Scripture Reading: Ezek. 1:4; Psa. 75:6-7a; Ezek. 37:9; John 3:8; Acts 2:2, 4a; Exo. 24:16; 40:34; Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29; Ezek. 1:27, 28; 8:2, 4; Rev. 4:3; 22:1
In this message we will consider Ezekiel 1:4. This verse covers four main things: the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum. First, a stormy wind came from the north. Second, a great cloud came along with the wind. Third, there was a fire enfolding itself. Fourth, out of the fire there appeared the glowing electrum.
Genesis 1 begins with a word concerning God, and Ezekiel 1 opens with a glorious vision of God. Those who know God can testify that our spiritual experiences are according to our knowledge of God. Likewise, our service and the church affairs also depend on our knowledge of God. The degree of our knowing God will determine both the degree of our spiritual experience and the situation of the church. Spiritually speaking, everything we have depends on God’s being, vision, and manifestation and on our knowing God.
The visions in the book of Ezekiel begin not with man but with God. The visions, which begin from the north, where God is, show us God in His will, plan, intention, work, action, and relationship with man. These visions reveal what God expects man to be in relation to Him. In addition to the four items mentioned above, the visions in chapter one include the four living creatures, the high and dreadful wheels, a sky as clear as crystal, God’s glorious throne, and the man upon the throne. As we consider God’s glorious visions in this chapter, we need to pay careful attention to all these matters.
The Bible is a book of pictures revealing to us God and the spiritual things. God is Spirit, and as such He is abstract, mysterious, invisible, intangible, and unfathomable. Not only is God abstract, but all spiritual things are also abstract. Without the pictures in the Bible, it would be rather difficult for us to understand God and the spiritual things. In His wisdom God uses visible, material things to describe invisible, spiritual things. Furthermore, He uses signs and symbols to express abstract, mysterious matters. For this reason the Bible uses many types, figures, and pictures to describe and portray spiritual things.
A great many items in the universe are symbols of spiritual things. For example, the sun symbolizes Christ as our light (Mal. 4:2; Luke 1:78), and food symbolizes Christ as our sustenance (John 6:35). Actually, all the positive things in the universe may be used to portray what Christ is to us. God’s intention in His creation is to use the things of creation to illustrate what Christ is. This means that the entire universe came into existence for the purpose of describing Christ. For example, if vines had not been created, the Lord Jesus could not have used a vine to describe Himself (John 15:1). If there were no foxes or birds, Christ could not have compared His situation in His ministry to that of foxes with their holes and birds with their roosts (Matt. 8:20). Even the pasture was created so that the Lord Jesus could use it as an illustration of Himself (John 10:9). Because the universe with the billions of things and persons in it was created for the purpose of describing Christ, He, in revealing Himself, can find in any environment something to serve as an illustration of Himself. The whole universe is a picture of Christ. If we see this, we will realize how rich, profound, unlimited, and unsearchable Christ is.
Just as the Bible as a whole is a picture book, so Ezekiel as a miniature of the Bible is also a picture book, a book full of pictures. These pictures are presented in the form of visions. The visions Ezekiel saw were absolutely related to God and to spiritual things and therefore should not be understood in a literal, physical way. If we try to interpret the visions in Ezekiel literally, we will not be able to understand them.
When I was young, I could not understand the book of Ezekiel. The more I read this book, the more confused I became. In particular, I could not understand the matter of the four living creatures. Each of the living creatures had four faces: at the front, the face of a man; on the right, the face of a lion; on the left, the face of an ox; and at the back, the face of an eagle (Ezek. 1:5-6, 10). Furthermore, “the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot,” and “they had the hands of a man under their wings” (vv. 7a, 8a). I thought that the picture of the living creatures was very strange, and I could not understand it at all. I thank the Lord that as I gradually advanced in my spiritual experience, I began to understand the visions in Ezekiel, comparing the record in Ezekiel with other portions of the Word. Eventually, like someone putting together the pieces of a puzzle in order to have a complete picture, I put various parts of the Word together and began to see the pictures of the spiritual matters portrayed in the book of Ezekiel, realizing that Ezekiel uses visible, physical things to signify spiritual things. Now in our study of Ezekiel we need to see the intrinsic spiritual significance of the pictures in this book, considering them in light of the entire Bible and comparing them with our spiritual experience.
