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Wind |
Rev. Langerak is pastor
of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids,
With the sound of a rushing mighty
wind from heaven, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:2-3). Fitting that on
Pentecost the ascended Jesus poured out His personal Spirit into the hearts of
His people as a powerful wind. Wind is an agent God uses to accomplish His good
pleasure. No human being can direct from where it comes or to where it goes—it
blows where it listeth (John 3:8). But God creates the
wind (Amos 4:13) and brings it forth
from His treasuries (Ps. 135:7). He gathers the wind
in His fists (Prov. 30:4). The stormy wind fulfills His word (Ps. 148:8). At His command, it
raises waves upon the sea (Ps. 107:25), and in the spring,
wind causes frozen waters to flow (Ps. 147:18). Therefore to the
question asked of Jesus, What manner of man is this that even the wind obeys
him?, we respond, "He is truly God!" (Mark 4:41).
Wind is a powerful agent of God that always accomplishes His will. Mighty
angels must hold the four winds of the earth. With those four winds, God brings
to the earth heat (Luke 12:55), drives away rain (Prov. 25:23), brings relief (Exodus 10:19), and storms (Ezek. 27:26). With a strong east
wind, He brought seven years famine and locusts upon the Egyptians, and divided
the Red Sea so
Wind is symbolic of God's certain judgment upon the wicked. The ungodly are
like chaff driven before the wind (Ps. 1:4). He that troubles his
house inherits the wind (Prov. 11:29). They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7), and the whirlwind
shall scatter them (Is. 41:16). The hearts of the
wicked are like trees blown in the wind (Is. 7:2). He whose faith wavers
is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind (James 1:6), often tossed to and
fro by every wind of doctrine (Eph. 4:14). And Jesus, the great
stone made without hands, not only smashes to pieces the ungodly kingdom of
man, but sweeps it away with His wind (Dan. 2:35; Rev. 6:13).
Wind is a personal agent of God. This explains why Scripture virtually
identifies wind with angels. When the four winds of earth are unleashed at
Christ's command, the angels themselves are said to go forth slaying men and
hurting earth and sea (Rev. 7:1-3; Rev. 9:13-15). When our Lord
flies upon the wings of the wind, He rides upon an angel, His ministers of
flaming fire (II Sam. 22:11; Ps. 104:3-4). Thus, when the
wicked are driven as chaff before the wind, Jesus, the Angel of the Lord
Himself, pursues them (Ps. 35:5). Wind is also a
life-giving agent of God. Scripture even uses the same word for wind, and a person's
breath or spirit. Wind is the blast of God's nostrils (Exod. 15:8). Thus, He made all things by the breath of His mouth (Ps. 33:6); He sends forth His
Spirit and they are created (Ps. 104:30). And in the hand of
God is the breath of mankind (Job 12:10), into whose nostrils
He breathed life (Gen. 2:7).
Certainly fitting, then, that the ascended Lord returns to His church as a
powerful wind—the personal Spirit of God given unto Him as the Angel of God.
With that wind He must breathe His own new life into a people spiritually
dead—so that when we receive that Spirit we receive Jesus personally. Although
we pass as the flower before the wind (Ps. 103:16) and our iniquities
like the wind have taken us away (Is. 64:6), nevertheless, He says,
"Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that
they may live" (Ezek. 37:9). No human can direct
or control that wind either, but He blows where God sends Him. And assuredly by
Him all the elect are gathered from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other (Matt. 24:31). Like the wind, He
cannot be seen—but the effect is surely known in everyone born of that Spirit (John 3:8). Let us by that wind in
our lungs, that life in our soul, that breath in our words, give thanks to our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with praise and obedience, who came to us with the
sound as of a mighty rushing wind.