THE POTTER AND THE
CLAY
Excerpts from a study by Ray C.
Stedman
View the entire copyrigthted article
at:
Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way,
Thou art the Potter,
I am the clay,
Mold me and make me,
after Thy will,
As I am waiting,
Yielded and still. {Hymn}
In Psalm 9 the psalmist says,
"The wicked shall be turned into
hell,
and all the nations that forget
God,"
(Psalms 9:17 KJV).
Judah, in the days of Jeremiah, was a nation which had
forgotten God. All through the scope of this prophecy, across the forty years or
more that Jeremiah ministered to this nation, we are watching a nation being
turned into hell -- chaos spreading throughout the land, corruption widespread
in government, morality constantly declining, evil infecting the people, the
life of the nation gradually becoming more and more hellish -- exactly in
accordance with the prediction of the psalmist.
In our own day, as you know, America is a nation which is rapidly
forgetting God. And so, in our own time, we too are watching the phenomenon of a
nation which has forgotten God being turned into hell -- with corruption
spreading in the land, the moral fiber of our people losing its consistency, the
government increasingly unable to govern properly, the institutions of American
life being shaken by frequent panics and torn with dissension -- all this
exactly in line with the prediction of the Scriptures.
The message of Jeremiah, as we have seen in this book, is that of a
growing revelation of the heart of the God who turns a nation into hell. We hear
the judgments of God in this book, but what the prophet is being taught as he
goes along is to know the heart of the God of judgment. And what a different
picture that is! I think the great message of this book to us is to see what
lies behind that which appears to be the ruthlessness of God in dealing with a
people, and learning, from chapter to chapter, what kind of God is behind the
judgment.
In Jeremiah Chapter 17, we see that Jeremiah was taught two
great truths:
(Jer 17:9a KJV)
The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked:
That is, "There is no hope in man." No nation, ever,
has reversed the trend of deterioration simply by trying to gather up its own
resources and gird up its moral strength and, through human wisdom, work out a
remedy for the degenerative faculty in that nation. It has never happened. There
is no hope in man. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
corrupt. But Jeremiah was also shown
(Jer 17:12 KJV)
A glorious high throne from the
beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
He tells us, this is the place of our sanctuary. That is, "There is
hope in God -- the present availability of God to an individual or a nation."
And when that person, or that people, turns to that God, healing begins to come
back into that life. This is in line with the well-known promise of Second
Chronicles 7:14:
(2 Chr 7:14
KJV)
If my people, which are
called by my name,
shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways;
then will I hear from heaven, and
will forgive their sin,
and will heal their
land.
In Jeremiah Chapter 18 we have an additional lesson taught to
the prophet. This section, Chapters 18 and 19, falls into the same period
of time in Jeremiah's ministry as the previous two chapters, which we have
studied before. The chapter opens with these words...
(Jer
18:1-4 KJV)
The word which came to
Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
{2} Arise, and go
down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my
words.
{3} Then I went down
to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
{4} And 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.
God uses many things to teach his people. Here we have
remarkable visual aids which appear from time to time in this book whereby God
imparts lessons to this prophet. Here is another. Jeremiah was sent down to the
potter's house, and there he saw three simple things. But they conveyed to him a
fantastic lesson. Through the courtesy of Mike Johnson of Discovery Art Guild,
we too have been at the potter's house this morning, watching the potter making
a vessel of clay. We have observed the same things that Jeremiah did, for the
art of making a pot has not changed through the centuries. The wheel is now
turned by an electric motor, but that is about the only difference. Even this is
still controlled by the foot of the potter. The clay is the same as it has
always been. The potter is the same, with his capable hands, guided by his
intelligence, working to mold and shape the clay into the vessel he has in
mind.
When I was in Israel a few years ago, visiting the tomb of Abraham in
the village of Hebron, I noticed right across the street a potter's house, and I
went "down to the potter's house". There was the potter making his vessel in the
ancient way, unchanged from the days of Jeremiah. There were the same
ingredients -- the potter, the clay, and the wheel. The potter had a little
treadle at his foot which he used to make the wheel turn and to control its
speed. Today those same ingredients are still part of the making of a
pot.
