The Might of Divine Energy Combined With the Weakness of Human Instrumentality

The title for our lesson this evening is, “The might of Divine energy combined with the weakness of human instrumentality.”  It may sound complicated, but it’s not really. All it means is that God works in and through man. God’s power works with our weakness and in our weakness to get things done. That’s the point in my lesson and I want to establish that principle and then having done that, then make an application of that to ourselves here in this community and in this day and time.

As we read the Bible, we’re impressed over and over with the fact that God used human weakness to bring about His own glory and to accomplish His purposes. And sometimes even without the knowledge of those that were instruments in his hands. For instance, Pharaoh who God brought up to the thrown for the very purpose that God might show His power in him. And through His weakness the glory of God was demonstrated. But, we don’t have that line particularly in mind. The point that I do want to establish and I do want us to see and then I hope all of us, including myself, might profit by it is this, when God chooses to save the human family as He made this decision from the time before the world was, He saw that this was not something that would be done by His impression of His glory and of His majesty and His great power directly and immediately upon mankind. Because, you see, we’re not made that way. God, who made us, knew what it would take to save us. And in the very beginning He made Adam and Eve with the power to make a choice. And you know the sad story, when they opted to disobey God. So, in the restoration of man back to the  favor of God, it isn’t to be expected that God in His majesty and power and glory and all of that is going to just reach down to us and accomplish His purposes by taking away our right to choose. But to combine, in some form, His energy and His power and His might through human beings or in human beings and through humanity make the difference and accomplish great things. Now I’ll tell you how this principle works in various places in the Old Testament.

Go back to the time when Moses was down in Egypt’s land and when he came to a certain age he somehow had learned or had the idea that God was going to use him to deliver Israel. And Stephen made that statement about him in the 7^th chapter of Acts. So he went out one day and saw and Egyptian mistreating and Israelite and he killed him and buried him in the sand. Then he went out the next day and saw two Israelites striving and he tried to stop them and they said, “are you going to kill me the way that you did the Egyptian yesterday?” And Moses, thinking that Pharaoh would hear about this took away on a long journey and fled the country going over into the desert, and was there for forty years. Now, here was a man who did not wait for God’s own time but took matters into his hands to try to abort the plan of God. God never intended it then, in due process of time this would take place, but not then.

So here was a weak man really, powerful in knowledge of the Egyptians, mighty in words, filled with zeal, but here he is running for his life. And you see this man in Midian as he waits forty years as a shepherd. He marries, has children, and then when God appears to him at Horeb, what do you see? You see here a man who has evidently forgotten about Egypt, as far as ever trying to rescue them is conscerned. When God appears to him in the burning bush and says Moses, I’m going to send you down into Egypt to bring my people out, he finds a very weak man. If you and I had been standing there on the sidelines looking at Moses trying to get out of going back down there, we would have said, “well, it’s a loosing cause. It’ll never be done.” Because when the Lord stated His mission to be accomplished, Moses began to offer excuses. Who am I? Who will I tell them has sent me? “They won’t believe me, Lord. I’m not a very eloquent man; I’m not good at words.” “I can’t do the job.” And step by step, the Lord fortified him and took his excuses away from him and gave him the power to do miracles, and went down there, and you know the rest of it. But, he delivered the Israelites.

This same Moses, now sometime later, comes down to the base of Mount Sinai. And Jehovah is getting ready to reveal a law to His people. Here is this man who started out in this weak way in Egypt standing now as a representative of the people before God and God’s representative to the people. And says I’m going to reveal my law to you, but Moses had to go up into Sinai to get it and the people down there said we don’t want to here this noise any more of God speaking in the mountain. Moses, you receive the message for us. Here was a man who had been chosen in which God would combine the majesty and the glory of his law with the weakness of a human being and depend upon the faithfulness, and faith of this man to carry out the will of God and reveal this will to the people and teach it in order that the people of God might be well off there in the wilderness and in the land to which they were going. Do you see the principle?

Now, I suppose it would have been possible for God to have mellowed down, and He could have accommodated His message and softened His glory and it would have been possible, surely, with God to have come down periodically and told the people in person, but He never chose to do it that way. He said, Moses, you tell them. And so it was the might of God’s power combined with a human being that brought God’s law to Israel and to preserve it and to keep it before the people. People had to teach it, priests had to teach it, they taught one another, they copied it and wore it about their persons in various forms. But it was human beings doing this, not God in person. Do we see that? All right, lets go a step further.

