THE SUNDAY SCHOOL November 24, 1996 Facts In The Lesson 1. was Ezekiel Scattered human transported in a vision bones filled the valley. to pass through the bones and examine Lesson Subject: Scripture: "Finding Hope Beyond Despair" Ezekiel 37:1-12, 14 Author: Time: Place: Ezekiel, Son of Buzi, a Zadokite Priest Between 585 B.C. and 571 B.C. Babylon to a large valley. Ezekiel was instructed their condition. They had been bleached out in the sin, and they were parched. By this time they were light in weight because the marrow had dried up. 2. The vision illustrated the physical and spiritual restoration of Israel and Judah after their captivity. Today’s Aim: Facts: to show that without God we are hopeless. lifeless and | Principle: to understand that God has the power to give life to the lifeless and hope to the hopeless. Application: restoration. Practical to help us trust in God’s promise | of 2. We must have enough confidence in God that we will obey Him no matter how silly such obedience may look (vs 4). God 4. Verses 11, 12, and 14 demonstrate how God’s people would ultimately receive new life. Such will happen when, and only when, the people confess the hopelessness of their predicament, which was life without the indwelling Spirit of God. Points 1. A spiritually dead person or nation is without hope apart from God’s intervention (vv 1-3). 3. 3. The bones represented the whole house of Israel. This included the people of Judah who recently had been taken to Babylon,the ten thousand who had been taken with Ezekiel a few years earlier, and the people of northern israel who had been scattered among foreign lands for more than a century. has the power to breathe life into that which is dead so that His name will be known and glorified (vss 5-6). 4. God has ordained that human beings be the instrument which the Word of life is conveyed (vss 7-10). by 5. God's chosen people are never without hope; God will never utterly forsake them (vss 11-13). 5. The actual transformation of Israel into a revived nation from the Babylonian Captivity in 856 B.C. to the restoration of the people in Judah - took about fifty years, The spiritual transformation of the people is still future. The wandering of Israelites continued until the modern state of Israel was formed in 1948. 6. Your church might seem like a heap of dried-up bones to you, spiritually dead with no hope of vitality. Rather than give up, pray for renewal, for God can restore it to life. The hope and prayer of every church should be that God will put his Spirit into it. No matter how deep your despair at times, or whether you have brought trouble upon yourself, you can still turn to God for restoration and renewal. Join 6. God imparts life through the Holy Spirit (vs 14). comes us next from God’s Joy’ Sunday Luke at 9:30 1:5-13, 24, for Sunday School. The 25, Subject: "Experience 59-64. lesson