Let us now begin to consider the four matters in Ezekiel 1:4 point by point.
The first part of Ezekiel 1:4 says, “I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north.” John Nelson Darby’s New Translation and the American Standard Version both translate the Hebrew word rendered whirlwind as “stormy wind,” and I feel that this translation is preferable. Thus, this verse is saying that a stormy wind came from the north.
Why did the stormy wind come from the north and not from the south, the east, or the west? The answer to this question is found in Psalm 75:6-7a: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge.” Here north is replaced with God. This indicates that God is at the north. In geographical terms the north is commonly regarded as up, and thus to go north is to go up. God, who is at the north, is always up. Spiritually speaking, this means that when we are going north, we are going to God. The fact that the stormy wind came from the north means that it came from God. The dwelling place, the habitation, of God is the source of all spiritual things. The stormy wind came from the north, from the habitation of God. God, therefore, was the source of the stormy wind.
The Hebrew word for wind is ruach. Ruach may be translated “wind” or “breath” or “spirit.” In the King James Version of Ezekiel 37, this Hebrew word is translated in all three of these ways: “wind” in verse 9, “breath” in verses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10, and “Spirit” in verses 1 and 14. It is difficult for translators to decide whether in a certain verse ruach means wind, breath, or spirit. The decision must be made according to the context.
In 1:4 ruach denotes a wind, a stormy wind which signifies nothing less than the powerful Spirit. On the day of Pentecost there was a rushing, mighty wind which filled the house where the one hundred twenty were sitting. Then all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2, 4a). No doubt, that rushing, mighty wind was the powerful Spirit.
In John 3:8 the Lord Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Some versions point out in a footnote that the word wind in this verse is a translation of the Greek word for spirit, pneuma. The Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma have exactly the same meaning. Like ruach, the word pneuma can be translated “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” Thus, in this verse the Greek words translated the wind blows may also be rendered “the Spirit blows.” In Ezekiel 1:4 the strong, stormy wind is a figure, a picture, of the mighty Spirit of God.
In the Bible the wind has both a negative and positive significance. In its negative significance the wind is a symbol, or sign, of God’s judgment upon man. This is the significance of the wind in Daniel 7:2 and in Revelation 7:1. In its positive significance the wind is a symbol, or sign, of the blowing of the Holy Spirit upon man or the descending of the Holy Spirit upon man to take care of man. This, of course, is the significance of the rushing, mighty wind in Acts 2. In the book of Ezekiel the wind also has this twofold significance: the negative significance — God’s judgment by raising up circumstances through which He judges those who rebel against Him; the positive significance — in the Spirit’s coming to man to cause man to have God’s life. The stormy wind in Ezekiel 1 has this positive significance.
Our spiritual experiences always begin with a spiritual storm. According to church history, throughout all the generations the Spirit of God has blown like a mighty wind to move people to repent of their sins, to believe in the Lord Jesus for their regeneration, to give up the world in order to follow the Lord, and to be desperate in heart and burning in spirit to serve the Lord. Have you not had this kind of experience? Have you not sensed the wind of God blowing upon you? Have you not been touched by the Spirit of God? Have you not sensed, at least once in your life, that a certain power — the stormy wind from God — was moving upon you, causing you to hate sin, to have a different attitude toward the world, or to change your view concerning your life? If you have never had such experiences, you need to look to the Lord and pray for His wind from the north to blow upon you.
