CCM Edition.

November 08, 2016. Today we’ll be taking a look at “Come Alive (Dry Bones)” by Lauren Daigle which currently sits at #18 on 20TheCountdownMagazine.

Lauren Daigle has one of my favorite voices to listen to on the radio. God gave her a beautiful voice. This post isn’t about Lauren’s voice. It’s about the song and the theology being presented in its lyric. There have been several emails and comments lately rebuking me for judging the hearts of the artists. That’s not what we are doing, we are examining the lyric and the theology being presented (or what’s missing from the lyric, namely the Gospel). Let’s begin today by watching how the artist describes what this song is about.

Come Alive (Dry Bones) | Story Behind The Song | Lauren Daigle & Michael Farren

Today’s song pushes the Word of Faith Heresy. The notion that God somehow requires us to speak things into existence for Him to move, or to save. The idea that faith becomes a sort of fuel that we use to empower our words. This is not how Scripture teaches prayer, faith, or the Salvation of God. Notice how smoothly the songwriters slide into narcissistic eisegesis, reading ourselves into Ezekiel, as if this Prophecy was about us or about some formula we need to follow in order to save others. Now the problem these two wanted to write a song to address is real. Their solution simply isn’t a biblical solution. The Biblical solution is to preach Law and Gospel, repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Let’s listen to the song, read through the lyric, and then discuss the theology.

LaurenDaigleVEVO

Lyrics (via K-Love)

Through the eyes of men it seems there’s so much we have lost
As we look down the road where all the Prodigals have walked
One by one the enemy has whispered lies then led them off as slaves

But we know that you are God, Yours is the victory
We know there is more to come that we may not yet see
So with the faith You’ve given us we’ll step into the valley unafraid

(chorus)
As we call out to dry bones come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones come alive

God of endless mercy, God of unrelenting love
Rescue every daughter, bring us back the wayward sons
By Your Spirit breathe upon them, show the world that You alone can save
You alone can save

(chorus)
As we call out to dry bones come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones come alive

So breathe, Oh breath of God now
Breathe, Oh breath of God
Breathe, Oh breath of God now breathe
Breathe, Oh breath of God now breathe
Oh breath of God
Breathe, Oh breath of God now breathe

(chorus)
As we call out to dry bones come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones come alive
We call out to dry bones come alive

Oh come alive

Publishing: © 2014 CentricSongs (SESAC) / Word Music & Pocket Full of Rocks Publishing (ASCAP)
Writer(s): Words and Music by Lauren Daigle and Michael Farren

Discussion

There is so little clearly stated in this song lyric, that I decided to look up a “behind the scenes” type video. As a former NAR guy, I recognized the Ezekiel 37 theme immediately, and the entire thrust of the song is Word of Faith (WoF) false teaching. Hopefully you watched the intro video to see what went into the inspiration of the song. I’d like to reiterate, the problem they cited as their focus, that they wanted to write a song to comfort the mother of a prodigal child, is real. The theology in this song presented as a solution is utterly false, we’ll get to that, but know that I’m not in any way discrediting the stated goal, we want to reach out to the prodigals and their hurting families, but we want to do so Biblically. False hope is no hope at all.

Verse 1. The WoF Evangelicals don’t really have a solid grasp on the Biblical concept of sin, particularly original sin we’ve inherited from Adam. WoF folks like Creflo Dollar and Joyce Meyer are always pushing the “little gods” teaching that once we get saved we are now little gods who should be decreeing and declaring health and prosperity and authority and victory over sin. Joyce Meyer has even gone on to declare that she is not a sinner. So, she’s declared herself better than the Apostle Paul… made herself one of the super apostles Paul derides in 2 Cor 11-12. WoF is false, heretical, teaching. It takes our eyes off of Christ and onto ourselves changing prayer into spell casting and supplication into blasphemous demands. So when this segment has such a poor grasp on sin, one has to ask what is meant by prodigals walking away being led off as slaves. It’s heavily coded speech. WoF teachers have no vocabulary for sin, so they invent “word curses” and “soul ties” that (of course) require us to take authority over and break. They make sin to be something that clings to you externally in their false theology and thus something you need to break away from. You can’t look to Scriptures for clarity because none of this is taught in Scripture, you have to have one of these false teachers esplain[sic] it to you in one of their many books for sale at the local “Christian” bookstore.

In the parable of the Prodigal son, the prodigal is led away by his own sinful desires. There is no external tempter in that story, no externally driving force taking the boy captive. He sins from the heart, as do we all. As Christians, we are simultaneously sinner and saint. We are sinners in the flesh due to the corruption of original sin, and we are saints by Grace through Faith in Christ Jesus. The first three lines of this song demonstrate a lack of understanding of the nature of sin and our sinful nature.

The next two lines are generally true. God IS the victory. Jesus Christ literally IS our victory, in His Body and Blood shed for the forgiveness of sin. He IS the temple, He IS the Head of His Church, whom He washed by water with His Word to make Holy. The Victory was sealed at the Cross, when He declared “It is Finished”! There is more to come in this life than we can see, that is true, but our focus should be on what God has already revealed in Scripture, not in constantly hoping to see something new.

