Second Timothy 2:21, If a man therefore purge himself…he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. Keep ever before you the words: Sanctified, and meet for the master’s use. To be sanctified is to be holy; to be meet is to be fit, ready to do the will of the Lord. Like clay in His hands, we give our will to Him; His will becomes our will.

Holy clay is the only clay that the Lord, the Master Potter, can use; to use anything less than holy clay would make an unholy vessel. The Potter’s house is a busy place today. Be the yielded clay that the Lord can make into any vessel He chooses.

The Lord molds various vessels that the Holy Spirit delights in because they are holy, holy vessels. The Bride is supplying holy, yielded clay, clay under control of righteousness, under control of God’s love and God’s faith, under control of the Holy Spirit of truth.

Although people have erred because they didn’t accept the truth, nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity (II Timothy 2:19). It doesn’t matter how others believe, what they think; it doesn’t matter about their opinions. The Lord knoweth the clay that belongs to Him; He knows His children. If you’re going to use the name of Jesus, you must depart from all sin and live holy.

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour (II Timothy 2:20). I want you to think about the different vessels God needs in this last hour. He makes many kinds of wonderful vessels. At times you’ll be used in seemingly more valuable places than at other times; but wherever you are used, it will be a place of God’s honor, for you’re serving the Lord. You may be a silver vessel for a special moment, a golden vessel, or you may be a wooden vessel, or clay. In other words, at times you may not feel as though you’re doing anything special for the Lord; but if you are God’s vessel, yielded to Him, He’s the one who is using you. Keep feelings out of it, and operate by faith, God’s faith. Know the way of the Lord; know that the Lord is working no matter how you feel, and you will know that you are living by the faith of God.

Live by Faith

Your feelings have nothing to do with faith at all. If you don’t feel like your prayers are getting through, know that the Bible says, The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers (I Peter 3:12). What we use can hinder us or can help us. Doubt won’t bother you unless you use it. If you don’t use despair, it can’t trouble you. Fear won’t bind you unless you hold on to it. But if you use the faith and wisdom of God, you’re edified and blessed.

When you feel depressed and worthless, you are giving over to doubt, fear and frustration. If you were giving over to the Word, the Word would edify and bless. The Word increases through you, multiplies and prevails as you yield to it. The Word multiplied and prevailed in the Early Church. Mightily grew the word of God and prevailed (Acts 19:20).

Love and faith are companions that are never separated. If you have God’s love, you have faith; and if you have the faith of God working in your life, you have the love of God there. You can’t have one without the other.

Live by faith, not feelings. The just shall live by faith (Romans 1:17). But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). The most needful thing today is to please God, not part-time, but all the time.

Enoch pleased God. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God (Hebrews 11:5). The way to please God is to use His faith, His love, and to serve Him and His greatness to others. To please Him is to walk like His Son walked.

Follow Righteousness

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness (II Timothy 2:22). This is the key: Follow righteousness. Don’t follow people, your opinions or anyone else’s opinions. Follow righteousness; follow holiness. To do this you must be purged from everything tainted with sin.

You cannot serve God in your own righteousness; you serve Him through His righteousness. Through the righteousness of God, you are adopted into His family. You cannot make yourself worthy of the Family of God, for without the blood we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). God makes you worthy through the blood of Jesus.

Don’t try to earn God’s love; His love is a free gift; God even loved you when you were a sinner. The Lord said to pray that you would be counted worthy. He will count you worthy when the blood of Jesus is applied to your heart. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:36). As you grow in the Lord, you’re changing, discovering what hinders you. It’s not what you do, but His righteousness, His holiness, His greatness, His love that makes you great. God uses you to do His work as you yield to Him.

Give your children godly discipline and then turn them over to God; let Him work. It takes God to mold children into what He wants them to be, to instill in them the righteousness of God. Yield to the Potter’s hands so He can mold you to do every good work that God has ordained for you to do. Get the clay ready and let the Lord use it as He wills.

Anything foreign in that clay should come out, any wrinkles, any blemishes or imperfections. Remember, the Lord is the perfect Potter; His hands were nailed to the Cross for you. When He touches the clay, He knows whether or not He can make any vessel He wants to make. He knows if He can make a valuable vessel, or if He would be wasting His time. He knows if He can depend on the clay to yield to His love touch.

