Chapter 10

Big Carl continued. “And then suspending the physical laws at work in the world, suspending His own laws, superseding the laws that He Himself created, the very laws that He established, God carried Ezekiel out in the spirit. Carried him. Out in the Spirit. We want to experience that! The move of God! Yes! The move of God. Move us God!

"Well, God moved Ezekiel alright. There are certain experiences you have that it could only be God who moved you. You know I’m right. I said, you know I'm right! If God established a law only God can break it. I don’t know who that’s for right there but God is willing to even suspend the natural laws, the usual course of events, the way it is supposed to be, to get you where you need to be. Where He wants you to be. And God will go above and beyond what anyone is expecting, what all of human history has known and experienced, God will counteract what He’s done before and what is the norm. I could stop and preach right there, couldn't I, Brother Thomas? Ohhh, move us, God. “

Blaine could tell when his father was really “feeling it.” He started saying words slowly, drawn out for effect. In the confines of his car, what had seemed so electrifying and holy when he was a child, sounded jaded and plastic. Blaine thought, "When did I become this person? When did I decide these things and this kind of life weren't for me?"

Blaine had no answer to his own question. He turned is attention back to Big Carl's preaching.“The Holy Ghost will show you things. I’m telling you, the Holy Ghost will show you things. It may not be what you want to see, or what you are expecting to see. You know I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, most of the time it is not what you’re expecting. Most of the time your human brain cannot even imagine what God wants to show you. God is so big and so high and so limitless. 

Mark and John knew this. They both had experiences that showed them that the Spirit transcends the laws of physics. God is not limited. There is nothing that can keep him from teaching you what He wants you to know. If you are in the wrong place, God will move you. If you need something different, God will move you. If you need revival, God wants to move you to a place of revival. But watch this—sometimes there is work to be done when you get there. Ezekiel was transported by the Spirit of God to another place and when he got there, all he saw was bones. Sometimes in our lives a mighty move of God gets us to a whole new place, and we look around and, lo and behold, it is not what we were expecting! We were expecting the miracles to continue, expecting that if God took us there then everything would be alright and we look around and it just looks—impossible,. Looks like it’s too late, too far gone, beyond anyone’s ability to fix it.

"Even though you are full of the Spirit sometimes you are taken by the Spirit of God to places that are dead. If Ezekiel had been some of us, he would have looked around and said, 'Uh uh, God did not bring me here. God does not take people to graveyards. No sir, I was mistaken. God did not do this.' I am telling you and I know from experience that God will take you to places that are dead, dead, dead.

"Verse 2 says about those bones, 'there were very many and they were very dry.'

"Very dry means they had been there a long time. Very dry meant that a lot of time had passed. They were a long time dead. No hint of life left. No shreds of tissue, no hint of blood, no DNA. Ezekiel heard nothing but deafening silence. All alone in a valley of bones. No clue why, no idea what God was up to. Have you been there? I have.

"Verse three. 'And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.'

"Ezekiel did not shrug his shoulders and answer “I don’t know,” He did not answer with sarcasm. His was a bold statement of faith. 'You know, Lord.' It takes faith to acknowledge that there are things that only God knows. The human brain wants to figure everything out, understand the 'why' of everything. Atheists can’t figure God out so they deny He exists. Even people who know God intimately can waste time trying to figure everything out before they will let go and trust Him. There has to be a maturity of spirit that enables you to square your shoulders and boldly answer a seemingly impossible question with, 'God, You know!'

"Moving on to verse four: 'Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.'

"What? HUH? Miracle number one—bones are going to hear. Ponder that for a moment. God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy—to speak—to bones. Long dead, dry, bones. God told Ezekiel to tell them to hear. Tell them. To hear. They were bones! There were no ears! No inner ears! No ear canal, no tympanic membranes, no cochlea, no cilia, no nerves, no brain to process the sound waves that would be generated by his words of prophecy. No outer ears. No flesh, no cartilage, no skin. If there had at least been outer ears, it would have strengthened his faith to believe that these bones could hear. It would have at least looked possible, even symbolic, that his words were falling in the general vicinity of something that looked like it could hear. But no, there was no visible sign that what God was telling him to do could possibly happen. And there certainly were no inner ears, nothing even unseen to facilitate the miracle, nothing working behind the scenes. Are you listening? This was not going to be a progressive miracle, one phase following another. The Word from the Lord didn't say after the miracle, after I create ears, the bones would hear. They would hear even before there were ears! I don’t know if you are getting this or not.

"Not only were there no ears, remember there were no brains to process the sounds. Again, no human intellect involved to figure out what God was saying. Ezekiel believed God knew what he was doing He was God, after all so he could prophesy that kind of faith to even long dead, defeated losers. This was a dead, defeated army. Dead, defeated losers. skeletons of soldiers. God doesn't need anything at all from us to do everything He wants to do. Shoo! That's good preaching right there!

"Verse five: 'Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.'

"The first promise was breath. There were all kinds of promises God was going to make to those bones, but the first promise was the most preposterous promise. How many of you know that God knows the end from the beginning? And He can tell us beforehand how it’s going to end up. I’m talking to somebody today. Somebody here, God promised you something. It might have been while you were reading the Word and a promise just jumped right out at you. It might have been in the midnight hour when you didn't know where your help was going to come from and deep down in your heart, the still small voice of God whispered, ‘It’s going to be alright.’ Yeah, somebody in here knows what it’s like to hear from God when you really need to hear from God. Somebody say, 'Hallelujah.' Oh, my. Thank you Lord."

There was a silent pause. Blaine could see Big Carl in his mind’s eye. See him wiping sweat with a crisp, white handkerchief. He’d wipe it slow and deliberate, across his forehead and down his jaw line. Pressing down hard. There was a place in just about every sermon that he would start this. It was part of the whole package that was Big Carl’s preaching. There were gestures and actions that had meaning and were intended to have an impact on the regulars. Whether he was doing it intentionally or not, when Big Carl wiped his face like that, it signaled that the serious phase of the sermon had just engaged. He was through with introductions and object lessons and anecdotes. That brow mop was a signal – the preliminaries were over. He was pausing, slowing things down, holding himself back, because it was about to shift into high gear. This was always the most electrifying moment of young Blaine’s week. Big Carl was feeling the Holy Ghost. His face and voice and posture changed.