Another thing is this: do, dear friends, adjust your minds to this fact, that God raises up instruments and vessels in relation to His FULL purpose.
And those instruments and vessels are not something in themselves, and their ministry is not just bound up with them.
Ezekiel's vocation, God's choice of him, God's raising of him up, God's using of him, and his committal to the Spirit was related to a people.
Related to a people; it was not his private ministry, his private anointing.
The people were going to be held responsible for that ministry.
That ministry, if it was going to be justified and vindicated, would be found in a people.
You must not say, "Oh, that's So-and-so's ministry," or "That is the ministry that they give at such and such a place, that is a line of teaching, or that is his particular emphasis."
Beware, beware.
They could have said that of
Ezekiel, "Well, that's Ezekiel's ministry."
He's quite at liberty to fulfill it and carry it out, let him do it, and when he's done it, well, room will be made for someone else; for others, and that's that! and write it off.
Anything that God has given of light or ministry that has been under the Holy Spirit is not for a time, it's for eternity.
It is not private, it is for the people of God, and the people of God who come to the knowledge of it are going to be held responsible for it.
Just dare not pass it off like that and say, "Well, that's just their emphasis, their line of teaching."
Rather say, Is that of God?
Has God given that?
Are they any marks or evidences of the anointing in that?
Is the Lord with that?
If so, for all time and eternity, you're responsible.
It's in a people that it's to be found.
They may refuse.
They may forbear and it may not be found to work out.
All right, then what happened in the case of Ezekiel will be repeated.
For in one of his visions of God, he saw the glory being lifted away from Jerusalem and departing far away.
And that's a terrible thing for the glory to depart - the glory to depart.
Well, that's the general situation.
I said this afternoon I have a burden, and I must get my burden off.
Forgive me if I seem to be too emphatic, but it's very necessary, dear friends, for us to seriously face this thing.
God help us if we are not in line with and in sympathy with the Holy Spirit, there's no help for us and no hope for us.
The great need of our time is for the people of God to be caught up again in a mighty energetic movement of the Spirit of God.
But the Spirit has His ways and He has His grounds.
Well now, I have stated that in this inclusive way, that here we are confronted with this: on the one side, the Spirit is the spirit of a purpose.
A purpose! On the other side the Spirit must have a committed vessel or committed vessels.
And I might add to that that it is not always - not always - individual.
God has many times raised up a little company of people in which He has deposited His treasure and made it the example for others.
So I say that because some of you might say, "Well, we're not all Ezekiels. We can't all be Ezekiels."
And I repeat: this is a relative or a related matter; this is not a personal thing at all.
So we come face to face with the major factor and distinctive feature of the purpose of God:
~T. Austin Sparks