You Can Be Many Vessels

If you don’t yield your life to God’s love, He can’t be your Potter. Many people are in trouble today because they leave God out of their molding process. If you’re really in the Potter’s hands, don’t be disappointed at what you are; you’ll be another vessel on tomorrow. Some days you’ll be more than a few vessels for the different tasks the Lord needs done.

The Lord must have vessels, vessels of all kinds. He is always seeking more vessels in this final hour to catch the outpouring of His Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit is caught in human vessels. It can’t land on the ground and bring people to God; it must land in human hearts to be served. God’s heart-love, heart-grace, heart-faith are served by the heart and from the heart.

Jesus showed us how to serve God’s grace and love to a lost and dying people when He became servant to all. He is the Savior of whosoever will. Jesus was many, many vessels, serving salvation to all people from all walks of life. Those who yield to Him in every way are now His vessels that He will use to serve others. Study Jesus, and see the many, many vessels the Lord must have in this final hour to carry on His work.

In the Early Church, God made many vessels out of a small number of people, enough vessels to get this Gospel to the known world in thirty-some years. Today, almost two thousand years into the Church Age, the Gospel hasn’t yet covered the earth. What a wonderful, yielded start the Early Church had in those first few years, and how tragic that their dedication did not continue in other people down through the ages!

The Early Church did things God’s way, the Holy Spirit’s way, the Jesus way; and that’s the reason the Church multiplied, multiplied, multiplied as the Lord was able to magnify Himself in the eyes of the people.

Tempted in All Points, Yet without Sin

Jesus was very man, but He kept Himself purged from everything of the world. He could have given in to temptation, or else the devil would never have come to talk to Him. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus came to walk among men, to become part of the human race; and the devil thought he could defeat Him now that He had taken on human form. He had defeated the first Adam, and why not the second Adam? Imagine what a tragedy for mankind had Jesus failed!

You must not yield to any temptation of Satan. The Lord demonstrated how to overcome him. Using the Word of God, Jesus rebuked Satan three times, showing you what the Word can do. For the Word to live and work in a wrapper of clay, the clay must be pure, clean and holy. Every Word of God is just as alive and powerful now as it was when God spoke it. It lives.

Whatever God says can’t die; His Word is a part of Him. It has all the life you need against death, all the life you need for your body, for your mind, for your soul. When you accept this, then you go into action with God, become His partner. Through Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Ghost, you walk hand in hand with God. Everything now is in your favor.

When you follow righteousness, you follow divine faith, divine charity, divine love, divine peace. Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart (II Timothy 2:22). The only way the Bride will call on the Lord is out of a pure heart. Her prayers will go through, and the devil won’t be able to stop them. That’s the reason she will trample devils underfoot. In this her final hour she will be the victorious Bride of Christ.

No Compromise

Foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes (II Timothy 2:23). Have nothing to do with foolish and unlearned questions. In other words, use the blood of Jesus and be separated from those who create strife. Don’t argue about your salvation; people either believe it or they don’t. Live a sanctified life before them. If they want to find fault, you’re not interested, you’re not home, it’s the wrong number, the wrong address. With that attitude, you’ll come out in a victorious way, sanctified and ready for the Master’s use.

The first great step to being like Jesus after you are saved: no compromise. Don’t compromise with the world; don’t compromise with people; don’t compromise with yourself. Walk hand in hand with the truth and the truth only.

Preachers are compromising today, even Pentecostal preachers, trying to win people the wrong way. Winning people to the Lord the right way is winning them by Bible truth, pure truth and nothing but the truth. If you mix in anything false, then you’re not winning people with the truth; and they’ll not be vessels of honor, not be the right kind of clay for the Lord to use, only worthless mud. Worthless mud won’t accept the wisdom and knowledge of Heaven in any great measure, for any extended period of time.

Worthy vessels can’t be made out of the wrong kind of clay. It takes a special kind of clay to make special kinds of vessels, clay that will accept Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus, we know He is our righteousness, our holiness, our wisdom, our knowledge, our love, our grace, our faith.

