Caption transcript for Ezekiel and the MidEast ‘Piece’ Process (2023): “The Valley of Dry Bones” (6/8)

• 00:00 David Hart: Shalom. Hello again. One of the most striking visions
• 00:06 of transformation in the Bible is Ezekiel's dry bones.
• 00:08 Witness the story of rebirth today on "Our Jewish Roots"
• 00:12 with Bible teaching by Dr. Jeffrey Seif.
• 00:15 CC by Aberdeen Captioning 1-800-688-6621 www.abercap.com
• 00:25 narrator: "The Lord said unto Ezekiel,
• 00:28 'Son of Man, can these bones live?
• 00:37 Prophesy upon these bones and say unto them,
• 00:41 "Oh ye, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord."'"
• 00:48 ♪♪♪
• 01:03 ♪♪♪
• 01:13 David: "Ezekiel and the Mid East 'Piece' Process."
• 01:20 David: We're so glad you've joined us today.
• 01:21 David: I am David Hart. Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
• 01:23 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: I am Jeffrey Seif.
• 01:24 David: So we've been preparing for this program
• 01:26 for a while now and there's a song that we can't get
• 01:29 out of our heads, you ready?
• 01:30 Kirsten: Go ahead.
• 01:31 ♪ Them bones, them bones ♪
• 01:32 ♪ Them dry bones ♪
• 01:34 ♪ Now hear the word of the Lord ♪
• 01:36 David: You know it. I bet you do.
• 01:37 Kirsten: It's stuck in our heads.
• 01:39 It's the Valley of the Resurrected Dry Bones
• 01:41 today, right?
• 01:42 David: So much more to the story.
• 01:43 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: It's usually sung and preached in
• 01:45 the church within the context of God resurrecting people's lives
• 01:48 and, while that's true, the first interpretation
• 01:50 of the passage belongs to the original recipients.
• 01:54 He's talking about restoring Hebrew people.
• 01:57 Kirsten: He is, beautifully and wonderfully,
• 02:00 from dry desolate bones to fully skinned lives
• 02:04 that are full of him.
• 02:06 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: This prophet Ezekiel had
• 02:08 a message of destruction.
• 02:09 They were gonna be dried up and left for dead,
• 02:12 and long dried and dead, but God turns it all around.
• 02:15 Kirsten: He said many, many visions Ezekiel has in his book
• 02:18 but this is one of the biggies.
• 02:20 This is one of the most famous ones.
• 02:21 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: It really is one of the better known and
• 02:22 it was the one that I enjoyed teaching but it looks a little
• 02:25 weird when you first look through it.
• 02:26 David: Good word for that, yeah.
• 02:28 Kirsten: Now grab your Bible, open up to Ezekiel chapter 37.
• 02:32 Let's learn about those dry bones.
• 02:40 ♪♪♪
• 02:55 ♪♪♪
• 03:04 narrator: Son of man, can these bones live?
• 03:09 male: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:16 narrator: Prophesy over these bones and say,
• 03:21 "Oh ye, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord."'"
• 03:26 ♪♪♪
• 03:41 ♪♪♪
• 03:41 narrator: You must say to the bones,
• 03:43 I will put sinews and flesh upon you and cover you with skin.
• 03:49 male: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:57 narrator: --the side unto the Spirit, son of man.
• 04:03 ♪♪♪
• 04:16 narrator: I will put my Spirit in you and you will live,
• 04:20 and I will set you in your own land.
• 04:24 Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken
• 04:27 and performed it.
• 04:35 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: He was a member of the Nevi'im,
• 04:37 the prophets, but he was more than just a prophet.
• 04:41 He was a-- a seer, a visionary,
• 04:44 but he was more than just a seer.
• 04:46 Ezekiel was a member of the kohanim,
• 04:49 he was a priest, and for that reason,
• 04:53 he must have been shocked when he was set down in
• 04:57 a place like this and why is that?
• 05:00 Because a priest would never frequent a place like this.
• 05:07 But God brought him here.
• 05:10 And he shocked him in bringing him here in a vision.
• 05:14 But he didn't just bring him here to shock him.
• 05:18 He brought him here to tell the greatest story ever told.
• 05:25 It's a story about Israel coming back to life.
• 05:30 Israel, that for hundreds and thousands of years,
• 05:33 was forced to wander.
• 05:35 Israel, a people.
• 05:38 Israel, a state wiped off the earth,
• 05:42 would come back and enjoy her former state and why is that?
• 05:47 Because God would bring back the dispirited exiles.
• 05:51 Those vanquished from the homeland for centuries would
• 05:55 begin to make their way back.
• 05:58 Oh, I love this story.