When the prophets came on the scene after Moses, in Amos the third chapter, verse seven it says, “surely the Lord God will do nothing but hath revealed secrets unto His servants the prophets.” Now, you remember a New Testament case, when Lazarus and the rich man died and this rich man in hell lifted up his eyes and being in torments thought about his brethren back here on earth and he said, “you send Lazarus to them and they’ll believe him.” And he said, “they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them, and if they won’t hear them, they wouldn’t be persuaded even if one rose from the dead.” God had given His message through His prophets, through Moses and through the prophets, and depended upon them to teach the people. In the 23^rd chapter of Jeremiah, verse 22, he talked about these false teachers and he said, “if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words then they would have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.” And he goes on to show that this was the function of a true prophet, to teach His word. These false prophets were not doing it.

Let’s just look at some of them. Jeremiah, would you come up here please as God’s representative. Here stands this man as God appears to him in glory and he, in effect says, “get away from me God because I’m a sinful man that should have no business standing in this position,” and the Lord said, “Jeremiah, I’m giving you my word and your going to have power over kingdoms and nations to destroy or to rise up. You just get up from here and do your job.” Here was a man that was afraid and was hesitant, and yet God combined His might with his weakness and he stands today, in our estimation, of all Bible students as one of God’s great men, a noble man of His Old Testament who stood for God and faithfully taught His word.

Look at Isaiah, when he saw the glory of God he said, “oh God, I am a man of unclean lips. I’m not worthy, I’m not fit to teach your word and to represent you as a spokesman.” And God put His hands upon his lips and stopped him and said, “who am I that made man, and who made man’s lips? You go out and do your job Isaiah, and Isaiah did it.”

Come on down to the prophet Amos, a herdsman and a dresser of Sycamore trees. And they asked him about it, they said, “who are you?” “I’m not a prophet, nor am I a prophet’s son, I’m just Amos, a herdsman and I was a dresser of the Sycamore trees, but, God gave me the message and this is what God said, and you better listen to it.” A human being in all of his weakness yet God speaking through him.

Take a look at Jonah. We all remember him, running away from God and responsibility, trying to go to Tarshish, when the Lord caused misfortune to happen to him when a great sea monster swallowed him and then ejected him, and look what happened. He went into the city of Nineveh, and in that Assyrian capital he preached that they ought to repent or that God would destroy the city, and a city was spared, but look at the messenger, a man who had tried to run away and evade his responsibility. And yet God put the power of His word into him and by that power He was able to save a kingdom from destruction, or at least a city.

And finally, look at John the Baptist, a man rough in clothing, living out in the wilderness, living on locust and wild honey, a leather girdle about his loins. He must have made a rugged appearance and yet see this man standing there on the banks of Jordan preaching in such a way, the message of God, that people by the multitudes came out from Jerusalem, Judea all that region round about and are baptized of him in the Jordan confessing their sins. Suppose people had said, “well look at you, your outward appearance tells me something about the inside of you. You don’t amount to anything. Just look at the way that you’re dressed, and look at how you’re living.” And yet God combined His might with human instrumentality and a nation heard the preparatory message that would prepare them for the Messiah that was to come.

Carry the principle a little further. You say, “Blaine, what’s your point?” I’m going to get to it in a minute. God, in order to save us came near to us. Now, I don’t know the mind of God, other than that which He has revealed to us in the Bible, and that’s all that we can know. In His wisdom, in His plan, it was necessary that His Son come down to this earth and take a human form. And in comparison with what He was, you just think of it. Riches and glory at the right hand of God, all the angels bowing before Him in obeisance, and yet here He is upon this earth in the form of a servant, born of the virgin, living among us for a while until He was humiliated finally upon Calvary, and crucified, dieing for our sins, and isn’t it paradoxical that the very one who came into the world to be the bread of life, was at times saying, “I hunger.” And isn’t it a paradox to think that the same being, in His weakness of flesh, would have to say “I thirst” there upon Calvary.  There was a natural appetite. “I thirst” and indeed He was thirsty. And yet He said, “I am the water of life.” God using weakness to show His divine power and accomplish His purposes. Think of Him as the one who said, “I will give you a home in heaven” and yet how paradoxical that He had not even a home here upon the earth where He could lay His head at night to sleep. And isn’t it interesting to think that this one who said, “I am the resurrection and the life, and he that believeth in me, though he be dead, yet shall he live.” Here is this same being dieing here upon a Roman cross and ending it all by looking up to God and saying, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, and giving up the ghost.” God is using these weak things, as far as the flesh is concerned in order to accomplish His great plan that He had for the salvation of the world.