What a wonderful Potter the Lord is! What wonderful vessels He’s been able to make! We look at Peter when he wasn’t the clay he should have been in the Potter’s hands. Peter failed the Lord during Jesus’ trial and Crucifixion because there were flaws in the clay. The vessel had holes in it, and the love and the faith of God leaked out. When a vessel leaks, the enemy can pour in; and the enemy poured into Peter’s vessel. But then we see Peter on the day of Pentecost standing up before a crowd crying, “You crucified Him! You crucified Him!” Peter had become like Jesus—no compromise.

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree (Acts 5:30). Peter is talking to Jews at this time, and he said to his own people, Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole (Acts 4:10).

Peter thought everyone ought to know who Jesus was, the whole world. This is the Jesus whom you crucified; you killed Him! He was your Savior, your Lord, your Master, your Healer, your Coming King—and you killed Him! But God raised Him up and He still lives! Repent! Repent! Peter was crying.

Putting his life on the line, knowing he could be killed, Peter wasn’t compromising now: Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses (Acts 3:14,15).

Under the Curse of God

Barabbas was a murderer, a blasphemer, a wicked thief. He was everything vile, and yet the Jews wanted him to be delivered and Christ killed: And though they found no cause of death in him [Jesus], yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain (Acts 13:28). There was no fault in Jesus that Pilate could find. He even told the Jews, “I find no fault in this man.” Yet they killed Him.

Pilate didn’t kill Jesus. The Jews took that full responsibility; they said, His blood be on us, and on our children (Matthew 27:25). That curse is still upon their children today, and it will be there until the Jews, as a nation, accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God. They’ll have to accept Jesus to get that curse lifted from them.

No matter how much favor she has received, Israel is not secure today; threats from terrorists are common. Gas masks are given out to masses of people. The fear they live in is not from God; they brought it upon themselves. For almost two thousand years they had been scattered throughout the earth, but God said He would bring them back from every nation. He has done just that. Do they see the greatness of God for them? It doesn’t seem that they do; they’re still waiting for their Messiah.

Israel wants America’s help, but not our Jesus. They want our blessings of money, and we’ve aided them with billions of dollars; but our billions are going down the drain now; they’re giving up hard-won land. However, the day will come when their eyes will be opened, and they will recognize Jesus for who He really is.

The Promise of the Holy Ghost

The Lord gave the Holy Ghost to those yielded vessels of clay in the Upper Room, and the Holy Ghost is promised to all believers. Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (Acts 2:38,39).

After I was saved, I was no longer afar off from God, and I sought the Holy Ghost. I ordered the real thing: I’d tell the Lord again and again, that this experience is what I want: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4). I wanted to make sure I received the real Holy Ghost. I’d seen people who said they had the Holy Ghost, but they didn’t speak with tongues. Even as a child I had sense enough to know that if you were baptized in the Holy Ghost, you would speak with tongues; I’d seen it happen again and again.

In the first church I attended when I was a child, no one spoke in tongues because no one had the Holy Ghost. Then my family moved to a little Pentecostal church. Here everybody who was baptized in the Holy Ghost spoke in tongues. No one was taught to speak in tongues; the Holy Ghost spoke through yielded vessels as He wanted. I never dreamed people would have the audacity to call themselves Christian and then try to teach someone to talk in tongues the way they spoke instead of letting the Holy Ghost do the speaking. They who do such a thing dishonor the Lord. Never compromise with the Word of God.

Romans 9:21, Hath not the potter power over the clay…? Does God have power over your clay? Yes, if you give it to Him. Unless the dross is out of the clay, it won’t stand up under the pressure of the wheel of persecutions. Until the dross is out, remember, the clay is not ready for the Master’s hand to make it into the vessels of honor that He wants.

Be rid of that which is unlike the Lord. The Lord has made the fulfillment of your needs available as you use the nine fruits of the Spirit. If you can’t control your temper, for instance, it’s because you don’t have the fruit of temperance, of self-control, being produced in your life.

