The Vessel Chosen and Charged
“But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.” — Acts ix. 15.
WE shall best explain and apply the text by examining its terms in succession, one by one. 1. A vessel. — The term signifies the implement by which any work is done, or the dish in which anything is held. It is an instrument constructed and fitted for use in any species of operation.
All the world is the field whereon God works, and it is full of the instruments which he employs. Every flower, every leaf, every tendril is a cunningly contrived instrument, designed and fitted for carrying on some delicate process in the vegetable economy. In animals, every member of the body is a tool with which the creature, — with which the great Creator works. The eye, the ear, the tongue, the foot, and a thousand other exquisite instruments, hang at hand in the workshop, ready for the worker’s use.
Each separate part of creation, again, is an instrument in God’s hands for carrying his plans into effect. The internal fires of the globe are his instruments for heaving up the mountain ridges, and causing the intervening valleys to subside. The clouds are vessels employed in carrying water from its great reservoir in the ocean to every portion of the thirsty land. The rivers are waste-pipes for carrying back the soiled water that it may be purified for subsequent use. The sun is an instrument for lighting and warming a troop of revolving worlds; and the earth’s huge bulk a curtain for screening off the sunlight at stated intervals, and so affording
The Vessel chosen mid charged. to weary workers a grateful night of rest. Chief of all the implements provided and employed on earth is man — made last, made best for his Author’s service; broken, disfigured, and defiled by sin, but capable of working wondrously yet, when redeemed, and restored, and employed again.
God has not cast away the best of all his instruments because it was marred and polluted. He has conceived and executed a costly plan for redeeming and renewing it. He spared not his own Son, that he might have from this fallen family a multitude of vessels full of his love — a multitude of fitting instruments employed in his service. A soul won is the best instrument for winning souls.
2. A chosen vessel. — This man, who was raised from the ground by his companions and led blind into Damascus, is the vessel whom the Lord has sovereignly chosen, and will graciously employ.
“The eyes of the Lord are in every place.” “Known unto God are all his works.” Compassing him about in all his ways, God felt every throb of impotent anger that was beating in the persecutor’s heart. Although the vessel was marred and occupied with evil, its Maker counted it still his own. He can employ the evil as his unconscious instruments, or make them willing in the day of his power. When he had chastised backsliding Israel by the King of Babylon, he broke the rod and threw it away. In other cases he turns the king’s heart as a river of water, and then accepts the willing homage of a converted man.
It was a polished and capacious vessel that the Great King wrenched from the hands of the arch-enemy near the gate of Damascus. One of the clearest intellects that ever glowed in a human frame changed hands that day. Saul was a man of rare courage. He was a good soldier of the wicked one before he owned allegiance to Christ. He did what lie said. The purposes which his heart devised his hand executed. “I verily thought I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did.” The vessel was capacious, and the capacious vessel was full. All the learning of the time had been poured into it. The traditions of the J ews and the philosophy of the Greeks lay and seethed together in that roomy and restless brain. Not only was his head full of notions; his heart was fired with a resolute purpose, and his arm was nerved by a dauntless will. He was Christ’s chief enemy then in the world. He breathed forth threatenings and slaughter against the members of the Church, blasphemies against its living Head. God looks down from heaven on this man, not as an adversary whose assaults are formidable, but as an instrument which may be turned to another use. As clay in the hands of the potter this man lies. The vessel may be broken in anger, or employed in labours of love, as the Maker wills. Arrested at the crisis of its course by a hand unseen, it is turned upside down, emptied of its accumulated filth, purged from all its dross, filled from heaven’s pure treasures, and used to water the world with the word of life. Under God’s eye and in God’s hand, this man is not a formidable antagonist, but simply a vessel to be broken in judgment, or purified for use on earth and in heaven.
Saul of Tarsus, called to be an apostle, is a conspicuous example of Divine sovereignty. He did not first choose Christ, but Christ chose him. He was in the way of evil when the Lord met him with subduing, forgiving, renewing mercy. When human pride is at last silenced by the sense of redeeming love, it is sweet to feel and own that Jesus is at once the author and the finisher of our faith — “the beginning of the creation of God” within renewed
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human hearts on earth, and the ending thereof when the spirits of the just are made perfect in his presence. Christ is first and last — all in all. I recognise God’s command to me, that I should turn and live; I recognise my duty to close with his offer; I recognise the justice of my condemnation if I refuse to comply. God bids me believe and live: I ought to obey; but if I obey and be saved like Paul, like him I shall say and sing, as the history of my redemption, When I was wandering helpless further and further towards death, the Good Shepherd followed and found me, turned me round, and bore me back to his fold.
3. A vessel unto me,. — Two things lie in the conversion of Paul and in every conversion: the man gets an almighty Saviour, and God gets a willing servant. The true instinct of the new creature burst forth from Paul’s breast as soon as he knew his Saviour, and before he was lifted from the ground, — “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do V The answer, sent through Ananias in Damascus, after the tumult had subsided, indicated to the convert what he should be, rather than what he should do: “He is a chosen vessel unto me.” We get a glimpse here of the two tendencies, the human and the Divine. I shall do, says the disciple in the ardour of a first love; Thou shalt be, answers that wise and kind Master, who knows that the spirit in the disciple is willing, but the flesh weak. To be like Christ is the most effectual way of working for Christ. I shall bear the vessels of the Lord, volunteers the ransomed sinner, when he feels that he is not his own, but bought with a price; the reply to this offer requires a less positive, more passive, and yet greater thing: Thou shalt be the vessel of the Lord. It is a great thing that I should take up instruments, and do a work for Christ in the world; but it is a greater that Christ should take me in his hand, and work out his purposes with me. “A people near unto him,” is an ancient appellation of the saved. Surely they are near him who are held as a vessel in his hand. This is our security, alike for safety and usefulness. The star that is in his right hand is held up so that it cannot fall, and held out so that it shines afar. When he chooses a vessel he uses it; he neither keeps it idle nor casts it away.
“But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.” — Acts ix. 15.
4. A VESSEL to hear my name. — The text tells not only what
XjL he is and whose he is, but also and specifically to what uses he will “be applied. He was a vessel firmly put together, and filled to overflowing, before J esus met him on the way. At that meeting he was emptied of his miscellaneous vanities, and filled with the name of Christ. See an account of the whole process by his own pen: “If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Phil. iii. 4-8).