That’s why I said the name of this sermon is “The might of the divine energy, combined with weakness of human instrumentality.” In the lifetime of Jesus, He was more than a man, but He was a man. He lived in fashion as a man. He was made in fashion as a man. He thirsted as a man. He hungered as a man. He died, as far as physical death is concerned, as a human being. And yet in all this, God was working His purpose through the humiliation Christ would be exalted, that through His abasement the world would be saved. Through the shedding of His blood, atonement would be made for sin. But the world didn’t see that, they saw the weak side of Christ, in ignorance crucifying Him. But, God chose, through that means, to save us.

Come on a little further, the apostles, in the second Corinthian letter chapter 4, Paul said that we have this treasure in earthen vessels. What vessels? The apostles particularly, that God who had commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the Excellency, the power might be seen to be of God, and not of us. If you have ever had an instance where this lesson is illustrated, it’s there. The apostles where filled with the Holy Spirit in a baptismal measure at the beginning of their ministry, and the message was given to them. This was a treasure that was placed in vessels of clay that the glory of the message itself might be seen in contrast with its container. That’s why Paul could say, “we are ambassadors for Christ, we represent Him.” We are the most powerful beings upon earth as far as influence and knowledge is concerned. They were the ambassadors of heaven in behalf of Jesus Christ as God combined His divine might with their human instrumentality and brought the gospel to the world in its complete revelation.

Now, you look at those people at times, and you’d have thought, well, no, that can’t be. “You mean to say that this one over here who is imprisoned in Rome, in a dungeon, condemned to die, suffering as he is suffering is a representative of God?” Yes he is. “That he represents Jesus Christ who was crucified and gone to heaven?” Yes he does. The apostle Peter over there in Rome, if tradition is true, crucified with his head downward upon a cross, “you mean to say that that is a representative of Jesus Christ?” Yes he is. But the world, you see, looks at the outward appearance, at the outward weakness of a human being and fails to see that this is a vessel in which God has placed divine power, He’s put substance in it of a heavenly nature, that shines out. Let me illustrate this.

Back in the Old Testament, when Gideon was going to fight the Midionites, do you remember? He led an army against the Mideonites with 300 men and they went out at night with pitchers of clay, with lights on the inside of them. And when the time came, they gave a great shout, about the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon, and dashed those vessels to pieces, and the lights began to shine everywhere, and the Mideonites became so disturbed and bewildered by it all, that they started turning against each other and fled in total disarray. A complete route. And the victory was Gideon’s and the Lord’s. Human weakness, God’s light inside.

Now, with that principle established, I want to come on down to us today. In 2 Timothy 2:19, Paul tells us that in a great house, there are two kinds of vessels. In a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but still vessels. Vessels are things made to contain something. But some also of wood and earth, some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. That raises the question, “what in the world would be in these vessels?” What is in a Christian as a vessel? We don’t have the miraculous baptism of the Holy Spirit as the apostles had, but we do have something else that they had, and that is that we have a knowledge of God’s word, and we have a love for God and for our Lord Jesus Christ and for the souls of our fellow man.  We have faith as they had, that God is, and that He rewards them that diligently seek Him. And it’s possible for us to have that same kind of zeal within us as a vessel, that caused the apostles to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel. We ought to have zeal within us, and so we can be filled with vessels with these things. We fill our minds and our hearts with the things of God, a knowledge, faith, zeal, and love, and hope, and filled to overflowing with these things, we purge ourselves from the unclean things, we become a vessel unto honor fit for use, prepared and sanctified, and fit for the master’s use. Now what is the mission of the church?

Three of the things that we are particularly interested in is edification, building ourselves up, evangelism, and benevolence, but, and this is important, a great part of edification itself comes as a result of something else. Edification, or our own strength increase, many times comes, as a result of our evangelism that we engage in. If we deliberately set about just to edify, or to build ourselves up, and forget the aspect of evangelism, trying to save souls, then I doubt seriously if we are going to be built up as far as it is possible to go, or even very much, because they go together. And if we’re going to be edified, that’s going to be largely accomplished by our own efforts at evangelizing, trying to save the souls of men and women, boys and girls. There is where we, as vessels, come into the picture. The Lord has placed in us a commission, and has given us a mission to accomplish, and here we are as human beings, vessels of clay, recipients of all these heavenly things, and what are we supposed to do with it? Use them for the master’s use, or put a lid on these vessels and keep it all closed up? That’s the point I’m trying to make. God can use us, every human being, every Christian, as an instrument, as a vessel onto honor in His service to accomplish great things through human instrumentality. And in fact, that’s the way that it has to be. Did you ever wonder why, over and over, the church is called the body of Christ? Why is it? Well, you say, “it’s a good illustration.” Yes, but it goes further than that. It goes down deeper than that. We are the hands of Christ. We are the mind of Christ upon this earth, functioning, other than what we have in written form in the Bible. Our feet are the feet of the body of Jesus Christ, we are His spiritual body, functioning for Him, doing in His behalf those things that He would do if He were here in person. We are vessels in which God has placed responsibility, and in which is developed, love and faith, and zeal for our Lord Jesus Christ.

