The first chapter of Ezekiel is a very unusual portion of Scripture; and you have to think, because there are wings, four heads, wheels, and many other things to consider; but you will be surprised at the simplicity of this message.
Ezekiel 1:1–21. Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar (far off) 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 (Jehovah establishes) exile, the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand (power) of the Lord came upon him.)
And as I looked, behold, a storm wind (Spirit- strongly moving) was coming from the north, a great cloud (covering) with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire. And within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings. And their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them, their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved, each went straight forward.
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 a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies. And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went. In the midst of the living beings there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright, and lightning was flashing from the fire. And the living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning. Now as I looked at the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them. The margin reads, literally, “for each his four faces.”
The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions, without turning as they moved. As for their rims they were lofty and awesome, and the rims of all four of them were full of eyes round about. And whenever the living beings moved, the wheels moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also. Wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction. And the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Whenever those went, these went; and whenever those stood still, these stood still. And whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.
There is something of the faithfulness of God I want you to understand.
It is very difficult for us to grasp the faithfulness of the Lord. He says in Malachi 3:6, … I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. How many times you and I would have been consumed if God had not had a purpose in His heart, an unchangeable, immutable purpose—not only concerning all things, but, I believe, concerning His dealings and His relationship with you as well.
He creates His living beings, these creatures that are before the throne of God; and in the book of Revelation you find counterparts, the four living creatures that are before the throne of God. These beings reflect something, which you will see in the following verses. In verse nine it says that their faces did not turn when they moved, each went straight forward. Verse twelve: wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went. Verse seventeen: Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions, without turning as they moved. Verse twenty: Wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction. These beings were created by God. They could go in any direction, but they went without turning their heads to the right or the left.
How many times in the Scripture, God has exhorted His men, “Don’t look to the right hand nor the left!” because it is a human characteristic, in our weakness, to be distracted. We are distracted to the left or to the right. We can find many other things which will turn our hearts away from the Lord and from the purpose. But God is not so, and God did not create His spiritual, angelic beings in a manner that they should be changeable or that they could be distracted by any current circumstance or problem. It is unalterable. The ages may come and go, but the angels of God are set on a course that they will not turn to the right hand; they will not turn to the left; they will not alter nor swerve in the thing which God gives them to do.
We see that unalterable quality in the nature of the Lord when He set His face as flint to go to Jerusalem; so much so, that the Samaritans would have nothing to do with Him (Luke 5:53). It did not bother Him; He had His face set. He was going to die; He was going to do the will of the Father. That which was set before Him before the foundation of the world would be accomplished by Him in short order. Nothing was going to distract Him. How often the Lord tries to teach us the same thing. Oh, let us be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord (I Corinthians 15:58).
Let God create in our hearts the same quality that was in those heavenly beings. Whatever direction they were to go, they went with a head that did not turn, nor with anything that was observing any other scene. Wherever the Spirit directed, that is where they went. Wherever God ordered them to go, that is where they went. They had four faces; they faced in four different directions, and yet when the Spirit moved, they went one direction only, unswerving, unaltering, without distraction. I can’t help but envy those heavenly beings, those living beings that would execute the will of God and bring it forth in such a special way.
This steadfastness is a thing God has always said would bring success in His purpose, in His heart. Each time we start looking through these familiar Scriptures, we pick up a little different aspect of things. When God told Joshua, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. Joshua 1:5b, He was speaking of His faithfulness. God said, I’ll be with you; I’ll not fail you. I’m not going to forsake you.” God sets His course for a man’s life; the prophecies reveal what God has for him. The reason so many men with prophecies over them, who have done things we would think should destroy any effort on God’s part to do anything for them, finally walk in what God has said, is because God deals with them. God is unchangeable in His purposes. I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. They would have been destroyed long before, but God had a purpose for them. He would judge them. He would deal with them, but He would yet accomplish that which He had for their lives to fulfill.
Oh, that God looks upon you the same way! Do you know how much He loves you and how you can fail Him? How many times do you say to yourself, “I’ve failed God; God won’t do anything for me now”? But He does do something for you; He loves you; He lifts you up. He has an eternal purpose in His heart, For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. Romans 8:29a. Oh, the longsuffering and the mercy of God! May He work that faithfulness, which is a part of Him in us, for faithfulness is the seventh fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). “Lord, work Thy faithfulness in us until our hearts shall be wholly set on You, set to do the will of the Lord, without distraction.”
