Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
102120
How does God transform the hardness into Theandric Action? Grace Bible Church reveals what about?
In our study of the first miracle by our Lord, we began with the fact that it is important to note that *** The six waterpots or vessels represented our Lord’s new followers because they signify that empty vessels, made of stone, are about to be changed .
There is a very beautiful illustration of the principles that our Lord Jesus Christ could take a stone or a vessel that’s empty or clean, and have it filled with clean water that He will turn into the wine of the Holy Spirit.
In this verse, JOH 2:6, the Lord uses the original Greek language noun hudrias which is translated waterpots or vessels, to describe that the Lord is looking for spiritual vessels to fill them up with the wine of the Holy Spirit so that they could become vessels filled with the Spirit of God.
No longer were the Jews to be cleansed by the ceremony of pouring clean water into the six vessels also known as the waterpots that have been prepared with the real thing, the power of the Spirit who will cleanse them and prepare them for the work of God; Joh 2:12.
As we noted on Sunday, the Lord desires to take the hardness of man’s heart and transform the hardness into Theandric Action –God alive in man.
What God did was to strengthen Pharaoh's heart enough to continue to express his negative volition toward God as a means of accomplishing His will and spreading the news of the Ten plagues.
This removed all doubt that this was a miracle performed by the Messiah to manifest His glory and it was also a glimpse of the Hypostatic Union of our Lord and the principle of Theandric action in us.
The word "theandric" comes from two Greek words, theos—which means God, and anthropos which means man.
In fact, the Bible describes the human body of the born-again believer in the Church-age as a vessel in 1Th 4:4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
And so, this past week we noted in 2Ti 2 that there are some believers who are vessels unto honor and there are other believers who are vessels unto dishonor.
Some believers are being prepared to live in the power of Theandric Action which means that they are advancing through the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God and they can have a great impact in history.
On the other hand, other believers who have negative volition are becoming vessels unto dishonor.
Pessimists constantly perceive things in a negative light and choose for the “glass half-empty” rather than half full.
Some of the manifestations see that these are the signs of a Pessimist.
- You discredit victory.
- You assume things won't work out.
- You rain on other people's parades.
4.You give up easily.
5.You have a difficult time forgiving.
“The good thing about being a pessimist is that the pessimist either always right, or pleasantly surprised.”
Optimists and believers are happier and healthier even in their unreal worlds.”
“If I continually focus on what I don’t have, my life will always be completely empty despite the fact that it’s completely full.”
“When you're a pessimist, people are always smiling at someone else.
“Life is what we make of it and a pessimistic person is constantly preparing for the worse possible scenario instead of enjoying what life offers.”
“Yes, I'm a pessimistic, cynical, grumpy old man and you only get that way through great trial and error.”
“A pessimist is a person who only sees what he hasn't got but wants?
Optimists do more with less while pessimists do less with more.
“A pessimist finds the darkness around the light but an optimist becomes the light in the darkness.”
“Pessimists try to convince you the world sucks, optimists already know it does and smile anyway.”
Whether you are a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor depends on one thing in your life = Your free will or volition concerning what you choose to follow.
The issue is that one vessel is being prepared for honorable purposes called divine good work which in 2Ti 2:21 means they are having a positive historical impact as a believer should.
The other type of believers are loser believers, usually very moral and very self-righteous, works oriented and phony.
The gold and silver vessels and the precious gems represent believers who are part of the pivot because they are fulfilling their personal sense of destiny and glorify the Lord in the devil’s world.
Believers who called gold are those who have reached the place of having maximum glorification of God and are ready to suffer for blessing by being a vessel prepared to be a witness for the prosecution in the midst of the angelic conflict.
Believers in the silver are those who have reached at least the second stage of spiritual adulthood which is spiritual autonomy or spiritual independence and they keep on plugging.
Believers who are defined as precious stones are those individuals who are reaching certain stages of the spiritual life and they keep on going forward with passing the tests of undeserved suffering.
The point is that every believer has the opportunity to be used by the Lord as gold or silver or precious stones which all glorify the Lord in some way.
On the other hand, vessels of wood and earthenware are vessels of dishonor.
Wood represents humanity or the flesh and those of wood and earthenware are born again believers either in carnality or reversionism.
And one vessel is for an honorable purpose and one is for a dishonorable purpose.
Many vessels of dishonor are moral people but they assume that morality is spirituality.
2Ti 2:21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself away from these things [the characteristics of the dishonorable vessels, the reversionistic believers], he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified [set apart], useful to the Master,
They are making progress by means of the perception, metabolization, and application of the word of God, Joh 17:17.
Vessel is the noun skeuos and it means a vessel or waterpots or a vessel which is something that is empty because all born again believers are empty when they first become saved and they need to be filled by the power of the Spirit and the intake of doctrine.
Therefore, if the believer makes decisions under perception, metabolization and application of Bible doctrine, he will add the mind of Christ to his empty vessel.
And that is one of the main reasons why the Lord Jesus Christ expects what all of us to become which is an honorable vessel.
The word useful is the adjective euchreston which means to be very profitable.
How would you like to be a vessel that hears one day what MAT 25:21 says, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.”