The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (or The Valley of Dry Bones or The Vision of Dry Bones) is a prophecy in chapter 37 of the Book of Ezekiel. The chapter details a vision revealed to the prophet Ezekiel, conveying a dream-like realistic--naturalistic depiction. In his vision, the prophet sees himself standing in the valley full of dry human bones. He is commanded to carry a prophecy. Before him, the bones connect into human figures; then the bones become covered with tendon tissues, flesh and skin. Then God reveals the bones to the prophet as the People of Israel in exile and commands the Prophet to carry another prophecy in order to revitalize these human figures, to resurrect them and to bring them to the Land of Israel. (Wikipedia)

Text of Ezekiel: NKJV

1 The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. 3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”

4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” ’ ”

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 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.

9 Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” ’ ” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, 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. 13 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. 14 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, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’ ”

15 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 16 “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’ 17 Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand.

18 “And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’— 19 say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand.” ’ 20 And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.

21 “Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; 22 and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. 23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

24 “David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. 25 Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. 26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. 27 My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 28 The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” ’ ”

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 37:9 Breath of life
2. Ezekiel 37:10 Breath of life
3. Ezekiel 37:26 Lit. cut

Holocaust Hell

Sowing the seeds for Jewish faith in Jesus

“Amidst the darkness of the Holocaust, the light of Christ was shining.” A statement quite likely to cause offence, especially among Jewish people – until they understand that I am talking about Jewish disciples of Jesus who were subjected to the horrors of the genocide together with their fellow Jews.

Until now, little has been known of the fate of the estimated 225,000 European Jews thought to have committed their lives to Christ by the outbreak of the war.

But a new book by Australian author Kelvin Crombie has unearthed the profoundly moving and heart-breaking stories experienced by many of these believers, known at the time as ‘Jewish (or Hebrew) Christians’, or by the Nazis as ‘non-Aryan Christians’.

As one of them testified, this is “the story of Jewish Christians who perished at the hands of people who considered themselves a Christian nation!”

Many German Jews had ‘converted’ to Christianity simply in order to fit in better with society, yet it did not protect them from the butchers. But those who truly followed Messiah Jesus were rejected both by the Nazis and their fellow Jews.

There were two chief reasons for the latter scenario – first, because the early Christians (who were mainly Jewish) refused to join the revolt against Roman occupation which led to ancient Israel’s ultimate defeat and desecration in 135 AD, and second, because persecution ever since has been seen, in Jewish eyes at least, as driven by ‘Christian’ countries often with support from the Church.

Meanwhile the Jocz family have extended their evangelistic witness to four generations, partly through Jakob, Bazyli and Anna’s eldest, managing to escape the Holocaust because he was addressing a conference in England when war broke out. He later served as parish priest at St John’s, Downshire Hill, in Hampstead, north London, while continuing to work for CMJ.

Anna was a very brave woman who, because she didn’t look Jewish, got away with being a Polish Gentile while hiding her ailing husband in a wood shed. When he eventually came out for a brief respite, he was spotted by the Gestapo and summarily shot, with Anna sustaining terrible injuries that left her paralysed from the waist down for the rest of her life.

Ironically, it was after she was injured in a fall as a young girl that her father took her to see a Jewish doctor who believed in Jesus, which sparked off the family’s commitment to their Messiah. Bazyli and Anna thus helped sow the seeds of what later became known as the Messianic Jewish movement that has since spread to North America, Israel and throughout the globe.

Among the many others contributing to this harvest were the evangelists of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews (now Messianic Testimony), only one of whose seven workers survived – and he had lost his wife and been “hunted and driven to the extreme limits of human endurance”.

Most of the war-time Polish believers paid the ultimate price for their faith. And in the end a staggering six million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis, with many of the traumatised survivors experiencing little better than a living death.

A heart-rending account is told of a couple and their young daughter, when facing execution, bowing their heads in prayer as they were machine-gunned into an open grave. In another place, after the brutes had shot the parents, their children were heard singing hymns of praise as they were driven away in a lorry!

As modern Israel rose from the ashes of the Holocaust in fulfilment of Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezek 37), so the Messianic movement of Jewish followers of Jesus emerged triumphant from the blood-stained soil of Poland.

The Marquess of Reading has written a foreword to the book and former Wimbledon tennis champion Margaret Court hosted its launch in Perth, Western Australia.

Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com; A Nation Reborn, available from Christian Publications International; and King of the Jews, also available from Christian Publications International.

Note Added by Lambert Dolphin 1/6/2021

Very interesting! Quite possibly true. At death’s door all sorts of peopl call out to God for mercy and, sure enough, Yeshua saves them. Most Jews saw through the hypocrisy of Lutheran Germany. Jewish people are very discerning and want the real God not our Gentile emasculated Savior. Romans 9-11 comes to mind.This is a very good article.

Acts 4:12:  “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no otheer name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”