Thank you for your warm welcome. It is always helpful when we find those who are hungry for the Lord and for His Word. It makes it so much easier for those of us who are called upon to share what we know of Him.
On Wednesday night, I reminded you that when Moses stood before the burning bush and was commissioned by the Lord to release the Lord’s people from Egypt’s slavery, Moses knew he would need some backing up. So he asked the Lord, “What is Your name? Because surely the people will ask, ‘Who sent you?’”
And the Lord’s reply to Moses at that time, in Exodus 3:14, was, “I AM. That is My name. That is My memorial. I AM. I AM THAT I AM.”
Well, we are going to think still about the One who said, “I AM,” but we are going perhaps to add a little to that—not to diminish its significance or its meaning, but perhaps to enlarge our appreciation.
I AM the Lord.
Now, that is the message of the book of Ezekiel: just four words. It comes at least sixty-five times: “I AM the Lord.”
It is said in two connections. First, to His people: “You shall know that I am the Lord.” A number of times the Lord says that to His people.
But then He says, “They shall know that I am the Lord.” That is a reference to the nations, because God’s people have always been, in His intention, His messenger to the nations—to those round about. So many times it says, “They shall know that I am the Lord,” no doubt by observing the history of God’s people.
Now, when He says, “I AM the Lord,” it can work out in a number of ways, no doubt. But certainly, from the book of Ezekiel, we can see that it works out in two ways:
“I AM the righteous Lord, and will judge.” Those round about will know that I am the Lord by observing My judgments. But they will also know that I am the Lord restoring. He is the One who judges, and must judge, that which is harmful, hurtful, and contrary to His character or His love.
But, “I AM the Lord restoring.” Personally, I have been much blessed in the message of the book of Ezekiel.
I would remind you that, when it comes to studying the Scriptures, there are two instruments which we should use. One is the telescope, and the other is the microscope. These are two important instruments, very different one from the other, and giving a different view, of course.
The telescope enables us to see through to the vastness that there is in the universe. But the telescope is also used for the Scriptures, I believe. It is important, if you are going to get the message of a book, to use the telescope and not focus immediately with the microscope. That is how we get lost, and how we miss so much. We focus on details without first seeing the wider view and having those details in the context of the whole.
Tonight, I confess that we may use the microscope as well, but we are going to use the telescope in the beginning. Let us see how the book of Ezekiel begins: chapter one.
We will read Ezekiel 1:1-2.
Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
On the fifth of the month, in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile,
the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of the Lord was upon him.
I have noted that remark: “The hand of the Lord was upon him.” Here we are going to hear from a man, Ezekiel the prophet, who was retained by the Lord. The hand of the Lord suggests that he was retained by the Lord.
So often, you know, the Lord begins to speak to us, and then we get sidetracked, or we veer off onto something else. We are too much in a hurry. The Lord wants—and He did in this case—to retain a man whose message is exceedingly profitable for us. But if he had not heard it through to the end, we would not be able to reap the benefit that God intends.
A man retained. You may look through and see how many times it says, “The hand of the Lord was upon me”—Ezekiel 3:14, Ezekiel 8:1, and so on. The hand of the Lord was upon me.
Not only that: see what it says in verse 1. “The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.” Visions of God. Now, how can we understand that? What does that mean?
It can mean two things, of course, and I think it does in Ezekiel’s case. Sometimes it means that he saw God: visions of God. Other times, it means something God showed him—a vision that God gave him.
Certainly, we can see in this first chapter that he had a vision of God. Look for a moment at verse 26.
Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like sapphire in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man.
Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire, all around within it; and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something like fire, and there was radiance round about Him.
As the appearance of the rainbow in the cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.
Here, no doubt, Ezekiel is seeing the Lord. How wonderful. Of course, we read in the Scripture once or twice, “No man has seen God at any time.” How can you? He dwells in light unapproachable.
We cannot really look at the sun, but He shines with a brightness greater than the noonday sun. We cannot really see Him in all His fullness. That is why here it is “resembling, resembling, resembling.” God gave Ezekiel, in this vision, as much as it was possible for him to see.
Would that He might give us as much as it is possible to see. How little we know Him. How little time we have spent thinking upon Him. What is He like? What is He like?
