Clouds without water. 

Storm clouds over the Mojave Desert.

If you live in a desert or a very dry area you probably appreciate clouds more than most of us. Clouds promise so much to the parched ground; life giving water, relief to thirsty animals, usually a drop in temperature as the falling rain takes some of the heat out of the atmosphere.

However, often the clouds that promise so much fail to deliver on that promise. They evaporate, without spilling so much as a drop of water. A prolonged drought has a devastating effect on everything. The years between 1950-1957 saw the western states of the USA seized by such a drought.

The following is an excerpt form a book written about that time. Baptist Pastor Bill R. Austin wrote, " The dry, lonesome wind howled across the prairies and whistled through cracks in the houses. What began as mild gusts of dust became sandstorms until dirt-laden skies packed the atmosphere to the danger point for both health and visibility. Crops were futilely attempted and quickly burned by the scorching sun. Livestock died gradually or instantly, but always as a shocking reminder of the cost and cruelty of the drought. The earth burned and buckled, forming huge cracks, resembling gaping thirsting throats.

Dry clouds over a barren land

Churches assembled prayer meetings to pray for rain. Professional rainmakers reaped a lucrative harvest in some areas. The slightest breeze and the smallest cloud turned every eye skyward. Huge, heavy clouds rolled in and hovered and slowly passed out of sight. The clouds never looked so thick and so promising as they did in those days. They seemed close enough to the ground to be punctured by a tree and turn loose the life-giving rain. But, week after week and month after month, no rain came. The clouds came again and again and again, but not until the fall of 1957 did the rains finally start" 

He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. Job 26:8 ESV

There is a spiritual drought settling over much of the Western World. We are repeatedly told that we are living in a "Post Christian World"  Empirical evidence would certainly bear truth to that. African nations, once a magnet for Western Missionaries, have reversed that role, and begun sending missionaries to Europe (Read the 2001 story from the UK's Telegraph here) Church buildings in many cities (here) and rural areas (here) are up for sale, or are being re-purposed for many different uses, even Mosques.

Many of us in the West have settled for a Loadicean (Revelation 3:14-18) existence, pouring out the precious blood of our Lord and Saviour for baubles and trinkets, treating Christianity like a cargo cult. There is an ever increasing list of Pastors and Evangelists who feel the need to own a $20 million private jet, a $6 million mansion and fleets of luxury cars to better spread the gospel and minster to their flocks. These same charlatans promise their gullible flocks that if they give just a bit more (often much more than they can afford) God will bless and prosper them. One wonders just who is the Lord of the so-called "Prosperity Gospel".

Whoever falsely boasts of gifts [he does not give] is like clouds and wind without rain.
Proverbs 25:14 Amplified Bible

And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as My people, and they hear the words you say, but they will not do them; for with their mouths they show much love, but their hearts go after and are set on their [idolatrous greed for] gain. Ezekiel 33:31 Amplified Bible

These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. Jude 12-13 ESV


Contrast this to our Lord, who as a grown man was a homeless wanderer, a controversial nomad who owned nothing and encouraged his disciples to also go out into the world with no bag or possessions. He chose to hang out with people on the edge of society, the people others shamed and rejected. He didn’t do anything to elevate or justify himself in the eyes of others, in fact quite the opposite. He was not a king who dominated people but who chose to serve and invited his followers to do the same. He didn’t demand obedience but invited people to walk with him.

 

One of the founding members of the early Pentecostal Movement that swept New Zealand (and much of the Western World) in the 1950's used to say this of leaders who fell from grace..."It's either the gals, the glory or the gold that gets them". I have seen this several times, as leaders have given into the temptations that seem stalk them. This is not new of course, Judas being the first among many who betrayed our Lord.    

For it is not an enemy who insults me— I could have handled that— nor is it someone who hates me and who now arises against me— I could have hidden myself from him— but it is you— a man whom I treated as my equal— my personal confidant, my close friend! We had good fellowship together; and we even walked together in the house of God! 
Psalm 55:12-14 ESV

Rather than being considered a cloud without rain, live life as a blessing to others.
Who covers the heavens with clouds,
Who provides rain for the earth,
Who makes grass to grow on the mountains. Psalm 147:8 MKJV

Quotation from "Clouds Without Water." Bill R. Austin, Copyright 1968 - Broadman Press, Nashville Tennessee.