In the current election cycle, we are hearing about a “culture of life”. This is the new catch phrase that serves the old “pro-life” or “anti-abortion” crowd. I say yes to to this new life culture, but I find the phrase sounds funny to me. After all, we as a country have lived with legalized murder for 35 years now. Over 50,000,000 Americans have been killed since the Supreme Court passed down their ruling in Roe v. Wade, and abortion is now a seemingly logical and responsible choice for those who find themselves in an unwanted pregnancy. So it sounds funny when I hear political candidates speaking about a “culture of life”. Maybe not funny, but definitely foreign.
Recently I have been reading Ezekiel 37 and the vision of the dry bones. (It is actually quite disturbing when you visualize it.) The prophet is led by the Lord into a valley full of very dry bones. The Lord asks the prophet a simple question, “Can these bones live?” The prophet does not respond with a faith-filled “yes”, but rather he replies by saying, “You alone know.”
In America today, we face a valley of death, and it is more than just the abortion issue. It is an absence of life in so many key areas of our culture. Our personal freedoms have purchased the right for us to indulge in whatever pleases self, and even “Joe 6-pack” can tell you that we have developed some unhealthy taste in life.
So what is our response as we hear the Spirit say “Can these bones live?” As sure as I could say, “You alone know”, I know that God is looking for those who are willing to say “Yes. These bones will live.” God is calling His people to return to Him. There is a heavenly whistle in the wind, and as our spiritual ears catch the sound of His call, we must run to Him. We must run and we must call others to come as well.
We must stand in the midst of a culture of death and call to the four winds for the life and breathe of God to come. We must not be distracted by the shaking and by the rattling of the bones being violently put back together. We must not be content to see the body receive sinews, flesh and skin. we must stand and prophesy until the life of God comes and an army arises.
One more thing, at the end of the dry bones encounter, God talks about how he “opens the graves” that the people would know He was God. I just have to say that there is no culture of life, where there is no hope for resurrection. We need to stop honoring death and press into resurrection life in our culture.
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