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Wheels Within Wheels
First in a series on Ezekiel
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, August 7, 2005
Were you as captivated this week when astronaut Stephen
Robinson pulled off the first ever repair of a space shuttle in space? You
remember it had to do with a protruding material from the space capsule? The
unforgettable scene in my mind is Robinson standing literally on the edge of
space, surrounded by the darkness of the outer space and on the very tip of a 58
foot arm that moved from the space center and allowed him to have proximity to
the work that he need to do. He looked, frankly, like a speck in the darkness,
on the edge of a spoke of a wheel and he did it.
It reminded me of a spiritual of my growing up times. It
went like this, “Ezekiel saw the wheel way up in the middle of the air. The big
wheel run by faith, the little wheel run by the grace of God, the wheel and a
wheel, way up in the middle of the air.” Where in the world did that spiritual
get its information from? Ezekiel. The prophet-priest, who of all of the
writers of the Bible is the visual person, the graphics person. If he had been
in the University today he would have been a computer graphics major. Turn to
Ezekiel 1 in your Bible.
I’m going to walk you through what are some of them most
graphic images in all of the Old Testament or New Testament until you get to the
book of Revelation and Revelation and Ezekiel are very similar because the
revelator uses a lot of the images of Ezekiel. “In the thirtieth year (that
means he’s 30 years old), the fourth month of the fifth day (he just gave you
his birthday), while I was among the exiles...”
We know what’s happening. You see from about 597 BC until
586 BC a decade and more, Jerusalem was in a peck of trouble and Babylon was
coming and taking their people prisoner and moving them to Babylon. They were
to be slaves and servants. We call it ‘The exile.’ Ezekiel was among the first
who was departed. He was young, strong, and bright. I can see why they took
him along with 10,000 others and he was living there by a river called ‘Keebar,’
spell it with a C or a K. It was a tributary of the Euphrates River. Ah! Now
we know where this is! Iraq. If you haven’t caught on that ancient Babylon is
modern Iraq, catch on right now. Besides, if you’re a good Virginian, you will
be absolutely delighted that Ezekiel got his vision on the edge of a Rivah,
right? The river Keebar.
Now as he begins to tell his story, you begin to realize
you’re not dealing with a guy who is an engineer. You’re dealing with a
graphics man and if you try to think literally of his descriptions, you’re just
going to get all messed up. What you need to do is say, what’s God trying to
tell him. God needs him and need him badly. You see, Jeremiah, who was a
contemporary of Ezekiel, had been left. He was old. What was needed was a young
prophet-priest and here is Ezekiel, but Ezekiel, he’s not going to catch on
unless you give him a picture, unless you give him an image, unless you give him
a graphic.
Listen to this graphic, “I looked and I saw a wind storm
coming out of the north; an immense cloud with flashing lightening surrounded by
brilliant light and the center of the fire looked like glowing metal and in the
fire what looked like four living creatures. And in appearance, their form was
that of a man (ah! Now you’re at the core; a man, a human). And each of them
had four faces and four wings.” What a wonderful description of a human being.
Four faces…don’t you have lots of faces you wear. If you think you don’t, ask
your best friend, your wife, or your husband or your kids. There’s an anger
face we sometimes wear, a bored face, a stressed face, a serene face, and these
four creatures had four wings. Wow! Four wings?!
In the scripture, wings are always part of heavenly doing,
like angels. Now I know you may not think there’s an angelic part of you, but
let me tell you something, God sees in you some holiness you’ve never
discovered; some heavenly possibilities that you’ve overlooked. You have four
invisible wing possibilities. Don’t squander them. Not only that, under those
wings, verse 8, “On the four sides they had the hands of a man.”
