“Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor…” (II Ti. 2:20).
The Church houses both the biblical Christian and the nominal or social Christian. Paul captures the “vessel” metaphor to describe the two types of churchmen. God purposes vessels to carry, bear, contain or display something. Some vessels are merely ornamental whereas others actually function. The functioning vessel is described by Christ in His address to Ananias concerning Paul when He says, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:15f.).
The large house of the visible Church is of a “mixed multitude” that includes the saved and the unsaved (Ex. 12:38). The invisible victorious Church has no wood and earthenware vessels or vessels of dishonor. The visible Church suffers much due to the militant rebellion of its members. Church leaders continue bringing into membership heterogeneous men rather than Christlike homogeneous saints because mere numbers feed their pride and pays for their buildings. God does not bless the Church nearly as fully when the dishonorable is membered with the honorable. For this very reason, the Church becomes ossified rather than responding to the leading of the Holy Spirit as a vibrant dynamic organism should respond.
These vessels of wood and earthenware are secure in their living death because their names are on Church rolls, but much like the church in Sardis, they have a name that they are alive, but they are dead (Rev. 3:1). Christianity is as distinctive and different from the merely moral person as a vessel of honor is from a vessel of dishonor.
Have you ever asked the Lord the requirements of becoming a vessel of honor? Honorable vessels are sanctified, consecrated (ever yielding themselves to the Lord), purged and being purged, chaste and becoming more pure. Paul writes to the Roman church saying, “Our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Ro. 6:6, 13).
A dishonorable vessel is most affectionate toward dishonorable pursuits. Christianity calls upon the vigor of one’s will. Christians do not just prefer God – they love Him with all their heart (Mt. 22:37). Christians never ask how slight their affections may be and them still be considered Christian because that would be offensive to God. They hate all sin, particularly their own, because the totality of their affections is toward the wholesomeness of God.
Scores of churches have become societal cesspools, aggregating dishonorable vessels as members who are by nature opposed to the exclusivity of Christ. This mixed multitude has resulted in them being silent and invisible when Christianity is pilloried; they have abandoned Christianity as a worldview; they teach a divide between what happens in church and what happens in one’s life. They speak as worldlings rather than heavenlings and they are shallow and culturally ineffectual for Christ. They no longer stand for truth because they foster accommodation to the children of the spirit of this age. They pursue acceptance and approval of the unsaved community with such vigor that their address to life is more characteristic of the enemy than of your Christ. Their definition of holy living is an accommodation for apparent peace that no longer requires denying oneself.
Are you married exclusively to Christ or to your church, traditions, Sunday school, fellowship groups, music, et cetera? Is your church one of the more culturally fashionable places to attend or is it the most holy place of worship in your city? Are your principal associates honorable or dishonorable vessels?
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