Those Terrible Temper Tantrums

As a youngster, I was known in my family for my wild temper. If anyone wanted to get a fight going, I was always ready; I went to bed ready, got up ready. I could lose my temper as fast as you could strike a match. But then I gave my heart to God. No one in my family doubted that I had received old-time salvation. They knew it was the real thing because I didn’t lose my temper anymore. As a child I was ready for war, and as an adult I’m in war against the devil. I’ve turned that temper on him.

Temper can be good. People say to me, “I want you to pray that God will take away my temper.” I tell them, “You just need to get that temper into the hands of the Holy Ghost and let Him use it.” God has plenty of temper, but He uses it the right way. It’s when you let your temper get into the hands of the devil that it’s destructive.

Don’t let the devil bluff you, deceive you into thinking you can’t control your temper. The Lord said, Be ye angry, and sin not (Ephesians 4:26). There is a wonderful keeping power in the Lord for His holy vessels. Of course you will run into situations that upset you, but don’t let your temper get the best of you; let God work through you. Speak the way Jesus would speak-and mean it!

If you have something to say to your enemies, say it in truth and love, and let it be. Take your stand. You don’t have to throw an emotional fit in an effort to gain attention or to intimidate. If you’re a real child of God, He will give you favor with people who want the truth.

Keep your temper in the right channel. The Lord needs clay with no lumps in it; He needs vessels of honor that won’t leak. A leaky vessel is a dangerous vessel if it is meant to hold anything of value; and the love of God, the grace of God, the greatness of God are valuable beyond price.

The Lord needs vessels of integrity, people who don’t go out of their minds with anger, break up things, kick and carry on. If you knock a hole in the wall, then you have to pay to get it fixed. Do you throw things; break them? Wake up and realize that you don’t have to do those crazy things. You’re an intelligent being made in the image of God, in the likeness of God, made to stand up in all the love and spirit of the first Adam.

What if someone claiming to be Jesus would come to your house, lose his temper and start breaking up your furniture? You’d say, “I know you couldn’t be Jesus! My Jesus wouldn’t act like that!” No, He wouldn’t.

Do you find temper tantrums in the fruits of the Spirit? The Holy Ghost needs the right kind of soil, the holy clay, to produce those fruits.

In the physical, in the spiritual, it’s the same way: The soil, the foundation, must be pure. Poison in the soil takes the life out of the tree, and spiritual poison takes the life out of the soul; the fruits of the Spirit cannot be produced in your life. The fruits of the Spirit don’t come down from Heaven; they are produced in your life as you yield to the Holy Spirit. Oh it’s wonderful, it’s wonderful!

Spend Time Alone with God

John the Baptist, a vessel of honor, didn’t seek the world. He was set apart, full of the Holy Ghost and the righteousness of God. He stayed away from people much of the time, and was taught by the Spirit.

To have the greatness of God, you must spend time with Him. Insisting on constantly having people around prevents you from being alone with Him. On the other hand, if you search out loneliness and entertain self-pity, you’re not where you ought to be with God. The Lord should be the main person in your life. Jesus Christ wants to be personal to you, to talk with you and to listen as you talk with Him. Develop a close companionship with Him; walk hand in hand.

I must be alone with the Lord. I can’t be around even my kin people too long at a time before I begin to feel like an empty vessel; and I hunger not for physical food, but for the things of God.

Forerunners of Christ

You grow in the Lord Jesus Christ when you’re in His very presence, when your mind is given over to Him, when you yield to the takeover of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist had that closeness with God; he was the perfect forerunner of Christ.

God sent a marvelous vessel into the world in John the Baptist; he came a different way: He came full of the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist was the forerunner of the first appearance of Jesus; and we, the Bride of Christ, are the forerunner of His second appearance. John needed the Holy Ghost for his task ahead, and we need the Holy Ghost for our task. Real children of God want all of God they can have.

The Bride, the forerunner of Christ’s second coming today, is in the form of many, many people. That second forerunner will be like John the Baptist, full of righteousness, holiness and the Holy Ghost—not of the world, but full of the Holy Ghost.

John didn’t worry about the things of this life. He didn’t worry about where to sleep or what to wear. He depended on the Lord. Jesus tried to teach the disciples this total dependence, this trust that God would look out for them: Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they (Matthew 6:25,26)?

