Jeremiah 18

In this parable, Jeremiah is sent to the potter's house to witness the process of making clay vessels. The potter forms and shapes the clay, but when it becomes marred, he remolds it into something better. This illustrates how God works with us, transforming us into vessels of honor and glory. The potter has complete control over the clay, just as God has control over our lives. Sometimes we may become marred through trials and temptations, but God is able to reshape us and make us new. The purpose of salvation is for God to be honored and glorified. I want us to look at this parable, this story that he used with Jeremiah who was called the weeping prophet. And why was he the weeping prophet? Because he didn't have nothing but bad news to tell. You know, praise God, on this side of the New Testament, at least every once in a while I get to talk about grace, right? And God's love. Jeremiah didn't ever have a good message. And it never was a fun situation because God always made him, you do the parable and you go live this out before the people and then give them the message. That part is still true in the New Testament, that God a lot of times allows the preacher and makes us go through the things before we deliver the message. But, you know, when you think about the relationship between God and us, there's so many different examples that he uses in the Bible to describe and define this relationship. We know that he speaks of the shepherd and the sheep, that Christ is the good shepherd, He cares for the sheep. We see that he talks about this relationship between us and Him that he uses in marriage. When he comes into that, the husband and wife relationship, he talks about there's a parable of the father and the son relationship that is there. And so there's a lot of different relationships and a lot of different things the Bible uses to teach us these lessons about life and really about ourselves, that way that God works with us and everything. And Jesus did not save us from our sins to go to heaven, right? I don't know how this ever got started or what popularized it, but we're not saved to go to heaven. That's the end result. That's the reward. That's the blessing of salvation. That's not the why of salvation. The why of salvation is He saved us because we're sinners and we need Him to save us. And He saves us in order that He might be honored and glorified. And so when you think about that tonight, Jesus Christ described this as using another relationship of a vine and a branch. In John 15, He said, I am the vine and you are the branches, and he that abideth in Me beareth much fruit. And then He goes on to say, without Me you can do nothing. And so again, that relationship that is there, but probably one of the greatest portraits of God and His people is the idea of the potter and the clay. The potter and the clay, and He gives this very short. It's only six verses, but it's interesting that it's here. I've got a video somewhere, and I've showed it at some churches. I don't know if I've showed it here or not, but of an actual potter that goes through this parable while he's actually sitting there making pottery. If you ever have the chance to go to Eureka Springs and go earlier, there's a potter there that may even be the recording that I have or whatever. But notice, we'll read verse 1-6, and then we'll come back and we will look at this example and this illustration of what it looks like to yield, and also the sovereignty of God in what happens in our lives. He said, The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again another vessel that seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as the potter saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in mine hand, O house of Israel. And so as we look at this passage of Scripture, it says that Jeremiah was told, God said, I'm not going to give you the message. I'm going to show it to you. I'm going to give you a visible deal. Go down to the potter's house. And so Jeremiah goes down to the potter's house, and he's watching this potter as he is making clay. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen anything, but why is the potter making something with the clay? He's really doing it for one reason and one reason alone. It's a part of his livelihood. The best thing that he can make, and the better that he makes it, the more money he can get to provide for his family or provide utensils that will help his family, that will aid his family. And so he wants to make a vessel that allows him to reap a profit. And so when you think about that, why did God make man? He made us for a purpose that he might reap a profit. In other words, he wants honoring glory from us. And so he created Adam, and he said, what? Adam, I give you dominion over everything. And then he gave him animals to rule over. He gave him a wife to rule and a garden to rule. And so God's intention was taking this old worthless clay, this old dirt, and forming it and transforming it by His grace into a vessel of honor and glory. I was going back again. I'm teaching through Genesis again in seminary at the prison right now. And I went back and was reading that and teaching that again this week. And it just mentions that God formed the animals. When it comes to Adam and Eve, not only did He form them and shape them, but He breathed into their nostrils the intimacy that was there. The extra care that went into human beings above all other things. And so we know that this process still happens today, that Jesus Christ, He wants to save us who are sinners. We saw that in the Beatitudes this morning. And He wants to save us because of His grace. And He does that in order that He may take this old vile sinner, this old lump of clay, this dirt, and actually conform it into His image. Remember what Adam? He was made of dirt, but he was made what? In the image of God. And so that's what the potter is wanting to do with the clay. He's wanting to take it and make it into something that is valuable and something that is profitable. And so the good thing is that God is going to continue to do this until it's complete. And I've mentioned this several times. Mandy, I told her at my funeral, I want you to sing, He's finished working on me. Because all my life He's working on me. But when