• 06:01 Seif is a German name.
• 06:04 My mother was smuggled out of Nazi Germany.
• 06:07 My father who was German Jewish, came over just before the war.
• 06:13 My mother was smuggled out of Nazi Germany and we used
• 06:16 to say we could take Mom out of Germany,
• 06:18 but we couldn't take Germany out of Mom.
• 06:21 She died in a mental hospital some years ago.
• 06:24 Mom had a hope sickness.
• 06:28 And here, Ezekiel has a word to millions
• 06:31 that have a hope sickness.
• 06:35 It's a word of restoration.
• 06:37 We're told in chapter 37, verse 1:
• 06:41 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 06:44 "And the hand of the Lord was upon me, and the Lord carried me
• 06:49 in the Spirit," says our prophet, "and brought me down
• 06:54 to a place like this."
• 06:58 He didn't bring him here to shock him, as I said.
• 07:01 He brought him here to bless him and tell the story of how these
• 07:04 bones would come together, bone upon bone.
• 07:10 And then after the rattling of the bones,
• 07:13 flesh would come upon, and with the flesh, skin.
• 07:17 And with the skin, breath.
• 07:19 And with the breath, life.
• 07:23 And we're told here that "these bones," in verse 11,
• 07:28 "are the whole house of Israel.
• 07:32 Behold they say," according to the text,
• 07:35 "'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost.'"
• 07:43 Interestingly, the national anthem for the modern nation
• 07:49 state of Israel is a song called "Hatikvah,"
• 07:54 which means "The Hope."
• 07:57 What a beautiful song.
• 07:59 It's a song that evolves out of this story and it shows some
• 08:04 connectedness as decades ago the Lord started bringing Jewish
• 08:09 people back to the ancestral homeland and,
• 08:12 with the revival of life in Israel,
• 08:15 is the revival of hope.
• 08:18 Friends, it's a modern story but it's not just a modern story.
• 08:23 It's a story that was presaged in the ancient Word.
• 08:29 And this gets us to the story for today.
• 08:33 Ezekiel envisions in no uncertain terms at day's end
• 08:38 that Israel is reconstituted as a nation state,
• 08:43 brought to life, and oh, what a life it is and oh,
• 08:47 how alive it is.
• 08:50 As it seems the Lord has brought back the staring person and he's
• 08:55 brought people back to Israel, the land of Israel,
• 08:59 the land of hope, the land of promise.
• 09:02 And in so doing, he fulfilled the promise that was told many
• 09:06 years ago when Ezekiel was predicting what God would do
• 09:11 to and through the Jew.
• 09:15 ♪♪♪
• 09:27 [gavel slamming]
• 09:31 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: With this very gavel,
• 09:33 in this very place, on May 14, 1948,
• 09:40 a meeting was called to order and from this podium,
• 09:46 David Ben-Gurion expressed what is Israel's Declaration
• 09:53 of Independence.
• 09:56 From this Word, this very Word, thousands of years ago,
• 10:02 a man was called forth from a place called Tel Aviv,
• 10:07 much as here we are in modern Israel right now in Tel Aviv.
• 10:11 This prophet was called forth and he declared from his vantage
• 10:16 point that at some point in time out in the distant future Israel
• 10:21 would be reconstituted as a nation state.
• 10:24 In chapter 37, verse 12, our prophet Ezekiel says:
• 10:31 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 10:34 Therefore prophesy [speaking in Hebrew]
• 10:38 and say to them, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 10:42 'Thus saith the Lord [speaking in Hebrew]
• 10:49 I will open your graves [speaking in Hebrew]
• 10:54 and cause you to come out of your graves--
• 10:58 my people [speaking in Hebrew]
• 11:05 and I will bring you into the land of Israel.'"
• 11:10 And, as I stand in this sacred place, Israel,
• 11:14 and as I speak to you from this special place here in Tel Aviv
• 11:20 where independence was announced in 1948,
• 11:26 I can't help but believe that I'm living in a world
• 11:30 of prophecy fulfilled.
• 11:33 For, after many, many, many centuries of exile,
• 11:38 dispersed amongst the people of the world,
• 11:41 hounded and harangued in most of the places where we were
• 11:45 dispersed, culminating finally and fully in the atrocities of
• 11:51 the Holocaust, who would ever think that after receiving such
• 11:56 a bludgeoning so long, culminating in untold miseries
• 12:03 for millions, we know the story generally of how one out of
• 12:08 every three Jews from the face of the earth were slaughtered,
• 12:12 and there's ample pictures and public record of when the allied
• 12:16 forces came to redeem those that were held in
• 12:22 these concentration camps.
