"Moreover
the tabernacle and all THE VESSELS OF THE MINISTRY he
sprinkled in like manner with the blood" (Hebrews
9:21).
In
thinking about that phrase, "the vessels of the
ministry", I am impressed with the largeness of the
number of vessels that there were connected with the
tabernacle. Here there is an inclusive reference -
"all the vessels of the ministry", all the
vessels of the tabernacle. If you look at the record of
the making of the tabernacle, you will find that there
were many vessels, and every major part of the tabernacle
had its own vessels. Reference is made to the altar and
all its vessels, the laver and its vessels, the table of
shewbread and its vessels, the candlestick or lampstand
and its vessels. The number is not given, but "all
its vessels" is a common phrase, and sometimes their
particular use is mentioned. For instance, as to the
table of shewbread, strangely enough, it says that all
the vessels, made of gold, were for pouring out (Exod.
25:29, 37:16; Num. 4:7). Now, we do not know anything as
to the content of the table, other than that it had the
loaves, and yet connected with the table there were
vessels of gold for pouring out.
That by
the way, as to the number of vessels, the variety of
vessels; but the specific use of every vessel is
something impressive in the tabernacle, and every vessel
was anointed with the blood and with the oil. That would
be worth looking into in detail, but we shall not do so
now. We shall simply take the spiritual implication of
the fact that in the Lord's house, and for its service,
its ministry, there are very many vessels. They have as
many uses as there are vessels - a variety of uses. Every
one of them has its own particular function, and all the
vessels, no matter how small and insignificant, and
however inferior might seem their function, even to the
very snuffers for getting rid of the unpleasant elements
of smoke and burnt-out wick, they all come under the
anointing. Now, there are the corresponding ministries in
the spiritual House of God, but I am not going to speak
about them at this time. I am simply pointing out that
there are these many vessels, and every one to serve a
purpose, and no matter how small their measure and menial
their purpose, the same anointing belongs to the small as
to the great. They all share the one anointing to fulfil
their purpose.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN THE
CHOICE OF THE VESSEL
The
first thing I want to point out in that connection is the
sovereignty of God in the choosing and the appointing of
every vessel. This was true of the smallest vessel of the
tabernacle. As with the whole tabernacle, the smallest
vessel of ministry was according to the pattern in the
heavenlies. It was a part of the comprehensive pattern,
and the whole pattern came down to it. The Lord never
left any place for man to make it out of his own mind,
not even the smallest thing to serve Him in the
tabernacle. The Lord did not say, 'Now, it is most
important that the tabernacle at large, the great
framework and these major things, should be exactly as I
have prescribed; but as to all the little things that
will have to be brought in and will be necessary and
useful - well, I leave that to you'. He never did
anything like that. Every part, every little vessel of
ministry, took its character from the whole heavenly
pattern, and was governed by the sovereign thought of
God. God sovereignly kept in His own hands the design of
the smallest part, both as to its nature and as to its
function.
The
sovereignty of God as to our place as a vessel of
ministry is something that calls for a real attitude and
exercise of faith. We are all the vessels of ministry.
The sovereignty of God has chosen us in Christ. I expect
we are all prepared to agree that Saul of Tarsus was a
chosen vessel. As the Lord said to Ananias: "he is a
chosen vessel unto me" (Acts 9:15). We will all
agree that that was so, as regards Saul, and that it was
a Divine sovereign act that secured that vessel from all
eternity. But the same sovereignty, the same eternal
purpose, governs every smaller vessel. Paul, of whom it
was said that he was a chosen vessel, will later on
write: "he chose us in him"; not 'he chose me
particularly', but "he chose us in him before the
foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4).
Do
remember that this matter of election and predestination
is related to function, to purpose - not to salvation. It
is related to purpose. God has chosen us in His
sovereignty, and has chosen us to serve as a part of the
whole.
We must
set aside the whole idea of typology, just write it off
as very nice, very interesting, all right as illustration
for the kindergarten, but nothing more than a set of
pretty pictures for children, if we are not going to say
that the tabernacle, from centre to circumference, from
the whole framework to the last small vessel of ministry,
represents Christ. It is the one all-inclusive Christ,
and in every fragment Christ is to be found. If that is
not true, then our interpretation is just playing at
things; but if it is true, then every small part is a
part of Christ, and is chosen in Him for THE comprehensive
purpose of Christ - God's purpose concerning His Son.