A certain promising young man, who was a strong member of a political party, experienced this wind from the north at the time of his conversion. One day he went into an idol temple and saw a Bible on the table which was used for the offering. He walked up to the Bible and read a few verses. Suddenly, the Holy Spirit blew upon him, and he was convicted of his sins. As the wind of the Spirit continued to blow upon him, he began to repent of his sins and to make a thorough confession, crying bitterly as he prostrated himself and even rolled on the floor. He was saved through the blowing of a mighty wind from the north.
God’s visitation always begins with the blowing of the wind of God upon our being. Did you not experience a storm, the blowing of the Spirit of God, when you were saved? Perhaps you were a young student caring for nothing but simply going to school, studying, and playing. Then one day a storm came to you. A stormy wind blew upon you and turned you upside down. This caused you to consider the meaning of human life, and you began to ask yourself about where you came from and where you were going. This was the result of the blowing of a stormy wind. I believe that every saved person experienced such a storm at the time of conversion.
I cannot forget the storm I experienced on the day I was saved. As a young man under the age of twenty, I was full of ambition, and I was studying hard, pursuing the knowledge of the world in order to have a good future. But one day I heard about an evangelistic meeting, and I decided to attend. In that meeting as I listened to a strong gospel message, a stormy wind blew upon me and turned me upside down.
A storm comes to us from the Lord not only at the time of our conversion but also after we have been saved. Whether we are young or old, we all experience the stormy wind. For example, certain ones among us in the church life formerly were missionaries or Christian workers. One day a storm came to them from the north and turned everything upside down. This caused them to seek the Lord desperately and eventually to come into the church life.
Actually, a stormy wind blows upon us at every turn in our spiritual life. This stormy wind is God Himself blowing upon us to bring a storm into our life, into our work, and into our church. It is truly a grace to have storms coming to us from God. As we are following the Lord, we will experience storm after storm. I cannot say how many storms have come to me, but I can testify that every storm is worth recalling. Every storm has become a pleasant remembrance. I believe that when we are in eternity, we will recall the storms that we experienced.
Whenever God visits us and revives us, His Spirit blows upon us like a mighty wind. We need to experience the Spirit in this way — the more, the better and the stronger, the better. I have the deep longing that in these days the Spirit of God would blow strongly upon us like a mighty wind.
The cloud always follows the stormy wind. If we have the wind, we will surely have the cloud, for the cloud is the issue of the blowing of the wind. Like the stormy wind, the cloud signifies the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit touches us, He is like the wind. When the Holy Spirit visits us and overshadows us, He is like the cloud. First, the Holy Spirit blows upon us like the wind to move us, and then He abides with us like a cloud to cover us.
The cloud in Ezekiel 1:4 is a figure of God covering His people. We may use the word brooding and say that the cloud was God brooding over His people. The cloud, therefore, was nothing other than the brooding God. God comes as the wind, but He stays as the cloud. By staying as the cloud, He covers us, overshadows us, and broods over us to give us the enjoyment of His presence, thereby producing something of Himself in our daily life. How wonderful! This is the covering God typified by the covering cloud.
By considering the history of the people of Israel, we can understand more fully the significance of the cloud. A number of times God appeared to them and visited them like a great cloud that overshadowed them. For instance, after the Israelites came out of Egypt, they passed through the Red Sea. Concerning this Paul says, “All our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:1-2). The cloud that covered the children of Israel typifies the Spirit of God. Eventually, the children of Israel arrived at Mount Sinai and camped there. In Exodus 19:9 the Lord said to Moses, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud,” and there was “a thick cloud upon the mount” (v. 16). In chapter twenty-four we are told that “a cloud covered the mount,” that the Lord “called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud,” and that “Moses went into the midst of the cloud” (vv. 15, 16, 18). Later, after the tent of meeting was set up for God, God’s glory filled the tent and a cloud covered it and abode upon it (40:34-35). All the people could see that the cloud was covering the tent of meeting. That cloud signified God’s visitation and His abiding with them.