The birds—look how mindful God is of them! He notices even one little sparrow falling. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10:29-31). The Lord is incredibly mindful of us, and John the Baptist knew that. He spent much time with God; his life was dedicated to Him, and he had the message of repentance. What a wonderful vessel he was!

John didn’t have a life of his own. Even his diet was locusts and wild honey. He didn’t depend on people, or look to them; but he gave his time to the Lord so he would be the exact vessel the Lord wanted. He knew who he was, and he had a close relationship with God. His was an awesome mission—the forerunner of the Messiah.

As the forerunner of the second coming, the Bride of Christ must know what manner of person she must be and what manner of person she is. Know if you need to make any changes; this, too, is an awesome mission.

Love Not the World

What are you concerned about in this life? Are those concerns worthless to the cause of Christ? You need money to live in this world, but if you want money for the sake of money, if you constantly think about money, it becomes an idol that puts lumps in the clay. If you, however, want money to supply your needs, money to get this Gospel to the world, if you don’t let money come between you and God, God can move to supply your needs. In other words, don’t let money become an obsession. Let God be your obsession. I pray for God to prosper those who tithe and give to the Lord, those who divide with Him. God has raised up vessels to help with finances in taking this Gospel to the world.

Never satisfied, the world is obsessed with making money, obsessed with buying, buying, buying. Gloating over all they own, they’re empty on the inside, vessels of clay full of holes. They can’t hold the truth, they can’t hold the love of God, they can’t hold the peace of God, and they can’t hold the faith of God. For us to be what God wants us to be in this final hour, to be in the Master’s hands and to be used by the Lord, we must be purged from all of the things of the world.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever (I John 2:15-17). If you love the world’s ideas and life styles, the love of the Father is not in you. The love of the world includes the lust of the flesh, the lust for money, lust for all kinds of things instead of the desire for manna from On High. Desire daily the righteousness of the Lord. Jesus said, Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled (Matthew 5:6).

The Ill Wind of Dissatisfaction

Dissatisfied people bring in a restless spirit of ill wind to the house of God. Spiritually dead preachers in dead churches add to the dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction in the Lord is a disgrace to the cause of Christ.

Paul said, For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content (Philippians 4:11). Through much suffering, through persecutions, Paul learned how to draw on the peace of God.

We don’t like persecutions; we don’t like to suffer; but it’s through suffering that we learn. If we suffer with Him, suffer the same kind of persecutions Jesus went through, the Bible declares we will reign with Him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him (II Timothy 2:12).

Dissatisfaction breeds doubt, fear, despair, frustration, loneliness and other destructive qualities that clash with the Spirit of God. With dissatisfaction you dig your own pit; the devil doesn’t dig those pits for you. The deeper you go in dissatisfaction, the more of a slave you become to the devil. He makes you think you can’t get out. You can’t, but our Lord can bring you out of anything when the clay is yielded. The Lord today is seeking to bring you out of everything unlike Him.

Look again at John the Baptist. The Lord used that one man to make many vessels. Because of his stand for righteousness, John’s life was on the line. He had been through much. Now imprisoned, and proving he was human, he told two of his disciples to ask Jesus, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another (Matthew 11:3)? John knew Jesus was the Christ, but he wanted to hear it one more time from Jesus’ own lips. And Jesus said, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them (Matthew 11:4,5). Reassured, John was ready to die; he was satisfied.

The Bride will be ready to live or die because she will be satisfied in Jesus. She won’t be running to and fro with the restless spirit that the world has, nor will she embrace the fears that are coming upon the earth. Jesus said that men's hearts would fail them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth (Luke 21:26). But the Bride will turn from the fear and rejoice because redemption draweth nigh!

Paul writing to Timothy said, This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away (II Timothy 3:1-5). Paul described the kind of world we’re in now; but we’re not a part of it. We’re preserved.

Jesus said, They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil (John 17:14,15). I don’t ask you, Father, to take them out of the world; we need them there as lights, but preserve them, keep them.

What kind of vessel are you today? Are you in shape to accept the pure truth from Heaven about this hour in which you live? We live in the hour foretold so many hundreds of years ago. Bible prophecies are being fulfilled now, right now: See end-time signs all around you.

