for the exiles of Israel in Babylon.
This passage plays the part of predicting the salvation and restoration of Israel
Israel’s hope in the Lord is not ill-founded.
Rather, having taken them into exile He speaks through the prophet to inform them that they will be re-established.
Ezekiel’s name is a message of hope to them.
“*God Strengthens*”
The following passage speaks of the new king that will rule the new people.
The prior passages speak of God putting His Spirit in the people of Israel,
There are two voices in the book, Yahweh’s and Ezekiel’s
There are two sections
First is an account of a vision given to Ezekiel by God,
and the second is an explanation of the vision.
The vision can also be shown as having two sections.
When God speaks to the prophet, each speech is marked with the phrase וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֵלַ֔י “he said to me,” and starts with “*son of man*.”
In verse three, there is what amounts to a rhetorical question posed by God to Ezekiel.
He says, “do the bones have the vigor of life?”
This leads Ezekiel to respond to the Lord by saying that “You know” the answer to that question.
A probable conclusion of that sentence may be “but I do not know:” The implication being that Yahweh is God and Ezekiel is not.
God is reminding Ezekiel, and thereby Ezekiel’s audience, that it is God that is acting not Ezekiel.
This provides a foundation for establishing Ezekiel’s authority and the veracity of the vision.
The author ensures that the reader knows that it is not man acting, but God.
*Alternate from despair to the hope of redemption.*
This is the fundamental message that is conveyed: despite the fact that the current situation for Israel is hopeless, there is hope.
Israel’s despair is more that matched by God’s grace.
It is because of God’s redeeming acts that people who are cut off are restored.
\\ 1a It came to pass that the hand of Yahweh was upon me
Israel has been in rebellion against the Lord and he has sent them into exile.
They have seen their nation disintegrate resulting from the rise of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires.
They are essentially a dead nation.
God makes his presence known to Ezekiel,
The *hand of God is recognizable and identifiable.*
His hand is not Ezekiel’s imagination or dreams, but rather something that is clearly of God.
When he touches Ezekiel there is no mistaking it for someone or something else.
Deconstructed Israel
!!! Desolation of bones
1b and He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and caused me to rest in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.
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