CRUSES

^[p. 416] CRUSES

2 Kings 2: 19 - 22; 1 Kings 17: 12 - 16; 1 Kings 19: 4 - 8

I have read these scriptures because they speak of cruses. I have in mind to consider each cruse mentioned as representing a vessel; and each saint of God is to be regarded as a vessel. The Scriptures say that saints are “vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory”, Romans 9: 23. No doubt God has in mind to have vessels in glory, that we shall not be there merely as blessed people or sight-seers, but as usable. God will have use for each of the redeemed. One of them, Paul, is spoken of as an “elect vessel”, meaning that he was outstanding; but clearly the idea attaches to each christian, and it applies now, for we are to be usable now by God. The governments of the world lay claim to almost everybody now, and rightly, as under God. It will be remembered that Joseph in his great administration under Pharaoh secured all Egypt for Pharaoh; he really made them all as purchased property in the sense of servants or servitude. Every Egyptian would be amenable legally to the behests of the king, not simply as a subject but as a born slave. That principle is applied in the world now in a very wide sense, and in a wider sense still it is applied by God; not simply that we are slaves as commonly understood (though every one who loves God loves the thought of being His slave), but it is an honourable position. Even our Lord Jesus Christ took a bondman’s form — the most touching thing perhaps in the Scriptures. He had served, according to the type, for six years, and could go out free, but instead of going out free He said, “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”, Exodus 21: 5. So He became a Bondman for ever, and that is the true, immutable, unchangeable testimony of His death. He is the most wonderful of all vessels; indeed every other vessel hangs on Him, according to the Scriptures, as if ^[p. 417] He supports us all in whatever service we may be called to. We can rely on Him both for example and support, and this, for time and eternity. God is putting in His claim, dear brethren, alongside of the claims of others, right in themselves, but God’s claim is obviously final. The Lord Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me”; that is the yoke He had Himself. What a yoke, the yoke of love! He stood before His Father and said He could do nothing without Him. He was there for His Father’s will: “Not my will”, He says, “but thine be done”. And so the writer of the Revelation says, “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place; and he signified it, sending by his angel, to his bondman John”, Revelation 1: 1. So that those who are serving the Lord are in that position of bondmen. They are amenable and available to the Lord for the great service He has for them. The Lord is thus seen in the book of Revelation in such a time as the present, and in worse times to come. The bondmen who stand true are seen in this book as in triumph; they sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb; they are victorious over the beast and over the number of his name. The beast and the number of his name are not unknown now; we see now in the drift of things what is meant, especially in the number of his name. But these bondmen have gained a victory over that, they are standing on a sea of glass — victorious transparency — no darkness at all.

Well now, this cruse in 2 Kings 2 is a vessel usable for a certain purpose. It is a new one, suggesting any beginning that God makes, whether small or great, whether in an individual conversion or in the formation of a gathering of christians in any given locality; or whether in the beginning of christianity when God was moving out of an ancient system that He had inaugurated Himself and supported to a point. He was departing and inaugurating another order of things,

^[p. 418] namely, christianity. This new cruse applies in any of these cases. I prefer now to use it in relation to christians, perhaps as christians just going on with the old things called by some distinctive name religiously, dating back for three or four hundred years or even fifteen or sixteen hundred years. In either case it is old, whereas christianity is ever new. The beginning of it in a believer, in a man or woman, is new birth. The Lord Jesus says, “Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God”, John 3: 3. It is from top to bottom a thorough matter; otherwise he cannot see the kingdom of God. How many people in Christendom are put out of court by that, millions of them, because although nominally christians they are not born again and therefore do not fit into the type here. They are not new, and if they are not new, they do not contain any salt. They do not keep their households or themselves from corruption, nor do they influence the locality in which they reside against evil; whereas a real Christian does. He is new. Whatever modifications there may be, one who is born again is new. There is a new principle brought into his being. God has put it there. Elisha demanded a new cruse. The people had it. He did not bring it with him; he might have done so, but the point was to bring out what was in the locality, what was in the place. Did they have a new cruse? Did they have salt? They had both. So far so good, and the question arises whether what is being said applies to each one here. What about this matter of new birth? Nicodemus, although a great man, a great doctor or teacher in Israel, floundered about when the Lord mentioned this. He began with the natural, he was not above the level of the natural; he was incapable of spiritual thoughts although they were in the doctrines that he taught. And so it is today; there are teachers: but Paul says, “For if ye should have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers”, 1 Corinthians 4: 15. There are many who overlook the most ^[p. 419] important things in what they teach, and one is this matter of new birth. The Lord says to Nicodemus, ‘You are the teacher of Israel and you do not know these things?’ And then the Lord adds, not to simplify the matter but to develop the spiritual side, “Except any one be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (verse 5). He goes further: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. It is a spiritual matter, dear brethren, and it is for each to see to it, whether it applies to me, or whether I am eliminated in this matter.