Now, get this picture. Here you’ve got a created being in
the form of a person who has four wings, now don’t try to literalize it, you’re
lost, who has great possibilities of holiness, of obedience to God, of following
God in joy and in satisfaction and in possibility, but underneath every wing is
a human hand. Wow! What in the world does that mean? Well just think about
it. Every breakthrough spiritually that God gives you is not to be kept. It
isn’t yours to put in a vault. It is yours to reach out and give to somebody
else. No gift from God is to be banked. It is to be sent. It is to be shared
and so the four creatures, which have four wings, those creatures have great
possibilities, but when the possibilities come their way, hmmm…let me ask you a
question…of all of the gifts God has given you, how much have you shared? You
say, I ask you, are you saved and you say, sure I’m saved. Have you shared it?
Have you ever told anybody about it? You’re well off, God has blessed you, have
you shared it with those who don’t have? You have a good set of clothes on your
back, have you cared about those who don’t? You see, the wings have hands that
reach out. Isn’t that incredible?
Well now you’ve got faces and there are four faces on the
four creatures; verse 10, “Each of the four had a face of a man” (we got that
one). What kind of a man? What kind of a man? That’s the question to
ask…well, “the first one has a face of a lion, the second one an ox, and the
third one an eagle.” Weird picture. Four creatures, each one built like a man,
one of them is a person, a man, a woman. And what God is saying to Ezekiel is,
Zeke, you’re you, you’re not anybody else, you don’t have to be anybody else. I
created you to be you. Don’t pretend to be Jeremiah, don’t pretend to be
Isaiah, don’t pretend to be Moses, be Ezekiel and I’ll communicate with you on
your level, graphics. What about you? Do you live your life always chained to
appearance of what other people think you ought to be? God made you unique. Be
yourself.
The second of these…lion, the face of a lion; a lion is a
symbol of authority. Not only that, power. There is some corner of your life
when a strong presence is needed. Maybe a strong presence of compassion; it
probably isn’t control and demanding, but it could be. Every family needs a
strong presence, every business needs a strong presence, every school room needs
a strong presence, every team needs a strong presence, are you the one whose
supposed to supply that presence and if you don’t somebody else will and it may
not be a person who knows anything about faith and love and hope. Lion, have
you ever remembered that Jesus was called on an occasion ‘The Lion of the Tribe
of Judah.’ It wasn’t only what He did, it’s who He was; just like you. Your
power and your presence comes not only from what you do, what you say, but who
you are.
The next one, an ox…what a change from a lion to an ox!
What is an ox? Well an ox is a beast of burden. It carries heavy loads.
Believe me, that if you’re watching a thoroughbred racehorse you’re watching a
thing of beauty, of poetry, of rhythm. Wow! When you watch an ox it’s like
watching grass grow. You’re not watching anything poetic, exciting or anything
else, but isn’t there a part of our lives that is ox-driven? Sure there is.
It’s a part where we keep going, we keep plowing, we keep carrying the burden
because that’s a part of what God has given to us. Jesus said when He was
thinking of an oxen, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. My yoke is easy
and my burden is light.”
And what’s the fourth? We’ve looked at the person, we’ve
looked at the lion, we’ve looked at the ox, the fourth is an eagle. What a
contrast! Now what is an eagle? In the Bible, an eagle is always a symbol of
the spirit that is able to sour, is able to rise up above everything else and
shrink things to its size. Say, do you want a fulfilled life? I just gave you
a recipe. Be yourself as God created you not as the world wants you. Be
yourself as God created you. Second, be a strong presence. Third, don’t
forsake the ox work. Fourth, when you need to sour above your circumstances and
see it from God’s point of view.
But now notice something. At the foot of all of these
creatures is a wheel. Listen, verse 15, “As I looked at the living creatures I
saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces.” Wow, what
an appearance. “It sparkled like diamonds and all four looked alike and each
appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel” (you see a wheel within a
wheel). As they moved they would go in any direction. Jump down to verse 20.
Where the spirit would go and the wheel would rise along with them because the
spirit because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. What
you’ve got is Ezekiel changing the metaphor of the Holy Spirit and of your
spirit.
