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The topic of my sermon is strange. Mostsermons today seem to be on how to havevictory over too much sin in your life orweight on your body, or over too littlemoney in the bank or self-esteem in theheart. We hear sermons on family life, onpersonal wellness. Sermons on how to usetime or strengthen friendships. Sermonson loving yourself or managing yourmoney. Sermons on politics and govern-ment. But, as I say, I have a most unusualtopic for a sermon these days, one that iseven more needed than it is unusual.

I want to help you answer the question,“What is God like?”

To do that, I want us to turn to one ofthe most vivid records of a vision of Godin the Bible. It is found in the first chapterof Ezekiel.

Ezekiel’s situation is an interesting one.A captured Israelite in forced exile, Ezekielis a young man of about 30, recently relo-cated to the most powerful city on earthat the time, and God requires him tobegin preaching to His people.

Now, in all honesty, I have to tell youthat Ezekiel was “far from an ordinaryindividual.” W. F. Albright describedEzekiel as “one of the greatest spiritualfigures of all time, in spite of his tendencyto psychic abnormality—a tendencywhich he shares with many other spiri-tual leaders of mankind.”1 The bookEzekiel produced has struck many asrather strange and difficult. In fact, therewas a tradition among the Jewish rabbisthat young men were not allowed to readEzekiel until they were 30, lest they would

become discouraged at how hard theScriptures were to understand and cometo despise them.

But as strange as the early parts of thisbook may sound at first, I do not thinkthat they are that hard to understand, andthey are rich in meaning. From Ezekielone, I want you to notice five things thatwe learn about God.

God is Not Like UsThis is where we really must begin if

we are to understand this vision of God,and, more to the point, the God thatEzekiel envisages here.

The Old Testament prophets knewfrom personal experience that God wasnot just like you and me. They assumedwhat theologians call the “otherness ofGod.” So, too, the Psalmist in Psalm 50:21represents the Lord’s rebuke to onehuman worshiper, “You thought I wasaltogether like you.” In fact, the Bibleclearly presents the fact that God is notlike us. The vision that God gave toEzekiel made this abundantly clear.

If you stop and think about it, though,you see that non-Christians don’t seem toassume this. Tommy Bolt, a well-knowngolfer earlier in this century, renowned forboth his graceful swing and his terribletemper, once, after lipping six straightputts, shook his fist at the heavens andshouted, “Why don’t you come on downand fight like a man!” His frustration wasgenuine, but his thoughts about God wereincredibly wrong.

Now I don’t know how serious Tommy

A Vision of GodEzekiel 1:1-20

Mark Dever

Mark Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill

Baptist Church in Washington, D. C. A

graduate of Cambridge Universit y,

Cambridge, England, he is the author of

Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. His

next book is a study of Richard Sibbes.

He is a contributing editor to The

Founders Journal.

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Bolt was about his view of the nature ofGod, but others have quite deliberatelytaught that, in fact, God is just like us.Mormonism, for example, teaches thedoctrine of eternal progression. “As manis, God once was; as God is, man maybecome.” This doctrine does sound likesome words in the Bible: “You will be likeGod.” Those, however, were the wordswith which Satan tempted the firstwoman in the garden to disobey God.That disobedience would be rooted in theidea that Godhood was somehow withinher grasp. From her heart, to the hands ofthe idol-maker, to the doctrines of theMormons, to our own latest disobedi-ences, we cannot claim that this misun-derstanding is strange to any of us.

We are especially tempted to make Godover in our own image in terms of Hischaracter. Toward the end of his life,Henry David Thoreau was visited by apious friend who kindly inquired, “Henry,have you made your peace with God?”Thoreau replied, “We have never quar-reled.” A few years ago, the movie“Forrest Gump” has the title characterbeing asked “Have you found Jesus yet?”,to which he responded simply, “I didn’tknow I was supposed to be looking forhim.” That sums up much of our societytoday: mired in the hopeless confusion ofnot knowing God and not even realizingthat they don’t know Him.

The relevance of Ezekiel’s vision hereshould be clear to us as Christians. Wemust guard against assuming too much.Things that we take to be self-evident may,in fact, be wrong. As Will Rogers said, “It’snot what you don’t know that will get youin trouble, but what you know for certainthat just ain’t so.” We must study scrip-ture to check our tendency to “make Godover” in our own image. God is unusual.

