Being Open Vessels to the Lord and Closing our Vessel toward Death and Defilement

Defilement is unavoidable, but we can learn to close our vessel toward death and defilement, and we can open our vessel toward the Lord!

The redemption that Christ has accomplished on the cross is eternally effective and always available for us to apply; whenever we become unclean, we can contact the Lord by the exercise our spirit and the Holy Spirit will apply the blood of Christ to our being to cleanse us in a fresh way.

Death and the defilement of death prevails, and it is close to impossible for us not to be defiled by death or by impurity.

So we need to take Christ as the reality of the red heifer and allow the Spirit to apply the efficacy of the redemption of Christ to our being.

We may think that the blood of Jesus is the one that takes care of impurity, but the application is through the exercise of our spirit so that the Holy Spirit would apply the effectiveness of the redemption of Christ to our being.

Rebellion is a sin, and the result of rebellion is death; rebellion against God has many forms and sometimes is manifested through murmuring, while at other times it is an open rebellion against God and against the leadership that God has ordained.

A common sin can be forgiven and cleansed by taking Christ as the trespass offering, and the cleansing for this sin is immediate; rebellion, however, is not a common sin, and the trespass offering is not sufficient.

The defilement of the death resulting from the sin of rebellion can be cleansed only by the water of impurity. This water was composed of a particular kind of ashes and the running water (the living water).

These ashes were the result of the burning of a red heifer (together with everything it had, including its blood) together with cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet strands; the resulting ashes are kept in a special place, and whenever the water for impurity is needed, they some ashes were mixed with running water and were applied to the unclean person.

First of all, we need to realise that we are unclean; even though we are believers, we love the Lord and eat Him in His word, and we experience Him and enjoy Him, we are still in contact with so many defiling things, and it is easy for us to be defiled.

But praise the Lord, the Lord Jesus as the real red heifer has come, He was put to death, and the resulting ashes can be mixed with the Holy Spirit as the running water to cleanse us and also supply us with living water.

It is only the working of the redemption of Christ, through His dignified (cedar wood) and humbled (hyssop) humanity, with His death and the Spirit of His resurrection, could heal and cleanse our situation from the uncleanness of death.

We need the Power of the Holy Spirit to Apply Christ’s Redemption and Cleanse us from Uncleanness

Ashes means that whatever was burned arrived the final stage; ashes are the final state of everything, and nothing can change the ashes anymore – they are in the final form.

The red heifer was burned completely – the skin, the flesh, and the blood.

On the cross Christ was crucified and was “burned” by the righteousness of God completely, and He was processed to be in the final form – ashes, which in the eyes of man mean nothing, but in God’s eyes they are very important.

Christ’s work of redemption was consummated in its final stage, and His work has now become “ashes”, with nothing to be added to it.

These ashes were to be put outside the camp in a clean place, to be kept for the assembly of the children of Israel as water for impurity; this is a sin offering (Num. 19:11).

Hallelujah, the redemption of Christ has been accomplished, and it is kept in a special place, a clean place, so that whenever we are unclean or defiled, we would apply it to our being.

Simply by touching the world, the things of the world, and contacting the people in the world, we become unclean; the world is in rebellion against God, and the principle of the world is to replace God with many other things.

The result of the work of Satan in man is death; the result of sin is death. We were dead in sins and offenses; we were physically alive, but we were dead spiritually.

When we contact people who are dead in sins and offenses, we can become unclean. When we contact people who live in sin, we become unclean and defiled.

When we have friends in the world and live in the world, we “touch dead bodies”, and we become unclean. Oh Lord Jesus!

Without us realising it, simply by living in the world today, we are infected and defiled with impurities; when we sin and fail through touching the world, we are unclean.

How can we be cleansed? It is not only the Lord’s redemption that cleanses us, but the water for impurity; the living water needs to be mixed with the ashes and sprinkled on us.

This means that the Holy Spirit needs to do a work in us to apply to our being the efficacy of the Lord’s redemption.

Christ is the rock, and when He has been smitten living water flows (1 Cor. 10:4); this living water is the Holy Spirit, and taking the living water and making it the water for impurity means that there’s the need for the work of the Holy Spirit.

If there’s only the Lord’s redemption, we may believe in an objective fact and agree with it; however, the Lord wants us to mix the Holy Spirit (the living water) and the redemption of Christ (the ashes) and apply them to our being.

Praise the Lord, the Lord Jesus doesn’t have to die again: His one-time work on the cross is eternally effective and can cleanse us at any time!