There is
one thing that we shall have to settle sooner or later,
if we are not going to be as it were suspended between
heaven and earth in indefiniteness and uncertainty,
missing the mark and being misfits, and, as we say,
cutting no ice. In Christ, by the grace of God, I am a
vessel of mercy, and there relates to me, in the
sovereignty of God, by my being chosen and called, a
function, a ministry, an aspect of the purpose of God
concerning His Son. It is in the sovereignty of God that
I am now in Christ. So far as the initiative was
concerned, it was not my doing to get into Christ. I
should never have got into Christ by my own initiative; I
should never have been brought to the Lord by my own
choice. 'We did not choose Him but He chose us': that is
perfectly true - the initiative was with the Lord. So we
have got to settle down on this fact that we are in
Christ, and not by our own choice or initiative, much as
we may have longed for it. We would not have done it if
God had not done it; sovereign grace has done it. We are
in Christ, and therefore we are a part of Christ, and
whether it be a spoon or a cup or any one of the numerous
vessels, there is a specific function for which I am
called in Christ, a ministry of the tabernacle which is
my ministry.
You see,
the thing which governs this is the numerous ministries.
What a variety of ministries! I do not know if it would
be true to say that there were not two vessels exactly
alike in the tabernacle, but I do know that there were
very many vessels and a great variety of uses, and every
one was needed. In the same way, if we were missing,
something would be lost in the whole tabernacle, there
would be a weakness in the whole heavenly system, and
that comes down to you and to me.
Now,
that is the beginning of service, where we in faith
apprehend that. I am in Christ: therefore that means that
I have been chosen in Him before the foundation of the
world. I am an elect vessel. I may not seem as important
as some, but that depends entirely upon the standpoint
from which you view importance. Are you viewing
importance from the standpoint of size, or are you
viewing importance from the standpoint of
indispensability? A pin may be as indispensable as the
garment which it holds up! It depends entirely upon the
particular standpoint from which you are viewing
importance. These little things on the tabernacle and on
the altar and lying by the lampstand - they were
indispensable, and it was that that gave them their
importance. Do you think that God ever chose us in Christ
out of His sovereignty if He had no need, that He just
did it for the sake of doing it, without any real meaning
or purpose of importance? Not at all! God is not like
that. You look into Nature and you see importance
attached to very small things, and if those small things
fail, a whole big system may break down. I would like to
follow that out and illustrate it, but the statement will
be enough.
First of
all, the sovereignty of God governs our being in Christ:
and that sovereignty means that there is a purpose for
our being in Christ, and that that purpose is attached to
every one of us, and it may be an aspect of the purpose
which is our peculiar vocation or function in the
sovereignty of God. Would you adjust yourself to that
first of all? Come away from the general to the
particular, in your view of life and of yourself; come
away from the indefinite; come right away from that
questioning, doubting, wondering whether there is
anything at all that relates to you, whether you have a
place. It is faith that has to take a very deliberate
attitude and step in relation to this.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN THE
MAKING OF THE VESSEL
Then the
second thing is that the sovereignty of God is connected
with the making of the vessel; not only with the choosing
of its existence and of its function, but with its
making. Do you not feel sometimes that perhaps our God is
too small, too little - the God that we think of? The God
that we have made according to our mind is far too small.
To Jeremiah, the Lord said: "Before I formed thee...
I knew thee, and before thou camest forth... I sanctified
thee" (Jeremiah 1:5). 'I formed you; before you had
a physical being, I had known you and formed you and
called you'. And Jeremiah responded, "I cannot
speak: for I am a child". If the Lord meant anything
at all by telling Jeremiah that He formed him and chose
him before he had a being, He must have meant: 'Well, you
are just as I made you; I made you to serve a purpose
like that. If I had wanted to make you differently, I
could have done so. You think you would have been more
suitable if you had been made differently; you think you
would be able to do very much better if only you were
made differently. You think I have made a mistake in the
way you are made. All the time you are saying, "I am
not made that way, I am not made for this, I am not made
for that"; and you are really saying, "The Lord
has made a mistake in choosing me"; or else, "I
have got into the wrong place, I am not made for
this"'. It is a thing about which most of us in our
lives have had a bad time. Many a servant of God, finding
himself or herself in a very onerous situation, a very
responsible position, has cried out, 'Oh, if only I had
been made for this!' - under a deep sense of being
unfitted, unqualified for the work and the position. The
thing is beyond us. Are we going to close down on that
and say that is so? 'The Lord did not know anything about
us when He called us; and the Lord never had any hand
either in our being made or in our call. If the Lord had
known about us, if He had really known what sort of
people we are, He would not have chosen us for this'.