The Bible calls God “holy.” It is interest-ing that the Bible does not teach that Godmerely possesses holiness as a dispensableattribute, but rather that He is holy.

Therefore, we must show reverence.Throughout Ezekiel’s encounter with Godrecorded in this first chapter, there is nodoubt about this. If you look at the visionpresented here, building up throughoutit is a palpable sense of awe. Even thereduction to mere writing and the passageof time cannot hide this from us.

Some may remember the scene in “TheWizard of Oz” where Dorothy finally getsinto the Emerald City and then intothe Great Hall to see the Wizard. Oncethrough the door, she and her compan-ions go down a long hall, which then turnsinto an even more imposing one. Theirjourney finally culminates in a room witha great flaming centerpiece and a loudbooming voice. Throughout, the moviebuilds tension, wonder, and awe. Thesame is true of Ezekiel. The only differ-ence is that the Wizard was a fake. TheGod whom Ezekiel encountered is real.

In this vision, the excitement, the won-der, and the amazement increase. After theinitial storm and the brilliant light (v. 4),we find a lengthy description of strangecreatures (vv. 5-14). Their presence onlyheightens our interest. In verses 15-21, theattention is deflected away from the crea-tures themselves to the wheels about andunderneath them. From the beginning ofthe vision through verse 24, meticulouscare is given to recording a most bizarreand almost fantastic spectacle. And yet,with verse 25 comes the realization thatthis lengthy description is all intended tolead to something else!

That something else is clearly a repre-sentation of God Himself—the God whois inexhaustible, incomprehensible, and

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almost indescribable. Did you noticeEzekiel’s evident hesitancy to describewhat he was seeing? Throughout thisaccount of his vision, he refers to what“looked like” this or that, what had the“appearance” of this, or the “form” of that,(vv. 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 22, 24). As Ezekielcomes to the end of the chapter these ver-bal stumblings increase in number, as ifthe penetrating reality slips further andfurther away from Ezekiel’s ability todescribe with words what he was seeing.

In verse 28, we see what Ezekiel didwhen he was confronted with a vision ofGod: Ezekiel fell face down, even after allhis theological training. In this sense,Ezekiel is like Job in Job 42, where theknowledgeable and holy Job feels undone,feels his knowledge is paltry and his holi-ness tawdry when he comes to be in thepresence of the One who is Truth andGoodness Himself.

As for us, we must see God not as theold man upstairs, not merely as a kindlygrandfather or a friendly neighbor or a palor chum. He is not like us. Ezekiel wasunforgettably reminded of this. So mustwe be reminded today.

God is All Powerful and All WiseAs with His unusualness, God’s power

and omniscience would not have beennews to the Hebrews of the sixth centuryB.C. Ezekiel would have known of andhave believed in God’s comprehensivepower and wisdom long before he everhad this vision. Nevertheless, for thereaders of our own day, we should takecareful note of this.

Note the body of this vision (vv. 4-24)and try to picture those creatures beingdescribed. This strange description hasbrought everything from strange medi-eval illustrations to strange modern expla-

nations. Illustrators have tied themselvesin knots trying to depict this scene. Erikvon Daniken even went so far as to sug-gest that this is a description of some kindof ancient alien helicopter!

The main section of the vision fallsneatly into halves. The first half (vv. 4-14)is taken up with the living creatures, andthe second (vv. 15-24) with the wheels. Inboth sets, though, it seems that the details,while true renderings of what Ezekiel saw,also had a greater significance for him. Ithink that when Ezekiel saw the livingcreatures with faces in each direction, hewould have understood them to representGod’s omniscience. And in the mightywings, outstretched above the creatures,able to defeat space and time with theirmovement, Ezekiel would have under-stood the indescribably great power ofGod Himself.

Again, this pattern was repeated withthe descriptions of the living wheels inverses 15-24. Did you notice that thesewheels were reported as having eyes?Rather than simply trying to imaginehow you would visually represent such athing to a group of children in SundaySchool, expend your imagination ontrying to consider the significance. Whatcould the import of these eyes be? Couldthey be a reflection of the function ofthe faces of the living creatures turned inall directions?