You see, in almost all of the rest of the Bible, Spirit is
symbolized by wind or breath, but now Ezekiel symbolizes it with an incredibly
meaningful graphic; a wheel. Why would the Spirit be like a wheel? Think of
any wheel you can think of from the one that works your watch, that runs your
car, surfboard, skateboard, skates, the wheels on airplanes that allow them to
take off and land…any wheel you think of does something. Wheels implement; they
don’t design, they implement. The Holy Spirit is the implementer of the Holy
Trinity and the Holy Spirit is with you all of the time. That’s why it says,
when the creatures moved, verse 21, they also moved and when the creatures stood
still, they stood still. And the creatures rose from the ground and the wheel
rose along with them because the Spirit of the living creatures was in the
wheel.
If that’s not enough look at the next one where it says
that there were eyes over the huge rim of the wheels. Eyes on a wheel? I’ve
never seen eyes on a wheel? How could there be eyes on a wheel?
Let me give you an illustration. Some of us have just come
and been gone to a Baptist World Alliance Meeting. I’ll give you a brief two or
three sentence report. A grand trip! Becky was the leader and did such a good
job putting it all together. It was the 100th anniversary of the
Baptist World Alliance. The 50th anniversary they celebrated also
and it was special significance to all of us because you see, the 50th
anniversary of the Baptist World Alliance which now includes over 200 nations
and the conference over 12,000 people, 14,000 attended, 12,000 registered, from
over 200 countries, wow! Guess who was the president of the Baptist World
Alliance at the 50th celebration? Ted Adams. Dr. Theodore F. Adams
pastor of this church and on the base of that by the way he got his picture on
Time Magazine, which you can see over at the historical center. So it’s a
special time for us.
Shirley and I had the privilege of having two of our
grandchildren. One of them was Leah, she’s 12, going on 20 and Jessie, 9. When
we told her what had happened in London and did she want to go, she didn’t
hesitate, she said, what difference does that make? She is an adventurer.
Well, three things she wanted to do. She wanted to go on a double-decker bus
regardless of what had happened on the 7th of July. So we did. She
and I went on a double-decker bus. The second thing is she wanted to see the
Griffin, which is the symbol of London, and it’s a big old statue right in the
middle of a street, but the cab driver would stop right in the middle of it,
traffic going by everywhere. He said, give me the camera, get in front of it
and I’ll snap the picture. This is in the middle of everything it was
wonderful.
The third thing was the London eye, you say, what in the
world is that? Well, built in 2000 by British Air it is an incredible, huge
observing wheel, like a Ferris wheel, but it is huge, 450 feet high and it has
32 cubicles if you want to call it that. They are see-through. I would guess
they’re not glass, they are plastic, but you can see through it 360 degrees and
they’re big; suppose, I don’t have the exact, but suppose it’s 20 by 12 feet
every one of those cubicles. You don’t sit down, although there’s a bench in
the middle where you can if you want to, but people were wandering all around
taking pictures of everything and when you get to the top you can see all of
London; if it’s a clear day 25 miles. Well it wasn’t a clear day, but we could
see everything in downtown London, Big Bend, the Tower of London, Westminster
Abbey, the Parliament buildings, where the Queen lives in the Palace, we saw it
all. The fact is we were looking down on it. And Jessie and I, Leah didn’t
want to go, Jessie and I had a wonderful time.
Now suppose those cubicles, those units, they will handle
anything up to 25, let’s make it 20 and they’re 32 of them, you’re looking at
640 sets of eyes looking in all directions from a wheel. What Ezekiel is saying
is the Spirit of God is like that wheel with eyes looking in all direction and
knowing it all, knowing what has been does the Holy Spirit, knowing what will
be, does the Holy Spirit, Alpha, the beginning, Omega, the ending. Do you
realize that the wheel in a wheel has to do with you, though, because the Holy
Spirit who is the big wheel, seeing everything in all directions needs a little
wheel right in the middle of it because you see, sometimes He has no hands but
our hands, no mouth, but our mouth, no words, but our words, no feet, but our
feet, no gifts, but our gifts, no faith, but our faith, no love, but our love.
Are you willing to be part of the wheel within the wheel?
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