We must get to know Him as He is, as far as we can. He is, of course, so far beyond our comprehension. If it were not so, He would not be God. But because He is God, because He is Lord, He must be beyond all perception, apprehension, appreciation, and understanding.
But Ezekiel is seeing God—the resemblance of God. You see, the Man upon the throne surely is a reference to our Lord Himself, because He is on the throne. He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He was there before He came here, and He returned there after He had finished His redemptive work here on earth.
He is the Man on the throne. And see the description. What does it say? Fire upwards. He appeared to be burning from His waist upwards. He appeared to be burning from His waist downwards.
Do you remember how the Lord speaks of Himself? “I am a very jealous God, a consuming fire, a consuming fire.” God is fire. God is love, yes. God is light. But God is fire.
Now, the Lord Jesus said in Luke 12:49, “I came to cast fire upon the earth.” Now that sounds a bit threatening, does it not? What does He mean?
“I came to cast the knowledge of God as He is upon the earth.” How little He is known here. Oh, Lord, that He came! We know He came to seek and to save that which was lost. We know that He came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly. But we do not always remember that He came to cast fire upon the earth, and He said, “I would that it were already kindled.”
He had difficulty in fulfilling that, did He not? He said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” But through the cross—through the suffering, as well as through the victory of the cross—there was going to be a casting of fire: the fire of God, the jealousy of God, the zeal of God, upon the earth, that men might know God more truly as He is.
For here Ezekiel sees God: a vision of God, the Man upon the throne, with zeal toward God and fire toward man. Our Lord was jealous for the Father. Our Lord is jealous for you and me.
Oh, that He might have the whole heart, spirit, soul, and body—every part of us consumed with the jealousy, the fire, the holiness of God.
So, Ezekiel says—or we are told about Ezekiel—that heaven was opened and there were visions of God. But also, visions of that which God showed him: visions of the people of God.
That very largely is what we have here in the first chapter of Ezekiel: visions of the people of God. He was given to see God’s people as God meant them to be. So it is worthwhile spending a little time tonight on the first chapter of Ezekiel.
We little understand, or insufficiently understand, what God means us to be, how God wants us to be, and how we can be, too, that we may bring glory to His name. So many times in this book we read of the glory of the Lord—the glory of God, the glory of God.
Well, our Lord is the glory of God. But there are people, too, who may reflect, reveal, and embody the glory of God.
Now we are going to use a telescope first. There are eight distinct visions in Ezekiel—eight distinct visions. There are other things that might be something equivalent to visions, but I want just to concentrate on eight visions in Ezekiel.
The first is Ezekiel 1: God’s people as He means them to be. We will come back to that. God’s people as He means them to be—that is what Ezekiel was shown first. And that is a very good beginning for any ministry, especially if you are among the captives, like Ezekiel was.
But in Ezekiel 3, he is shown them as they were—in the misery and shame of exile, by the waters of Babylon.
So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went embittered in the rage of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong on me.
Then I came to the exiles who lived beside the river Chebar at Tel-abib, and I sat there seven days where they were living, causing consternation among them.
It is one thing to have a revelation of the people of God as He means them to be. It is another thing to see them as they really are, and that can be very shocking—shattering—for us.
Then, in the third vision, in Ezekiel 8, he sees how they became in that wretched condition of slavery and exile by the rivers of Babylon. How was it that they lost, or failed to be, what God had intended?
Ezekiel 8 tells us. We are not going to study it in detail, but there are four things set out as contributing to the awful condition in which they were.
One is the image of jealousy. Some image had been placed there in the house of the Lord which was supplanting the true Person—the revelation of God as He was.
How often, and how calamitous it is, when anything that is less than the truth is before us, occupying our attention or affection. An image of jealousy was the one thing.
Then there were these women weeping before the goddess Tammuz, the goddess of fertility. In heathenism there are all kinds of gods and goddesses. One thing or another is the manufacture, or the production, of human imagination: there must be a god for this.
So here is a god of fertility, and all the barren women are going to that image for the deliverance, or for the fruitfulness, that they desire.
But more disastrous, in my understanding, is what they saw when they went into an inner chamber. Ezekiel 8:7 says:
He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.
He said to me, “Son of man, now dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance.
He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here.”
So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall around.
And standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising.