Now we find eyes that look in everydirection. And then the wheels themselvesseem to have the kind of power to moveeffortlessly and in any direction, the kindof power that seems to be possessedby the winged creatures as well. Surelythe wheels reiterate the presentation ofomniscience and omnipotence—of all-seeingness and almightiness that hasalready been presented to us in the first

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half of Ezekiel’s vision. Surely they wereshowing Ezekiel that God was neverlimited by ignorance or inability, but thattime and space themselves served as nobarriers to God.

As Christians, such a vision of God’spower and wisdom should inspire humil-ity and trust. In my own life, I have foundthat I could follow different and difficultdirections from God when I realized thatGod loved me more than I loved myself,and that He knows what is best. When werealize God’s love towards us, combinedwith His knowledge of us and of thefuture, and add to that same understand-ing something of His power and ability,we find that here is the God that we canworship, that we can trust, that we mustfollow, wherever He might lead us.

Friend, what is your reaction to sens-ing the presence of God? Too often in ourchurches, we have acted as if casualnesstoward God was a sign of our intimacywith Him. Yet if we really come to betterunderstand the God of the Bible, asEzekiel did here, then our trust in Him willbe matched by our reverence for Him.This God is not like us. He is all-powerfuland all wise. He inspires awe in us.

God is Not Limited byCircumstances

It was perhaps a new thought for thepriest-trained, now-exiled Ezekiel thatYahweh, the Lord God, was not limitedto Jerusalem! All his life, he had beentrained to treasure the Temple and to fearexpulsion from it. Exile from God’s Prom-ised Land was a reversal of the Exodus, adivine rejection (see Dt 28), a kind ofdeath. Surely, Ezekiel and his fellowexiles in Babylon had been taught all this.

As true as it all may have been, even asJeremiah focused on the death of God’s

unfaithful people, God brought Ezekiel tofocus on the hope for resurrection. Evenbefore we get to the celebrated vision ofthe dry bones in chapter 37, there is hopein this book. It all springs fundamentallyfrom this new understanding of God thatEzekiel was being taught by seeing whathe saw here.

Simply put, the question that musthave been in their minds was this: in los-ing their land, had they lost their God?And the unmistakable answer that thisvision presents to this question is “No!”

The movement in this chapter—thestorm coming, the mobile creatures, thewheels—all seemed to show that God isnot bound to a place, whether Jerusalemor any other. Ezekiel’s ancestors hadknown that. Abraham had heard the callof God in Ur. The distressed children ofIsrael had been heard by God during theirsojourn in Egypt. They had witnessed thecloud by day and the pillar of fire by nightthrough the wilderness wanderings. NowGod would give these exiles a renewedvision of this principle.

The vision Ezekiel had was really avision of a chariot, with its great wheelsand lightning speed. (Remember therewere no cars or jets in ancient Meso-potamia!) Even more significant, did younotice that this chariot was very much likethe ark of the covenant, with the creatureswith wings outstretched, and a place inthe middle for God, high and lifted up?

The message to the exiles was clear:God needed no temple. While He clearlyhad chosen to fill the Temple that Solomonhad built for Him in Jerusalem, never hadHe taught them to think that He was lim-ited in any way to the means that theyprovided for Him. I wonder if even therainbow (v. 28) would have been areminder to them of God’s universal

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concern (see Ge 9:8-17), unbound byethnic descent or national location?

Friend, you realize, don’t you, that Godis not limited to where you last think youspotted Him? He is not bound by ourperceptions of Him or our expectations forHim. He can come in the most surprisingways and at the most amazing times! Nowthat can be troubling or encouraging,depending on how you feel. It is troublingto you if you thought that you hadescaped from the threat of God, if youthought, as John Bunyan put it, you were“free among the dead, and countedamong the number of those that Heremembereth no more.” The sinner isalways troubled by the approach of God.Like the freshly fallen Adam, his instinctis always to run and hide.

