I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 37-38.

Ezekiel describes his vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.  In my opinion, we should pay a lot of attention to this passage.  There are two closely related messages here.  No matter how dead and dysfunctional a group or organization may seem, if and when God chooses to bring them back to life they will become an army to serve His purposes.  Further, when God calls you to speak His word to a group or organization trust that it will be effective, even if no one seems to be paying attention.  Actually that lesson goes beyond that: when God calls you to a mission, that mission will accomplish God’s purpose, even if it seems a failure.  Do that to which God has called you, no matter how pointless it may seem. 

I go back and forth between thinking that Ezekiel’s message to God represents a specific future event (future to Ezekiel, but not necessarily to us) and that it is a figurative prophecy.  If it represents a specific event, the lands mentioned (Magog, Meschech, and Tubal) would today be parts of Turkey, Georgia (the nation, not the U.S. state), and southern Russia.  The current leader of Turkey has shown that he has the ambition to be able to do what is described here and has said things which suggest he even has the ambition to launch the invasion described.  The passage even contains a suggestion that the ruler who launches the invasion believes that he is called by God to do so.  The current ruler of Turkey would make such a claim if he launched an attack.  Such an alliance would be diplomatically opposed by Sheba, Dedan, and Tarshish.    Sheba and Dedan were located on the Arabian peninsula and the countries located there today would be among those whose aid Turkey would seek should it choose to attack Israel.  Many of those countries, especially Saudi Arabia, would currently question the wisdom of attacking Israel and oppose doing so.  In any case, such an attack will result in utter defeat for the attackers so as to bring glory to God’s name.  Their destruction will come about as the attacking allies turn on each other.