What have they done to the rain?

Some of you older members might remember a popular song from the sixties, with this intriguing title, “What have they done to the rain?”

Like me, you might remember my favourite version of this song by a Liverpool group called “The Searchers,” or perhaps you prefer the one by folk singer Joan Baez.  The song was actually written by a relatively unknown folk-blues singer by the name of Malvina Reynolds.

Although a lament of lost love, the song’s title line implies that, even almost fifty years ago in 1962 when this song was written, the rain – which should be pure and clean – had been polluted by mankind.

Some time ago, we received an e-mail message from our church brethren in Zambia, asking us to pray about the lack of rain in that country.  The weather conditions seem to have been very upset over this past year or so and there have been severe drought conditions in some parts of the United States and Australia, while other areas have suffered severe flooding.  I don’t know if it is my imagination, but they seem to be getting gradually worse each and every year.  The climax of more recent bizarre weather conditions must have been the awful hurricane “Katrina” that wreaked so much havoc in the New Orleans area of the U.S.A. in August 2005.

So again I ask: What have they done to the rain?

Today I would like us to study at least some of what God’s Word has to about rain and water both pure and polluted rain and water; both gentle and storm-driven rain and water; both physical and spiritual rain and water.

God’s pure spiritual water

God’s Holy Spirit is often symbolized by refreshing, life-giving rain and pure, living water – all three of which God is the source:

Chapter 47 of the book of Ezekiel describes these living waters in even more detail, but we will defer discussion of them until a separate Bible study.  For now, let us look at a few New Testament examples:

So we clearly see the symbolism of pure, fresh, clear water for the Holy Spirit of God.

Satan’s counterfeit spiritual rain

God warns us, however, that, as Satan is the prince of the power of the air, the atmosphere we call “the first heaven” is filled with his evil power and spirit:

Let us look at a few more scriptures that speak of the dangerous, deceptive, counterfeiting ways of Satan and his cohorts:

Let us think about this.  If God’s Holy Spirit is so frequently symbolized by pure, gentle, clean rain and water, perhaps the spirit of Satan might be symbolized by dirty, polluted, storm-driven rain and water.

Perhaps his spirit falls on us like acid rain, which may look clean enough, but is, in actuality, heavily and dangerously polluted.

Solutions

During a rain-storm the air is filled with millions – or even billions – of water droplets as they fall to the earth.  Unlike ducks, most human beings don’t like getting wet, especially by the polluted rain that falls on many areas of the world today.  Likewise, Christians should not like being pelted with Satan’s spiritual “acid rain.”

But how can we escape all of those physical raindrops?  How can we prevent being soaked – and polluted – by them?  And, what is much more important, how can we protect ourselves from their spiritual counterparts?

There are at least four solutions – some practical, some not – to the problem of being drenched by rain – both clean or polluted; both physical and spiritual:

Solution 1: An Umbrella

I go for a walk nearly every day, rain or shine.  When it is raining quite lightly, I take a small umbrella with me.  It prevents the rain from falling on my head and most of my body.  But not all of my body.  As I usually hold the umbrella in my right hand, some rain always gets to my left arm and side, both of which often get quite wet.

Our first solution then is a bigger umbrella, which can protect our whole bodies from the rain.  A big, spiritual umbrella may be one solution for God’s children.

Umbrellas are not specifically mentioned in the bible.  But that does not mean that some form of umbrella did not exist back then.  Here is the article, Umbrella, from Wikipedia:

Interesting facts to be sure; but what is a big, spiritual umbrella?  Let us go back a step and ask first, what, in effect is a physical umbrella?  The above Wikipedia article shows that an umbrella is a portable “shelter” from the sun or the rain.

Solution 2:  Protective Clothing

Another type of portable shelter from the rain is a suit of protective clothing specifically designed to keep out the rain.  When our Vancouver Island rain gets heavy, I don my hooded, rubberized nylon rain suit.  Avoid mental picture!

But what kind of protective clothing will help protect us from Satan’s spiritual acid-rain-storms?  I’m not aware of any scriptures that discuss raincoats – either physical or spiritual.  But to protect ourselves against Satan’s acid rain, we need more than raincoats.  We need the kind of spiritual protective clothing specified by God.  We need spiritual armour:

I purposely jumped over verse 16; but let us go back to it now:

The shield of faith is listed as part of the armour of God.  But, like the sword of the Spirit, a shield is not something that a soldier normally wears.  It is something that he carries.  It is another kind of portable “shelter” which he can direct at the incoming torrents of acid-rain – here described as the fiery darts – of Satan which are fired at us from many directions.

Let us take a quick look at the Bible words for “shield.”

Another English Bible word for “shield” is “buckler” which comes from the French words for a soldier’s shield: “bouclier” and the old French word “boucle.”

There are 44 mentions of the word “shield” in the Bible plus 21 more derivatives such as “shielded” and “shields.”  There are five Hebrew words translated into the English word “shield” but, surprisingly, only one New Testament Greek word.

The Old Testament Hebrew words are:

The only New Testament instance of the word “shield,” as we have already seen, is found in Ephesians 6:16.  Its Greek word for shield is:

Let’s go back to our physical raincoats for a moment, and discuss their shortcomings.  It seems that no matter how much you pay for a good set of rain gear, it all has its limitations.  For example, my high quality Columbia rain-suit seems at first to do a good job; but when I get home from my walk and take the suit off, I find that condensation has wet me almost as much as the rain would have.  Can’t win, can you?

