God’s Instruments

In the following message Hubert Brooke eloquently shows how power is perfected in weakness and how weak vessels are perfect for God's mighty working or--as someone has said--"A doctor [God] will use anything in an emergency." This is taken from Keswick's Authentic Voice edited by Herbert F. Stevenson:

"When we see how God has chosen us, and why, we have a grand encouragement to expect that His will shall yet be truly fulfilled in us and by us. He has chosen us in our folly, that by being wisdom in us He may put to shame them that are wise. He has chosen us in our weakness, that by being strength in us He might put to shame the things that are strong. He has chosen the base things and despised, that He might bring to nought the noble after the flesh. He has chosen us as 'things that are not,' nonentities, that by being in us existence—our life—He might bring to nought the things that are.

"No complaint is more often heard than this: 'I am so weak, and so unfit to do this work, or that.' Thus you bring to God as an excuse for not doing His will, what He calls the reason for doing it. How often is it with us, after we have come to Christ, as with the stony-ground hearers in the parable: we see difficulties, persecutions, troubles in the way, if we should give ourselves entirely to God; and then we say, 'We cannot do it.' He tells us to come out wholly on His side, and we say, 'We can’t come out on His side.' Now the fact that 'you can’t' is just the reason why God has chosen you to do it. We say we are weak; but that is just the reason why God chooses us, that He in us may be strong. You say you are so unholy; but that is just the reason why God chooses you to be holy. All through the history of His people God has followed the same plan. He chose the nonentities, that He might be everything in them.

"(i) Turn to Exodus 3:4-13; 4:1-13. There we have God calling Moses, to deliver His people out of the bondage of Pharaoh. He says, 'I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters ( verse 7); come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people . . . out of Egypt' (verse 10). And Moses at once gives four excuses, four reasons in his own nothingness, why he should not go and do God’s work. 'Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?' (verse 11). 'But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice.' 'Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.' 'Oh my Lord, send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send' (4: 1, 10, 13). And God, instead of using Moses only, sent Aaron with him. Those reasons which he brought to God to show his incapacity for the service to which God called him, were just the very reasons why he was chosen to do it. He had to bring six hundred thousand slaves out of the land of bondage in the face of difficulties, and he thought he could not. God said to him, 'What is that in thine hand?' And he said, 'A rod' (4:2). Only a piece of dry stick, but with the power of God it should work wonders. Moses, with no eloquence, and a rod, was all that God wanted. By that dry stick God brought forth the Israelites.

"Now see, God wanted Moses with his inability to speak, with the rod. God calls us to some service for Him. We begin to reason. We say we have no eloquence, no power; we cannot do this and that. God wants us with what we have. He says to us, 'What is that in thine hand?' We answer, 'A book—the Bible.' 'Go then,' He says, 'I will be with that Book; with that rod of my mouth I will smite the earth,' and 'comfort my own people' (cf. Isa. 11:4; Psa. 23:4). With a mind and body of no power, and the rod, He will free the slaves.

"(ii) In I Samuel 17 we read how the Philistines were encamped against the men of Israel, headed by Saul. Day by day Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, defied the armies of God; David at once offered to go, in the strength of the Lord, to conquer him. Saul must first gird him with his own armor, but it was a hindrance to him; and now mark, David had to lay aside all the armor, and with what did he go? 'And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine' (v. 40). And all the powers of the adversary fell before him. Our great adversary is the devil. How many try to put on the devil’s own armor to fight him with. They try with all the powers of human intellect to meet the Goliath of this world. We have to learn that one little stone, and the power of God, is enough.

"We have to do as the Master did—He took three smooth stones, with which to foil Satan. One for the wilderness: 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God' [Matthew 4:4]—and Goliath was beaten there. One for the pinnacle of the Temple: 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God' [Matthew 4:7]—and Goliath was beaten there. One for the mountain top, where the devil showed Him the glory of all the kingdoms of this world: 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve' [Matthew 4:10]—and Goliath was beaten there. We look at the adversary of our souls, and we seek for power with which to meet him; but we have to learn that we are to be as children, holding God’s sling in our hand, the rod of God, and the smooth stones from the river of the water of life: and then all the power of the enemy shall fall.

"(iii) I Kings 17:9. God told Elijah to go to Zarephath, for there He had commanded a widow woman to sustain him. What had the widow woman to sustain him with? Had she barns and storehouses? Elijah might have asked her, 'What hast thou in thine house? What is that in thine hand?' 'As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not . . . but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse' [I Kings 17:12]. Only a handful of meal and a little oil, but with the power of God it was sufficient to sustain them all. Those are the people God wants. Those who 'have not'—who are nothing. He wants you to be the framework to set Christ in, that He may be seen, not you. Does He tell you to feed numbers with only a little word, a little corn that you have ground for yourself out of His Word, mixed with a little of the oil of the Spirit? Then go and feed them; fear not; He will increase the supply.

"(iv) II Kings 4:1-7. 'Now there cried a certain woman . . . unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead . . . and the creditor has come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said, What shall I do for thee? tell me, What hast thou in thine house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil.' And Elisha told her to go in with her sons, alone with God, and shut the door; then to spread out all her nothingness, all her empty vessels, before God, and there to get a supply from Him for years to come. Nothing save 'a pot of oil'—a heart indwelt by the Holy Spirit—a vessel sanctified. That’s enough for God. Go alone with God when the creditor presses hard on you for your members which you have yielded to God; spread out all your emptiness, all your nothingness, before God. A little heart in which the Spirit of God dwells; it is all you have, and it is enough; He will fill your emptiness. We look in the face of our difficulties, and we are babes against them. What are we to do? 'Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?' [I Corinthians 6:19] your difficulties: go alone with God, and claim His power, the power of the Holy Ghost, who dwells in you, and you need fear no difficulties, and dread no threatenings any more (Acts 4:24-31).

