We may categorise the ways in which God can use anyone along two broad but factual parameters. The Bible (2 Tim. 2:20-22) talks about those who are being used as sanctified vessels of honour fit for the Master’s use (in other words, those who meet all the requirements of a holy, noble usage).

This usually happens when an individual has met with Christ, and has a deposit of the Holy Spirit in him. Such an individual has a history of a walk with God, and is on a continuing journey of spiritual growth. He is “sanctifying” himself by consistently walking in obedience to God’s Spirit-led instructions. When God uses such people to accomplish any purpose, He talks to and leads them because they can hear Him.

The big understanding here is that these ones have an idea of the plan God is using them to execute, and they are cooperating by choice. In other words, rather than being mere tools that can be used and discarded, these are active partners with God, and they delight in His will. Apart from the evidence of this that we see in our own lives as disciples of Christ, we also have clear biblical references and patterns in such glowing examples as Enoch, Abraham, Noah, Moses, Joseph, Samuel, David, Daniel, John the Baptist, Paul, and a lot more.

God Uses Everyone And Everything

The other way in which God can use a human vessel is such that falls within the way in which He exercises sovereign rulership over His entire creation. He uses everyone and everything to accomplish His purposes. Whether anyone likes it or not, everyone serves the need of God in one way or the other.

As ghastly as that may sound to the natural mind, even the fellow who Satan instigates to kill another person may just be meeting God’s need either for executing some judgment or for some other divine need known to the Creator.

God does not have to use anyone in this sort of way, but because of the way certain people are constituted, they do unwittingly yield themselves to such unwholesome usage. Even when God would not want or make people commit grievous acts, some humans will still do so, simply because that’s the way they naturally are; that’s the condition of their natural beings. They will remain so except some superior influence, something life-changing comes to alter their nature or present constitution.

While God can and does check their conducts when it suits Him, they can also go unchecked when their on-going actions serve some godly “need”. Everything that happens in the natural environment feed directly into some space of divine allowance even when God would have preferred them to happen in totally different ways.

This latter form of usage falls into the category of those being used “willy nilly”. That means they are being used whether they know and like it or not, or even when they think they are carrying out what they consider strict personal or self-serving agenda. The predominant members of this group are people who do not accept the saving grace and the lordship of God or His Christ over their lives, although there are some professed believers who still belong to this category.

In the written Word of God, characters like Pharaoh, a host of other pagan kings, certain nations, and some individuals have been used in this way to execute the perfect judgment and purposes of God. Joseph’s brothers in their blind days, the Pharisees, Judas, and of course, Satan the devil have all been used to carry out God’s purposes.

Unlike vessels of honour, these ones don’t need to know God as a condition of their usage, and usually have no clue that they are being used to serve the needs of the Creator.

Christians Must Discern The Two Categories

Christians, in the exercise of their prophetic judgments, need to be wary in the posture they adopt towards these latter characters. While God does expect us to adopt towards these category of persons attitudes that are different from the ones adopted by those who don’t know the judgment of God, the same God has NOT mandated His children to ‘adopt’ any of these characters necessarily as a friend, or as if one of their own in the membership of the household of faith.

If people take seriously the fact that Satan was used to carry out the Calvary sacrifice that bought us our eternal salvation (because the scriptures pointedly asserted that if he had a clue, Satan would not have killed the Lord of glory), I wonder how many of us would be defending and justifying his series of other untoward conducts, or even claiming that he is now our ally or one of our own, or publicly laying hands on and praying for him!

Coming closer to a contemporary Nigerian example, the late murderous military dictator, Sani Abacha, probably did serve certain purposes which furthered the causes of God, whether these were obvious to most or not. The fact that he served certain of God’s need did not mean that that was what God originally purposed or would have preferred. Be that as it might, should we then, by that token, have begun to celebrate Abacha and be engaging in very awkward defence or excuse of his various other horrible conducts?

To be sure, there is no leadership, political or otherwise, that have not been set up by Heaven, either as a perfect choice and ordination of God, or just as an “allowance” to serve certain uses or ends. While David exemplifies the former, most contemporary leaders of the various nations of today’s world belong in the last category.

There are occasions when God allows the choices which human beings make as leaders to, among other things, reveal or highlight the depths of foolishness and the degenerate state of the human minds and the way this is playing out in the quality of their desires, choices and actions. On some of these occasions as was the case with King Saul, He merely wanted to show that people were in rebellion and had strayed from His ways, values and principles.

Usually, this may attract a backlash or unpleasant repercussions for those concerned. And the fact that He still meets something of His needs through such lawless vessels did not mean He could not have met the same needs through more honourable vessels if the people have stuck to His original idea.

Olushina Adisa writes from London, United Kingdom.