Know How to Possess Your Vessel

Keep your hand in His; never take it out; and He will never leave you. The Lord is drawing on you; run after Him. Let your spirit be: Take the whole world, but give me Jesus!

First Thessalonians 4:4, That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour. You don’t have to follow the things of the world, although you may have thought you did. Through the blood of Jesus you can have power over self; you can have security, full assurance in the Lord’s plan for your life. Turn your back on dishonesty and deceit, qualities that make lumps in the clay. Know how to possess your vessel, your life, in sanctification, in holiness and in honor. Possess your life not in the way of most people in the world today; but possess your life in holiness and righteousness, in truth, in honor—His. Reach for true life, the abundant life that the Lord brought.

Abundant life in the Lord is the kind of life money can’t buy. Many would like to have it, but it requires living holy. They would be willing to pay money for it, but they’re not willing to serve the Lord to have it; and they’re not willing to clean up from the world and leave the world behind.

Learn how to possess your life in the righteousness and holiness of God so there will be no lumps in the clay, no hindrances to God whatsoever. Then He can make any kind of priceless vessel out of you to use for a moment, an hour or a day; and He can smash your vessel and remake you all over again. Don’t feel God has forsaken you when the breaking times come. Living in faith, you know you’re in His loving hands. Never be disappointed by the way God molds you; know He’s making another vessel out of you to serve, to serve, to serve.

Disappointments come, but when you handle them in the Lord, they make you stronger. You never know how you’re going to be crushed so that God can make a greater vessel out of your life. John the Baptist suffered, Jesus suffered, Peter, James, John and the other apostles suffered; and you will have to suffer if you follow the Lord. There are ways you didn’t think you would ever have to suffer, but for some of you they are happening now. You’re a vessel of honor and you have to suffer.

The Lord, I say again, will make many vessels of honor out of your yielded life when you are the kind of clay He has been longing for. Yielded clay is clay the Master can make into any kind of vessel to win lost humanity. Your life will not always be calm. Storms will blow in; you’ll be tried, tested, but in the Lord you can overcome them all. He hath need of you. With a heart full of love and trust, tell Him: Lord, here I am. As Isaiah of old said, Use me; use me! Jesus our Master said in the same spirit, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God (Hebrews 10:9).

My Deepest Valley

Some things happen that we never dreamed of. Angel, my wife, and I were very close. I never thought there would be life without her, never thought God would ever take Angel from me. More than once the Lord tried to tell me that He would take her, and I didn’t accept it. I looked over it, around it—any way but at it. Even when He came to me and said, “You’ll have to give up Angel,” it was unbelievable to me. “Angel is not your source of power,” He continued, “I am your source of power.” That was the only time the devil appeared when the Lord talked to me. The devil stood in my living room that day in a black, black suit, stood there as tall as a man. If the Lord ever left me in a state of wonder after visiting me in a divine visitation, it was that time. I was just dumbfounded. I said, “Well, God, I never thought I put Angel ahead of you. I thought I always put you first.” But He meant, You don’t know what Angel, the vessel that I gave you, has meant to your life. You don’t know the strength she has given to you. You don’t know what her love has meant to you because it has been so mixed in with my love that you couldn’t tell many times how much love flowed from her and how much flowed from me. Now you’re going to find out that she’s not your source of power; I am your source of power. I’ve always remembered that God is my source of power from then on.

I never thought I could be weak. I thought the way God had used me, the power and the strength He had given me, that I could stand up to anything. But when the Lord took Angel, I went into a million pieces. I was rendered helpless in my own spirit. It was like someone had taken a big sword, cut me in two, and expected me to walk on one leg, live with one arm, one hand. For the first time I lost sight of the divine mission. The Lord had told me Himself—He didn’t send someone else—He came Himself and told me: “I’m sending you on a divine mission.” I thought Angel would always be with me. The Lord had marked her in her mother’s womb and had marked me. The Lord told me He had made Angel for me, and made me for Angel. How could I live without her? How could I go on?

I thought I would never be a whole person again. Angel and I had become one in Christ Jesus, one in flesh, one in holy marriage; and now she was gone and I felt I couldn’t live without her.