The last line of the verse shifts from the notion of the Prodigal over to eisegeting Ezekiel 37 for the chorus.

Chorus. As we call out to dry bones… What does this mean? The stated inspiration for this song is Ezekiel 37. Let’s read through the prophecy being hijacked here.

Ezekiel 37:1-14 (ESV) | The Valley of Dry Bones

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

Dear Christian, you are NOT Ezekiel. In fact, Ezekiel isn’t even doing what these WoF folks are claim this passage is teaching. Ezekiel isn’t mustering up something to declare, the LORD God took Ezekiel into the Valley, commanded Ezekiel to speak the Word of the Lord and then told Ezekiel exactly what to say to the dry bones, and then the Lord did the work of saving. This is NOT prescriptive of how we are to go about Christian prayer life. The LORD God explains what this vision is about, it is about the whole house of Israel being brought to life by God. It points forward to Christ, the Way the Truth and the Life, the Only way of Salvation.

Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV) | By Grace Through Faith

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

This is the Salvation of the LORD. If we are crying out to dry bones, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, we had better be crying out with the Word of the Lord that has already been breathed out in Scriptures, we had better be preaching Law (that all have sinned and fallen short) and Gospel (repentance and the forgiveness in Jesus’ Name).

So getting back to this chorus, there’s a WoF logic loop that we need to address. WoF teaching at face-value, we see what looks like us commanding God to do something we want Him to do. That’s blasphemous. But their response will likely take the form of “no, we are participating in what He wants to do in the Earth”. So He can’t just do it? No, we have to activate His Will in the earth by our words filled with faith (or something along those lines). It’s circular and not based in Scripture. As we saw in Ez 37, they can’t teach it from the actual text, they have to paraphrase very loosely and then just declare that this is how it all works.

There is also a line in the Chorus that seems to pull from Joel’s Army / Dominionism / New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) false teaching. What’s with all of this militant langauge? The New Testament is focused on the Church, the faith once and for all delivered to the Saints. We are told to Preach the Word so that those who hear it might be granted saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:11-17 (ESV) For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Verse 2. I like this verse. It’s a good verse. It’s incomplete, but if the song had a good chorus and solid supporting verses this could be good. So, “spirit breath upon them” is odd but could be right in the right context. It’s odd because it seems to be asking God to save as He wills, which is a solid petition, but one that doesn’t truly fit the synergism that these artists, modern-day evangelicals, and the WoF teachers hold. God’s Word gives us the means through which the Grace of God for the forgiveness of sin is applied to us. He has been gracious enough to provide us with His Written Word in our own languages. As we saw in Romans 10:11-17, Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Preaching of the Word is a primary means through which God grants us saving faith. Let’s look at how the Apostle Paul described scripture in 2 Tim 3:14-17.

2 Timothy 3:14-17 (ESV) But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Instead of twisting, mixing, paraphrasing, summarizing, and supplanting Scripture… Preach the Word. The New Testament Epistles read like sermons. Let the Apostolic writings speak for God, for they are His Word. Stop looking for formulas and rituals and codes and prescriptions in the Old Testament… they weren’t written about you, they were written about Christ for you.

Hebrews 1:1-4 (ESV)  | The Supremacy of God’s Son

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

The rest of the song slides into new-age “presence” theology, emotional mysticism, trying to drum up a “feeling” of being in God’s presence. It’s self indulgent and it’s an empty solution to the mother of a prodigal child.

Conclusion

This song encourages the listener to eisegete Ez 37 through the lens of WoF heresy. In attempting to address a real problem, it fails horribly due to unsound theology and a twisting of scripture. The desire to comfort the mother of a prodigal is a good desire, but providing false comfort via WoF nonsense only adds insult to injury. What the prodigal child needs is the Law of God preached, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God unto repentance, and then the child needs to hear the Pure Gospel of Jesus Christ so that he might be granted Faith. This is God’s doing, and we have His Word given to us in the Scriptures.

To the mother of the prodigal, we share in your grief. For the Body of Christ is One Body, and we are all individual members of it. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:26 ESV). We pray, asking the LORD to bring the prodigal home. We reach out as the body of Christ to bring Law and Gospel to the prodigal.

James 5:19-20 (ESV)

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

But most importantly, we need to address the false teaching that is leading so many astray. The sort of teaching that ignores the reality of original sin, the danger of apostacy, and the ever-present need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sin. Christians need to hear the Gospel. In fact, the gathering of the saints on Sunday mornings is to gather together around the Preached Word of the Gospel of Grace. We need to preach the full counsel of God’s Word, both Law and Gospel, rightly divided. To those who think little of their sin, they need the Law Preached full-bore. To those who are crushed by the weight of their sin, we preach the Gospel of Grace for the forgiveness of sin. We trust God the Holy Spirit to continually draw His sheep, for He loves them far more than we can ever imagine. Our Hope is in eternity, our Hope is in the LORD. Salvation belongs to Him.

Revelation 21:1-7 (ESV) | The New Heaven and the New Earth

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

Christ is our victory, He is the only begotten Son of God, and He is the Good Shepherd.

Revelation 22:20-21 (ESV) He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
Amen.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
In Christ,
Jorge