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“HE MADE IT AGAIN ANOTHER VESSEL”

P. Martin

These scriptures refer to a marred vessel and to a perfect one. It is clear that God ever intended to have man for His pleasure for He went to great lengths in the creation of man. He acted in relation to man in a way in which He did not act in relation to the rest of creation for He breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life. He did not do that to the animals, although they did live; but there was what was special in relation to man that was to be for God’s pleasure. It became marred very quickly. This passage says, “The vessel that he made was marred, as clay, in the hand of the potter”. How quickly that was so! Adam fell from God’s thoughts for him—“By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death”, Romans 5: 12.

From that moment onward God has never looked for anything from man naturally. He is not working with natural man for He will never secure anything in that order of man for His pleasure. That order of man has been marred and will never be restored. It says, “He made it again”. He did not repair it. God is not repairing the first order of man. What a moment to come to in our history when we realise that God is not repairing the first order of man. He is making man another vessel—as it pleases Him, and God is looking for that answer in each one of us and in our local companies, the quality that is not according to the natural man, for that order of man has no place in the assembly of God.

Our brother has referred to Paul saying of the Corinthians, “Ye are yet carnal”. That has no place in the assembly of God. How often, alas, carnal thinking and reasoning enter into times of difficulty amongst the saints! It has no place. God is not using it. He is looking for men who are moving according to the vessel that pleases Him. It is only what is of the Spirit that has any place at all in divine things. Matters are often brought in which are not of the Spirit, but these have no place in divine things. How solemn that is! They belong to the vessel that God has finished with, because it was marred.

But it says, “He made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make”. O, beloved brethren, think of what seemed good to the Potter! Think of the life of Jesus, the perfect One! How good that was to the Father; every detail of His life was pleasurable. We can think of the growing years of Jesus, growing in favour with God and men—a Boy growing in favour with God! There was never anything in the life of Jesus that was not pleasurable to God. Every footstep of His gave God delight. What a perfect Man! We can understand then that God wanted a whole order of manhood like Jesus. He found in Jesus everything that He looked for in man. He found what He had never found before. Speaking reverently. God says, I will have that order of Man before Me eternally. Oh that I was more in the gain of it!—would that we were generally. Matters that take time amongst us would be quickly and easily resolved if we only saw the glory of that blessed Man.

So it says, “Cannot I do with you as this potter?” That is what the Spirit is doing, dear brethren. We may sometimes wonder why matters arise amongst us and I believe that it is just to bring out that the Spirit is working. He is setting aside in His power the line of things that has not pleased God, but He is also forming in His grace that which is pleasing to Him.

With us this involves conflict, as it did with the children of Israel, that they might learn their hearts and that they might learn God in the wilderness. There will be conflict to the end, beloved, because the flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. So He ‘makes again’.

O, beloved, let us get hold of that, especially when we are younger, that divine Persons are not working with anything that belongs to us naturally. There is a work of God in my soul that is not drawing from what I am naturally. God is building, and we are to make way for the work of God, to see that the Spirit has His place in our affections so that that work grows and develops in our souls and that what seems good to the Potter may come into full expression.

When we come to Revelation 21 it is not a marred vessel but a perfect one. I believe we need to get a sense of the perfect vessel that God is going to have for His pleasure eternally. This is the vessel in which He will rest, a creature vessel, yet perfect. We might wonder at times as to whether that was possible, that a creature vessel could be perfect; and yet it must be so because she will be alongside of Christ in that day. It says, “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God”. That is where she is coming from.

She has already been there in the purpose of God. God has had that vessel, we might say reverently, in His own affections as the vessel that would be the expression of His glory. The personnel of this vessel are not exactly stressed in this passage but they are referred to, because God is going to wipe away every tear from their eyes. The vessel itself is heavenly but the personnel have been here in the scene of testimony, and God is working out in this scene what is heavenly in His saints. How wonderful that is! The saints are heavenly. They are not earthly. They certainly are not worldly. May the Lord preserve us from every trace of worldliness that the enemy would seek to bring in little by little. The saints are heavenly because of their calling, they are “partakers of the heavenly calling”, Hebrews 3: 1. We belong to heaven. This vessel is seen coming down out of the heaven from God. It is the product of the Spirit’s work through two thousand years. Later in the chapter this vessel is seen in relation to the millennium, but here it is presented as the vessel which is entirely for God’s pleasure. It is what God has looked for, and waited for, and now He has such an answer in a perfect vessel. She is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband—not exactly that she is presented as the bride of Christ here but that bridal features are marking her. O, beloved, would that we were more bridal in our affection for Christ, that the bridal affection proper to the glory of that blessed Man marked us more!—that He had the place in our affections that is rightly His. As we give place to the Spirit in the forming of the vessel that is pleasing to Him, then bridal affection for Christ will develop. Each local company is to be an expression of bridal affection. No other man is to have the chief place there. Christ alone is to have control in the assembly.

Then it says, “I heard a loud voice out of the heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God”. What an answer, beloved! When everything seemed to have been lost, through the centuries just a marred vessel, yet God has secured through the work of Christ an answer to His purpose that is perfect and will be eternally His dwelling place and the residence of His glory. What an answer! We form part of it. We have been chosen for this. We have been reminded already this week that God has wrought us for this very thing, not according to what we were, but according to His own purpose and grace. How wonderful to be conscious of being secured for such an answer for God’s pleasure. May each of us be exercised that there may be such an answer for the pleasure of divine Persons. The Spirit would work in our affections to form the vessel as it pleases Him. May the Lord help us, for His name’s sake.

Word in meeting for ministry, Lossiemouth
24 July 1984

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