The Spiritual History of a Normal Christian—the Wind, the Cloud, the Fire, and the Electrum

Day 3
Exo. 24:17
And the appearance
of the glory of Jehovah
was like consuming fire
on the top of the mountain
to the eyes of the children of Israel.

Deut. 4:24
For Jehovah your God
is a consuming fire,
a jealous God.

Heb. 12:29
For our God
is also a consuming fire.

Ezekiel saw
that the cloud
which overshadowed him
was covered with fire
flashing continually.
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 a shining, enlightening,
searching, and burning,
we may realize
that we
are wrong
in certain things.

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.
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.
…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.

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.
…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.

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.

This fire consumes
not only our pride
but also our humility,
not only our wickedness
but also our kindness,
not only our hatred
but also our love.
When we
are under
the blowing of the wind,
the covering of the cloud,
and the burning of the fire,
we will not feel
that we
are all right.
On the contrary,
our “I”
will fall apart
and be dissolved.
Eventually,
this fire
will burn away
everything other than God.
Only God
can pass through this burning.

Day 1
Ezek. 1:4
And I looked,
and there came a storm wind
from the north,
a great cloud
and a fire flashing incessantly;
and there was a brightness
around it,
and from the midst of it
there was
something like the sight of electrum,
from the midst of the fire.

Psa. 75:6-7
For neither from the east
nor from the west,
and neither from the south,
does exaltation come;
for God is the Judge:
He puts this one down
and exalts that one.

Ezekiel 1:4 says
…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.
…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 Ezekiel 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.
No doubt,
that rushing, mighty wind
was the powerful Spirit.
…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 Ezekiel
the wind also has
a 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?
…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.

God’s visitation
always begins with
the blowing of the wind of God
upon our being.
…Perhaps
a spiritual storm
caused you
to consider
the meaning of human life
and…to ask yourself
about where you came from
and where you were going.

A storm
comes to us
from the Lord
not only at the time of our conversion
but also after we
have been saved.
…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.
…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.