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The relentless enemy leftthem no escape, no option except surrender—and every man on Masada knew what the Romans would do to their wives and children if they did. We walk around to the western side of the fortress to see the man-made siege ramp that the Romans constructed to enable their soldiers to storm the fortress without using the Snake Path. They used captured Jewish slaves to build the ramp, knowing that Masada’s defenders wouldn’t attack their own people. I imagine the refugees’ despair growing day after day along with the ramp.
    We sit down in the ruins of Masada’s synagogue to hear the rest of the story. When the ramp was completed and the Roman invasion was imminent, the remaining 960 Jewish refugees gathered here in the synagogue on the final night and made a suicide pact, choosing to die rather than watch their families be abused and enslaved by the Romans. The archaeologists who excavated Masada found a pile of potsherds with names on them—the lots that had been used to decide who would kill the women and children and then themselves. But they did one more thing as they huddled together in the synagogue to pray on that last night. Believing themselves to be the last surviving Jews in Israel, the defenders hid the scroll of the prophet Ezekiel beneath the floor—where archaeologists later found it—leaving it open to the thirty-seventh chapter. God had shown Ezekiel a valley of very dry human bones and asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Impossible. But the prophet replied, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (v. 3).
    For the surviving remnant on Masada who faced the fury of the Romans, the end of the Jewish nation looked certain. Israel’s cities had been turned to rubble, the people carried away into slavery. Nothing remained except dry bones thatcould never live again. But after God showed Ezekiel the valley of dry bones, He said, “O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. . . . I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land” (Ezekiel 37:12, 21). And here I stand on the ruins of Masada over two thousand years later, and against all odds, Israel is a thriving nation with a population of more than seven million people. The land promised to Abraham and his descendants is once again theirs. God always keeps His promises. Even in times of cataclysmic upheaval and change, God’s love and faithfulness are unchanging.
    Appearances can be deceiving. When the Romans finally stormed the fortress of Masada and saw that the Jews were all dead, they believed they had stamped out the nation of Israel for good. When King Herod slaughtered the babies of Bethlehem, he believed he had prevented Israel’s true King from taking His rightful throne. But nothing can defeat God’s plans. Nothing. No matter how bleak or uncertain our circumstances may look, our loving Father is in control. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
    Whenever the enemy seems victorious and I gaze at a valley of dry bones, whenever I face the end of a particular ministry or a job or a role that I have filled, I want to remember Masada. We serve a promise-keeping God, a God of miracles. My vigorous attempts to save myself, like Herod’s, will never succeed. But what is impossible for man is always possible with God. When it seems as though all is lost and God asks, “Can these bones live?” let my answer be, “Sovereign Lord, you know.”
    Thirst
    I have finished exploring Masada, so it’s time for a rest. The Dead Sea hovers in the distance, a serene shade of turquoise blue. The water looks inviting, but for anyone who is thirsty, it may as well be a mirage. The salty, mineral-filled water is poisonous. I have floated in the Dead Sea—it’s impossible to sink—and I found it very