"And when the vessel that he made of the clay was
marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another
vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it" (Jeremiah
18:4).
We are going to consider the next movement into God's
Mind as represented by the potter's work but before we
come to that I just want to add a brief word to what we
have said earlier.
We were speaking about
the pressure of the hands of the potter, and saying that
one of the effects of that pressure is to bring each
particle of the clay very close together, so that they do
not remain individual parts, but become parts of one
complete whole. Now, while there are many more things
that could be said with advantage about that, there is
just this one thing that I want to add.
We have spoken of the
final triumph of the potter with the clay, and it is a
mark of his victory that the parts are pressed closely
together. But let me explain what I mean. You are very
well aware of what the enemy is trying to do with God's
vessel. His great work is to break up that vessel, to
scatter and disintegrate it, by persecution and all kinds
of methods, but in that divine sovereignty the very work
of the enemy is being made the pressure of the hands of
the Potter. Our hearts are more united today with the
hearts of the poor persecuted people of God in China, in
Russia and in other parts of the world than they have
ever been before. We are praying today as we have never
prayed for all the scattered and persecuted people of
God, and, while outwardly it looks as though the vessel
is being broken to pieces, inwardly it is becoming more
and more united. All the parts of the vessel are becoming
more closely knit together in the spirit, so that the
pressure is having just the opposite effect to that which
the enemy wants it to have.
We find that there is
some special blessing of the Lord upon international
gatherings, and one of the chief blessings is the
wonderful fellowship that we realize we have. This is not
a fellowship that is made by our coming together, but it
is already present and is only expressed by our being
together. So this is a triumph of the Lord over all the
disintegrating efforts of the enemy. I trust that you are
going back to all your lonely places the stronger for
realizing that you are not alone. That will be one of the
Lord's triumphs over a great deal of suffering.
Now let us come to our
next step in this matter of the movement into the Mind of
God. We have lifted out of Jeremiah that verse which
speaks of the vessel being marred and made again. Of
course, historically this related to Israel, which was
the vessel that God was forming at that time. Israel was
the clay in God's hands out of which He was seeking to
make a vessel for His glory, but Israel resisted the will
of God and He had to crush that clay out of shape and
begin again to make another vessel as was good in His
sight. We will come back to that later.
The principle is of
much wider application. If Jeremiah 18 was confined to
Israel alone, then we have no right to be here this
morning. Our only justification would be that we are
trying to be students of history. However, the principle
is of much wider application than Israel - it applies to
the whole human race, as much to the Gentiles as to the
Jews.
The clay is humanity as
a whole. God began to make a vessel of humanity, but it
was marred in the hands of the Potter, so He set Himself
to make another vessel, and we know that He is now
forming His new heavenly vessel of the clay out of all
nations.
To return to Israel:
When Israel broke down, nationally and historically, God
brought in the spiritual and eternal Israel, and now at
this time, in this very place, He is at work on this
other vessel. God is now forming a spiritual Israel in
the place of the earthly and temporal Israel.
The first thing God has
done is to reveal the pattern of His vessel. I think it
is a very wonderful thing that in this dispensation God
has commenced by showing His pattern. The pattern has
been set before us - and this is the whole meaning of the
Incarnation of God's Son.
And yet, while that is
so true, it requires the work of the Holy Spirit to make
us see the Pattern. He was in close touch with men, yet
they did not see Him. They did not know nor understand
who and what was this One who was moving in their midst
every day. He was not recognized by the world, and it was
with great difficulty that even His disciples had any
conception of what He was. It was not until the Holy
Spirit came that they began to see who it was that had
been with them all that time, and then not only did they
begin to see who He was, but what He
was. They not only saw the Person, but they began to see
the meaning of the Person. They came to see that He was a
great Pattern, so the Holy Spirit revealed in their
hearts not only the Person but the Pattern.
But the Holy Spirit
went further. It would be a terrible thing for us if our
eyes were opened to see all the meaning of Jesus Christ.
