Empty Vessels

Empty Vessels

There is a tale of a young man who was desperately seeking God. He went to a well-known and wise old man for help. He asked him how he could find God. The old man took the young man to a nearby river and there they waded out into the deep water. Deeper and deeper they went and when the water got up to their chins, the old man took the young man by the neck and pushed him under the water. He held the young man down until the young man began flailing the water in desperation. In another minute, the young man would have surely drowned.

The old man finally let the young man come up for air. They both found their way back to the bank of the river. The young man asked the old man, “What did this have to do with finding God?”

The old man asked the young man, “While you were under the water, what did you want more than anything else?”

The young man simply replied, “Air.”

The old man concluded with this thought, “When you want God as much as you wanted air, you will find Him.”

Let me now ask the question. How desperate for God are you this morning? How much of God’s Holy Spirit do you want? How desperate are you to drink in all that God has for you?

Let’s pray.

Text: II Kings 4:1 thru 6

On Sunday nights we have been looking at the Holy Spirit. And with our Intercessory Prayer time, on Wednesday night, we have been praying for more of the Holy Spirit to baptize us.

We have found that the Holy Spirit will cleanse us in the inside, and then He will empower us on the outside.

And like the story of the young man, we haven’t another moment to loose. Whether we realize it or not, each of us desperately need to be cleansed by the precious oil of the Holy Spirit. Each of us then needs to be empowered by the oil of the Holy Spirit.

No matter who we are or where we come from, each of us have been created to be vessels of the Holy Spirit.

II Corinthians 4:7

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

My friend you are an earthen vessel. What you decide to put in your earthen vessel is your choice. God has the better plan for your life to fill you up with His “…excellence of…power…”

Let me just say that the day in which we live in has most people more concerned about keeping their cars and pick-up trucks filled up with gasoline…than they do keeping their “earthen vessels” filled up with the “excellence of God’s power”.

As well, in Matthew 25, Jesus spoke of the ten virgins who took their oil lamps and were waiting for their bridegroom.

2Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, 4but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

There are those who are hungry for God to fill them up. And He will. Others may not realize how important it is for the oil of the Holy Spirit to be poured into their lives.

This morning let us focus on what will satisfy our spiritual beings instead of satisfying our earthly desires. Amen?

In our story of the widow in II Kings 4, we can see a very close correlation with the emptiness of our physical needs and the emptiness of our spiritual needs.

In a moment, we will take a closer look at this prophetic story.

First- I have a few more questions for you:

Do you ever –

· Run out of time in your life?

· Run out of options for your life?

· Run out of resources to save you from what you are going through?

Today you may feel like you –

· Are like the widow woman in II Kings.

· Have been pushed under water, and you find yourself in desperate need of swimming back to the surface for more air.

· Have an emptiness inside of you.

· Are desperate for God to pour out a miracle into your soul.

We should note that sometimes that emptiness is because we are running from God. Only you know whether or not what you are going through is because of sin or rebelling from God.

We will talk about that another time…

Here’s a reminder for us all.

What you sometimes go through isn’t always because you have committed sin.

The woman in this story was the wife to the great prophet, Obadiah. A godly man. A godly wife and godly children.