Daybreak: Jeremiah 18:1-23

Jeremiah 18, 1-23.

Nevotional Focus Verse.

O house of Israel,

cannot I do with you as this potter,

sayeth the Lord,

behold as the clay is in the potter's hand,

so are ye in mine hand,

O house of Israel,

Jeremiah 18, 6.

God sent Jeremiah to the potter's house

in order to earn a lesson.

We can picture what he saw there,

a potter and a mump of clay,

formless, gritty, ugly.

We can also picture the steps

the potter took to make a vessel.

The first thing a potter does

is to remove impurities from the clay,

washing it until every foreign particle is gone.

Until the clay is clean,

it is useless.

Next, the potter needs,

cuts and slams the clay on his table,

working it until the texture is even

and the air pockets are gone.

If bubbles remain in the clay,

the pot will explode when it is fired.

Any unyielding bits of clay

must also be worked out.

These are not stones or bits of grit,

but part of the clay itself

that has to be softened.

For if these are left,

they will show up in the final stage

and ruin the pots appearance.

After the clay has been prepared for shaping,

the potter places a mound of it

in the middle of his wheel.

As the wheel turns,

the potter applies constant pressure,

dipping his hands in water frequently

so that the clay is always kept moist and pliable.

Once the pot is formed,

it must then be fired in order to be usable.

Under the extreme heat necessary

to make the clay hard and durable,

some pieces may crack or explode,

but others come out of the kiln

as useful items of beauty.

God was showing Jeremiah

that he had the right to mold his people

and other nations.

While the potter, in Jeremiah's day was human,

God is not.

He has the authority and the power

to take something that is useless,

full of the grit of sin and rebellion

and work with it until it becomes a thing of beauty.

However, unlike the clay,

the people of Judah had a choice in the matter.

They could continue in their resistance toward God

or they could turn from their evil

and yield to him in repentance.

That concept is still true today.

Every individual has the choice

to receive God's word or reject it.

God is willing to mold the life offered to him.

He starts by removing sin from the heart.

Then he begins to work out the imperfections of character.

He applies pressure where needed,

molding and shaping and refining

with his perfect purpose in mind.

If a person resists the influences

that God allows to come his way,

he will hinder what God is trying to make of his life.

Any failure in the forming

of a spiritual vessel lies solely with the clay

for God's ways are perfect.

Every Christian will face times in his life

that are filled with difficulties,

hard places, even tragic circumstances.

The fire of these circumstances

is meant to stabilize him.

We find his nature and help him achieve

permanence in his Christian character.

Today, have you yielded yourself to the potter?

The end result will be eternally beautiful if you do.

Background information.

In this chapter, the first part of the Prophet's eighth sermon

speaks of God's sovereign means of using nations as he desires.

This communication was probably given during the first few years

that Jehokim reigned.

To portray God's message,

Jeremiah often presented his prophecies

by means of common objects or symbolic concepts.

In today's text,

God commanded Jeremiah to go to the potter's house

for the Prophet received a message.

The crafting of pottery was common in Jeremiah's time

and was accomplished using two stone wheels

operated by the potter's foot

while the potter shaped the vessel with his hands.

As Jeremiah watched the potter form

what was intended to be an attractive vessel,

the object was suddenly flawed

so the potter began again.

This illustrated the fact that through rebellion and disobedience,

the Israelites had become marred as the clay.

God had the sovereign power to remake them

but they had to submit to him.

God wanted the Jewish people to be pliable and teachable

in his hands,

ready to conform to his standards.

He has the power and sovereign right to pluck up,

pull down or destroy entirely in order to accomplish his perfect will.

He warned the people to listen to his message and change their ways.

If they had done so, they would have avoided judgment.

But the warning was that if they continued to do evil,

they would be punished.

In verse 12, the people rejected Jeremiah's words.

The term Virgin of Israel emphasized their guilt

as the chosen nation of God who had carelessly refused and forgotten his ways.

Jeremiah pointed out the absurdity of their actions and attitudes

by comparing them to leaving the cold, pure snow melt of Lebanon,

symbolic of God's pure truths,

to settle for something far inferior, worshiping false gods.

Even the heathen nations did not do this

and jude a new God's instructions.

Consequently, their land would become desolate

and an object of disdain, hissing,

and the Jewish people would be scattered.

Because of their violent rejection of Jeremiah's words,

the people of Judah plotted to portray him as a false prophet

thereby removing any credibility he had with those who heard him.

They even conspired to kill him.

As a result in the final verses of the chapter,

Jeremiah was at a very OEB and asked God to hasten judgment against them.

Conclusion

Let us keep in mind that God is the potter and we are the clay.

If we allow him to have his way in our lives,

the resulting vessel he molds will be used in a beautiful way to honor his name.