What if the most provocative, mysterious miracle
in the Bible didn't happen in a cathedral or
even in a synagogue, but in a burial gone wrong,
tossed in haste? forgotten by men but remembered
by God. In this week's episode, we crack open
a strange little story in 2 Kings 13, one where
a dead man touches the bones of a long -gone
prophet and rises. No altar call, no music swell,
no faith, just contact with what used to carry
the Spirit. He didn't ask, didn't believe, didn't
even know it was happening. The Spirit moved
anyway. And maybe that's the point. Maybe this
story was whispered into Scripture for all the
folks who've run out of prayers. For the ones
buried under the weight of too much life, too
much failure, too much silence. For the ones
who wonder if God still works miracles when the
prophets are long gone and the temple's been
looted. This miracle is not the headline. It's
barely even a footnote. Sometimes the most important
truths are the ones hidden in the margins. Because
if God can bring life through dry bones, if the
Spirit can resurrect what's already buried, maybe
grace doesn't need your consent. Maybe it just
needs to crack in a tube. Hey, I'm Pastor Jim.
This is the Seminary Seminary, and where even
the forgotten stories still preach, and the spirit
ain't done yet. So, pull up a chair, friend,
and let's see what rises. I'll see you on the
other side. Okay, well, let me get started here.
I wanted to open up the discussion. discussion
tonight with this um well i wonder if you ever
wonder like the way i wonder because sometimes
i don't know if you ever like read your bible
and you think you read like oh the red sea story
or the burning bush story or david and goliath
and sometimes like contextualizing those events
in our lives are difficult because It's hard
for me sometimes to imagine because I've never
seen God do things like that in the world. Don't
get me wrong, I've witnessed miracles and I've
seen the Spirit move, but I'm talking about like
the burning bush moment, right? The pillar of
cloud and the fire to lead the people kind of
moment. And I think that there are a lot of people
that struggle with that, sometimes to the point
that they rationalize these stories away to be...
Oh, I don't know, maybe even part myth. If nothing
else, people will think, what do those old miracles
have to do with me? God doesn't work that way
in the world anymore. And if that's you, then
this word is for you. Because God isn't finished
even when we think that it's over. And the story
we're going to talk about tonight is a guy. who
didn't pray, didn't plan, didn't even speak,
and still got raised from the dead. Grace caught
him mid -fall. It's a story for anyone who feels
buried by life, haunted by time, or maybe too
late to be called alive again. And more than
anything, it's a story about God's power still
moving even when all we see are dry bones. Now,
I'll also wager that... At the end of this discussion,
most of you will probably go, man, that guy really
knows his Bible. And I'll be like, thanks, I
don't. So let me ask you something honest tonight.
Where have you been seeing just dry bones? Where
before you saw God alive and moving? Your marriage,
your prayer life? The dream you used to carry
about your personal ministry or your music or
your calling or the church or America. Some of
us remember what it felt like one time to be
full of fire, full of trust, full of God. But
lately, when we look out over that place, we
just see dust. Maybe we think we're being realistic.
Maybe we're calling it maturity now, but the
truth is we've stopped believing God still moves
in that place. Tonight, we're going to go to
a graveyard in 2 Kings, and in that graveyard,
God refuses to play dead. Okay, so you guys have
to stick with the history lesson before we get
to the other part, because it's important to
understand what's happening when this is happening.
By the time we get to 2 Kings chapter 13, Israel
is gasping for air. The kingdom has split. There
are the northern tribes have turned their backs
on God, trusting in politics and idols and compromise.
Jerash is on the throne. He's not a godly king.
He's not a good king, just a placeholder. and
a long line of disappointing king after disappointing
king after disappointing king. And Elisha, the
prophet who once carried Elijah's mantle, who
once stood in the power against kings and armies,
is now on his deathbed. And when he finally dies,
it feels like somehow it's the end of the line.
The last prophet of fire was gone. The silence
is deafening. And it won't be broken for a long
time. In fact, it will be roughly 40 years before
another prophet rises up and speaks again. And
that prophet will be Amos, and his words won't
be words of comfort. They'll be confrontation.
He'll preach judgment against the northern kingdom.
The one that wants... leaned into Elisha's prayers.
So in this gap between Elisha and Amos, this
miracle in the graveyard is God's defiant whisper.