So we need to exercise our spirit, contact the Lord, and the Holy Spirit will work in us to apply the efficacy of Christ’s redemption to our being to cleanse us of our sin.

The efficacy of the Lord’s work on the cross two thousand years ago continues until today and until eternity; by our turn to the Lord and exercise of the spirit, we open to God and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and apply Christ’s redemption to our being so that we may be cleansed from any uncleanness and be supplied with the water of life.

Praise You Lord Jesus for Your work on the cross; You have accomplished everything, and Your redemption is an eternally effective work! Hallelujah! We exercise our spirit, Lord, according to our enlightened conscience, to confess our sins in Your light, and we believe that the Holy Spirit works in us to apply Christ’s redemption to our being and cleanse us from any uncleanness! Hallelujah, the Spirit flows as living water, and the redemption of Christ is applied to us – now we are cleansed from all defilement and impurity, and we are supplied with the living water!

Being Open Vessels to the Lord and Closing our Vessel toward Death and Defilement

A very particular kind of defilement, which can also be applied to our Christian experience and to our church life, is mentioned in Num. 19:15; here it says that every vessel which has no covering lying down is unclean, but the closed vessels are clean.

We are vessels: we are made as a vessel to contain God, and when we speak of our relationship with God, we as vessel want to be open to Him and receive Him, enjoy Him, and be filled with Him.

We are chosen vessels; God chose us from eternity, He designed us and created us, He foreknew us, and He brought us into being so that we may be a God-containing vessel.

So toward God we need to be an open vessel, opening our heart to Him, turning to Him, exercising our spirit so that we would have no insulation between us and Him, and even opening our mouth to call on His name, pray, sing, pray-read, and thank the Lord.

However, we as a vessel need to also know how to be “closed” and have the lid tied down. If our vessel is open all the time and the cover is not tightly tied down upon it, death can easily come in and defile it.

It is you and only you who is responsible for what goes into your vessel; no one can control what you hear, what you listen to (many things we hear, but some things we pay close attention and listen to), what you read, and what you allow in your mind.

In the matter of being saved from the defilement of death, there is one action that we can preemptively take: we can do something so that we may reduce the amount of defilement, and we can keep our vessel shut and tightly closed when it comes to death.

Yes, we may live in the world, but we can close our vessel toward the world so that the world would not defile us and cause us to be impure. We can keep ourselves from being defiled. We can learn not to listen to speaking that has the element of death.

We can discern when someone wants to speak to us and infuse rebellion into us, and we can stay away from such speaking.

We should not listen to speaking that has the element of rebellion in it; even though it may seem true, factual, and even good, such a speaking is from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and it will bring in death.

Death comes in a sneaky way, in a camouflaged way; there’s an element of truth in the speaking that brings in death, and there’s also death and knowledge…

We need to keep our vessel from defilement; our vessel has to be open to the Lord, but at the same time it has to be tightly closed toward death and defilement.

Most times no one tries to “poison us” or “defile us” – we simply choose to read something, listen to something, or watch something that defiles us – we poison ourselves! Oh Lord Jesus!

May we be saved from reading things that will bring in spiritual death, and may we not take things that we know they include death and rebellion. May we learn to close our vessel, tie the lid down, and let only life in – only let the living water in, and do not let death in!

Lord Jesus, we open our vessel to You and we close it tight toward any speaking of death and defilement! Amen Lord Jesus, we love You, and we turn our heart to You, we exercise our spirit to contact You, and we want to enjoy You and receive Your divine dispensing. We choose to close our vessel toward any negative speaking or speaking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We choose not to listen to speaking that brings in death and we choose not to read things that we know will defile us. Dear Lord Jesus, may our vessel be wide open to You and tied down and closed toward any death and defilement!

This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Să fim vase deschise Domnului și să ne închidem vasul către moarte și întinăciune.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 29, ”The Gospel of God (2),” ch. 25, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Numbers (2), week 5, The Water for Impurity.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # As we’re sharing of the cup, / How can we restrain our praise; / For the blood Thou shedd’st for us, / Worth of which none can appraise. /O how precious is Thy blood! / All our problems it resolves; / In Thine efficacious blood / All our care and fear dissolves. (Hymns #224)
  # How wonderful, the Son is God’s expression / Come in the flesh to dwell with all mankind! / Redemption’s work, how perfectly effective, / That sinners we with God might oneness find. (Hymns #608)
  # Flow through me, Lord, a weak and earthly vessel, / Cleansed by Thy blood, and quickened at Thy call. / Flow through me, Lord, all utterly abandoned, / To Thy dear service, great, or high, or small. (Hymns #249)