So the word is ‘new’, the cruse is new. Elisha wanted this one, he asked for it, and it may be the Spirit of God is asking it from someone here. Have you got this new thing? Why this cruse? Well, there were men in the place, the word is not used accidentally. There were sons of the prophets there too; they are not said to be men, although they were such, of course, literally. Indeed, there were said to be among them fifty strong men. But “the men of the city” are persons sensibly responsible in the place. Now pursuing my thought, I am not speaking for the moment of a locality, but of a person. Each person is responsible in himself, so that he represents in himself the idea of the man or men of the place. The human person is regarded as an institution in Scripture. The apostle Paul works it out in Romans 7: he says, “So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law” (verse 25). “I myself” is the responsible being in the institution of his person; and he is resolving certain things. What is he resolving to do? He says, I am going to do the will of God. That is one of the finest resolutions one can make. If you resolve to put it off, it is one of the worst things you can do. This matter of accepting a certain responsibility is of first and last importance for every person. So Paul says, “I myself”, and it is in that sense I am speaking tonight. The place was Jericho, a well-known city, a ^[p. 420] historical place, but the men of the city called Elisha’s attention to it, saying to him, “The situation of the city is good, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is barren”. These are honest men; they are not taking the prophet around to see the sights of the town, and hiding, as I might say, the coarse, corrupt parts, the slums. That is what the flesh will do, but they are not doing that; they are just appealing to him as to what he sees himself. And the prophet sees you just as you are, let there be no mistake about that. If there is a real prophet dealing with you, there is no use hiding anything. It is just as well to be honest with yourself and with the prophet.

Take the woman of Samaria, as we often speak of her; we do not know her name but she has a name in heaven, written in the book, quite a notable one, no doubt. It is enough to say she was a woman of Samaria, and she was having dealings with the greatest of prophets. She says, “Sir, I see that thou art a prophet”, John 4: 19. I “see” it: why did she use that word? Because she felt the penetrating power of His word. What was that word? Well, He says to her, “Go, call thy husband”. How much that brings up every time; this marital matter, what a history behind it! “Go, call thy husband, and come here”; that is, you come with him. That brought the whole story up. She says, “I have not a husband”. Jesus says, “Thou hast well said, I have not a husband; for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom now thou hast is not thy husband: this thou hast spoken truly”. She was hiding other things, but the Lord saw the whole matter. The city was by no means pleasant, although she would make much of Samaria. Here they say, “The situation of the city is good, as my lord sees”. Elisha took in the matter of the site of the city; he also took in its history. A woman called Rahab lived in that city once; she also has a name written in heaven. In manner of life, she was comparable with the woman of Samaria in her ^[p. 421] unconverted days, but she came under the light of God and was converted. Elisha says nothing about that, but doubtless he knew. He might have said, Oh, yes; this city is pleasant, but what is going on in your city? But they are not hiding anything; they said, “but the water is bad, and the land is barren”. Truly stated!