God brings you to this walk; accept that He has brought you here; accept the purposes of God. “Well, I’m discouraged.” We all could say the same thing.
How long will it take to become the people that we must be? We have worked year after year; we will work a few more years, for the work is not done. We will be the people God wants us to be. We will be that New Testament church that people will come from thousands of miles to see. We will be given to hospitality and sacrifice. We will love not our own lives even unto death; we will be willing to lay our lives down for the brethren. The goals and objectives will be to be a New Testament church in this day: glorifying God, exalting the Lord, to be worshipers who are glorifying God with an excellent worship in the Spirit. It is going to be. It will be because God is faithful and He will bless us with the faithfulness to pursue after that until it is wrought in us.
“I will be with you”; God said to Joshua, “I will not fail you or forsake you.” Then He told him to be the same way: Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people (What was he to give the people?) possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.“ Joshua 1:6. “Joshua will do it? I thought God gave them the land to possess; I thought God exhorted them to go in and possess the land.” Yes, but He made Joshua a promise; He said, “You shall give this people possession of the land.… Only be strong and very courageous, to be careful to do according to all the law of which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.” Joshua 1:6b, 7.
God was saying, “Be like those living beings that never alter, never turn their head, but move straight ahead. Don’t turn to the right hand; don’t turn to the left, Joshua. Be like My angelic hosts. Be faithful to pursue after the thing I send you to do, then you will have good success.” “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9. There it is again. It has echoed forth in the heart of every man in whom God has wrought His will.
In Philippians 3:13–14, you find Paul saying the same thing: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and pressing forward to the things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Didn’t Paul have a lot of different things on his mind? Everything! “I forget everything. This one thing I do.” Incidental to that one thing was the establishing of churches, edifying the people, writing epistles, etc. “This one thing I do; I am pressing toward that mark. I am pressing toward the thing that God set before me.”
I want that faithfulness in me. I hear it; I see it. I see it in the living beings of Ezekiel. I see it in Joshua and in Paul. It dawns on me that no man can put his hand to the plow and look back; he cannot be distracted and be fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). It will not be possible.
Dear Lord—the requirements of Thy Kingdom are so great—oh, that we would be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, with worship which is inflexible, that glorifies God in storms and in sunshine, that glorifies God by night and by day, that glorifies God when a tide comes against it, that glorifies God on the mountain peak of prosperity; that is always inflexible, glorifying the Lord. Oh that we would be like Job of old: continually before the altars making sacrifice and worshiping the Lord; and when he is suddenly stripped of everything, he tears his clothes and in sackcloth and ashes bows himself, still worshiping the Lord. He is inflexible in his worship, undistracted in the devotion of his heart to press toward the thing that God sets before him. We want that so much.
God told Joshua if he had that inflexibility, he would prosper in anything he did. I wonder if Satan does not throw things at you so you will say, “Well, I tried to hang on, but there was that one day that I gave up, and then the battle eased off.” Satan will keep after you because you win your battle. You win your battle by being undistracted. If you have not won that particular kind of battle yet, you will come back to it again and again until you do win it.
You have a battle that you must win, and you do a lot of crying out to the Lord, but God knows your heart. Don’t become discouraged over the promises He has made. Satan brings everything against a man to make him believe that God’s promises are not true. Some of us must break through and set an example of faith before others so that this habit of wavering is broken once and for all. We must follow the exhortation in the book of James. James understood what we would be facing in the end time. He said, “Oh, brethren, you are to be patient!”
Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, how the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, that you yourselves may not be judged; behold the Judge is standing at the door.
Then he brings out a strange passage that we need to grasp. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. James 5:7–11.
I want to be like that. I want to be faithful; I want to be steadfast; I do not want to waver. And when the pressure is on, I do not want to go off in a corner someplace and have moments in which I express doubt. I want to put my hand to the plow and not look back. There is a need for a church to come up this way too, a need for a whole body of people who do not waver. What it would do to the new convert and the one who is fresh in this walk if they would come into a church and nothing could make them waver. No matter what befell them, nothing could make them waver, nothing could distract them. If they had set their course on God, they would not falter. I have such a desire to be steadfast. If there is anything in my spirit that must go, I pray, “Lord, deal with it!” I want to be faithful before the Lord.
