Clouds demonstrate the majesty of God.
God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
―Author unknown, commonly attributed to Martin Luther
Who has not laid on the grass of the lawn or the sand of the beach and pondered the clouds as they floated by; or looked for familiar shapes; a heart, a ring, a horse, a face? In his description of the holiness of God Nahum in verse 1:3 exclaimed,
”The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.”
As a child, in the summer, I would run in the dry, dirt roads of the country and stir up small clouds of dust in my path and I love to think about God taking a stroll in the heavens and stirring up puffs of clouds. How great and majestic is our God!
A very similar, but more frightful, image of this thought was revealed by David during his song of deliverance when he cried unto God because of his enemies. God angrily displayed his majesty in shaking the foundations of heaven. “He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under His feet (2 Sam. 22:10; Ps.18:9). David responded by confessing, “Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reaches unto the clouds (Psalms 36:5). Barker and Baily confess that the storm clouds represent God’s power.
Gordon J. Keddie declares that this scenario fulfils two functions:
On the one hand they display the terrible wrath of God against the wickedness of men towards His Son and His people and on the other hand, they demonstrate to those with eyes of faith to behold it, that the same power of God is being exercised to save His people from all their enemies.
I once had a pastor friend that loved thunderstorms and would get very excited as they grew more violent. He also believed that the power of God was revealed in them. I understand his feelings a little more now, because whether God is strolling in the heavenlies and stirring up the puffs of morning clouds or stomping in anger during dark thunderstorms, the clouds reveal his majesty, his glory and his power. Psalm 68:34 tells us to “ascribe ye strength unto God; His excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds.”
Like my pastor friend who saw the glory of God in the storms, Ezekiel also saw the glory of God in the clouds in his first vision.
Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke. (Ezekiel 1:28)
Ezekiel, like Isaiah, Daniel and John and so many of the other giants of the faith, fell upon his face in the presence of our holy God; a God whose mercy is great unto the heavens and thy truth unto the clouds (Psalm 57:10). ”For thy mercy is great above the heavens: and thy truth reaches unto the clouds (Psalm 108:4). “;Look unto the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou (Job 35:5).”
So David and Ezekiel, great pillars of the faith in the Old Testament, saw the mercy, the faithfulness, the likeness of the glory of God and God’s power in the clouds. Israelites wore Tefillin or phylacteries, which are small leather boxes, containing verses, with straps that can be tied around their head or on their arms to remind them of the 10 commandments as commanded them in Deut. 6:4-9.
Hear O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk to them when thou sits in thine house, and when thou lays down and when thou rises up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
Surely, like the patriarchs of old and the wearing of Israelite phylacteries, when we see clouds in the sky, we can be aware of a mighty and powerful creator and if we know Him, we can be reminded of the His majesty and glory.