I didn’t see a future; it left with her. If everyone I loved had died at one time, it wouldn’t have hurt me any worse. I wouldn’t have cared if the moon never shined again. I wouldn’t have cared if the sun never came up. In fact, I would have been relieved to know it would never come up—relieved to know there would never be a tomorrow.

Perhaps you’re going through a deep valley; you’ve lost a loved one and you have to stand alone. Maybe your heart is broken because your companion won’t serve God, won’t come with you to church, won’t do right. There are many valleys that bring us to our knees in desperation.

For the first time I was suffering such intense agony of spirit that I didn’t want to live. I’d hear myself saying—it would just come forth without any effort—“Oh, if I could only die! If only I could die!” I would have welcomed death in such a wonderful way—me, the boy who loved living, loved life, who had been so full of life, so full of the call of God. But I knew my mission; I knew I must take this Gospel to the world. I knew I would have been dead had God not healed me, raised me up, brought me back from the brink of death. I owed everything to Him; yet without Angel, it seemed there was no life.

I’d plead for God’s love; I’d tell Him He’d have to love me; I couldn’t live without love; and God filled my house with His love like never before. He left room for nothing else in my house but love. I would walk into a cloud of His glory filling my house day after day, night and day. It was a refuge in time of storm, and yet the storm inside me was raging, raging, raging.

In a beautiful way, Angel and I used the love language in our marriage. We had such love, such great devotion to the Lord God Almighty that we sought nothing but to walk hand in hand with Him. Now the great storm had come; it was truly my Garden of Gethsemane. If only the cup could have passed, that I wouldn’t have had to stay on Earth without Angel…but then I thought of the people, you people; and I thought, “I’ve got to live, I’ve got to live for the people—but how am I going to do it?”

I’d lose my voice; my words would skip. That was unlike me. What was I coming to? I didn’t care. I almost hemorrhaged to death; the blood just poured and poured more times than one; but I didn’t care, I didn’t care.

Angel was gone; Angel was dead. Like a broken record, those words haunted me day and night: Angel’s dead, Angel’s gone, Angel’s dead, Angel’s gone. I would go to the platform, and it would be Angel’s dead, Angel’s gone, Angel’s dead, Angel’s gone. I’d try not to look at the organ when I came on the platform or at the piano. She had always been at one or the other to play and sing choruses, and then to introduce her husband. She’d never be there again.

God Put Me Back Together

You’re in your valley or you’ll be there one day, a valley of some kind. Don’t let the disappointment take you over and destroy the will of God for your life. You must not. These are trying times, but the Lord will give you that love.

God put me back together. Whether it was an angel, or whether it was Jesus who came and put His arm around me, I don’t know. Oh, I’ve lived it and relived it. There’s such strength in God’s love, such strength in the love language, and that’s all He talked to me. He wanted me to know how much He loved me. He told me, “You are greatly loved.” The words amazed me. I had never thought about God saying such a thing, that I was greatly loved. I never thought I was greatly loved. It was enough for me to know I was loved by God, but to say I was greatly loved…I needed that. He’d say, “I am the Lord that walketh with thee.” Maybe I’d be on a crowded street just walking, trying to get rid of one face and yet looking for that one face in that crowd of people, one face that I wanted to see. And He’d speak and say, “I am the Lord that walketh with thee.”

I’d always been so full of answers since God had saved me, but now I was without answers. God was so merciful. I was really dying deaths, one after another; and then the Lord came to me, took me back into my life letting me ask any question. It was one of the rarest moments in my life; I had to have answers.

I thought maybe I had worked Angel too hard. We’d worked night and day, as it were, to build the work. It’s something to dig out a work from scratch, to start a church without a member, just knowing we were sent by God. We had given, given, given, and she had worked and worked. “Lord, did I work her too hard?” I even told God in my distress, “Lord, I’d rather not have built the Cathedral if it meant losing Angel.” But the Lord let me know it wasn’t that. Angel’s death was planned from the beginning; the shadow of death was there on our beautiful wedding day. It was my divine will to have taken Angel when I did, He said, “Because by taking her when I did, she will bring more souls into the kingdom.” He let me know that He had to have both my hands in His the rest of the journey.

