"You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth." (Ps 104:30)
One of the most famous passages of scripture is found in the first half of Ezekiel 37. There, we are told of how the Spirit of the Lord brought the prophet into a valley covered – filled - with dry bones. Those dead bones were assembled on the ground and covered with muscles and flesh. God then filled them with His Spirit and they stood up on their feet, alive.
Notice how similar this is to the initial creation of mankind, recounted in Genesis 2. God formed man from the dust of the ground and then breathed into him the breath of life.
Yet the two scenes are starkly different, because Adam was sinless when created, while the bones revived in that valley had transgressed their way under the judgement of God.
God had warned Adam he was doomed to "return to the ground" because of his sin and His pronouncement proved true for that valley full of his descendants. Yet "mercy triumphs over judgment" (Jam 2:13) and God "revives His work" because "in wrath God remembers mercy" (Hos 3:2).
Though mankind squanders the gift of God and thrusts himself back into the dust, the creative redemption of God finds him there and restores him. You and I may lament and weep at a grave, undone by the finality of loss. But God cracks graves open. He raises the dead, restoring them to life.
Yet, what unfolded in the Old Testament as a prophetic vision played out in the New Testament as literal testimony in a Christian's life. The Apostle Peter palpably experienced the pattern discussed above.
He was merely Simon when Jesus first found him. That first encounter occurred along the seashore after a long night of fruitless fishing. Like a tree transformed into a pillar in the house of God, Simon was renamed Peter and changed from a mere fisherman into a fisher of men.
But, despite a good beginning and several hopeful events in the next few years, Peter squandered it all by denying Christ three times and even calling curses down on his own head. By the time we get to John 21, he had fallen all the way back to being a mere fisherman whom Jesus purposely called Simon, not Peter.
Seemingly dried up, Simon made his reversion to his initial, Christless state complete by going fishing. And there, the prophetic truth of Ezekiel 37 graciously repeated itself.
Like the first time, Simon spent a fruitless night fishing. Like the first time, he then encountered Christ on the shore, Whom he did not recognize at first. Yet Christ quickly reassembled and revived His apostate Apostle. He also cleansed Peter's lips, burning up each previous denial by calling forth three declarations of love. Restoration complete, the redemptive scene ends with Peter standing on his feet like those revived bones, and following Jesus.
But good preaching doesn't merely recount bible history. It applies scripture as fresh truth to the lives of its hearers. We are not too much for Christ! Though we drench and quench our initial saving encounter with Him, the fire of His loving mercy can burn up our sin and rekindle our dead hearts.
Paul assured the Philippians that Christ will transform us until we are conformed to His glorious image, because He "is able to subdue all things to Himself", even us (Phil 3:21).
I am not presenting us here with a license to sin, but with a promise of renewal in Him when we do sin. Jesus Christ "cleanses us from all sin IF we walk in the light" (1 Jn 1:7). And "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness IF we confess our sins" (1 Jn 1:9). He will do His part if we do ours.
Let the demons tremble in despair at the finality of their apostasy. We happy humans can demonstrate faith in our Savior by returning to Him when we have stumbled in iniquity. We can "take words with us and return to the Lord". He will receive us graciously and take away all iniquity. He will heal our backsliding and will love us freely. He will then be like dew to us, no matter how dry we were, so that we grow like a lily. (Hos 14:1-2,4-5)
- Matt Schilling
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