Well, I am not preaching a gospel sermon, but just bringing in the necessity for this vessel. Is there one in this city that is new? that is, one really converted to God? Can he contain the salt? Is he a man who will corrupt others through his influence, or will he through his influence and example convert or correct others? In this city of Jericho there was such a man as that and they brought him forward. The work of God always begins with what is already there; He begins with His own work and operates from that. How important, therefore, that my constitution shall be just right, that I am born again, that I know my sins forgiven through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus, that I have the Holy Spirit come down from heaven from Christ, and that I am sealed with the Spirit! If these are so I am new; I am usable here in this place. I am being asked for, I am needed. Think of what a single christian can be, if God takes him up! Or, going back to the real antitype, think of what Jesus was as come down from heaven, how He went to the source of the waters and healed them — for that is what happened. But I am dealing now with a christian, or one who professes to be a christian, and with the question of newness and usableness, of availability for the work of God; of the ability to change my own circumstances, to purify them, to purify the circumstances in the district around me among the brethren. I am not speaking of the world, because the world lies in the wicked one. Let no one ever think it can be reformed or converted or made suitable for God. It is abandoned by God, that is what the world is. “Now is the judgment of this world”, the Lord says, John 12: 31. I ^[p. 422] quite admit that God holds it in a particular way at the moment for the sake of the gospel, but it is not getting better and never will be better. God will make a way through it for His people, but it is doomed, and we may as well accept that. Anybody who reads the book of Revelation can see that. So it is a question of helping the brethren; it is whether a vessel is available where there is need of one to be used of God. And what is required is newness.

Now this new thing was there in Jericho, the Jerichoites had it, and they had the salt as well. Salt as a type is used by the Lord several times; the passage most applicable to what I am saying is Mark 9: 50, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another”. The Lord says to His disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth”. The idea is that the believer can be used of God for purification, for healing the waters — conditions, we will say, in the local meeting, conditions in the christian himself. This is a question of one man, one woman, one person being available to God as constituted new by the work of God, and able to take on this salt, that is, the power of preservation. And so, dear brethren, this matter comes very close to us. The Lord says, “Have salt in yourselves”. Every gathering of the Lord’s people requires this admonition. And then again, “Let your word be always with grace, seasoned with salt”, Colossians 4: 6; that is, whatever you say is to have an element of correction, of preservation, or refusal of corruption. There is no hope of our getting on without this type of conversation. Well now, this cruse is available; the salt is put into it, and Elisha goes to the source of the waters, and the source is purified. It says, “Thus saith Jehovah: I have healed these waters: there shall not be from thence any more death or barrenness. And the waters were healed to this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spoke” (chapter 2: 21, 22). How remarkable is the recovery in this city! And it is at the initiative of the men, persons who are ^[p. 423] responsible. Let us accept responsibility! If there is anything wrong, let there be no lack of men to take up the responsibility, to point out the difficulty and then to have what is needed, what is usable by God, for correction.

Now to proceed — in the first book of Kings we have the thought of a cruse again. This time the person involved is the widow of Sarepta. She had a cruse in her house; the prophet did not ask for it, he asked for water: “Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel” (chapter 17: 10). That is, he has there the idea of a vessel in his mind. As I said at the beginning, each christian is a vessel. This time the prophet mentions the word “vessel”, he does not mention the word “cruse” first; he mentions the word “vessel”, meaning that each christian is available for use. When the Israelites came out of Egypt they demanded vessels, or utensils, from the Egyptians, and they gave them to them, meaning that each Israelite that came out of Egypt was himself a utensil; and that is true, dear brethren. There is nothing more true, and nothing more important, than that each one should hold himself as a vessel; as Paul says, “That each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 4.