"(v) Just notice how God’s prophets felt their own weakness. Isaiah, a man 'of unclean lips' [Isaiah 6:5]. God wants such a man, that He might purge his sin, and send him forth a vessel meet for the Master’s use. Jeremiah cried, 'Ah, Lord God, I cannot speak, for I am a child' [Jeremiah 1:6]. God wanted a child for His prophet, that He might put His words into his mouth. Amos said, 'I was no prophet, but I was a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit' [Amos 7:14]. He thought He could not speak, but the Lord took him as he followed the flock, and said, 'Go, prophesy unto my people Israel' [Amos 7:15]. Their words were the axe to cut down the enemies of God, and they themselves were the handle; God swung it—He was the power. God swung the axe, and hewed down His enemies. The prophets were the handle, I said; and what was the handle made of? Of the wood of a dead tree. They were living trees once; but they had been cut down themselves first, that they might be used to cut down others, and then God’s power wielded them.

"(vi) Turn now to the New Testament—Mark 6:37. The Lord Jesus, surrounded by the famishing multitudes, said to His disciples, 'Give ye them to eat.' 'How many loaves have ye?' [Mark 6:38]. They began to look about them, and reckon up what they had. Not much. It never takes long to count up what we have! Five loaves and two fishes. It seemed little, but it was enough for God, and His power made it enough for all, until all did eat and were filled, and they took up of the fragments twelve baskets full. At the marriage in Cana of Galilee there appeared to be one great want—wine. The mother of Jesus turned to Him and said, 'They have no wine' [John 2:3]. She acquainted Him with the need, and there left it. His was the power; she knew it, and therefore, addressing the servants, she said, 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it' [John 2:5]. What had they? A row of empty vessels; and no wine. Six waterpots of stone. Jesus saith unto them, 'Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim' [John 2:7]. It was enough, and the feast was supplied with wine. Empty vessels, with pure water poured into them, that was all; but they manifested forth His glory. So it is with your hearts. Only empty vessels into which God has poured a little of the water of life. Use them, and at His command it shall be changed into the wine of the Holy Ghost, and they shall manifest His glory.

"(vii) It was just the same with the apostles. It was said of them, 'These that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also' (Acts 17:6). They were only men as others, but God chose them to turn the world upside down. The world’s way is to place itself at the top, and God underneath and out of sight: but by them God reversed the order; they put God at the top, and the world underneath. How did they do it? What had they to do it with? 'What is that in thine hand?' Three weapons, 'weakness,' 'fear,' and 'much trembling,' with the Spirit (I Cor. 2:3). They saw but little to encourage them at Corinth. God said, 'I have much people in that city' [Acts 18:10]. And they went to work with those weapons, nothing of themselves, all of God; and they turned the world upside down.

"All God’s work is done like this. But in order thus to be used by Him, these three things are necessary:

(a) Faith, to believe what God says; and that when God says a thing He means it.
(b) Surrender, to allow that God knows best.
(c) Obedience, that sees what God requires, and does it. Ah! that is the point. When God shows you a thing, go and do it; do not wait for power, it is not yours, but God’s. It was so with Peter on the water. It was not till he let go of the ship, that he felt God’s power. Let go! Let go of yourself altogether, and then you will have power. We must say at once, 'I have no power, but God has chosen me to do it.' That is enough. He will use you. When you see God leading you out and telling you to do some work, you are just like Isaac going up the hill with Abraham. They had the fire and the wood, and Isaac turns to his father and says, 'Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' [Genesis 22:7]. Where is the lamb? You are the lamb. Your body to be offered a living sacrifice to God. God’s will is the altar, the Spirit the fire, and you are the lamb that shall be consumed on the work of God.

"So then, every command that comes from God requires these three things: belief, surrender, obedience. And if you are to be His servants, useful servants, see to it that you fulfil them. But who are the best servants? St. Paul exhorts servants to be obedient to their own masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering again (Tit. 2:9). When a father tells a child to do a thing, he does not like him to answer again; and when God tells a child of His to go and do some great work, he is not to answer again. Not to question whether he is able or not. When God tells you to go and do something for Him, don’t question, don’t answer again; Moses did, and he had to share the service with his brother, instead of being used alone by God. Is not this the point where we lose the precious sense of God’s communion, when we answer again? You hear God’s voice calling you to do something, and instead of doing it at once you answer again. You think you can’t do what God tells you; you hesitate, and then you answer again. You see one who knows not God; God says, 'Speak,' and you answer again, and the opportunity goes. Don’t stop to find the word when God says, 'Speak.' Open your mouth before you have got the word, and it will come, and you will rejoice that He has used you. Never answer again when God calls you to service.

We see how God uses the weakest. We have known what it is to come 'just as I am' to be forgiven; now why not come 'just as I am' to be sanctified and made 'meet for the Master’s use prepared unto every good work'? God wants us just as we are, for service. Will you not let Him have you just as you are today, that He may do as He likes with you, and use you just as He chooses?"