That is the world in which we live and reason and argue.
The Lord
said to Moses: "I have surely seen the affliction of
my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their
cry...; and I am come down to deliver them. Come now...,
and I will send thee...." (Exod. 3:7,8,10). Moses
said, 'I cannot speak! You have chosen the wrong one; You
need somebody who has a facility that I have not got -
You really need a different kind of man!' (Exod.
4:10,13). The Lord said: "Who hath made man's
mouth?" (vs. 11). 'Did I make your mouth? If I did,
I made it as it is.' It was the same issue as with
Jeremiah. "I have... set thee over the nations and
over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to
destroy and to overthrow; to build, and to plant"
(Jer. 1:10). "I cannot speak". Did the Lord
say, 'I am sorry, Jeremiah, I have made a mistake - I
have got the wrong man!'? No! The Lord touched Jeremiah's
mouth and said: "I have put my words in thy
mouth" (vs. 9). "To whomsoever I shall send
thee thou shalt go".
What
does this mean?
It means
that there is a sovereignty behind even the way we are
made, when God gets hold of us, and He is going to be
glorified, not in efficient, able vessels that could say,
'Well, you see, I am thoroughly well qualified for the
job that I am in'. If there is anything like that, we
shall have to come to another recognition about vessels,
which we will see presently. But for the moment let us
keep to this: there is a sovereignty in the choice of us,
and God knows all about how we are made. He knows all
about the disadvantages, the handicaps, the limitations;
He knows what lies in the background. He knows all about
it, and exactly how we are made; and, knowing all about
it, He has chosen us. God did not choose us after we were
made. He chose us before. He went back behind everything
- and God is further behind things than we realize -
behind our lives, behind what we call the misfortunes,
what we call the handicaps; He is behind them all. Do you
believe that? It is very difficult to believe sometimes.
You are so overwhelmed with the sense of your
limitations, your lack of qualification.
Is it
not just here that we are not only vessels of mercy, but
vessels of glory? What is the vessel for? - to show forth
its own excellencies, or 'the excellencies of Him who
called us'? (1 Pet. 2:9). The excellencies of the Lord
can only be seen when they are not overshadowed by any
human excellencies; when it is just frail vessels, poor
vessels - and His glory. It is only another way of
expressing what Paul said to the Corinthians: "Ye
behold your calling, brethren". 'Have a look at the
calling, the selection, that is represented by the Church
in Corinth; have a look at the personnel of the Church in
Corinth; see what calling means where the personnel is
concerned'. "Not many wise..., not many mighty, not
many noble... but God chose the foolish things... the
weak things... the base things... the things that are
despised... the things that are not, that he might bring
to nought the things that are" (1 Cor. 1:26-28).
Sovereignty lies behind what we are in ourselves, to make
us then what He wants us to be.
THE LORD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN DEALING
WITH THE VESSEL
The
sovereignty that constitutes us for His service, firstly
naturally and then spiritually, will then work out in
this particular way that the Lord is taking, which,
according to His sovereign wisdom and sovereign judgment,
is the way most suited to - perhaps the only way to - the
end that He has in view. You have to believe that. Why
does the Lord deal with me thus? Why do I have this
peculiar experience and history, so different from many?
Why do I go this way? Why is the Lord dealing with me
like this? Every one of us has a personal history with
God, and usually in our personal history with God there
is plenty of room for a 'Why?'. In His sovereignty, He is
taking the way with you and with me which His wisdom has
decided is the way of reaching His end where we are
concerned. He could not do that with others. He has to do
it in the way that He considers suitable to each case.
