The Promise Of Rain

All over the world, rain is cherished and appreciated when received in the right quantities. After a long periods of drought, the joy with which we ran through the rain is so refreshing.  In the Old Testament, rain was essential to the farming society and necessary for life in their fields (e.g. Deuteronomy 11:14). It was therefore a huge blessing to receive rain from God. The early rains prepared their fields for sowing. The latter rains announced the coming of a harvest when the labour of sowing in previous months would yield results. Rain was a promise or sign of a soon-coming period of fruitfulness, abundance, satisfaction, hope for new beginnings and longevity in subsequent farming seasons.

There are several instances where lack of rainfall was God's judgement upon a nation leading to famine and economic hardship. 1 Kings 17:1 [NLT] reads, "Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word!

” When the prophet shut the heavens of rain, the impact on the land was devastating. Everyone was under severe hardship: the ground was dry and parched; the crops failed; there were no harvests for food or cultivation; animals died of thirst and starvation; the economy failed; people starved to death; the nation became vulnerable to enemy attack and oppression. This is is how life without the Holy Spirit is like.

Four centuries later, another prophet, Ezekiel, was raised in another era of drought. Aside the physical signs of drought, there was a spiritual drought marked by the lack of true shepherds in the kingdom. With a shepherding metaphor, the prophet reveals the bane of lawless rulership that had fostered greed, selfish ambition, backbiting, injustice, disunity, attack from foreign nations and slavery. But the root was the spiritual leadership who neglected God's just ways and their duty to His people. See Ezekiel 34:1-10) These events are characteristics of life without the Spirit - one of dryness, apathy, oppression and death.

From this background and context of spiritual drought God makes another promise of blessing to Israel. The Lord declares that He Himself will take over the shepherding and leadership of His people. He will raise a true Shepherd from the root of David under whom they will experience His Lordship (Ezekiel 34:11-24). He then promises them rain, showers of blessing, with transforming effects on the land.

“‘I’ll make a covenant of peace with them. I’ll banish fierce animals from the country so the sheep can live safely in the wilderness and sleep in the forest. I’ll make them and everything around my hill a blessing. I’ll send down plenty of rain in season—showers of blessing! The trees in the orchards will bear fruit, the ground will produce, they’ll feel content and safe on their land, and they’ll realize that I am God when I break them out of their slavery and rescue them from their slave masters."

Ezekiel 34:25-27, MSG From this text, we see the effects of this rain, all of them being symbolic of the true life in the Spirit. Naturally, timely rains in right proportions cause freshness and cleansing of the atmosphere (FRESHNESS), life breaks out of the softened soils (GROWTH), crops bear fruit (FRUITFULNESS), seeds increase exponentially in the fruits (MULTIPLICATION), humans and animals are fed (SATISFACTION), economic activities surge and stabilize (VITALITY), leadership is empowered to build defences against opponents (SECURITY), and the vulnerable in society are insured or delivered from slavery (SALVATION). These natural effects of rains are metaphors of the impact of the Holy Spirit's outpour in our lives.

In Scripture, the Holy Spirit is symbolically represented as dove (Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, John 1:30-34), Fire (Matthew 3:11, Acts 2:3-4), Oil (Exodus 29:7), Wind (John 3:8, Acts 2:1-4), Wine (Matthew 9:16-17, Ephesians 5:18) and Water (John 7:37-39, Isaiah 44:3, Joel 2:28-29). This last metaphor of water or rain appears several times as promises to Israel in the Old Testament: Isaiah 44:3-4, Ezekiel 34:26, Zechariah 10:1, Hosea 6:3, Joel 2:23-29. All these prophecies were pointing to the coming of the Holy Spirit and the effects of His presence in our lives. Jesus Himself referred to such metaphors about the Spirit in His teachings and on the day of Pentecost, Peter declared that Joel's prophecy of an outpour of the Spirit had been fulfilled (Acts 2:14-18).

The Spirit births us anew with the life of God (John 3:3-5, 6:63). He makes our hearts responsive to God's Word, convicts us of sin and enables us to repent from sin (Ezekiel 36:26-27, John 16:8). He brings times of refreshing from God's presence (Acts 3:19). He reveals truth and helps us assimilate the life in God's Word so that we can grow (John 6:63, 14:26, 16:13). He enables us to bear the fruit of the Spirit as evidence of the nature and life of God in us (Galatians 5:16-23). He empowers us and imparts us with different gifts to be effective witnesses of Jesus to the nations (Acts 1:8, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11). As in the early church, He makes us multiply as we influence society and disciples others in Christ (Acts 2).

Just as there is no life on earth without rain, there is no vitality in our lives without the Holy Spirit. Life in the flesh without Him yields no lasting fruit or profit (John 6:63a). No wonder Jesus, upon all the assurances He gave the disciples after His resurrection, commanded them to wait earnestly for the outpour of the Spirit. The Spirit is our advantage in our life - He is the Helper that the Father and Son have given us (John 16:7).

Beloved, you and I need the Holy Spirit now more than ever. As we wait on the Lord in this season, allow God's Word to search you and open the dry areas of your life to the rain of the Holy Spirit. Ask the Holy Spirit to rain afresh on your life. As you sow seeds of prayer, may He let the showers of blessing fall so that you may experience a harvest of God's will in answered prayers and testimonies to His glory.