• 12:24 We saw these human skeletons, these emaciated forms,
• 12:29 with but a little spark of life in them,
• 12:32 barely holding to life and having long since given up
• 12:37 holding on to hope but, fortuitously,
• 12:40 providentially, there was a redemption and the redemption
• 12:43 there, it seems to me, reaches its fruition in the redemption
• 12:48 here when finally and fully after waves of immigration
• 12:54 beginning actually before the Holocaust itself.
• 12:59 In the 1880s you have waves of immigrants coming over here to
• 13:03 the new world, establishing a toehold and a foothold here in
• 13:07 the ancestral homeland.
• 13:09 Ezekiel saw it and they lived it.
• 13:13 And you and I are witnesses to it.
• 13:15 It's a great story, wonderful story,
• 13:18 a story that should be heralded from pulpit to pulpit across
• 13:22 the land and around the world.
• 13:24 For every Bible believing person surely must needs read the story
• 13:28 and say, "My God, you're working wonders in the earth."
• 13:32 But that's not the story.
• 13:35 Inasmuch as God has raised up Israel,
• 13:38 the story of Israel's emergence did not go unopposed back then,
• 13:43 much as its continued existence doesn't go unopposed today.
• 13:48 Difficulties notwithstanding, however,
• 13:50 God is watching over his Word to perform it and this is one of
• 13:54 the messages that we see when we read the prophet Ezekiel.
• 13:59 ♪♪♪
• 14:07 David: Our resources this week: "Glory: The Future
• 14:10 of the Believers."
• 14:11 In this booklet, Zola Levitt explains The Coming Rapture,
• 14:14 Our Time In Heaven, The Kingdom On Earth, and Eternity.
• 14:19 Call 1-800-WONDERS or visit us at LEVITT.COM.
• 14:23 Remember to connect with us on social media for so much
• 14:27 extra content.
• 14:29 Find us at Our Jewish Roots.
• 14:35 Kirsten: For many, a trip to the Holy Land is the dream
• 14:38 of a lifetime.
• 14:39 Where else can you go see the Scriptures come alive as you
• 14:43 visit the sites where so many biblical events happened?
• 14:47 We invite you to come on a Zola Tour in the spring or the fall
• 14:52 as we explore Israel and Petra.
• 14:55 Reserve your dream of a lifetime.
• 14:58 Contact us for more information.
• 15:05 David: On our last trip to Israel,
• 15:07 we were in Tiberius which is one of our favorite places that we
• 15:09 go on our tour, and we were standing,
• 15:12 literally, in mustard plants.
• 15:15 It's all over, blooming.
• 15:18 It's beautiful.
• 15:20 And we were standing in it just like Jesus did when he taught
• 15:23 about the mustard seed.
• 15:25 We would love for you to join us and maybe stand in
• 15:27 that same place.
• 15:28 We go both in the fall and the spring.
• 15:30 Join us on a tour to Israel.
• 15:32 Kirsten: It's so incredible, you talk about standing in this
• 15:34 field of the mustard plants, not like ketchup and mustard,
• 15:38 but these mustard plants.
• 15:40 And what is so incredible about the land of Israel,
• 15:43 I mean, there are so many things.
• 15:45 How it relates to our program today is Dr. Seif is talking
• 15:48 about fulfilled prophecy, that the land will come alive again,
• 15:53 and that's so evident as we walk,
• 15:56 even in the field of mustard plants.
• 15:59 It's not desolate anymore.
• 16:01 This land is blooming and thriving.
• 16:04 And this program thrives because you see the value in what
• 16:13 we bring to you.
• 16:15 And we're so, so appreciative of all our viewers,
• 16:17 of those who contact us on social media.
• 16:20 You make this program possible by giving.
• 16:25 So thank you, thank you so much.
• 16:27 We are thankful for all of you.
• 16:29 David: Right now, we take you to Tel Aviv where Dr. Seif is
• 16:32 at the Independence Hall.
• 16:35 It's amazing. We go there, right now.
• 16:39 David Ben-Gurion: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 16:50 [applauding]
• 16:56 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Theodor Herzl was a newspaper reporter
• 17:00 in a bygone era.
• 17:02 An Austrian reporter particularly,
• 17:06 he was covering the Dreyfus Affair,
• 17:08 a story how a Jewish military officer was getting railroaded
• 17:11 by the French.
• 17:13 He became convinced in the process of that,
• 17:16 that for all the Jews suffer, what Jews need is to return to
• 17:21 the ancestral homeland.
• 17:23 He became God's instrument to help facilitate the miracle
• 17:28 that's commemorated in this place where it was
• 17:32 celebrated and first announced to the world through this
• 17:36 microphone, in fact.