Then the prophet asks for a morsel of bread, and the woman says she has “a handful of meal in a barrel”. She was minimising it, but it was in a good place, in a vessel; “and a little oil in a cruse”. Now what I want to say about this oil is that it does not fail. I suppose there is not a saint here that has not failed in some sense, but this one does not fail. The word used as to the cruse is that it did not “fail”, but as to the barrel of meal, that it did not “waste”. It is a very bad sign if a christian is wasteful. How often it is that we demand much and think we need so-and-so, whereas it is really wasteful. Others are in need and we are wasting what they need. Spiritual matters make it more serious, that I have something that could be of use to the people ^[p. 424] of God and they are not getting it; I am wasting it, occupied with other things. A man says, “Lord, suffer me first to go away and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead”, Matthew 8: 21, 22. Do not forget that injunction, whatever else you do or do not do. But the barrel of meal did not waste; it went on. It is a wonderful thing, for it was a time of famine. One could say a great deal about Elijah, what had happened earlier in his life; there is no more interesting history in Scripture than Elijah’s. And now in this matter of a vessel, the barrel of meal that did not waste, and the cruse of oil that did not fail — no wastefulness and no failure — I can understand how Elijah would be full of heart in spite of the famine, because God was working. He works to get one brother or one sister who does not waste and who cares for things. The Lord Jesus says, “Gather together the fragments which are over and above, that nothing may be lost”, John 6: 12. It is a principle of christianity that nothing is to be lost. Not even a word of Samuel’s fell to the ground. Everything is to be preserved without failure: here is a vessel that goes on and on and increases in power and volume. So the word is, “The meal in the barrel shall not waste, neither shall the oil in the cruse fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the face of the earth! And she went and did according to the word of Elijah; and she, and he, and her house, ate a whole year. The meal in the barrel did not waste, neither did the oil in the cruse fail, according to the word of Jehovah which he had spoken through Elijah”. That is, we have facts established; divine facts are being effected every day among us if we can only observe them. Here we have divine facts established, day in and day out, and week in and week out, for the whole period until relief came. The barrel of meal wasted not, and the oil in the cruse did not fail. And they ate, the prophet and the woman and her house — a remarkable thing. She had ^[p. 425] only her son, she minimises everything; but the Spirit of God calls her and her son a house. God always dignifies our position as we proceed with Him. So the house and the prophet were sustained by the non-waste of the barrel of meal and the non-failure of the oil in the cruse. Each thing is in a vessel. And so, dear brethren, how important to be vessels, each holding his vessel as I said before, unto sanctification and honour! Otherwise it cannot be used. We are to walk with vessels to honour. There are vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour, and the vessels to honour are the ones we are to associate with and the ones God can use. I would not for worlds be other than a vessel to honour, at least having that in mind. Surely God would have us to have that in mind, each holding his vessel unto sanctification and honour. As we dwell on this matter of non-failure and non-wastefulness, one is encouraged at the reality of what there is, what God has effected in persons at the present time, however small. That is the principle in these scriptures. However small the thing is, it is such as is of God, and if God can make that one thing genuine. He can make a million genuine. He makes a universe according to Christ. It is the smallness of God’s things and the bigness of God’s things.

Now when we come to chapter 19 we get Elijah fleeing from a wicked woman, Jezebel, because she had threatened to slay him, and according to what I read, “he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a certain broom-bush, and requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough: now, Jehovah, take my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And he lay down and slept under the broom-bush. And behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, Arise, eat! And he looked, and behold, at his head was a cake, baked on hot stones, and a cruse of water”. He was lying down, but there was a cake baken on coals and a cruse of water at his head.

“^[p. 426] And he ate and drank, and lay down again. And the angel of Jehovah came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise, eat; for the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God”. What I have to say about this cruse and these cakes and these hot stones and this angel, all attending on the prophet, dear brethren, is that they together, and particularly the cruse, represent the providential ways of God with His people; a side that we sometimes overlook. And this service of God extends to wayward christians as well as to faithful christians. God never withdraws His eye from His people. As someone has said, If you turn away from God, He will shine on your back. That is our God. As you will remember, the Lord Jesus went after the two that turned away from the truth according to Luke’s account and went off to Emmaus. He joined them on their way, “but their eyes were holden so as not to know him”. That was, as it were, providential. God never withdraws His eye from us. Let us never give up heart. If some have elected to give up the light and depart, the Lord would say to us, “Will ye also go away?” What an appeal! Some had gone; John says “From that time many of his disciples went away back and walked no more with him”, John 6: 66. What an awful thing! But then, as I said, those two from Emmaus were real at the bottom and the Lord went with them. He walked, I suppose, eight miles or so each way to secure those two. And they walked the same distance, thank God for that. As soon as they got a touch in their hearts they returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven.