He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’”
Men—the leaders—in this awful chamber of imagery. The mind, you know, has to be renewed. The mind is very dangerous. It is a wonderful endowment that God has given us, a mind, but the enemy is always eager to capture it, to capture our thoughts, and to hold our imaginations.
Here are these leaders in this chamber underground, with all this wretched imagery on it—filthy, filthy things. Their minds had been corrupted. They were the leaders.
This is part of the explanation: a people so wonderfully chosen, with such a high calling and such an exceptional privilege of celebrating and demonstrating the lordship of God, yet corrupted.
Then finally, in the same chapter, there are those who turn their backs on the temple and are thumbing their noses at the Lord. Dreadful.
Well, there is the explanation of how they had fallen and were now in this shameful captivity and exile. The heathen were saying, “Come on, sing us one of the songs of Zion.” They hung their harps on the willows. How could they sing the songs of Zion? But the enemies were mocking them.
Oh, how much occasion we give to the enemy when we miss the elevation into which the Lord desires, and does put us, and descend to the depths of shame and sin.
Well, that is the third vision that Ezekiel has. Following that, in Ezekiel 9, there is judgment. How was it that Jerusalem was desolate? How was it that judgment fell upon that holy city, that glorious centre of testimony? Judgment: God had to judge.
At the same time, He sent His messenger to mark—to put a mark on those who sighed and cried. In all the calamities of Christianity and nominal Christianity today, thank God there are still some who sigh and cry.
God surely must judge. But there are those who sigh and cry, not against the judgment, but for the sad condition that we find ourselves in.
Then, in Ezekiel 10, there is the moving out: the glory departing. The glory departing, and the living ones going also. There were living ones in the midst of that death. There were living ones, and as the Lord withdrew, so they withdrew.
There is a lesson there for us, you know. If the Lord has withdrawn, it is better for us to go out also. If the Lord is no longer among His people, then why should we remain, if we have any jealousy for Him? There comes a time when we do have to follow Him—follow Him out.
We follow Him in, thank God, but we sometimes have to follow Him out. We see the living ones following Him out.
What is the result? The next vision is Ezekiel 37: the dry bones. The dry bones. It really does look desperate. “Our hope is lost.” That was the conclusion. But it was not really, because the Lord is the Restorer.
In Christianity today, in nominal Christianity today, there are bones—bones, very dry bones. But thank God, there are still bones. If there were nothing at all, it would not be so hopeful. But there are bones, and they may have some marrow in them.
Anyway, these that Ezekiel saw were very dry. But what was the remedy? The hand of the Lord was upon him. Ezekiel said, “I am going to show you: I am a God of restoring.”
So there was the Word, and there was the Spirit, and the dry bones became an army. That was a moving now toward restoration.
Then we have the vision of Ezekiel 40-43. That is unique. We may not talk about that tonight; we might talk about it tomorrow morning. But there is the vision of the house of God, where the glory returns.
But when does the glory return? In what house can the glory of the Lord be revealed again? Well, we can learn about that from Ezekiel 40-43.
Finally, there is the flowing out of the river. The eighth vision that Ezekiel has is the flowing out of the river, bringing life. It is the river of life, flowing from the sanctuary, showing what really is God’s thought for the people of God—or for the house of God, for the church of God—when He is there in the midst, glorified.
There is that going out of life: life that heals, life that brings life. The river that flowed out from that sanctuary that Ezekiel saw went to the neck of the Dead Sea, where the Jordan flowed in. This flowed due east to the neck of the Dead Sea, and wherever the river went, life came.
So this is the telescopic view of Ezekiel. Remember, the message is in four words: I AM the Lord.
We need it again. We need to learn of it more deeply.
Well, now can we turn to look a little more closely at Ezekiel 1? This is the basic vision—the basic vision that any of us, all of us, need. We need to see what God’s thought for His people is. Otherwise, we can never hope to attain to it, or know when we have attained to it.
Here we have a revelation: the activity of God in relation to the Man on the throne. What is the result of that?
We have the activity of God in relation to the Man on the throne. Ezekiel 1:4:
As I beheld, behold, a stormy wind—or, as one rendering has it, and I think the proper rendering, a whirling wind, a whirlwind—a wind circling around a centre; and a great cloud, and flashing fire, fire enfolding itself.
A great cloud was very well known to those who were in the wilderness. It was a cloud that indicated His presence: cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.
