In Ezek. 37 God told the prophet to prophesy His word over the dead bones, and then the wind, the breath, and the Spirit came; we need to exercise to prophesy God’s word, breathe in the Lord, and allow God to breathe out His word and His Spirit for His purpose to be fulfilled.
A prophet is not mainly one who predicts the future according to God’s revelation; a prophet is one who contacts God, spends time with God, is infused with God, and speaks for God, speaking God forth into people. A prophet is an overcomer, and we must overcome to prophesy.
We are so ready and willing to speak about many other things, but when it comes to testifying for the Lord and sharing with others what He has spoken to us, we may be shy or reluctant.
Paul uplifts the matter of prophesying in 1 Cor. 14, saying that prophesying builds up the church, and he who prophesies speaks building up. The best way for us to cooperate with the Lord to build up the church is to prophesy.
This means that we need to spend much time with the Lord, be filled with the word of God as the breathed-out word of God, and exhale God by speaking His word.
We need to breathe the Lord in and then breathe Him out into others. God has become so available to us – He has become our very breath, the words in our mouth and in our heart; whenever we call, Oh Lord Jesus! we are filled with the divine, holy breath, and the spiritual air fills our being!
Our reading of the Bible should not merely be to gain knowledge but to inhale God; God exhaled His word (all Scripture is God-breathed, 2 Tim. 3:16-17), and we inhale His word by praying over the word with the exercise of our spirit.
This is beyond our mind to comprehend – this is a spiritual matter, a spiritual practice, of inhaling God in His breathed-out word as the Bible teaches us. When we inhale God and are filled with the Spirit as the fresh, divine, holy breath (John 20:22), we can then speak for the Lord, and we will exhale God, and the recipients will inhale God.
This is what Ezekiel practiced in Ezek. 37 in type, and this is what our practice in the church life should be. May we be the overcomers of today who breathe in the Lord, inhale God, are filled with the Spirit, and then speak to people the word of God so that the Spirit may get into them also.
Breathing Ourselves out and Breathing in the Lord to be Filled with the Divine Breath
Ezek. 37 shows us that the way God gets an army to fight for His interest on earth is by means of prophesying, blowing the wind, breathing in the air, and the Spirit coming in.
When Ezekiel prophesied, God sent the breath to enter into the dead bodies, and they stood up upon their feet and became an exceedingly great army to fight the battle for God (see Ezek. 37:10).
The condition of God’s people today is in many ways similar to the situation in Ezek. 37: they are dead, dry bones scattered everywhere; there’s no life flowing, there’s no interest for God’s building, and there’s no building up.
But God’s desire is to gain someone, a man who is one with the Lord to be filled with the spiritual breath, the Spirit, and prophesy over the dead and dry bones. Satan is the one who kills and buries people; he is the source of death, he slays people, and he buries them in all kinds of sinful things, worldly things, or religious things.
The need is that the spiritual breath, the divine air and wind, would come over these dry bones, so that they would rise up and become a great army.
Just as God made an expanse of air around the earth so that life may exist on earth for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, so the Lord became the Spirit, the real air, for us to breathe in.
We need to breathe ourselves out and breathe the Lord in, breathing in the divine spiritual air to be filled with the Spirit.
As the Spirit, God is the real air, the breath; when we call on the name of the Lord saying, O Lord Jesus! Amen! Hallelujah! we breathe in the Lord, we breathe in the divine spiritual air.
A. B. Simpson has a very good hymn on this matter of the breathing; on the one hand we need to breathe out our sorrow, our sin, and our problems, and on the other, we need to simply breathe His fulness in. Stanzas 2-4 from Hymns #255 by our brother say,
2. I am breathing out my own life,
That I may be filled with Thine;
Letting go my strength and weakness,
Breathing in Thy life divine.
3. Breathing out my sinful nature,
Thou hast borne it all for me;
Breathing in Thy cleansing fulness,
Finding all my life in Thee.
4. I am breathing out my sorrow,
On Thy kind and gentle breast;
Breathing in Thy joy and comfort,
Breathing in Thy peace and rest.
We need to be those who daily and even moment-by-moment breathe ourselves out and breathe in the Lord, breathing in all that He is to us.
We may not drink for a few hours, and we may not eat for a few days, yet we may still survive and live; but if we don’t breathe for as long as 3-5 minutes, we die. Spiritually speaking, if we don’t breathe, we die.
But when we hear God’s word and exercise our spirit to respond in faith by saying Amen! and by calling on the name of the Lord, we breathe the Lord in. We need to receive Christ into our inward parts by breathing Him in again and again.
Lord Jesus, we breathe ourselves out and we breathe You in. We are breathing out our sorrow, our sin, and our sickness, and we breathe in Your fulness, Your life, and Your healing. O Lord Jesus! Amen! Hallelujah! Jesus is Lord! We exercise our spirit to breathe in the Lord, and we breathe anything that is of ourselves out. Fill us, Lord! Fill us with the divine air, the spiritual breath, so that any death and division would be removed, and we would be filled with life, be living, and have the Spirit!
Speaking God’s Word so that His Breath and His Spirit would come in and Form an Army
Ezekiel had to prophesy twice in Ezek. 37, first to the bones, speaking the word of God over them with the result that there was a rattling and the bones came together and tissues and flesh came on them, and second to the Spirit, to come as breath into these ones with the result that an army was formed.
When Ezekiel prophesied the second time, the breath came into the very dry and dead bones, and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceedingly great army to fight the battle for God (Ezek. 37:2, 10-11).