But the news that God is not limited tocircumstances is great news if you loveGod, and have come to think, for what-ever reason, that you had put yourselfbeyond the bounds of His concern.Bunyan writes, “Sometimes a man…is, ashe apprehends, so far off from God,that…they think themselves beyond thereach of God’s mercy.” But, he adds, “Itbecomes thee, when thou canst not per-ceive that God is within the reach of thy

arm, then to believe that thou art withinthe reach of his; for it is long, and noneknows how long.”2

Dear Christian friend, beware! Don’t betoo dependent on particular means,whether an author, speaker, preacher,church, worship style, friend, job or cher-ished dream. Here’s hope, even if you’reseparated in time or circumstance fromsome past place of blessing, from yourJerusalem. Realize the truth of what Paullearned: “For I am convinced that neitherdeath nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any

powers, neither height nor depth, nor any-thing else in all creation, will be able toseparate us from the love of God that is inChrist Jesus our Lord” (Ro 8:38-39).Things do not have to be the same inorder to know blessing. God doesn’t findHimself bound by circumstances; ratherGod limits circumstances.

God InitiatesDid you notice the divine initiative

here? Again, that God initiates wouldhave been assumed at the time (eventhough they would have been surprisedthat He initiated with them even whenthey were in Babylon!).

We’re not told that this vision came toEzekiel because of his piety, his studious-ness, his fasting and praying, or his holi-ness. He is simply presented as “amongthe exiles” when the “the heavens wereopened” (v. 1). The passive tense here doesnot suggest that it was Ezekiel who wasreaching up and ripping them open, butGod who was rending them and stoop-ing down. So we read again in verse 3 that“the word of the Lord came.” We don’tread of Ezekiel going to get it, but of Godspeaking to Him. Again, in verse 4 we seethat the vision itself began with the stormthat came to Ezekiel. He did not set out toexperience God; rather God set out toshow something of Himself to Ezekiel.

Again at the end of the vision, afterEzekiel has marveled over the fantasticsights he has beheld in the storm and thecreatures and the wheels, we read in verse25, “Then there came a voice.” So as theword of God had come, as the storm hadcome, as the living creatures and chariothad come, so, too, here the voice came.And it came, we read in verse 28, because“of one speaking.”

Francis Schaeffer entitled one of his

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books He is There and He is Not Silent. Godwas not being quiet in this case. Rather,out of love, God came and spoke. LikeMoses and the burning bush, and Isaiahin the temple, and Paul on the road toDamascus, it is the human part to hearand respond; it is God’s part to come andspeak. God did with Ezekiel in this visionwhat God always does. God took theinitiative

If you are hearing this message todayas a non-Christian, I urge you most sol-emnly: Be responsive to God’s advances.God does delight in forgiving the sins ofthose who repent and trust in Him. Somepeople find it inconceivable that Godcould care for them, but friends, theinconceivable in this case is true.

Once when Julia Ward Howe, the well-known crusader for women’s rights andthe author of “The Battle Hymn of theRepublic,” invited a certain senator tocome and meet an up-and-coming youngactor, the senator wrote back, “The truthis, I have got beyond taking an interest inindividuals.” Mrs. Howe commented inher diary, “God Almighty has not got sofar.” Thank God, that’s true. But friend,be responsive. Cherish any inkling of truefaith. Don’t be presumptuous. Thedecision that we are called to make to fol-low Christ is costly, and it is urgent. It isurgent partly because God is not alwaysinitiating in the same way. Although who-soever will may come, people are oftendisinterested. There are seasons of greaterand lesser openness and concern aboutmatters of the spirit in people’s lives.

As Christians, the great truth of Godtaking the initiative with us should makeus humble and prayerful. As we recall thatit was He who called us, and that we didnot call ourselves, we find our own opin-ion of ourselves and our goodness declin-

ing even while the vision of God and ofHis glorious grace increases. And so ourresponse is to praise Him, and to humblycome in prayer and supplication to theOne Who takes initiative, Who will come,and Who will save.

God initiates.

God CommunicatesCommunication is really at the heart of

this chapter.As surprising as it may be to us,

Ezekiel’s vision climaxes in voice. Theorder here is one of sight, then sound, thenspeech. Israel’s God was not a mute idol;He was a God who had shaped His peopleby His Word. He would do so again withthese exiles in Babylon.

It is striking to see this vision build asit does, with strange detail and significantdescriptions of things that Ezekiel saw,only to have it culminate with somethingthat he heard. Now we would not do itthis way. Today, we are creatures of showand spectacle, impatient with the curse offaith, desirous to replace it with what wecan see. But until we come to the Heav-enly City, we are not in a position to layaside faith for sight, and so we must con-tent ourselves with faith in what we hear,rather than simply the more immediateseductive sights that we can see.