That love, the love that Angel and I had spoken to each other…losing her was so hard! I would think, Oh, if she had just been mean to me part-time, just said mean things to me, I could give her up better. But she wasn’t like that. She was so kind, so gentle, so tender. She was a treasure, a vessel God had made just for me. That’s the reason I advise young people to wait to get the right mate. I waited. I could have rushed, like other boys I knew, into marriage and married the wrong girl; but I waited. Our homes were over six hundred miles apart; however, when God plans your mate it doesn’t matter where that special one is—in another nation or the other side of the world—He’ll bring that person to you.

I don’t talk of Angel unless the Lord moves on me to do so. Let my experience help you in the days ahead to never let disappointment take you over. I yielded to the will of God, and I told Him I didn’t resent His taking Angel. The love language, the love of God was my strength.

Your God and my God; we have the same God. Your Jesus, my Jesus; we have the same Jesus. We have the same help, we have the same hope, we have the same love, and He’s talking to us only in the love language. Listen to what He is saying. I listened, and I longed for Him to tell me more; then when He visited me and let me ask everything I wanted to ask, it cleared up much. I stood to my feet taller than I had stood. I stood in His holy presence knowing I was greatly loved, knowing His divine will had been done.

I had always bowed to the will of God in everything. His will counted more to me than my breath, and it still does today. I could give my life freely if He wants me to walk out and give it, or if He wants it a little at a time, I can give it like that. Whatever I have to go through, whatever you have to go through, we’re going to stand for Jesus and we’re going to finish our work of taking the Gospel to the world.

The Lord is getting you ready for all of your tomorrows and He’s giving holy anointings. He’s busy working on you in the Potter’s house because you’re yielded clay. The loving Potter’s hands will make you into many vessels, but you’ll have to suffer. He’ll mold you, and then He’ll break you; and then mold you into another vessel; but you’ll be all right because you’re in the Creator’s hands. You’ll be all right because you’re in the ever-loving hands of the ever-loving God. You have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, for you will never walk alone because He walks with you.

A Message from the Holy Spirit

Thus saith the Lord; I am here. I feel every heartbeat. I know what you’re going through, and that’s the reason I wanted my servant to tell you what he told you this day. I know the sufferings that are yours; I know the despair that closes in. I know how helpless and hopeless you feel at times; but I the Lord thy God walketh with this people. I the Lord thy God have cradled you to my bosom and you’re in my care. I am watching over you with eyes of love all the time. I have chosen you; you are the apple of my eye, and I will use you in such mighty ways in this last hour. Because of your dedication, because of your consecration, because you’ve moved into my righteousness and holiness to live, I will be able to use you to bring many into the kingdom. I will be able to pour more of my love than I’ve ever been able to pour out at any one time on planet Earth. It will flow from this people like mighty rivers to the inhabitants of the earth. Like mighty rivers it will flow. Let not your heart be troubled. I the Lord thy God walketh with thee. I the Lord thy God careth for thee. Thou art mine and I am yours, saith the Lord.

If you don’t know Jesus, pray with me now: Oh, God, save my soul! Forgive me of my sins. I’m so sorry I sinned against you, but I have come home. I have come to your feet, dear Jesus in all humility. I plead for your forgiveness. Now I believe that you are the Christ, that the blood of Jesus washes away all my sins. Come into my heart, Jesus!

If you meant that prayer, He has come.

The miraculous power of salvation delivered your soul; why not let that miraculous power He provided for the body take you over and make you whole, if healing is your need? Thousands have been delivered not only from sin, but from sicknesses and diseases through this Jesus ministry because the greatness and the power of the Holy Ghost are used. You who are sick and afflicted: Trust the healing Jesus. With His miraculous healing power He can deliver you just as He delivered me so many years ago. Here they are, Lord: As the servant of the living God, as your faith servant, I bring the people to you for healing today. Lay a healing hand on the sick and afflicted. From your supernatural gifts of healing and the supernatural gift of miracles it comes in the name of Jesus. Heal! Heal! In the all powerful name of Jesus.

The healing power is flowing. Healings, miracles are taking place. The name is Jesus and He loves you. Watch yourself get well; watch all improvements daily, and give Him all the honor, the praise and the glory.