LIFE-STUDY OF EZEKIEL
Read and pray: “And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne like an emerald in appearance.” (Rev. 4:3)
Experiencing and Enjoying God as the Gracious Cloud
In Ezekiel 1:4 the cloud is mentioned in relation to the wind. Together, the wind and the cloud indicate that an important relationship is about to take place between God and man.
At least from time to time in our Christian life it is necessary for there to be a significant spiritual relationship between God and us. I believe that all those who have been genuinely saved have experienced such a relationship.
We also experience a spiritual relationship during times of revival. First, the Holy Spirit touches us and moves us, leading us to return to the Lord, to see our corruption, to repent, and to confess our sins.
Then we have the sense that God is like a cloud visiting us, overshadowing us, and covering us. We may also sense that the grace of God is upon us, covering us like a canopy.
God is the wind that blows, and He is also the cloud that covers and overshadows. Whenever we experience God as the blowing wind, we also have the sense that after He blows upon us, He remains with us, overshadowing and covering us like a cloud over us. This is God as the gracious cloud. The blowing of the wind brings the presence of God to us in the form of a heavenly cloud, shading and overshadowing.
When I was saved, I experienced not only the blowing of a powerful wind from the north upon my whole being, but also the presence of the Lord overshadowing me like a cloud. Under this overshadowing I began to ask myself, “What is life? Should I continue on the path that I have been following?” Because of the blowing wind and the overshadowing cloud, an important relationship took place between God and me. A genuine experience and a true revival involve both the spiritual wind and the spiritual cloud.
I cannot forget the particular experience I had of God as a cloud overshadowing me in 1935. One afternoon on the Lord’s Day, I was ministering on the Spirit. At a certain point, I had the sense that a cloud had descended and was covering me.
Although I did not see anything with my physical eyes, I felt that something was covering me. I was enveloped by the cloud that covered me, and I had a deep sense of the Lord’s presence in a very clear and practical way. At that time, the Lord’s presence truly was like a cloud.
This experience was not merely a matter of faith, but also something that could be sensed. I felt that I was covered and protected by the Lord’s presence. It was wonderful, pleasant, comforting, strengthening, and energizing. The congregation sensed that something had happened and that the atmosphere had changed, and immediately I began to speak in a powerful way.
Many of us have experienced the Lord as a cloud that overshadows. When you pray, repenting and confessing your sins, you may sense that you are under the covering of a cloud. This may have been your experience during your morning revival or during a time of pray-reading the Word; a stormy wind of God came and blew upon you.
Then, after the blowing of the wind, a cloud came and stayed with you, perhaps throughout the entire day. All day long you had the sense that something was following you, overshadowing you, covering you, and embracing you, and you enjoyed the Lord’s presence throughout the day.
I can testify that I have experienced this many times. When I was in fellowship with the Lord early in the morning, the Spirit came to me like a strong wind from the north, and immediately I entered into the presence of the Lord, which was like a cloud covering me. His presence became my enjoyment, and throughout the day I experienced His covering and appreciated His presence.
We all need to experience the presence of the Lord as the shadow of a cloud. We should not be content with mere doctrines and teachings. Instead of going to the Bible to seek more knowledge, we need to seek the Lord Himself.
When we come to the Word, we should pray, “Lord, I need the wind and the cloud. Lord, blow upon me as a stormy wind coming from the north and cover me with the cloud. Come to me as the wind and stay with me as the cloud.”
THE FIRE
Ezekiel saw that the cloud covering him was filled with flashing fire, continually revolving. This also corresponds to our spiritual experience. When the stormy wind comes from the Lord and the overshadowing presence of the Lord remains, we have the sense that something within us is shining, searching, and burning. Under such shining, enlightening, searching, and burning, we can sense that we are wrong in certain things.
For example, we may realize that our attitude toward a particular brother is wrong. Under the shining and searching of the Lord’s presence, we are exposed, we condemn ourselves, and we confess our failures. Then the searching fire burns away the negative things within us.
The fire seen by Ezekiel signifies God’s burning and sanctifying power. Everything that does not correspond to God’s holy nature and disposition must be burned. Only what corresponds to His holiness can pass through His holy fire. This can be confirmed by our spiritual experience.
The Holy Spirit comes to convict people concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). Whenever the Holy Spirit touches us and leads us to confess our sins and pray, we will sense the need to be sanctified and to have all corruption purged from our being. We will realize that anything that does not match God’s holiness must be burned.
If someone claims to have been visited by God but has no feeling concerning his sins and impurities, that person has not truly been touched by the Spirit of God. When God visits a person, His holy fire comes to consume the negative things in that person.
This burning fire also leads us to be enlightened. The more the fire of the Holy Spirit burns within us, the more we will be purified and enlightened.
If we experience the Lord in this way, there will be no need for others to tell us that we are wrong in certain matters or that our attitude toward a particular brother is wrong. If someone tries to correct us, we may feel offended. However, even if we receive a word of correction and then try to improve ourselves, this means nothing as far as the inner life is concerned. We need to be under the shining and searching of the Lord’s presence.
The more we are under this shining, the more we will be willing to say, “Lord Jesus, burn me! I am good for nothing except to be burned. O Lord, burn my disposition. Burn my intentions, my self-realization, my motives, and my goals.” This is a genuine experience of the inner life, not a mere teaching.
After ministering the Word to the Lord’s people for many years, I have learned that mere teaching accomplishes nothing. We all need the blowing of the wind, the shadow of the cloud of the Lord’s presence, and the searching and burning of this fire.