If the Holy Spirit revealed Christ to us we might fall
down in utter despair. We would say, like Peter: "Depart
from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." However,
the Holy Spirit began to make the Pattern real in the
disciples. To use the so well-known words of the Apostle
Paul, He began to 'conform them to the image of Christ'
(Romans 8:29).
Those two things are
essential to our coming into the Mind of God.
Now let us come
immediately to the Pattern. You may never have wondered
why we have the four Gospels at the beginning of the New
Testament, for they were not the first of the New
Testament writings. Some of the Gospels were written well
after the Apostles had written their letters. But you
see, the Holy Spirit had this matter in hand, so He
placed the Person before the corporate expression. So we
will look at the Person who is the Pattern.
First of all, the Man
Himself is presented. Where do the Gospels begin with the
presentation of the Man? Perhaps you have noticed that
the Gospel by Mark, which was the first of the Gospels to
be written, begins with Jesus at thirty years of age.
Matthew and Luke may tell us a lot about the earthly
birth and childhood of Jesus, but the first one to
present this Person begins with Him as a full-grown man.
And the first thing that is shown to us about Him as the
Pattern is Jesus coming to the Jordan to be baptized by
John.
That represented a very
great crisis in His life. At that point He stepped across
the line which lay between His private life and His
public life, between Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth and
Jesus the great Servant of the Lord. At that point He
stepped out before heaven - the 'heavens were opened';
before hell - because Satan would begin at once to react;
and before all men. And, as it were, before the whole
universe, He took His position with God. He made His
utter committal to God. On the one side there lay all
that this world could offer, all the kingdoms of this
world that Satan could give Him, all the realization of
human ambition, all the experience of the satisfaction of
the natural man. On the other side of His baptism there
lay suffering, persecution, loneliness and death. The
Jordan was a grave, and in going down into those waters
of baptism He died to all that which lay on the one side
and accepted all that lay on the other.
This is the
comprehensive and inclusive meaning of baptism. It is the
repudiation and death to one whole realm of things, and
the acceptance of all that is involved in the other
realm.
So Jesus came to
Jordan. John would forbid Him, and sought to discourage
Him by saying: 'No, this is not for You. It may be for
the crowd, but it is not for You. It may be important for
a lot of people, but it is not important for You.' Jesus
simply said: 'Let it be so, John.' He would allow no
argument to turn Him away from this committal. The best
arguments of His best friends would not turn Him aside.
He said: 'This is what I have come for, and I am going
through with it.'
Is it necessary for me
to stay and apply that? This is the Pattern revealed, and
it is what goes to make up a vessel. Many, many
Christians do not get very far in the Christian life
because this thing is not as absolute as it was with
Jesus. What does baptism mean to you? Is it just
something in the Bible that you are told to do? Is it
some part of the ritual of the church? What really does
it mean to you? Does it mean this - an absolute committal
to God for all the future and all that it involves? That
is the pattern, and we shall never come to the full
expression of the Mind until this first thing is settled.
The first thing in
presenting the Man is His Baptism, and, as I have said,
that has to be a testimony before heaven, before hell and
before men. I do not think heaven is very interested just
in formalities. The angels are not looking eagerly at
anyone who is just going through a bit of ritual. If
Satan is interested in anything like that, it is only
because he wants to laugh. He says: 'Poor creatures! I
will prove presently how false it all is.' And I do not
think people who really think have much interest in a
merely formal kind of ceremony. But when it is after the
character of the committal of Jesus Christ, the whole
universe is really interested. If anyone like the Lord
Jesus is determined to go through this thing and the
enemy cannot stop it beforehand, he will, as in the case
of the Lord Jesus Himself, come soon afterwards.
This is just the first
thing concerning the Pattern, but let me say at once that
it is not just a matter of being baptized or not being
baptized. No baptism ever makes us wholly the Lord's. You
might be baptized every year and it make no difference.
It is a way that the Lord has given us of showing where
our hearts are, and a matter of where our lives really
are: whether we are wholly committed to God.
May the Lord find
every one of us to be like Himself in this matter, and in
being wholly committed to God may we be "conformed
to the image of his Son".