An Absolutely Committed Vessel

Committed. Surrendered. Abandoned. 

And when we say that, of course, the idea may catch on with us and we may agree, we might even desire it to be so in our case...

But I say to you, my dear friends, there is nothing more searching, more trying, and more exacting than this matter of being committed to the Holy Spirit. 

You look at Ezekiel's life and see what it meant to be committed to the Spirit. 

We shall see much of it if the Lord continues to lead us this way...

But just to remind you, Ezekiel, by being committed to the Spirit, had to do a great many things that the flesh completely revolts against, the natural man shrinks from doing. 

You're not going to make a fool of yourself if you can help it, and he was called upon to do that. 

People laugh at him, what he's doing; jeer and sneer. 

He's doing such ridiculous things from the standpoint of this world's common sense, but he had to do them.

Enough for the moment, but it's all very well to say, "I'm surrendered, I want to be surrendered. 

I'm going to be a surrendered man, a surrendered woman, surrender myself wholly to God.

Well, let's be quite frank and faithful about this. 

If you are, the whole, the whole thing is going to be taken out of your hands. 

You're going where you would never go naturally. 

You're going by ways that you would never choose, from which you would turn back or away with all the shrinking of your natural life. 

Other aspects, of course, are perhaps happier and better. 

But there it is.

Now, Ezekiel was a committed man, not in word alone, but day by day...

Day by day faced with some fresh challenge of the Spirit having laid upon him some fresh demand contrary to nature. 

His committal found him ready, so ready that the Spirit could just do as He liked with Ezekiel. 

Do as He liked with him! I say that's searching- that will find us out. 

But the realization of the full Divine purpose demands that there are men and women and companies of men and women who are committed in that way to the Holy Spirit. 

You may have a battle over some things, but you'll fight it through. 

You'll fight it through. 

You'll face it and realize what it implies, what it means, and you may shrink and you may hesitate. 

You may feel you cannot, but you'll fight it through; at least you'll not surrender on the spot, but face this thing and get through with it, however long it takes.

Committed! Our minds committed, our wills committed, our hearts committed, our bodies committed. 

Everything committed. 

It came, in Ezekiel's case, to his wife. 

And he had there to allow God to have His way even in taking his wife. 

Well, you see how he behaved. 

He was a committed man. 

That's the point. 

And we're talking about God's great purpose- everything being governed by purpose. 

It's the Spirit who is the custodian of the eternal purpose. 

It's the Spirit who has this in charge, but He must have vessels that are committed in this way.

There are, of course, counterparts in the New Testament. 

The book of the Acts is in one sense the counterpart of the prophecies of Ezekiel. 

Here you have the Spirit undoubtedly like the fiery chariot of God in Ezekiel, the wheels and the living ones moving with the Spirit in them, "withersoever the Spirit would go they went," it says. 

And Acts is undoubtedly the New Testament counterpart of Ezekiel in that sense. 

But here you sometimes come up against a hitch, even in an apostle, where he's challenged about something that naturally and religiously, and - as he thought scripturally - he would never do. 

He would never do! 

Peter had the Scripture on his side when he said, "No unclean thing has ever passed my lips. 

Not so, Lord, I've got Scripture for my position!" 

The eleventh chapter of the book of Leviticus supports him in that position apparently, but the Spirit thought otherwise.

The Cross had come in between Leviticus and Peter's time, to deal with all unclean things so that the Spirit could say now, because the Cross had accomplished what God had cleansed, "Call that not unclean", and Peter had to adjust. 

But there was a battle, there was a hitch. 

The Spirit came up against something in the clay. 

And it was a very desperate situation: his apostleship was at stake. 

The purpose of God through such a man was in the balances of that, "Peter, are you going to be committed to the Spirit and let the Spirit have His way, or are you going to stand on your traditional ground, your mental ground? 

What's it going to be?"

Well, thank God Peter got through that battle and proved his committal and the Spirit went on. 

I just put that in as an illustration of what I mean. 

The book of the Acts is like that, the Spirit has got the purpose in hand, but He must have committed instruments. 

Now, I said there were two things; that's one. 

We can enlarge much upon that, but what we have to say later is but the breaking up of that.

~T. Austin Sparks