Our God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). The wind, the cloud, and the fire are the Lord Himself. When He comes, He comes as the stormy wind. When He remains with us, He remains as the cloud. When He searches and burns, He searches and burns us as the consuming fire.
No one can experience the Lord as the blowing wind, the covering cloud, and the burning of the consuming fire without undergoing a real change and transformation. We all need transformation through the fire. We all need to be transformed by the burning.
Our God, the Lord Jesus, is not only the living water but also the consuming fire. Many Christians appreciate Ezekiel 47 because that chapter speaks of the flowing river. We need to realize that the flowing river is not the first thing in Ezekiel.
Rather, the river comes after the fire. The fire is in chapter one, and the river is in chapter forty-seven. The fire always comes first. The source of the fire is the blowing wind with the covering cloud. From this we see that the fire does not come to us directly.
God comes to us as the blowing wind and remains with us as the covering cloud. Under His covering, we are exposed by His shining. While we are under His shining, we should confess our need of His burning and then pray that He would burn our self, our old nature, our disposition, our worldliness, and our attitudes, goals, objectives, motives, and intentions.
We all need to be burned by the Lord in this way. Such burning is better than a thousand teachings.
THE INCANDESCENT ELECTRUM
God’s intention is not merely to burn us and reduce us to ashes. God is a good God with a good purpose. What is His purpose in blowing upon us as the wind, covering us as the cloud, and consuming us as the fire?
The answer is that out of the fire comes the shining electrum. The burning of the divine fire is for the manifestation of the electrum. The Hebrew word for “electrum” is very difficult to translate. In his note on Ezekiel 1:4 in his New Translation, John Nelson Darby says that the Hebrew word denotes “an unknown substance; some think it is a mixture of gold and silver.”
A Jewish version uses the word electrum. Electrum is an alloy of gold and silver. Gold typifies the nature of God, and silver typifies redemption. The King James Version translates the Hebrew word as “amber,” because the color of this shining metal is amber-colored, somewhat similar to the color of gold. Electrum is not merely gold nor merely silver, but gold mingled with silver.
In the book of Revelation we can see the same principle. Revelation 22:1 speaks of the throne of God and of the Lamb. The One on the throne is not only God nor only the Lamb, but the God-Lamb, the God-Redeemer. In Genesis 1, God was the unique God, but in Revelation 22 He is our redeeming God, our God-Lamb.
According to Revelation 4:3, God, the One sitting on the throne, “was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance.” Jasper, which is dark green, typifies God as the God of glory in His rich life, and sardius, which is red, typifies God as the God of redemption. The fact that God’s appearance on the throne is like a jasper stone and a sardius indicates that God is no longer only God but also our Redeemer.
These illustrations in Revelation 22 and 4 help us to understand the meaning of the electrum in Ezekiel. Our God is not only the divine Being represented by gold; He is also the redeeming God represented by silver. He is no longer merely gold; He is the electrum, gold mingled with silver.
When we experience the blowing of the wind, enjoy the covering of the cloud, and then pass through the burning of the consuming fire, the result is the shining electrum—something bright, lovely, precious, and pleasant. As the electrum, the Lord Jesus is the One who redeemed us and who is everything to us.
He is our God, our Lamb, our Redeemer, our jasper, and our sardius. If we consider our spiritual experience, we will realize that the One dwelling in us today is the God-Lamb, the One represented by the electrum.
In God’s eyes, before we were saved, we were vile and evil, having nothing honorable or glorious. Praise the Lord that He has saved and regenerated us! His wind, His cloud, and His burning fire have made it possible for us to have Him, the redeeming God, within us as the shining electrum.
Now we have Him as the treasure in earthen vessels (2 Cor. 4:7), and thus we become a people of honor and glory. We need to consider how precious and honorable the Christ within us is. As the electrum within us, He is the treasure of inestimable value. This treasure is the result of the wind, the cloud, and the fire.
The more we pass through the wind, the cloud, and the fire, the more the electrum will be constituted into our being, making us a people saturated with the Triune God and manifesting His glory.
We all need to experience more of the spiritual wind, the protecting cloud, the consuming fire, and the shining electrum. By passing through such an experience, we become the vision of the glory of God. In our experience we have the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum. Then whenever we meet together, we are the vision of the glory of the electrum, having a precious treasure shining and glowing.
THE BASIC EXPERIENCE
What we have considered in this message is the first vision seen by the prophet Ezekiel. This vision portrays the most basic experience among all the spiritual experiences of the divine life. There are various categories of spiritual experience; however, this experience is the primary and basic category—the category of the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum.
We do not experience the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum once for all. Rather, this experience is a cycle that must be repeated again and again. Today we may experience the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum, and after a period of time the wind comes again, followed by the cloud, the fire, and the electrum.
This cycle must be repeated again and again throughout our Christian life. From this we see that, in a sense, we Christians have no rest in our spiritual experience. I have been a Christian for more than forty-five years, and I have never had any rest from this cycle. Instead, there has been a continual experience of the wind, the covering cloud, the consuming fire, and the shining electrum.
Each time this cycle is repeated, more electrum is produced. It would be terrible if this cycle were interrupted. In our experience the cycle of the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum should never stop. The more we experience this cycle, the better. It would be wonderful if we experienced the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum every day. This is the true experience of the inner life, and it will bring growth in life.
🌿 Enjoy more:
Hymn: Aspirations – “By the Guidance of Christ”
No comments:
Post a Comment