What did Christ come to do? He came to do God’s will. What’s our responsibility? Do the will of God, and we even pray, we pray, “our Father which art in heaven , thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Why did Christ come? He came to be the light of the world. What’s the church? “Ye are the light of the world,” ye are the salt of the earth, “let your light so shine before men, ye shine forth as lights in the world.” There many passages to be brought out. Christ came to offer Himself as a sacrifice. What’s the mission of the church? To offer sacrifices unto God, “presenting ourselves, our own bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God which is our reasonable service.” Why else did He come? He came to be an example. What’s the church to be? An example to the world so that the world can see Christ in us. Paul said to Timothy, be thou an example to the unbelievers in word in faith in conversation, charity, and other things, but the church is a living example of what Christ can do for a human beings. And many times we are the only gospel, the only Bible the world around us will ever read, what they can see in us. Why else did He come? He came to seek and to save the lost, and there you’re getting right down to the nitty gritty of it. The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. What’s the purpose of the church? To seek and to save that which is lost, to reclaim the sinner from the power of the Devil, and help him to get into the kingdom of God’s dear Son with its blessings and to get to heaven after a while. If we loose sight of that mission, then we’ve lost sight of the whole thing, that’s what it’s all about. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, but first, beginning with ourselves, reaching out and touching other people as we have opportunity and this thing will just go on and spread and spread and spread and spread from one to another, just like leaven working in dough. And that’s the way the Lord intended it.

The Lord uses human instrumentality as He puts the divine might of His word within us and says, “now, you let me work through you.” I believe it is Paul who told the Philippians, “it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Now friends, God is not going to come down tonight and convert the world in person. He’s not going to send an angel going around, floating around in the air and letting out a big loud voice to all people of the earth. He’s not going to send the Holy Spirit down in a miraculous manner and endow people with knowledge, when He’s put that responsibility into our hands and says, “you do your job, evangelize.” Everything that we do, all of our activities need to have a basic concept, what is this going to do toward helping to save souls? But we are not doing it, it is God doing it through us. We don’t get the glory, God gets the glory. We can’t do it on our own strength alone, but Christ can help us and will help us. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” The might of God, the divine energy, combined with our weakness, can accomplish the purpose that God has for the salvation of the world as He works through us.

I pray tonight, that this concept of what it means to be a member of the church, what it means to evangelize, to save souls, to carry the gospel message to other people. I pray that this lesson will be remembered, and that if you never remember the sermon title, just remember what we’ve tried to say. I reminds me of the fellow that said he’d “heard the best sermon he’d ever heard in his life.” And his wife, who wasn’t at church with him said, “well what was the preacher’s subject?” He said, “I can’t tell you to save my life, I just can’t tell you.” She said, “well what good did it do you then to hear it if you can’t even remember the name of his sermon?” He said, “well I don’t remember what he called it, but I know that it made me change my mind about the way that I’ve been living, and it made me decide that I’m going to be honest and some particulars and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that,” In other words, “it made me change my life. So that’s the best sermon I ever heard.” I don’t have to remember the name of the sermon in order to benefit by it. So it is with us tonight, and in conclusion, if you don’t remember what we call this sermon, just remember it is God’s power working through us as His people in order to accomplish His purposes. And with that faith, and that zeal and with that hope we can do the work.

If you’re not a Christian tonight friend, you ought to be. By all means, this is an important thing for you to decide. If you haven’t obeyed the gospel, would you do it tonight? As the song says, see what God can do. Just simply obey the gospel and He’ll forgive you of your sins. If you’ll repent of your sins, confess Christ, be baptized for the remission of your sins, you’ll be forgiven. God will do that. He’ll add you to His church. He can do that, He will, and then He can strengthen you for every good work and help you to overcome the Devil and to go to heaven. Would you make that start tonight? As we stand, and as we sing.