Even now, I'm still here. Don't bury your hope
with the prophet. So he said, he said something
about the Bible. Let's get into it. Here's the
story. Second Kings chapter 13. 20 and 21, two
verses tonight for our Bible study, and that
is more than enough. So, the prophet Elijah.
Elijah died and was buried. Now, Moabite raiders
used to enter the country every spring. Once,
while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly
they saw a band of raiders, so they threw the
man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body
touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life
and stood to his feet. Whoa. Let's not get caught
up in the emotion of it yet. That's for a second.
For the contemporary reader of this passage.
For the person who would have unrolled the first
scrolls and read this, if they could, whether
they were hearing it still in exile in Babylon,
or maybe they were rereading it in a makeshift
synagogue centuries later, this moment would
have rung in the ears of these hearers like a
thunderclap. The story itself takes place in
the past, like I was just mentioning. We're in
that same boat that they are. This story happens
during the era of kings and prophets when God's
power often showed up in unmistakable ways, but
the earliest readers would have been living in
a very different time. Long after the monarchy
had crumbled, the temple had been destroyed,
and prophetic voices have now grown silent. They
did not read this like a newsflash. They read
it like a memory. And yet, even though it was
history, it confronted their present with a single
haunting question. Could God still move now,
even here? There's only one other comparable
event. Same kind of thing in the whole of Hebrew
Scripture, the Old Testament. And it happens
when a dead boy is raised through Elijah's intercession.
In 1 Kings 17, right, we read about him laying
on a boy and bringing him back to life. But our
story about Elisha and this man, this isn't like
Elijah. This isn't a prophet. Praying, laying
on hands, pleading with God. This is a body thrown.
This is unintentional resurrection. It's bizarre,
jarring, and according to Old Testament scripture,
utterly unique. It tells the people, these readers,
They no more have a temple. They no more have
prophets. No more king worth mentioning. God
is not confined to what you've lost. And here's
what that would have meant to the earliest readers,
the folks who picked up the scroll. Maybe, maybe
still in Babylon, back in Jerusalem perhaps,
with half -built city walls and shattered confidence.
And these weren't theologians. They were refugees
or returnees trying to remember how to worship.
When they looked up from this story, they didn't
see thrones or altars or armies. They saw ruins.
And they weren't reading the morning paper again.
They were reading what they understood to be
sacred history. This story, Elisha, took place...
generations before the earliest readers. In fact,
when that time, when it still felt like God moved,
now they're living in the aftermath, after the
fall, after the exile, after our temple has been
leveled to the ground, and into that silence,
they read this old story of a man being raised
by the bones of a prophet. To them, it would
have sounded like thunder rolling out of their
memory. Because God wasn't just reminding them
of what used to happen. He was reminding them
that he still could and he still would. That
even buried faith can breathe again. This wasn't
nostalgia. This was permission to hope again.
This was divine disruption to shake up their
assumptions, to stir their imaginations, and
reopen their hearts for the actual possibility
that God might show up and work in their lives,
even now. They saw neighbors who spoke foreign
tongues. They saw dust in the air and doubt in
their bones. And this story dared them. And friends,
it dares us. To believe that even when the temple
is gone, even when the land is occupied, even
when the kings have failed and the prophets are
silent, even then, the God of Israel is not done
yet. It dares us to believe that even bones can
preach, even ruins can rattle back to life. This
is not your average graveyard service. No eulogy,
no casseroles, just panic and prophecy. These
folks trying to bury a man with raiders on their
heels. So they just toss him into the nearest
tomb, which happens to be Elisha's. And the second
that that dead body touches the old prophet's
bones, resurrection. No altar call, no choir.
Just the holy leftovers of a faithful life lighting
the spark of God's power again. This miracle
isn't just about the one man. In fact, it's not
about the man at all. It's a signal flare in
the middle of a very spiritually dark time. Let's
make some other biblical connections, though,
for fun. Let's go to Ezekiel 37. That might be
where you might have thought I was going in the
beginning, but I know you already know that story.
God brings Ezekiel to a valley full of bones.
Ezekiel 3, sorry, Ezekiel 37 and 3. Son of man,
can these bones live? Ezekiel replies, sovereign
Lord, you alone know. Then God tells him to speak.
Ezekiel 37 and 5, this is what the sovereign
Lord says to these bones, I will make breath
enter you and you will come to life. That vision
came during Israel's exile, another era in their
existence where everything had seemed lost. And
still God says, speak to the bones, prophesy
to the graveyard. In both Ezekiel and Elisha's
day, God's people needed to be reminded, I still
breathe where you see nothing but dust. And let's
talk about Jesus and the four -day dead. In John
11, Jesus delays after hearing Lazarus is sick.