I could go on and tell you about Jacob at Peniel; Jesus at Gethsemane, of what He did, and Peter in prison and the unceasing prayer made for him during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, until the Lord literally sent an angel to release him from jail, opening gate after gate. These are all stories of perseverance, of men who set their heart on God. I could give you negative aspects of this, too. There were times when the people did not pray, when they were not concerned and things did not happen. James, the brother of John, was slain with the sword, but Peter was delivered because the church prayed (Acts 12:2–11). Oh, how God always honors that perseverance!
In the eighteenth chapter of Luke is the story about the widow who comes to the judge, so concerned about getting her inheritance back which had been stolen from her. Finally by her continual coming, the judge answered her. Now shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? “I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith (literally, ‘the faith’), on the earth?” Luke 18:7, 8. Can He really rind this unbroken, undistracted faith that perseveres?
How are you walking with God? With wavering? With distractions? You come to church and get your focus back, but you know how you waver. Repent of that, for it is not pleasing to God. If this seems to be an impossible goal, it isn’t. You are responsible for the times that you waver; if you did not open the door to it, it would not happen. If you did not express those fears, they would not have form, and they would not have the force, either.
A great deal rests upon us to be undistracted in pursuing after the Lord. Every time we come up against a pressure, we should be on our faces before God. I have watched the way we pray. I have watched the course of intercession that comes up to a certain point. Then, instead of pressing the victory, we relax; we take it easy. Where is the one time that we could go unrelentingly into the victories that the Lord has for us? What would happen if just once we were completely unrelentless?
Think about the many times you have been distracted by doubts and fears, by criticism or some little thing which hits you. Suddenly, you have to take a vacation from God; you have to have a coffee break. You have to go someplace and relax, do something else, and it defeats you. Then you must work and work, climbing back up where you were. You do not realize how much ground you lose. It would be much better if you could just sweat it out before the Lord until God works that faithfulness in you. Cry unto Him until that faithfulness is wrought in your spirit, and undistractedly press into what God has for you. That is what we must do.
We have many things to discourage us; and we could give vent to the things that have assailed us, but let us take them as a token of victory instead of defeat. Let us be the people that God wants us to be. Let us not need to be continually exhorted to come and get back in the harness; let us be pressing in always. When there is a need let us not wait to be exhorted and exhorted before we respond. Let everybody respond all together, accepting any inconvenience; taking everything in stride because we are going to be the people God wants us to be. We will bless the people who come, we will sacrifice. We are going to be a part of everything that comes along. We are going to do it just because God wants us to do it. But we will do it We will contend for it. It will be done absolutely without pressure. We do not have to be sold on it. We do not need to be pressured into it. We will just begin to accept our role in the Lord. We will accept that position, and we will accept our dedication and our responsibility, every one of us.
As the people come in their need, we will give ourselves to ministering to them and blessing them. We will be right at our peak spiritually because we will seek God to be. I am not talking about being exalted but about humbly serving with the anointing of the Lord. I would like to see us so walking in the fullness of the Spirit, that no matter in what condition the people come, they will be met by God. They will be met by each of us they face. By every one with whom they have an encounter, they will be met by God.
We are His workmanship; we are His heritage; we are His people. We want to be like those living beings in Ezekiel. There seem to be two kinds of stiffnecks in the Bible. Stephen talks about the children of Israel being stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears (Acts 7:51). That is a dangerous physical condition to be in. But we do like that steadfast stiff-necked quality that does not look in every direction, which does not turn to the right hand or the left, but that sets our hearts wholly upon the Lord and what He sets before us.
“But I get discouraged. I’m lonely. I have problems.” Sweat it out. Some of you know the will of God; go straight ahead and do it! You have had a word, but you ask, “Did the Lord change His mind?” No. “But, I see problems that I didn’t see before.” He saw them. “How can God do with me what He set out to do? I see now all the things that hinder.” God saw them before those prophecies came. He knew more about you than you could ever know about yourself. If you were in His place and know that much about a person, you would have nothing to do with him. But God loves you, and He blesses you, and He says, “You are going to walk with Me.”
With this message, I am trying to make you a believer, a real believer. Faith is going to prevail. We need to do a little repenting. We need to believe God and appropriate a few things. No one can see your wavering, but you see it. No one can see my wavering, but I see it. It is a thing of spirit.
God is teaching us about this steadfastness, this immovableness. “Lord, it has to come from You.” It must be an impartation of the Lord. We will not waver!