Fire active upon a centre is the thought there. This is a threefold activity of God:
Here is the threefold activity of God focused upon what we see in the next verse:
Within it there were figures resembling four living beings. This was their appearance: they had the form of a man, or the likeness of a man.
From the centre—from the wind, from the cloud, from the fire—this is what emerges. This is resulting from God’s activity in His sovereignty, in His grace, and in His jealousy, or His holiness: a man.
It says four living creatures, yes, but it is a man in the form of a man—the likeness of a man.
Here is something comparable, we might say reverently, to God—the Godhead. The Godhead is a compound unity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The body of Christ, the church, is a compound unity. There are individuals. Of course, there is God the Father, there is God the Son, there is God the Holy Spirit; but They are one—a compound unity.
It says about the husband and wife, “They shall be one.” Well, it is not a single unity. The marriage of husband and wife is a compound unity. That is what we have shown to us in the Godhead, and that is what we have shown to us in the body of Christ.
Here is a man. There is a Man on the throne, and there is a man here. Of course, we do realize that our Lord is unique in this: He has two bodies. No one else has two bodies, but He has two bodies—the body in which He is now at the right hand of the Father, and the body here: His body, the church, many in one.
But here that is represented. Now, we must not jump too quickly to conclusions. We must examine it a little bit, because we do not want to be fanciful.
Let us look at these four creatures. Sometimes they are called cherubim. Sometimes they are called creatures. Sometimes they are called living ones. I do not know how it is in your Bible, but whichever it is, let us look at it, because these are the predominant part of this first section of Ezekiel 1: the vision of four figures.
Now, we must trust the Scripture to interpret Scripture. We must not fancifully conclude this or that. We must not use, or allow, our imagination to go wild. Let us examine and find out from the Word who these are.
We may discover that by noticing where they are. Where they are will help us to identify who they are.
If your Bible speaks of cherubim, that is all right. These are referred to in some places as cherubim. Where do we get that? Where are they referred to in the first place? In Genesis 3.
Here we read of the expulsion of Adam from the garden. Adam and Eve are now outside, but who is inside?
Therefore the Lord sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.
So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Cherubim is a plural. It does not put an “s” on the end of the English word, but cherubim is plural, not singular. So it is not just one cherub; it is a plural number inside.
Here is an indication: the cherubim can be inside. They represent those who are not expelled from the garden—inside.
The next reference is in Exodus 25, where we find the cherubim in another place.
You shall make two cherubim of gold; make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat.
Make one cherub at one end, and one cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends.
The cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another; the faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat.
This is wonderful, really. Two cherubim, one on either end of the mercy seat, and one piece of gold. They really are one with the mercy seat, and they are looking down upon the blood that is sprinkled there on the mercy seat.
How much that blood covers. How much underneath there is, underneath the mercy seat: the three emblems—the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.
The people grumbled, but the Lord fed them with the manna. The people complained against the leadership and revolted against it, but the Lord said, “Put the evidence of My choice inside there.” It was all related to grumbling and complaining, but the generosity of the Lord, the grace of the Lord, the mercy seat, and the blood cover it all.
The cherubim are witnessing. They are found also in 1 Kings, in the most holy place, standing as stewards, as it were—guardians of that ark of the testimony.
So these cherubim are in very significant places: in the garden, above the mercy seat, and in the most holy place, covering the ark of the covenant.
But also, we read that they are in heaven, too, in Revelation 4.
Before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass like crystal; and in the centre and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.
Here they are not called cherubim; they are not called living ones; they are called living creatures. But they are the same. They are before the throne.
If we want to learn who they really are, then listen to their song. You can usually identify a person, you know, by what they sing. If you sing the songs of Zion, you think, “Well, he is a believer.” But if they are singing the cinema songs or the pop songs, you say, “I do not think he can be a Christian yet.”
You can recognize people by their song. We can identify these creatures by their song. See Revelation 5.
They sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy art Thou to take the book,
and to break the seals thereof;
for Thou wast slain,
and didst purchase us unto God
from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
Some renderings say, “Thou didst purchase men unto God,” but in the Authorized Version it puts it more personally: “Thou didst purchase us unto God from the nations.”
So we can identify them. These living ones represent the redeemed of the Lord—the redeemed of the Lord.