He waits on purpose. By the time he arrives,
Lazarus has been dead four days. John 11, 21,
Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died. 11 and 25, Jesus
said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
Here's something important to know about Jewish
tradition. It's common belief in the first century
that a person's soul lingered near the body for
three days. But on the fourth day, the soul departed
for good. So when Jesus shows up after four days,
it's not just a physical resurrection. It's a
challenge to despair itself. It says, even when
you have believed it's beyond hope, I will still
speak life. And that, friends, brings us right
back to Elisha's tomb, to the bones that shouldn't
breathe but do. So, why does God raise an unnamed
man in a panicked burial in 2 Kings? Why not
wait for something big, something cleaner, something
more liturgically appropriate? Because this moment
wasn't about neat theology or spiritual fireworks.
It wasn't even about the guy. It was about a
nation that had stopped expecting God to show
up and actually work in their lives. It was about
a people who had left hope sour into cynicism.
It was about priests going through the motions,
kings propping up politics instead of altars,
and prophets dying off one by one while the people
forgot what it felt like to be shaken by the
Spirit. And right in the middle of all of that
death and despair, God acts without permission,
without planning, and like I mentioned earlier,
without precedent. God took the bones of a buried
prophet and made them preach one more sermon,
not with words, but with life. It's as if the
miracle itself shouts, even when you've given
up, I have it. Even when you buried your faith
next to your disappointment, I'm still breathing.
And even if all you see are bones, I still see
a body ready to rise. So let me step in a little
closer here, friends. Because this isn't just
a Bible study. It's a mirror. Where's your graveyard?
Where is the part of your life that used to hum
with God's presence, but now it echoes with silence?
Maybe it's your belief that prayer changes things.
Maybe it's your conviction that's now shaken
that God actually still heals. Isn't your calling
the one you whispered about in your 20s but buried
in your 40s? Where have you traded faith for
familiarity, spirit for safety? expectancy for
exhaustion. Some of us have been dragging around
spiritual corpses, marriages we won't bury but
won't bless, ministries we resent but won't release,
grief we won't allow ourselves to grieve because
we're afraid of what might wake up if we name
it. Here's the wild grace of the whole story.
You don't have to resurrect yourself. You might
just have to fall right into the presence of
God's former faithfulness, right into the bones
of someone who carried God before you, right
into legacy, memory, promise, power that's been
resting beneath your surface of your life this
whole entire time. And when you fall in faith,
even accidentally, something might just stand
up that you thought was dead. And don't miss
the deeper truth here, friends. God did not raise
this man because of his faith. He raised him
because of Elisha's faithfulness. And that means
you might rise. Not because you got it all right,
but because someone before you did, because your
grandma prayed, because your pastor stayed, because
the Holy Spirit doesn't need your perfect belief.
It just needs a body to breathe into. So let
me ask you, and this time, think. Answer with
your whole heart. Where have you just been seeing
dry bones? Where you used to see God alive and
moving? Because wherever that is, friends, that's
your tomb. And tonight, that's where the Spirit
wants to breathe. Where have you just been seeing
dry bones where you used to see God alive and
moving? Maybe tonight, when you look again at
that place, you won't just see the bones. You'll
see a God who still breathes. Amen? Amen. Thanks,
guys. Grace doesn't always wait on your altar
call. Sometimes grace just stumbles into the
grave you gave up on and whispers resurrection
into the bones you've already buried. That man
we find tonight in 2 Kings never spoke. He didn't
breathe. He didn't believe. He just fell dead
into the place where God's promise had once lived.
And somehow, somehow, that was enough. Because...
When the spirit moves, even tombs tremble. When
God is still telling the story, silence becomes
sermon and death becomes the footnote. So maybe
tonight the reminder is you don't need to perform
or prove or plead. Maybe you just need to stop
running, stop pretending. Fall back into the
memory of when God used to move and trust that
he still does. Because the same spirit that raised
the dead in a panic, still roaming the graveyards,
still speaking through bones, still waiting to
bring you back to life. Thanks for listening
to the Semi -Seminary. I'm your old buddy, Pastor
Jim. And until next time, friend, be blessed.
Chapter 6. Therefore, he who is in the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on...