I'm dead and I'm with Him, He's finished. It's completed at that time. Because when I see Him, I shall be like Him. And so we see Him going down to this potter. And He sees this potter. He said, I went down to the potter's house, and behold, He wrought a work on the wheels. When you think about the potter, and you think about what he is doing, and you think about all of the things that are involved in the clay making process, and I'm not going to go into all of it, but man, you can't make something out of just any kind of dirt. There's a process. You've got to get the right dirt. You've got to add the right amount of water. You've got to get the mixture just right. And you've got to use a certain dirt for it. And you've got to use a certain amount of water. And it makes it pliable. And so, you know, you've got a shovel. You've got this dirt. It comes back. And I was reading the other day that in Middle East times, they actually would take a hammer, and when they got the clay, they would actually pound that clay with a hammer to get the air bubbles and stuff out of it. Because if you're molding this and it has air bubbles, and so you've got all of this, but probably the most important part when they get all of this clay ready is the wheel that they put the clay on and spin. And that wheel is controlled by the potter. It's a foot control. And he gets to determine how fast or how slow that wheel goes. If he needs it faster, he goes faster. If he needs it to slow down, he slows down so that he is in complete control of that clay that is there on the pot. And so, Jeremiah is viewing all of this. And then it says there in verse 4, the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so he made it again another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it. All of a sudden, Jeremiah is watching this potter, and it says the clay become marred. And when you think about that, it's real easy to read over that. Is it the potter's fault the clay was marred? No, I don't think so. Sometimes it just happens, right? Sometimes there's just something that is wrong. Sometimes they're just there. And you know, how many people are we kind of like that? We get on the wheel of life, right? And everything seems to be going along great. And we talked about blessings this morning, right? And there's a difference between being blessed and being happy. Sometimes life gives us the things and we become marred, right? And we're not so much happy as we ought to remember that we are blessed, because as long as we're still pliable, what happened? Immediately when he found out that that clay was not going to work, Jeremiah said the potter took it. He smashed it down, rolled it again, laid it back on the wheel and began to start again. Here he only did it once, but sometimes the potter has to do it multiple times before he finally gets the clay to where it will do what it's supposed to be doing. And so how many of us are kind of like that? You know, we think everything's going great, and then all of a sudden there's a temptation, there's a trial, there's a speed bump, there's bad news, and it's like we become marred. For some reason, our world, our purpose is all of a sudden messed up. And the thing that the Bible warns us over and over that we need to be careful that we're not guilty of that. I think he said in 1 Corinthians 10-12, he says, Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Marring can happen to every one of us. The problems and trials, the Bible is over and over, do you see the wreckage of marred lives? Especially reading Paul, because Paul wasn't bashful about calling them out. He talked about Alexander the coppersmith that once was good, but something happened. He became marred. Hymenaeus, Demas had forsaken him. And all of these guys started out good, and then all of a sudden something was marred and something was messed up. And you know, as I think about all of the people that was marred through the life of Paul, you know, at one point Paul said, John Mark, I'm not giving you another chance, right? But when you read in 2 Timothy, he says, send John Mark. He's even profitable unto me. Because why? John Mark repented and changed. Somewhere he was different. Somewhere he allowed God, and Paul understood that on his deathbed, guess what? John Mark can even be profitable to me right now. And so we're not finished. Just because we have marred and just because things don't always happen in our life, that we think they ought to happen, we have to understand the potter is in control. The potter knows what's going on. And the cool thing about it is, as he says there in verse 4, he says that he made the clay was marred. Where? In the hand of the potter. We have to remember that God still has His hands on us. He never walks away. The Bible promises He will never leave us. He'll never forsake us. When things don't go the way that we think they ought to go, or things mess up, or things happen, God is still right there with us. And so it comes down to trusting Him. It comes down to thinking about Him. And there's times when all of us get cracked. There's times when all of us mess up because none of us are perfect. None of us are without sin. As a matter of fact, Jesus challenged the Pharisees, those that were the greatest amongst all of them, and He said, which one of you is without sin? You get to cast the first stone. And all of a sudden He looks up and not even the Pharisees were standing around, because all of us at some point or another get cracked or we get messed up. But that doesn't mean that God is finished with us. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden God loses interest in us and forgets. Remember, we're still in the hands of the potter. And so the minute that the potter realized that this clay is marred, that it's not going to do what it needs to do, immediately what did he do? He began to take the steps to remake, to redesign, to re-fix. You know, we never can hide anything from God. Proverbs 15 verse 3 says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. You can't hide nothing from God. He is so intimate. And you know, there's this thing that I teach in Scientific Apologetics. There's a whole religion out there that's based on this idea that God just created this world, created Adam and Eve, and He just stepped away from His creation, and now things are just left to evolve and to take chance, and then all of a sudden down in the future, God's going to step back in and take back control of this world. It's not taught in the Bible. God is highly involved and interested in everything that we do. We are in His hands. As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ told His disciples, He said, you are in the Father's hands. Nobody, nothing can pluck you out of the Father's hands. And so we are there, and He's working with us, and He knows what is there. And so as He's working, every thought, every deed, every motive that we have in our life is not going to go unchallenged in His hands. And so when we think about that, if God knows when I have a need, it stands to reason that He also knows when I have a sin, or when I have a flaw in my attitude, right? When my attitudes that we talked about in the Beatitudes are not what they are supposed to be. Sometimes we think we're keeping it a secret from God because we are capable of fooling everyone else. The thing that we need to understand is we need to be responsive to His touch. We need to be there because see what was happening with Israel. Israel, He kept warning them not to harden their hearts. Not to get stiff-necked. You know what happens to the clay? As long as the clay is still moldable, the potter can do something with it. The potter can make whatever he wants to make out of it as long as it stays responsive. But what happens if all of a sudden the clay begins to get too hard? Or what happens if the clay sets up to where it can no longer be formed or be done? The potter has to throw it out. It's done past the point of where it can be usable and make a function. He can no longer rework it or reform it. So again, as we think about this picture of the potter, the work of our heavenly Father, there's so many times along the way that I can look back and I can see myself deformed. I can see myself misshaped, marred, messed up, you know. But then I'm reminded of Romans 8.28. What did the great potter say? All things work together for good to them that are called. See, as long as we stay pliable, that's that idea of He's still working on me. He can still make me what I ought to be as long as I stay pliable. But once I rebel and say, you know what? I know what vessel I want to be. I know what I want to do. Then guess what? There comes a point that the potter can no longer do anything with us. And what does he do? He discards it. He gets rid of it that is there. So, you know, when you think about this, the process is not always pleasant. Is it fun to be smashed down and started over again? Absolutely not. I've been there. It's not a good thing for God to start over. But guess what? I can say every time that God has started over in my life, He's made me better and more conformable to His image than I was before. Because He knows what I need. He knows what needs to be done. You know, Revelation 3 and verse 9, He made the statement, as many as I love, I rebuke and chase them. And so it's not a bad thing sometimes for the potter to squish us and start over. Sometimes that's a necessary step, because what happens? If that potter ignores the marring, if the potter ignores the problem that is in the clay that he is forming, once he comes into the fire, and once he is tried by the fire of the furnace, all the hours and all the time that he spent on that vessel, all of a sudden begins to do what? It shows up when it ends up in the fire. Because it will crack. It will break. And then it's useless. Once it breaks and once it cracks in the fire, can't nothing be done with it except destroy it. And you know what? God tells us that we're going to be tried with fire, right? Eventually, God's going to test us. He's going to try us to see what we're made of. And so, man, I just pray that hopefully I'm staying pliable so that God knows He's not going to put me through a fire. He says, I will never put you anywhere. I won't put you in a situation that I will not be with you, that I will not be there, that I will not make a way of escape for you. And so, man, we've just got to trust the Father. Now, you know, if a temptation or trial comes, God's got this. He knows what He's doing because His hands are on me. And so He doesn't just throw that clay away. And I'm so very thankful of that. Thirty-five years in the ministry, I'm glad that every time I became marred, God didn't just throw me away. That God just continues to use me and rebuild me. And eventually, y'all keep praying for me and God working with me, and as long as I stay pliable, eventually, God's going to make me what He needs me to be. You know, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, he said, I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. Can you imagine trying to spend, especially Paul and in my situation, you spend your entire life preaching to people, trust God, yield to God, live through the process, trust God through the process, the walk of life, through it all, warning everybody else that we can become so hard and messed up that we don't even get there. But look at what he says in verse 5 and 6. Then the Word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? Saith the Lord, Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in mine hand, O house of Israel. Here's the good part. Now he says you've learned a lesson. You've seen this illustration. You understand the potter. You understand that every clay doesn't just all of a sudden the very first time come out to this beautiful piece of pottery that's useful and that's good. That sometimes the clay, the process has to be started over. You understand all of this. And so now he gets to the point and he takes it from a potter working with clay, and now he says this is God and you, O Israel. And he talks about here the control. Look at verse 6. It says, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand. Control. Control. Whatever God decides to use us for. Whatever our purpose, whether it's to pastor, whether it's to teach, whether it's to be a deacon, whether it's to be a lay individual, whether it's to be... Whatever God has placed you in your area as the vessel that He wants to use you there, whatever it is, if it's according to the will of the potter, there's going to be these types of choices that are going to happen in times in our life when we think, why? Why God? Why God? But it's all a part of the process. Do we trust Him? Jesus Christ on the cross cried, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Had God forsaken Him? Absolutely not. If God had forsaken Him, He had never rose from the dead. But He felt forsaken, didn't He? Why am I experiencing this? Why am I doing this? But guess what? It was part of the process. It was part of the process. He had to die in order to live again. Isaiah. Turn with me to Isaiah 45 and verse 9. Isaiah, a couple of different times in Isaiah, uses this pottery idea and this pottery illustration. In Isaiah 45 and verse 9, Isaiah tells Israel here, he says, Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker. Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou or thy work? He hath no hands. See, God is the one that gets to decide what you do and what you don't do. God's the one that is in control. Romans 12. I quote this passage all the time. It's kind of probably my life verse. And it means more to me each and every day. But He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. In other words, this clay. That's all we are is clay. I was doing a Bible study the other day. I took a course from some college. It was a free deal. It popped up on the internet. And so I took it and he translated Adam as the dirtling. The dirtling. And it is just stuck in my mind because that's literally what Adam means. From the dirt. And he told them, he says, I made you from the dirt. And guess what? From the dirt, you're going to return. And we know that process is true. That this body breaks down and it eventually turns back to dirt. And so he translated that in the literal sense of a dirtling. And it says, I beseech you that you present your bodies this dirt to God. A living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable unto Him, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the potter. He's going to make me what He wants me to be. Be transformed. Where? Through our mind first. And that mind comes with trusting the Father. Yielding to the Father. And so our duty is clay. Our duty is dirt. Is to yield to the will of the Father. You know, the Christian life is really simple. And we sing this hymn a lot of times at invitation. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. And sometimes things are not always going to be smooth, and areas to us seem like they're out of control, right? Sometimes that wheel gets to spinning so fast, it's like man, God is going to lose me. I'm going to fly off of this wheel of the earth. I'm losing control of everything. But guess what? The potter keeps us centered. The potter keeps us in control. And so the question that we ask is, is there areas in our life that we are still in control? See, as clay, sometimes when we become marred and the potter realizes that there's this problem in our life, because we won't relinquish control of that. We won't let them start over or fix it when it's fixable. And we wait too long. There's parts of me, sometimes that I fight to give over to God. You know, you can mold this part over here, but this part I've got just right. You know, I've got it all figured out. I've done it. But it all comes down ultimately to the confidence that we have in God. Do we trust Him? Do we trust Him as He has His hands on us to recognize when things aren't quite what they need to be? That God is going to fix them. And He will if we are pliable. And then when we step out of church, when we go into the world and we're faced with trials and tribulations, God says, I'm not going to put something before you that you cannot bear. When the heat comes and the pressure of life comes, if we've trusted God through the process, we're going to be able to endure. I look back, men, and I've shared this with you before over my ministry, and if some things that I've had to deal with in the ministry 35 years later, I had to deal with in the first two years of my ministry, there is absolutely no way that I could have done it. It would have broke me. It would have shattered. But you know what? God has used each and every situation to slowly grow me to the place that I am now. And now you look back, we were talking and reminiscing today on the way home after we was going through again, all of the churches that I've pastored, and we were naming off people, some that we were very close to, some that were enemies, some that were, you know, and we were just going over this. But every single one of them, whether good, bad, or whatever, every single one of them, God allowed in my life that I was allowed in their life to make us who we are today. And do we trust the process? Are we confident enough in God that we'll just give ourselves to Him and say, God, You find the mar. You find the fault. You fix it. You work on it. And when you really, this week as you sit down again and read through the Beatitudes, think of the Beatitudes as you think about the potter and the clay. Because that's what they are. They're things that God starts on the inside with that filling of the Holy Spirit that are then manifest on the outside. And we can't manifest it on the outside if it's not fixed on the inside. And so God is working with us so that we can remain poor in spirit, so that we can mourn, so that we can do the thing that He asked us to do so that we can receive the blessing from it. I want to be a blessing. I want to be an honor. I want to be a vessel that God is proud of. Paul said that was his goal in life, wasn't it? Paul said this one thing I do, I forget about my past, all of my mistakes. He said I was a blasphemer. I was a persecutor of the church. I was all of these things. But he said this one thing I do is I forget about the past. And he said I press toward the future. And what is that future? The mark of the prize of the high calling of God. So a vessel that God is able to look and show and say, man, just like Jesus Christ, this is my Son in whom I am well pleased. That's our goal and that's our purpose. Do we trust God? And are we confident enough that He can do it that we will yield and allow Him to do it? He's the potter and we're the clay. As we stand and have a verse of invitation.