Day 4

The Promise Of Rain

Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days, that the Spirit's power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power." -
— J. Hudson Taylor

Pray to the Lord for rain in the springtime. The Lord will send the lightning and the rain will fall, and he will make the plants grow in each person’s field.

Zechariah 10:1, ERV

Audio readingThe Promise Of RainAudio in preparation

—:— / —:—

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."