I say all that because Elijah here is a wayward Christian; he is fleeing from a wicked woman because she has threatened to kill him. But then, he had just stood up against eight hundred prophets and slain them. Why should he be afraid of a woman? His heart gave ^[p. 427] out, as with many. God could have supported him; God could have kept Jezebel from killing him. Faith would have stood as bold as a lion, that “turneth not away for any”. Elijah really was that, but he failed. He is fleeing and saying to God, ‘Kill me Yourself’. Well, whether God killed him through Jezebel, or killed him Himself, the difference would not be very great, although I would rather fall into the hands of the Lord than into the hands of a wicked woman like Jezebel; but still, he would be killed. But God had other thoughts, and He has other thoughts about some of us here tonight. So there are providential circumstances in your history as you look back on it, and if they are providential, they are from God. The angel here represents what is providential. God has many things He can use in favour of His people and the first and greatest agency is angels; I mean in these providential matters. Now-a-days one is reminded of the many things God is using to preserve His people. He used the waters around Great Britain to preserve His people there. That is what I believe. He did it Himself. He can use other waters to preserve the saints, and I pray that He may. There is a great distance from the centre of opposition down to New Zealand and Australia; it is a long way, and that long way is in their favour; God may use it providentially. He uses rivers and mountains and weather; He uses snow and frost and He sends rain on the earth. God uses all these things. Why should I not ask Him to do it? Most of us do. But then, He has the greatest things, the angels of His power. The Lord says, “Or thinkest thou that I cannot now call upon my Father, and he will furnish me more than twelve legions of angels?” Matthew 26: 53. Think of the power of that! In that sense we hardly realize what power is, dear brethren. The angels of His might, what one angel can do! One angel can take even Satan himself and bind him with a chain. That is what one angel can do, and we do not know how many there are. We ^[p. 428] never hear of a census of angels, but there are myriads; and it says the Lord is coming with them, the holy myriads. What an army! No foul language there, no murderous spirit; they are holy angels, holy myriads.

Well, now, I refer to that because of this angel. What he is doing here is to bake a cake for a wayward Christian, or believer, and he is filling the cruse — some sort of a flask, I suppose — with water, and putting the cake and the cruse of water right down at the head of the wayward believer. Then he wakens him up, as it says, “And he lay down and slept under the broom-brush. And behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, Arise, eat!” as much as to say, ‘Get up for breakfast’. What a thought for heaven to have! Because this came from heaven, it is a providential matter. There are thousands of these providential matters that sometimes we ignore, but they are really from God. They may be little things, but they are really from God, and it is for us to be on the alert, even if we are away from God. We should be on the alert for little things — it may be in danger on the sea or the battlefield — and see what God may do to save us. How many times this has been proved in these places of danger! And so it is that the angel is tending Elijah, and awakens him, as much as to say, ‘Get up and eat your breakfast’. There was a cake, a hot one, prepared carefully and providentially, and the cruse of water. It was not very much, but it was providentially God’s care for his erring child. Then the second time he lay down and went to sleep, and the angel waked him up again. He does not call him by name, he just says, “Arise, eat; for the journey is too great for thee”. What tender words! If any one here has turned away from God, you may be sure the journey is too great for you. You may think you can get along by yourself, but you will find the journey is too great for you. And yet God says, ‘Take this food I am providing for you’. He would remind you of His love for you. It is the same God that gave Jesus for ^[p. 429] you that is giving you these cakes and the cruse of water, to testify that He has not changed. His love for you is the same. I could say much about the outcome, and how Elijah returned to his great service and was finally received up into heaven. He was the second to be so taken — Enoch being the first — and he appeared on the mount of transfiguration, talking to Jesus. So that we may well take him as an example of God’s care, how God brings His erring child back to the true path and makes a great servant of him. May God bless the word!