We need to remember that these dead and dry bones were of God’s people, and so the army that was produced as a result of prophesying was the Lord’s army fighting for His interest.
Because we were dead and dry, we were scattered and disjointed, not connected to anyone; but the Lord came in to rescue us through the prophesying of His word.
How we thank and praise the Lord that, again and again, as we “bring our bones to the meeting”, He breathes His Spirit over us, and we breathe the Lord in; the result is that we are revived, vitalized, and formed into an army to fight for His interest.
We can all testify that many times we just drag ourselves (or someone else drags us) to the meeting, not really wanting to be there but having a feeling within to go; once we are in the meeting, however, the Lord breathes on us, we breathe in the Lord, the Spirit comes in, we rise up, we breathe in and breathe out, and we are formed into an army and built up as His building.
We need to be under the Lord’s speaking again and again, and we need to also cooperate with Him to prophesy.
We need to place ourselves under the hearing of the faith; we need to be with the fellow brothers and sisters in home meetings, group meetings, prayer meetings, vital group meetings, meetings in twos-and-threes, dinners together, lunch together, Lord’s table meeting, ministry meeting, or prophesying meeting.
We just need to get together with the saints. It is here, in the meeting, that the Lord will breathe on us; He will breathe the breath of life, we will breathe the Lord in, and we will be revived, enlivened, resuscitated, and brought out of any grave.
This enlivening is not just to make us alive or rescue us from the grave, but to form us into a great army, a corporate Body of Christ, a pneumatic army full of the divine breath and filled with the divine Spirit, moved by the divine wind.
As we breathe in the Lord, we are formed into His army to fight and defeat His enemy, to bring in God’s kingdom, and to restore His dominion.
This is what the Lord desires to gain in His recovery today: a great army of brothers and sisters full of the divine breath, the divine Spirit, and moved by the divine wind, to fight, overcome, subdue, and defeat Satan.
Lord Jesus, may Your Spirit breathe on us and fill us with the divine breath to form us into an army for God, together with all the saints. Amen, Lord, we just present ourselves to You as we are: even though we may be like dead and dry bones, we want to come to the meeting and be under Your speaking through the saints! Speak to us, Lord, and speak through us! Fill us with the divine breath. We want to breathe You in, be filled with the Spirit, and be formed into an army that fights for Your interest to defeat the enemy, end this age, and bring in the age of the kingdom!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1969, vol. 2, “The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures,” ch. 9, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Ezekiel (2), msg. 1 (week 13 in the HWMR), The Dry Bones being Enlivened to Become an Exceedingly Great Army and the Two Pieces of Wood Being Joined Together for the Building of the House of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
# O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me, / Teach me how to breathe Thee in; / Help me pour into Thy bosom / All my life of self and sin. / I am breathing out my sorrow, / Breathing out my sin; / I am breathing, breathing, breathing, / All Thy fulness in. (Hymns #255)
# The Spirit today is the air that we breathe; / What thing more important than breathing to do? / For breathing each moment, new life we receive, / And God’s living freshness is constant and new. (Hymns #1114)
# Like a mighty army / Moves the Church of God: / Brothers, we are treading / Where the saints have trod; / We are not divided, / All one Body we— / One in faith and Spirit, / One eternally. (Hymns #871)
About aGodMan
We have to interpret Ezekiel 37 in a spiritual way. Before God came in to renew us and regenerate us, we were like dead and dry bones. God’s salvation is not merely for sinful people but for dead people. Because we were dead and dry, we were also scattered…and disjointed,…not connected to anyone. The Lord came in to rescue us through the prophesying of His word. As Ezekiel prophesied, the bones came together, and the sinews, the flesh, and the skin covered them.
These bones needed a further prophecy so that the breath of life could come into them. When Ezekiel prophesied again, “the breath came into them; and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceedingly great army” (v. 10). The bones first became a body. Then the breath came into the bones, and they lived. When they stood up, they became an exceedingly great army to fight the battle for God. The bones become the army fighting the battle, and eventually, they become the habitation for God’s dwelling to express God. The army is for the dominion to deal with God’s enemy, and the dwelling place is for the expression, the image, of God. Through the breathing of the Spirit, God is expressed, and His enemy is dealt with. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1969, vol. 2, “The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures,” pp. 461-463)
Amen!!! I was also enjoying the same point about breathing, the way we can breath is to say “O Lord! Amen! Hallelujah!
Amen, yes Lord, we breath you right now, make us your fighters
Amen, O Lord Jesus we need You, save us from any grave, You’re the Savior of the dead. Give us life today, blow on us as the wind, fill us as the breath, O Lord cause us to stand on our feet and become Your army. O Lord Jesus we love You, keep us speaking for You, O to go, stand and speak all the words of this life for Your interests on the earth! Praise You Lord!
O Lord! Amen! Hallelujah! This is the way to breathe All Thy fullness in. Our wonderful Lord as the Spirit is the real air to breathe in.
Amen! The Lord comes as the wind, we receive Him as the breath, He gets into us as the Spirit, and the Spirit is life. Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord! O Lord ! Amen ! Hallelujah !Amen
Amén! Oh! Señor Jesús, Señor Jesús! Gloria a ti Señor! Aleluya amén!!!
O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah!
Amen..hallelujah..
Amen. Thank you Lord for your self, this Glorious salvation and for the revelation that we can become dry bones, everything is you Lord, we receive Abba father as the Breathe through Jesus Christ our redeemer into our Spirit, God is expressed, and His enemy dealt with.
Why is dry bones enlivened? To become an exceedingly great army, His overcomers, His cloud of witnesses amen.