• 17:37 Ben-Gurion spoken into it and said,
• 17:40 "Now is the time."
• 17:42 Well, what Ben-Gurion spoke years ago to the revered
• 17:49 delegates in this room, to the council members,
• 17:52 to Israel through national radio,
• 17:54 and to the world at large, what he spoke then through here
• 17:58 was actually presaged by the prophet here.
• 18:01 Why do I say that?
• 18:03 In Ezekiel chapter 37:25, the prophet says:
• 18:07 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 18:13 "And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto
• 18:16 Jacob, my servant, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 18:21 wherein your fathers dwelt."
• 18:23 He says, "I'm gonna give you the land back."
• 18:26 In verse 24, he is insightful as well.
• 18:30 [speaking in Hebrew]
• 18:31 And my servant David shall be king over them."
• 18:36 Isn't it striking, by the way, that the modern nation state
• 18:40 of Israel flies under the banner of the Magen David,
• 18:45 the Shield of David, the Star of David,
• 18:48 and carries with it the memory of David.
• 18:50 There's a song, "Am Yisrael Chai,"
• 18:54 "The People of Israel Live."
• 18:56 And I grew up singing a song, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 19:01 "David, the king of Israel, lives on."
• 19:03 Israel doesn't just live on in memory for individuals that
• 19:08 walk through the pages of the Bible in their daily devotions.
• 19:11 Israel lives on in history.
• 19:13 Why?
• 19:15 Because of a modern miracle, a miracle that attests
• 19:19 to modern, that the God in the ancient Word is also
• 19:22 the God in the modern world.
• 19:25 For the Scripture says in Ezekiel and elsewhere,
• 19:28 but particularly in Ezekiel, over and again,
• 19:30 God says, "I'm gonna bring about this miracle in order that
• 19:34 the world might know me in no uncertain terms."
• 19:37 And I'd like to call upon women and men of good faith and virtue
• 19:40 to get behind the struggle here in modern Israel.
• 19:46 For I believe that getting behind the Jewish people
• 19:50 with prayers, cares, donation, every which way,
• 19:52 I think getting behind that is really getting behind God.
• 19:56 And in much the same way, I believe that resisting
• 20:00 that is resisting God.
• 20:02 I believe that trying to get in the way of that is trying to put
• 20:06 a stumbling block in the way of God.
• 20:08 I look at the contest being played out here in Israel as
• 20:11 something that's spiritual, not just material.
• 20:15 I believe that any Bible teacher that claims to be a lover
• 20:19 of the Word of God that does not support Israel,
• 20:21 any minister with that position, ought to be sued
• 20:24 for malpractice.
• 20:26 This person is not in touch with the rhythms of the text.
• 20:29 This person is not in touch with the hopes and the aspirations of
• 20:32 the literature.
• 20:34 And if you're involved in a church like that,
• 20:35 I would say, "Flee, and make your way to a Bible church."
• 20:39 Because when you have a Bible church that teaches what's
• 20:42 happening in the Word and look at's what happening
• 20:44 in the world, faith is strengthened.
• 20:46 And we need to be in a world where faith is strengthened.
• 20:50 This series, of course, looks at the various pieces
• 20:52 in Ezekiel's puzzle.
• 20:54 And here, in this program, we consider it a very,
• 20:57 very important piece, one that is so,
• 21:02 so significant, and that is that God says to his people of
• 21:05 Israel, "You've been scattered, you've been maligned,
• 21:09 you've been hurt, and your hope is waning,
• 21:13 but know this.
• 21:15 That I am for you, that I will regather you,
• 21:18 and I will bring you back into your land.
• 21:21 It doesn't get any clearer than this.
• 21:23 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
• 21:25 we're living in the moment of the fulfillment
• 21:27 of Ezekiel's promise.
• 21:30 ♪♪♪
• 21:40 ♪♪♪
• 21:50 ♪♪♪
• 22:00 ♪♪♪
• 22:10 ♪♪♪
• 22:20 ♪♪♪
• 22:28 David Hart: Pretty amazing, Dr. Seif,
• 22:30 that you were able to get into Independence Hall and
• 22:33 have some time there to teach.
• 22:35 What a place to be.
• 22:36 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: I don't take lightly the fact
• 22:37 that I'm able to do it.
• 22:39 'Course, I'm able to do it 'cause our friends send me
• 22:41 to Israel, us to Israel, television crews to Israel.
• 22:43 But that Israel opened up the door to help us tell the story
• 22:49 and that people open up their hearts to hear it,
• 22:53 it really is an honor.
