Verse 18b goes on to say, “And their rings were full of eyes round about them four.” Here we see that the high and dreadful wheels are full of eyes. If we apply this to our spiritual experience, we will realize that it is absolutely correct to say that the wheels are full of eyes. If a church has no move and no wheel beside it, that church is blind. If you do not have any move, yet you claim that you have some move, you are surely blind. You have no eyes. If your church has a high and dreadful wheel, a high and dreadful move, within that move there will be many eyes. As a result, you will have insight, foresight, and other kinds of sight.
If you are a Christian who has no wheel and who only knows how to behave properly, you are blind. If you mean business with the Lord for His move on earth today, you will be full of eyes, and thus you will have insight and foresight. Because Paul was a person full of eyes, he was very clear. He was clear about the present, the future, the world situation, the Word, the church, physical things, and spiritual things. As a person full of eyes, he was clear about everything.
Some Christians, on the contrary, do not have any eyes. Likewise, some local churches have no eyes. The reason these Christians and these churches are blind is that with them there is no wheel, no move of the Lord. But the more we have the move of the Lord, the more we are enlightened. The more we move, the more we will be able to see.
Do not be like a frog in a well—limited by your environment and able to see only what is directly above you in a very narrow way. You need to jump out of your “well” and participate in the Lord’s move. The more you are in the Lord’s move, the more eyes you will have and the more clearly you will see. The more move you have, the more you can see.
I can testify of this from my own experience in the Lord’s move. During the past years I have done much traveling. I have traveled throughout China, America, and Europe. The more I travel, the more eyes I receive. In 1958 I traveled through thirty different countries. By that traveling I received many eyes, and I saw many things.
We need to be impressed with the fact that the wheels are full of eyes. As the wheel moves, it sees. The more it runs, the more it sees. If the wheel were to stop moving, it would stop seeing. This is the way the church should be today. We see by going on. The more we go on, the more we see. It may be that today we can see only to a certain extent, but tomorrow we will go on and see more. If we stop moving, we will stop seeing. We Christians should be a moving people. The church must move in order to see.
Verse 16c says, “Their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” It is very significant that the wheels look like a wheel within a wheel. When we speak of a wheel, we say that the circumference is the rim, that the center is the hub, and that in between are the spokes. Thus, we have the three main parts of a wheel: the rim, the hub, and the spokes. But in Ezekiel 1 there is no hub, and there are no spokes. Instead, there is a wheel within a wheel.
James 5:17 may help us to understand this. This verse tells us that Elijah prayed earnestly. Literally, the Greek words translated “prayed earnestly” mean “prayed in a prayer.” This indicates that a prayer from the Lord was given to Elijah, in which he prayed. He did not pray in his feeling, thought, intention, or mood, or in any kind of motivation, arising from circumstances or situations, to fulfill his own purpose. Rather, he prayed in the prayer given by the Lord for the accomplishing of His will. For Elijah to pray in a prayer means that there was a prayer within his prayer. This is the wheel within a wheel.
We may apply this matter of a wheel within a wheel to the church life. If the church is proper and is moving, then within the church’s moving there will be the move of the Lord. This means that in our move there is the Lord’s move. While we are moving, the Lord is moving in our moving.
The inner wheel is the source of power for the moving. This means that the inner wheel is the “motor” which causes the wheel to move. If our move is genuine, it must be that within our move is the move of the Lord.
Every wheel has a hub which turns the wheel. If the hub stops, the wheel stops. We may say that the hub is the little wheel within the rim of the big wheel. The big wheel turns because the little wheel is being turned. In the church life, the Lord Jesus is the hub—the wheel within the wheel—and we are the rim. If the churches do not move with the Lord, they have no way to go on because there is no wheel within the wheel. But when the churches move with the Lord Jesus, He becomes the wheel within the wheel.
Nothing can frustrate or stop this kind of move. Recently a number of saints in the churches migrated to other cities for the spread of the church life. When some heard about this migration, they despised it and asked whether it would accomplish anything. I can testify that this migration is the Lord’s move, the move of the wheel, and that within this wheel there is another wheel. In this migration there has been a wheel within the wheel.
Ezekiel 1:19 says, “When the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.” This verse tells us not that the living creatures follow the wheels but that the wheels follow the living creatures. When the creatures move, the wheels move. When the creatures stop, the wheels stop. When the creatures are lifted up, the wheels are lifted up.
This is contrary to the concept, held by many believers, that we need to wait until the Lord moves before we can move. I have been burdened by the Lord to tell His children that there is no need for them to wait for the Lord to move. The Lord has been waiting for nearly two thousand years. If we go on, the Lord will follow us. If we do not exercise to move, there will be no wheel, but if we move, the wheels will follow us. The move of God’s work, the move of the gospel, and the move of the church all depend on our moving. We need to have the confidence, the assurance, and the faith to go on boldly. If we move on boldly, the wheels will follow us. Let us act boldly and move on to take this country and to take the earth.
Verse 20 continues, “Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.” The wheels follow the creatures, and the creatures follow the Spirit, but the Spirit is in the wheels. It is hard to tell who follows whom. We are one with Him. One day when we meet the Lord we may say, “Lord, we followed You,” but the Lord may say, “No, I followed you.”
If we have the wheel with the coordination, it is difficult to determine who follows whom. We are one with the Lord, and the Lord is one with us. The Lord follows us, we follow the Spirit, and the Spirit is in the wheels. This is the Lord’s move on earth today, and this is the Lord’s recovery.