Perhaps, having established their identity from the Scripture, we may return now to Ezekiel 1. We do notice that they are very curious creatures.
We are told about their faces, their legs, their feet, and their wings. They are described in a fair amount of detail, and we say, “What kind of creatures are they?”
Well, you know, the spiritual is a bit of a mystery. If there is no mystery about your life and mine, there cannot be much of God in it.
“See what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are. But the world does not know us.” How can it? It cannot understand the supernatural.
So there is a mystery about the true children of God. There is a bit of a mystery about these living creatures, but it just reminds us that a believer, or a child of God, is a combination of the natural and the supernatural.
There is that supernatural element in us—in our very life, and, of course, in our behaviour, even in our appearance—if we are the children of God.
These cherubim, or these living ones, have heavenly and earthly features. They have faces—that is earthly. They have legs—that is earthly. But wings—that is heavenly. They are a combination.
The true children of God, I believe, are represented here. This tells us what God means us to be like: not ordinary, but distinguished by the evidence of that which is of God, which is supernatural.
We will come to the matter of the faces. What does it say? Each one of them had four faces. Well, that is rather extraordinary, is it not? Did you ever see a man with four faces, looking in each direction?
That is what is said here: four faces—the face of the lion, the face of an ox, the face of a man, and the face of an eagle.
Is there any reference to such a thing before? Well, when Balaam looked down on the camp of Israel, he made some remarkable statements which, I think, may give us some explanation of this.
In Numbers 23, Balaam, looking down on God’s people in the wilderness, says:
I see him from the top of the rocks;
I look at him from the hills.
Behold, a people who dwells apart,
and shall not be reckoned among the nations.
A people who dwell apart are distinguished from the nations. He is talking about Israel, God’s people.
He has not observed misfortune in Jacob,
nor has He seen trouble in Israel;
the Lord his God is with him,
and the shout of a king is among them.
There is no omen against Jacob,
nor is there any divination against Israel.
At the proper time it shall be said of Jacob and to Israel,
“What has God done?”
God made a difference. You see, as early as Exodus 8:22, this was declared. God made a difference between His people and the Egyptians.
But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where My people are living, so that no swarms of insects will be there, in order that you may know that I, the Lord, am in the midst of the land.
I will put a division between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall occur.
The Lord makes a distinction. It is the distinction of redemption. Redemption makes the distinction; it separates.
Balaam himself saw, when God opened his eyes, that these people were not ordinary people. There was something extra about them. Well, of course, that is so when we look at these in the first chapter of Ezekiel.
But when Balaam looked at the camp, he saw them under four standards—four standards. We read about that in Numbers 2: three tribes on each side of the tabernacle, and each of those three tribes camped under a standard.
Those who camped on the east side, toward the sunrise, were under the standard of the camp of Judah. What was on the standard of Judah? What was the emblem? It was a lion.
On the south side was the standard of the camp of Reuben. What was the emblem on Reuben’s standard? It was a man.
On the west side was the standard of the camp of Ephraim. What was the emblem on the standard of Ephraim? It was an ox.
On the north side was the standard of the camp of Dan. What was his emblem? It was the eagle.
So there is the lion, the man, the ox, and the eagle. Here these living creatures have that appearance. Their faces are described in Ezekiel 1:10:
As for the form of their faces, each had the face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of an ox on the left; all four had the face of an eagle.
This identifies them with the camp, with the people of God in the wilderness. But it also identifies them with Christ.
Why? Because His portrait is fourfold when we open the Gospels. Each Gospel has a particular aspect of our Lord, providing, as it were, a fourfold portrait of the Lord.
In Matthew, what is the portrait of our Lord? It is the King, or the lion—the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
In Mark: the ox, the servant. Servant is the emphasis regarding our Lord in Mark—the ox, the figure of the ox.
In Luke: the man, perfect Man, blessed Man.
In John, of course: “I am from above; you are from beneath.” The eagle.
So here, these living ones are bearing evidence of Christ, or are symbolic of the body of Christ, having His likeness and His image.
God wants to be known. God longs to be known as He is—not as we think He is, but as He really is. He longs to be known.
Philip said, “Show us the Father, and that is enough.” And Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” The Lord is a wonderful revelation of God the Father.
That fourfold portrait of Him provided by the Gospels is foreshadowed here in these who were reflecting, expressing, and embodying the Lord—the Man upon the throne.