• 22:55 Kirsten: Well, I'm just like, "It's the miracle of miracles."
• 22:56 We've got a miracle in the house.
• 22:57 We've got a state back.
• 22:59 The people are back, they're back in their land.
• 23:04 I mean, it--no other country, am I correct,
• 23:08 no other country after 2000 years,
• 23:10 has come back.
• 23:11 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: It's never happened and when I think
• 23:13 of what we came back from.
• 23:17 I'm of German Jewish extract myself,
• 23:19 and my degree at Cambridge University had a strong dose
• 23:24 of Holocaust-related studies.
• 23:27 And when I think of the dire circumstances,
• 23:29 and to see what God did to turn it around,
• 23:33 it's just--it's just so exciting and I just know the hearts of
• 23:40 Hebrew people that came to the ancestral land and feared and
• 23:46 fought and struggled and pressed on and to see the miracle
• 23:52 that is Israel today as a result of all that,
• 23:55 it's just--I mean, I'm reasonably good with words
• 23:59 but it's hard to find 'em now.
• 24:00 David: I can sense that right now.
• 24:02 Kirsten: Yeah.
• 24:03 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: Struggling to find a way.
• 24:04 It's hard to find words to describe how profound it is,
• 24:07 but it's worth noting that Ezekiel had the words in his
• 24:10 day, many years, thousands of years beforehand,
• 24:12 he saw restoration.
• 24:14 Isn't that something?
• 24:15 Kirsten: Here's a question for you,
• 24:17 and I knew you grew up in a Jewish home.
• 24:19 Your parents had the opportunity to go to the Holy Land, yes?
• 24:22 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: No, no, no, no.
• 24:24 That my family were refugees that came to America.
• 24:29 They didn't go to Israel.
• 24:31 Now, my father died.
• 24:32 I was 16 years old when Dad died,
• 24:34 and in my young 20s when my mother died.
• 24:37 But they were American Jews.
• 24:39 They didn't go to Israel.
• 24:40 Kirsten: I wish they had had that opportunity to touch their
• 24:42 feet in that land.
• 24:43 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: We all gave to it.
• 24:45 You know, I remember growing up that people would come knocking
• 24:47 on doors for various Jewish causes and our family sent our
• 24:50 money there, even though they didn't send themselves there.
• 24:54 I'm sure they would have, had they lived longer,
• 24:56 but unfortunately--well, my mother died in
• 24:57 a mental hospital.
• 24:59 You know, she was so traumatized by Hitler's Germany.
• 25:02 They got her out of Germany but she never got that out
• 25:03 of her system.
• 25:05 Kirsten: And sorry, as church people,
• 25:08 should I say, we didn't have the opportunities to grow up in
• 25:11 a Jewish home, and what we feel for that land,
• 25:15 but I can't even imagine those first immigrants coming out
• 25:19 of World War II, such a few amount of people.
• 25:23 There weren't that many that survived.
• 25:25 But that first time coming to a place where they--oh,
• 25:28 I have goosebumps, where they finally belonged and the fact
• 25:31 that Ezekiel, in his lifetime, saw that that would happen
• 25:37 is just incredible.
• 25:38 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: You know, the story began in 1882,
• 25:40 not 1948, actually, with immigrants coming back.
• 25:42 And this was--there were a lot of evangelical believers that
• 25:47 were looking at Bible prophecy and seeing it.
• 25:50 And it was happening.
• 25:52 There were various waves of immigration to Israel,
• 25:56 principally because of anti-Semitism in Europe.
• 25:59 People were fleeing to get out of trouble.
• 26:01 And so the story is lesser known.
• 26:05 It didn't just happen in 1948.
• 26:07 Something did happen, of course, the War of Independence,
• 26:10 but there were many Jews there before the war.
• 26:12 And many have come since.
• 26:14 But it's a story of a people's struggle who were displaced to
• 26:18 find their place in the world.
• 26:20 Kirsten: And weren't the recipients of all
• 26:22 that--recipients of struggle, but we reaped the reward of what
• 26:28 they walked through and we're eternally grateful for those.
• 26:33 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: I think the principal reward is just
• 26:36 to see that God can watch over his Word and perform it,
• 26:38 difficulties aside.
• 26:40 It's a great story.
• 26:41 Kirsten: And that's why it's important to study prophecy.
• 26:43 Dr. Jeffrey Seif: I think it is too.
• 26:45 Glad to study it with you.
• 26:46 Let's study it again, but we'll do it next week,
• 26:48 how about that?
• 26:49 As you go now, Shaalu shalom Yerushalayim.
• 26:51 David: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 26:55 ♪♪♪
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• 28:04 ♪♪♪