The cloud also signifies God’s care for His people and His favor toward them. He appeared to them like a cloud, covering and overshadowing them, in order to care for them. Proverbs 16:15 says that the king’s favor is like “a cloud of the latter rain.” In His gracious visitation God comes to us like a cloud to care for us and to show favor to us.
In Ezekiel 1:4 the cloud is mentioned in relation to the wind. Together, the wind and the cloud are an indication that an important transaction is about to take place between God and man. At least from time to time, in our Christian life there needs to be a significant spiritual transaction between God and us. I believe that everyone who has been genuinely saved has experienced such a transaction. We also experience a spiritual transaction during times of revival. First, the Holy Spirit touches us and moves us, causing us to turn to the Lord, to see our corruption, and to repent and confess our sins. Then we have the sense that God is like a cloud visiting us, overshadowing us, and covering us. We may sense also that the grace of God is upon us, covering us like a canopy.
God is the blowing wind, and He is also the covering and overshadowing cloud. 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 and brooding 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, brooding, overshadowing cloud.
When I was saved, I experienced not only the blowing of a mighty wind from the north upon my whole being but also the Lord’s presence overshadowing me like a cloud. Under this overshadowing I began to ask myself, “What is life all about? Should I keep going on the way I have been going?” Because of the blowing wind and the overshadowing cloud, an important transaction took place between me and God. 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 an overshadowing cloud in 1935. On one Lord’s Day afternoon I was ministering about the Spirit. At a certain point I had the sense that a cloud had come down and was covering me. Although I did not see anything with my physical eyes, I sensed that something was overshadowing me. I was enveloped by the cloud which covered me, and I had a deep sense of the Lord’s presence in a very definite and practical way. At that time the presence of the Lord truly was like a cloud. That experience was a matter not only of faith but also of something that could be sensed. I sensed that I was covered and overshadowed by the presence of the Lord. It was wonderful, pleasant, comforting, strengthening, and energizing. The congregation realized 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 an overshadowing cloud. When you pray, repenting and confessing your sins, you may sense that you are under the covering of a canopy or of a cloud. It might have been your experience that during your morning revival or during a time of pray-reading the Word, a stormy wind from God came and blew upon you. Then after the blowing of the wind, a cloud came and stayed with you, perhaps for the whole day. Throughout the day you had the sense that something was following you, overshadowing you, covering you, and brooding over you, and you enjoyed the Lord’s presence all day long.
I can testify that I have experienced this many times. As I was in contact 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 Lord’s presence, which was like a cloud covering me. His presence became my enjoyment, and all day long I experienced His covering and enjoyed His presence.
We all need to experience the Lord’s presence like a brooding, overshadowing cloud. We should not be content with mere doctrines and teachings. Instead of coming to the Bible seeking 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 from the north and cover me with the overshadowing cloud. Come to me as the wind and stay with me as the cloud.”
Ezekiel saw that the cloud which overshadowed him was covered with fire flashing continually. This also is a matter which 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 a shining, enlightening, searching, and burning, we may realize 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, and we condemn ourselves and confess our shortcomings. Then the searching fire will burn away the negative things within us.
The fire seen by Ezekiel signifies God’s burning and sanctifying power. Everything that does not match God’s holy nature and disposition must be burned away. Only what matches His holiness can pass through His holy fire. This can be confirmed by our spiritual experience. The Holy Spirit comes to convict people regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). Whenever the Holy Spirit touches us and causes us to confess our sins and pray, we will sense the need to be sanctified and to have all the corruption purged out of our being. We will realize that anything that does not match the holiness of God must be burned away. If someone claims to have been visited by God but has no feeling concerning his sins and unholiness, that person has not truly been touched by the Spirit of God. When God visits a person, His holy fire will come to consume the negative things in him. This burning fire also causes us to be enlightened. The more the fire of the Holy Spirit burns in 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 might be offended. But even if we would receive a word of correction and then try to improve ourselves, this would not mean anything as far as the inner life is concerned. We need to be under the shining and the 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 not good for anything except to be burned. O Lord, burn away my disposition. Burn away my intentions, my self-aim, 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 does not accomplish anything. We all need the blowing of the wind, the overshadowing 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 all the Lord Himself. When He comes, He comes as the stormy wind. When He remains with us, He stays as the cloud. When He searches and burns us, He searches and burns as the consuming fire. No one can experience the Lord as the blowing wind, as the covering cloud, and as the burning, consuming fire without undergoing a real change and transformation. We all need transformation by fire. We all need to be transformed by being burned.