Every vessel has to be shaped as though it were the only
one for that particular purpose. God does not work on the
mass-production basis with His servants. Every one is a
special separate object, and He deals with that one in a
peculiar way. There is something about that one's history
which is, to the one who is concerned, their own lonely
life with God; that is, there is much that no one can
share or understand. God has, as it were, singled them
out as individuals. That is His sovereign dealing with
us. Do you believe that? We have to take an attitude of
faith on all these matters, or we shall simply go round
in a circle, we shall be suspended, held up, get nowhere,
we shall have no particular impact.
THE LORD'S NEED FOR OUR
CO-OPERATION
I close
with two other things which are bound up with what I have
said. One is that, in His formation of us according to
His own thought and intention, the Lord counts upon our
co-operation. To use the well-known figure of Jeremiah
18, He may come up against something in the clay which
resists His hand, which stands out against the way that
He is taking, which is a 'No' to Him, which is a
reservation, a lack of compliance, and just at that point
the whole glorious purpose may come under arrest. It is
just at that point that we may be rendered a misfit,
perhaps for the rest of our lives. The Divine intentions
of grace may be defeated. It may be at that point that
the history of a circle begins. We take a long tour
round, and come back to the same place, and find that,
after all, we have made no progress: a lot of time has
been lost, a lot of value has been forfeited, and we are
just back where we were before; we have not got past
that. That has to be cleared up, of however long standing
it may be - maybe months, maybe years - but not until it
is cleared up, not until there is a yielding, a response
to the Lord there on that point, do we take up the
straight road again.
THE LORD'S EMPTYING AND FILLING OF
THE VESSEL
The
other thing is this - that God retains the right to fill
and use the vessel, and therefore, as a part of His
sovereignty, He must empty it of everything but Himself.
Paul said: "Most gladly therefore will I... glory in
my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon
me" (2 Cor. 12:9). That is an emptied vessel, a
vessel emptied of its own strength, its own wisdom, its
own will, its own way; emptied because God reserves the
right to occupy the vessel to the full; He will not
co-occupy with anything of man. The emptying may explain
much. If we have any fullness of ourselves, fullness of
any kind that is ours, then we shall not come to the
purpose of God until it is all got rid of, and we are
emptied out, for it is emptied vessels that God fills. It
has always been so.
Here are
some tremendous propositions! However challenging they
are to faith - and they are challenging - take these
steps one by one.
Firstly,
am I chosen of God, or is this all my doing? Am I a
Christian, am I saved, am I in Christ, because I have
done it all, or has the Lord done this? And, if I have
been on the way for some time, have I had sufficient
experience to know that, if I had done it, I would have
been out long ago? It was the Lord who did it, and the
Lord who has held me. There is every evidence that the
Lord is in this matter, with initiative and sovereignty.
I belong to Him; and what does that imply? It implies a
sovereignty of God in my choice, in my election, in my
being chosen in God.
Secondly,
why am I chosen in Christ? Just to be there and just to
be saved? Does election and predestination relate to my
being saved? Can I accept that - which must carry with it
the implication that all are not elected to be saved, and
God is arbitrary? Oh no, I cannot believe that! No;
election relates to purpose. Then am I elect according to
the purpose?
Further,
is not that purpose many-sided? Does not the whole Word,
Old and New Testaments, show that there is a
many-sidedness to the purpose that is centred in Christ?
I must, then, have some place in it, which is my place;
and, if that is true, does God know all about it, all
about me - has He chosen me because I am so suited and
fitted and qualified for it? No! I very soon get
disillusioned about that if I have any such ideas. The
last thing for which I am qualified is the thing for
which God has called me. He has to do all the qualifying.
So then,
taking it stage by stage, let us get right to the Lord
about it - let us settle this matter, and come to rest;
it may be with a larger apprehension of the Lord, having
a bigger Lord. He cannot be bigger than He is, but He can
be bigger than we make Him. Oh, for a bigger God and
Lord! That is our need. If we do get this far greater,
more comprehensive faith in the Lord, we shall be saved
from so much that now brings us into arrest, and puts us
out, because of this and that and something else - all
implying that the Lord does not understand, the Lord
never took this into account, the Lord must have made a
mistake. It is not so; the Lord knows all about it.
May the
Lord make His word of some help and value, and enable us
to take quite a definite attitude, for much may be
hanging upon the attitude that we take, and upon our
response to the Lord, in this matter.
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1954, Vol. 32-2.