It seems strange to us, but so it washere—this vision climaxed with a voice!After the splendor of verses 1-24, the crea-tures lowered their wings in verse 25 as ifin expectation that One greater than theywas approaching. So He was. But Hecame, not swaggering into sight, butspeaking from on high, even to Ezekiel.

The God of the Bible, you see, wantsnot mere adoration from a distance, butpersonal relationship. He seeks not mereencounter and sensation, but covenant

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love.And what of you? If you honestly

evaluate your own spiritual life, do youfind yourself satisfied with mere sensa-tion? Don’t be. God wants more than that.He wants a relationship with you, andverbal communication is essential forrelationship. Even the deaf and the mutecan have that verbal communication, eventhe blind and the illiterate. Verbal need notmean logically complex, or mere words,but it must include some kind of transferof information, with an ability to reflecton the one speaking, and the one hearing.

I know that some of you may objectthat what I am saying is self-evidentlyfalse, because, you may say, you have awonderful relationship with your dog,and he doesn’t talk. But, my friend, imag-ine this—what if you got home today, andyour dog did talk to you? I suggest thatyou would quickly and certainly enter anew level of relationship, so significantlydifferent from the “good dog’s” and “rollover’s” that went before, that, in com-parison, you may feel that your earlierrelationship was no relationship at all.

What I am urging is that you not besatisfied with mere superstition, withreverence to a mute god. This vision ofEzekiel and the Christian Scriptures as awhole are united in presenting the trueGod as a God who communicates.

So we Christians must never discountthe importance of that communication.We must not do anything to detract fromthe centrality of the Word of God in allaspects of our lives. How much time haveyou spent reading the Word today? Howmuch time have you spent reflecting onit? How much time do we in our church,or you in the church you come from,spend reading the Scriptures in our pub-lic services? Do our announcements and

songs take longer than speaking ourprayers to Him, and hearing His Scrip-tures read? If so, what does this say aboutour understanding of God? Who is theGod that we really are worshiping? Is Hethe God who spoke to Ezekiel?

Friend, never underestimate the semi-nal power of the Word of God. Peopleoften asked Luther how he accomplishedthe reformation. He explained, “I simplytaught, preached, wrote God’s Word;otherwise I did nothing. And then, whileI slept…the Word [worked]. I did noth-ing. The Word did it all.”3 The centerpieceof our Christian worship and lives mustbe hearing the Word with heart-obedienceand with prayer.

So in our churches, we must realize theimportance of preaching, Scripture read-ing, and prayer over vague notions of“worshipful experiences.” No amountof purported emotional engagement willever make up for stopping up our earsto Him.

Have you ever had a friend who wastoo busy, who just wouldn’t stop and lis-ten and talk? It takes a toll on the relation-ship, doesn’t it? Don’t let that be yoursituation with God. The true God, the Godthat Ezekiel encountered here in chapterone is a God who communicates.

ConclusionA. W. Tozer wrote in The Knowledge of

the Holy,

What comes into our minds whenwe think about God is the mostimportant thing about us…. Thegravest question before the Churchis always God Himself, and the mostportentous fact about any man is notwhat he at a given time may say ordo, but what he in his deep heartconceives God to be like. We tend bya secret law of the soul to movetoward our mental image of God.4

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If you have any hesitation about thetruth of this statement, just go down thelist of things we’ve said this morning.What difference does it make:

If you think that God is just like you?If you don’t think that God is wise or

able?If you decide that God is limited to this

place, or that situation?If you think that He simply stands and

waits for your initiative?If you think that He’s mute—that

there’s no way you can know what Godthinks about you, life and the universe?

What difference does it make? All thedifference in the world—and more.

ENDNOTES1 William F. Albright, From the Stone Age

to Christianity (Garden City, NY: Double-day Anchor, 1957) 325.

2 John Bunyan, The Saints Knowledge of

Christ’s Love: Vol. 2, ed. George Offor(1854; rpt. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth,1991) 5-6.

3 Timothy George, Theology of the Reform-

ers (Nashville: Broadman, 1988) 53. 4A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

(Lincoln, NE: Back to the Bible Broad-cast, 1961) 7.