Our God, the Lord Jesus, is not only the living water but also the consuming fire. Many Christians appreciate Ezekiel 47 because this 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 stays with us as the covering cloud. Under His covering we are exposed by His shining. As we are under His shining, we should confess our need for His burning and then pray for Him to burn away our self, our old nature, our disposition, our worldliness, and our attitudes, goals, aims, motives, and intentions. We all need to be burned by the Lord in this way. One such burning is better than a thousand teachings.
God’s intention is not simply to burn us and turn us into ashes. God is a good God with a good purpose. What is His purpose in blowing upon us as the wind, in covering us as the cloud, and in consuming us as the fire? The answer to this question is that out of the fire appears the glowing 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, J. N. Darby says that the Hebrew word denotes “an unknown substance; some think a mixture of gold and silver.” One Jewish version uses the word electrum. Electrum is an alloy of gold and silver. Gold signifies the nature of God, and silver signifies redemption. The King James Version renders the Hebrew word as “amber” because the color of this shining metal is the color of amber, which is somewhat like the color of gold. Electrum is not merely gold nor merely silver but gold mixed 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 just God and not just the Lamb but the Lamb-God, the redeeming God. In Genesis 1 God was solely God, but in Revelation 22 He is our redeeming God, our Lamb-God. According to Revelation 4:3 God, the One on the throne, “was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance.” Jasper, which is dark green, signifies God as the God of glory in His rich life, and sardius, which is red, signifies God as the God of redemption. The fact that the appearance of God on the throne is like a jasper stone and a sardius indicates that God is no longer just God but also our Redeemer. These illustrations from Revelation 22 and 4 help us to understand the significance of the electrum in Ezekiel. Our God is not merely the divine Being signified by the gold; He is also the redeeming God, signified by the silver. No longer is He just gold — He is electrum, gold mingled with silver.
When we experience the blowing wind, we enjoy the covering cloud and then we pass through the burning, consuming fire. The result is the glowing electrum, something shining, lovely, precious, and pleasant. As the electrum, the Lord Jesus is the One who has 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 who dwells within us today is the Lamb-God, the One signified by the electrum.
In the sight of God, before we were saved, we were base and wicked, having nothing that was honorable or glorious. Praise the Lord that He saved us 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 glowing electrum. Now we have Him as the treasure in the earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7), and we have thereby become a people of honor and glory. We need to consider how precious and honorable is the Christ who is within us. As the electrum within us, He is the treasure of incomparable worth. This treasure is the issue of the wind, the cloud, and the fire. The more we pass through the wind, the cloud, and the fire, the more the electrum is constituted into our being, making us a people who are filled with the Triune God and who manifest His glory.
We all need to experience more of the spiritual wind, the overshadowing cloud, the burning fire, and the glowing electrum. By passing through this kind of 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 that is shining and glowing.
What we have been considering 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, but this experience is the first, 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. On the contrary, this experience is a cycle which should be repeated again and again. Today we may experience the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum, and then after a period of time the wind comes again, followed by the cloud, the fire, and the electrum. This cycle should 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 over forty-five years, and I have never had any rest from this cycle. Instead, there has been a continual experience of the blowing wind, the covering cloud, the burning fire, and the glowing electrum. Every time this cycle is repeated, more of the electrum is brought forth.
It would be awful for this cycle to stop. 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 daily experienced the wind, the cloud, the fire, and the electrum. This is the real experience of the inner life, and this will bring in the growth in life.
