Reading Creation 3a: Thanking God for clouds, our teacher

By Gerry Straker, 19 May 2020

Recently, we thought about how to read creation. As new creations ourselves (2 Corinthians 5:17), we can now see with new eyes the glory of God glowing in the world around us. The Word teaches us to read the world aright and the world sends us back to the Word. The Bible is God’s words, and creation is God’s pictures, both illustrating the Bible and pointing us back to the Bible.

Then we considered what God is teaching us through sunshine and how we can enjoy it for the glory of God. Today, as we haven’t seen the sun, we’re going to think about clouds. It’s possibly hard to feel as joyous about clouds, but of course God created clouds to teach us too. To teach us about himself.
James Jordan writes this: “When we step outside and look up, what do we see? We see the blue sky of day, and the black starry sky of night. We see clouds and heavenly fire (lightning). We see rainbows and falling stars. We hear thunder. The Bible tells us that these are not merely natural phenomena. They are pictures of heaven, revelations of God’s glory, dimensions of His home. With new eyes, we can see this world also as God’s house.”[1]

In this blog post (and the next), I have in no way exhausted this topic. I feel like I am trying to get my brain off the couch and run the 5k with no training. I need reprogramming by the Word of God to read his world aright – and I suspect I am not the only one. I hope this will help you start to enjoy the clouds as a gift from God and a teacher. Get ready to praise God!

1. Clouds give rain

Clouds give rain, we know this. But this is extraordinary.

Do you remember being taught the water cycle at school? ‘The journey water takes as it moves from the land to the sky and back again. It follows a cycle of evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection.’[2] That is helpful as far as it goes. But, in that geography lesson, my hunch is that you were not taught about the sheer wonder of water, and the wonderful God who made it was not glorified.

Think for a moment about the water the clouds bring. John Piper calls what C S Lewis taught him: ‘the wakening of wonder at what is really there.’ Piper describes being ‘awakened…from the slumbers of self-absorption to see and savor the world and through the world, the Maker of the world…Lewis gave me, and continues to give me, an intense sense of the astonishing “realness” of things.’ And this is the impact: ‘To wake up in the morning and to be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the coldness of the wooden floor, the wetness of the water in the sink, the sheer being of things (quiddity as he called it). And not just to be aware but to wonder. To be amazed that the water is wet. It did not have to be wet. If there were no such thing as water, and one day someone showed it to you, you would simply be astonished.’[3]

Water is astonishing. Tim Chester has a lovely paragraph in Enjoying God: ‘Think of a glass of water. The simplest of things, yet all life depends on it. We drink water. Wash in it. Swim in it. Play with it. You can have water fights. We live in a world of water pistols. Why? Just so we can have fun. And it rains on you. We live in a world in which water just falls from the sky. Is that not the most extraordinary thing? Don’t moan about a rainy day. Which of us would have designed a world in which water falls out of the sky?’[4] Stop and think about clouds bringing us what we need to drink. It’s incredible. Gordon Wilson who presents ‘The Riot and the Dance’ says: ‘to be bored in this world is to be boring in this world.’ God’s creation is wondrous. Let’s give glory to him now for the wonder of water falling from the sky!

2. Clouds give rain for blessing

God is the Great Gardener, watering his crops from the clouds: 'You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.’ (Psalm 65:10).

God blesses his world with rain to grow food and to bring joy. Paul preaching the gospel at Lystra urges Gentiles to turn from vain things (idol worship and sacrifice) and turn ‘to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.’ (Acts 14:15). Although they had not heard the Word of God before: ‘Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.’ (Acts 14:17).

3. Cloud of God’s presence

In the First Great Rescue, the Exodus, God uses cloud to reveal himself to His people. His presence is with them and yet at the same time hidden.

God gave them the pillar of cloud in the day to guide them, when the sun went down was the pillar of fire to give them light (Exodus 13:21-22).[5] When the Egyptians chased them and they were cut off by the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud moved between God’s people and the Egyptians and brought darkness to the Egyptians and light to the Israelites (Exodus 14:19-20) – it is the presence of the Lord (Exodus 14:24), the glory of the Lord appearing to the people (Exodus 16:10).

This glory-cloud settles on Mount Sinai – there is thunder, lightening and thick cloud (Exodus 19:16) – it is covered in smoke (Exodus 19:18).[6] The Lord gave Moses the design for the Tabernacle, for his mobile throne. When it is built, God ‘moves in’: ‘Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.’ (Exodus 40:34).

And once they were settled in the land, and Solomon the Son of David had built the temple ‘a cloud filled the house of the LORD…the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD. (1 Kings 8:10-11)

Clouds teach us of God’s presence with His people: seen yet unseen at the same time.

4. Clouds of God’s judgement

But God’s presence can be experienced as judgement. Clouds also speak of God’s judgement in the past, and his future mercy…

Because ‘the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’ (Genesis 6:5), God sent a flood on the earth. ‘The windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. (Genesis 7:11-12). But God promised he would never flood the earth again and set the rainbow in the cloud (Genesis 9:9-17).[7]

The absence of clouds can be judgement (Leviticus 26:19; Deuteronomy 28:23; Jeremiah 3:3), but so can the clouds themselves - not from flood, but a removal of light.

‘When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness on your land, declares the Lord GOD.’ (Ezekiel 32:7-8) That’s for God’s enemies, but also for God’s people: ‘Blow a trumpet in Zion;sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.’ (Joel 2:2).

Just as for the Egyptians (Exodus 14:19) God’s presence can be experienced as judgement.

More on this theme in the following blog.

[1] James Jordan, Through New Eyes, 51.
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zkgg87h/articles/z3wpp39 Cited 18/5/2020.
[3] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/lessons-from-an-inconsolable-soul Cited 18/5/2020.
[4] Tim Chester, Enjoying God, 45.
[5] HT James Jordan, Through New Eyes, 47.
[6] Only Moses could enter and receive the ten commandments. Just as only the High priest could enter the Most Holy place of the Tabernacle – where the 10 commandments were stored! HT Jordan, New Eyes, 213.
[7] ‘But does God only see this rainbow when it rains? No, because God is always surrounded by His glory-cloud, and thus He always sees the rainbow. When Ezekiel saw God’s glorychariot, he wrote that “as the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God” (Ezekiel 1:28). Similarly, when John stood before God’s throne, he saw that “there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance” (Revelation 4:3). John compared the rainbow to a gemstone. Finally, in Revelation 10:1, John had a vision of the exalted Christ, and described him as “another strong Angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon His head, and His face was like the sun, and His legs like pillars of fire .“ The rainbow around His head means that Christ looks through it to see the world, always reminded of the Noahic covenant.” Jordan, New Eyes, 76.