But not only in their appearance were they expressing God’s workmanship; in their movement they were expressing and celebrating His sovereignty, His lordship.
Above their heads was the throne, and they were moving in relation to the throne. All their movements were throne-governed. But how? By the Spirit.
Each went straight forward. Wherever the Spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went.
Their movement is wonderful. It is miraculous. The unity in that diversity is wonderful, because such diversity does sometimes create difficulty, does it not?
Do we not sometimes wish we were all the same? We would get along together much better, and hold together more easily, if we were all the same. But we are all different. There is such diversity in the family, in the body of Christ, in the creation of God—and yet, wonderful harmony.
“I AM the Lord” is beautifully, to my mind, expressed by these living ones moving. They can go that way, this way, or another way without any difficulty. Why? Because they have mobility. They have wheels—wheels within wheels.
You know, we sometimes use that term rather maliciously: “wheels within wheels,” meaning deceit within deceit. But that is not the idea at all. Wheels within wheels means ability to move in any direction, at any time, instantly. It is like what they call a gyroscope—a wheel within a wheel.
To my mind, we have Acts 2, Acts 3, Acts 4, Acts 5, and Acts 6 in Ezekiel 1. Ezekiel 1 is particularly the early church, the Acts of the Apostles: governed by the throne, expressing the throne, embodying the authority of the throne, and manifesting the marvellous workmanship of God.
It says in Ephesians 2:10, “We are His workmanship.”
We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
His workmanship. Balaam looked at the people of God and saw their uniqueness. They were different from all others. “What has God done? What has God wrought?”
In the early days, they could not understand what was happening when the Holy Spirit found those living ones, and they were fitted together and had one accord. They could move at once in any direction, as they did. They went everywhere preaching the Word, declaring the Lord.
It says that the movement of these living ones—the movement of their wings touching one another—was like the voice of God, like the voice of God.
That is where we find it a bit difficult to move, really: harmoniously, to synchronize rightly. We grind our gears, sometimes our spiritual gears, in our movements, and it is not the voice of God.
But these living ones, in all their movements, were like the voice of the Almighty. When they needed new instruction, they stopped, let down their wings, and received from above.
I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult, like the sound of an army camp; whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings.
And there came a voice from above the expanse that was over them. Whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings.
A lovely pattern, if we may say, for the people of God. If His greatness, His lordship, is really going to be celebrated, it must be embodied. When it is embodied, there will be harmony in our movements, and there will be fruit in our goings and comings.
Here we have, in the first chapter of Ezekiel, a wonderful setting forth of God’s thought for His people. Long before the day of Pentecost, but surely foreshadowing what followed the coming of the Spirit: the finding of a vessel to express the truth, “Christ, the One you crucified, is both Lord and Christ.”
When we read the Acts of the Apostles, we find great variety, just as here in the living creatures. In Acts 1, we see the variety that is there:
Peter and John,
James and Andrew,
Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew,
James the son of Alphaeus,
and Simon the Zealot,
and Judas the son of James.
What variety is there! This is just typical of the Lord: He puts variety together. Even husband and wife can be so different one from the other, but they are complementary—necessary.
My wife is very different from what I am. I am very thankful, yes, because she helps me.
So it was here. It says they were “of one accord”—of one accord. There is the vessel prepared, the vessel of testimony prepared.
It falls into line with that which is seen in Ezekiel 1: the vessel of testimony, the body, the work of the Lord—that variety, nevertheless in harmony, subject to the Man on the throne, and expressive of Him.
“I AM the Lord” is the message in the book of Ezekiel, and we may meditate to our profit. We have only scratched the surface tonight, but we may meditate to our profit, and I pray that we may.
Lord, what has been of man, please throw it away like chaff. But what has come from You, O Lord, let it remain, and be written by Your Spirit, by Your own finger, upon our hearts, that we may learn and that we may see, in a new way, with new emphasis, the people of God as You mean us to be.
Lord, we want to rise to what You have planned, what You have made possible, and want to be in Your hands, that You may be able to fashion us and fit us together, that we might indeed be evidence of Your workmanship, and also a display and celebration of the glorious position our Lord holds as Lord of all, King of kings.
Oh, Lord, do not let us fall short of our calling, we pray, for Your name’s sake. Amen.