Armour has its limitations too.  You’re all familiar with the story of David and Goliath, and the problems young David experienced with armour – even King Saul’s armour – probably the highest quality armour available at the time:

David preferred to put his trust totally in the armour of God.  Continuing:

Jesus agrees with David – that physical armour has limitations!  And He implies that this limitation might also even be extended to spiritual armour –  especially when faced with a stronger spiritual foe – such as Satan and his demons:

I’m sure you’ve all heard the old Aesop’s Fable about the wind and the sun vainly vying to get a travelling man’s coat off him.  The warm sun is the successful one.  We often think of the positive lessons of this fable – i.e. that we will have more success with people if we treat them warmly.  And this is, of course, very true.  However, the fable can carry a negative warning too.  As we have already seen, Satan is undoubtedly stronger than we are; and he is so very crafty.  He will pull out all the stops in order to remove our protective armour from us – or even to deceive us into removing our own armour, and to expose us to his deadly spiritual acid-rain.

Solution 3:  A Permanent Shelter

We have already touched on some of the shortcomings of temporary, portable physical shelters.  Most umbrellas are quite flimsy.  During a recent storm in which the wind and rain were blowing so hard, they bounced off the sidewalk, blew upwards, blew my little umbrella inside out and pretty-well wrecked it!  And we have already seen that protective clothing also has its drawbacks.  These both work fine during a light to moderate shower.  But when it comes to a real storm, we need something more substantial.  And make no mistake; Satan will not send a light to moderate spiritual shower upon God’s children:

In a very heavy rain storm, we would normally make an effort to get indoors, out of the rain.  In doing so, we exchange our small, portable, flimsy, limited-use umbrella and even our limited-benefit rain-gear for a more effective, permanent, solid shelter.

Let us look for the word “shelter” in the scriptures.  There are two mentions, both in the Old Testament:

In both of these instances, the word “shelter” is translated from the Hebrew word: “Machaceh” which means refuge or shelter from rain, storm, danger, or falsehood.  But interestingly, it can also mean hope or trust.

This Hebrew word was derived from the root word: “Chacah” which means to make or seek a refuge,  to flee for protection,  to trust,  to put trust in God, to have hope or to confide or hope in God.

Solution 4:  A Canal or Drain

A few years ago, my family and I were travelling home in two separate vehicles on the Interstate Highway 5 after spending the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Portland, Oregon.  By minutes, we barely escaped a thirty car pile-up just north of Arlington, Washington, caused by a freak narrow band of snow which had laid itself down in the path of the 70 mph traffic.  We believe, due to the circumstances, that God protected us.

In another incident, also a few years ago, on our way from the Kansas City airport to the Feast site in Jefferson City, Missouri, my family and I drove through a tremendous rain storm.  The Missouri river was rising so high and fast that we were warned that we might need to move our vehicles to higher ground.  I don’t know whether that storm was a hurricane, a typhoon, a tornado or what other type of storm.  But I do know that I’ve never seen rain like it, neither before nor since that day.  The rain did not descend in mere drops.  It was more like a river being blown at our rental van in continuous, powerful torrents of water.  In that storm we received a taste of what it must have been like for the Egyptian armies when the Red Sea came crashing in upon them.

This was a minor trickle, however, compared to the spiritual deluge that is prophesied to be sent against the prophetic “woman” by Satan once he has been cast down to the earth:

God will not allow Satan to gush his flood directly onto “the woman.”  It will come after her as she is en route to her wilderness place of safety.  God will divert the water by opening the earth’s mouth.  What does this mean?

Here we see another method of escaping from a deluge – an artificial canal or drain – this one created especially for “the woman” by God.

A few years ago when we were still living in our old home in the Victoria area, we had experienced record winter rainfalls.  I heard on the local news broadcast one morning that the water in our main reservoir was overflowing its dam for the first time since its construction.

Our home was at the foot of a small hill.  That winter, when we received such heavy rains, much water flowed down our driveway and into our garage, soaking its wooden beams.  If I would have allowed this to continue, the beams would have rotted and my garage would have collapsed.

So I had a trench dug in front of the garage and we laid and buried an artificial canal or drain – forty feet of three inch plastic drain-tile-pipe – to carry the unwanted water further down the hill and into the creek that ran through our property.

This, I believe, is just what God will do to divert Satan’s deadly spiritual deluge away from “the woman.”

Solution 5:  Rise Above the Source

The final – and most impractical – solution to avoiding a physical rain-storm is to be able to rise above the source of the water – above the clouds which are dropping the rain.

We might occasionally do this with the help of an airplane, a helicopter, an airship, or some other type of aircraft.  But as I pointed out earlier, Satan’s spiritual, polluted “rain” – his spirit – fills the space between the earth and the second heaven – or perhaps even the third heaven.  Yes, even above the physical clouds.  If you think about it, even when astronauts temporarily enter the second heaven of space, they are not immune there from Satan’s spirit.

Nevertheless, rising above even the first heaven is impossible today for all but a few astronauts or millionaire space tourists.  And to physically rise above the second heaven in our day and age is totally impossible.  But one day – at the time of the First Resurrection – we will rise to meet Jesus Christ in the air:

There is even some indication that we will enter the third heaven to celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb:

Although we are not promised an eternal home in heaven as “the reward of the saved,” from that day on, we will be given the ability to rise above the “origin clouds” of Satan’s polluted spiritual influence:

Here we see that the final solution to Satan’s spiritual acid rain is not for us to spend eternity in heaven, but to adopt God’s heavenly ways and thoughts here on earth – both now and forever!

January 4, 2011

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This page last updated: February 16, 2012