What did Jeremiah see in this lesson? First there was the clay. And
Jeremiah knew, as he watched the potter shaping and molding the clay, that he
was looking at a picture of himself, and of every man, and of every nation. We
are the clay. Both Isaiah and Zechariah, in the Old Testament, join with
Jeremiah in presenting this picture of the potter and the clay. And in the New
Testament we have the voice of Paul in that great passage in Romans 9, reminding
us that God is the Potter and we are the clay. So Jeremiah saw the clay being
shaped and molded into a vessel. Then some imperfection in the clay spoiled it
in the potter's hand, and the potter crumbled it up, and began anew the process
of shaping it into a vessel that pleased him.
Jeremiah saw the wheel turning constantly, bringing the clay against
the potter's hand. That wheel stands for the turning circumstances of our life,
under the control of the Potter, for it is the potter's foot that guides the
wheel. The lesson is clear. As our life is being shaped and molded by the Great
Potter, it is the circumstances of our life, the wheels of circumstance, what
Browning called "this dance of plastic circumstance", which bring us again and
again under the potter's hand, under the pressure of the molding fingers of the
Potter, so that he shapes the vessel according to his will.
Then, Jeremiah saw the potter. God, he knew, was the Great Potter,
with absolute right over the clay to make it what he wanted it to be. Paul
argues this with keen and clear logic in Romans 9:
(Rom 9:19-21
KJV)
Thou wilt say then unto me,
Why doth God yet find fault? For who hath resisted his
will?
{20} Nay but, O man, who art
thou that repliest against God?
Shall the thing formed say to him
that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
{21} Hath not the potter power
over the clay,
of the same lump to make one
vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Of course he has. The vessel is shaped according to the image
in the potter's mind.
So Jeremiah, watching, learned that an individual or a nation is clay
in the Great Potter's hands. He has a sovereign right to make it what he wants
it to be. He has the skill and design to work with the clay and to bring it to
pass. And if there be some imperfection in the clay, something which mars the
design, spoils the work, the potter simply crushes the clay down to a lump and
begins again to make it yet a vessel according to his own mind. In the verses
which follow, this lesson is applied to the nation:
(Jer
18:5-10 KJV)
Then the word of the
LORD came to me, saying,
{6} 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 ye in mine hand, O house of
Israel.
{7} At what instant
I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom,
to pluck up, and to pull
down, and to destroy it;
{8} If that nation,
against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil,
I will repent of the
evil that I thought to do unto them.
{9} And at what instant I
shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant
it;
{10} If it do evil in my
sight, that it obey not my voice,
then I will repent
of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
In other, more direct terms, this is the same lesson Jeremiah
learned at the potter's house, applied to the nation. When the pressure the
potter applies is successful in turning the clay in the right direction, the
potter seems to repent, the pressure is relieved, and the clay is allowed then
to remain in the form it has taken. But when something in the clay resists, the
potter then seems to repent of making a vessel at all, and he crushes it into a
lump, and begins again to make it yet into the vessel he desires.
And this is true of our individual lives. If some hard circumstance
comes into your life -- and it may be there right now, or it may be just around
the corner, or you may just have passed through it -- that circumstance is the
wheel of God, to bring you against the pressure of the Potter's hand. If you do
not resist, if your will does not spoil the work by murmuring, grumbling, or
complaining, or feeling resentful and bitter, but you accept the working of the
Potter, then the pressure is relieved, and the vessel takes shape. But if there
is resistance, if the human will, like some imperfection in the clay, chooses
something other than the Potter has in mind, then the Potter can do nothing else
but crush it down to a lump once again and, beginning with the same lump, make
it over into a vessel which suits his heart and mind. The great lesson Jeremiah
learned at the potter's house was that of the sovereign control of God. He is
the potter, and we are the clay.
There is a beautiful lesson here in the word "repent" as it is used
in reference to God. When you and I talk about repenting, we speak in terms of
"changing our mind". We started out to do something. Circumstances occurred
which caused us to change our mind. So we then did something else. But that is
not the way the word is used concerning God. Many Scriptures tell us that God
never changes his mind. And though we employ the term "repent" because it looks
as if he has changed his mind, it does not express the thought adequately. The
Hebrew used here is very interesting. It is really the word "sigh," "to heave a
sigh." It can be used either as a sigh of sorrow, or a sigh or relief. The word
is used both ways here in this passage. God says, "If I say to a nation, 'I'm
going to destroy you,' or to an individual, 'I'm going to uproot you, crush
you,' and I bring pressure upon you to that end, if you yield to it, if you
conform to what the pressure is driving you to, then I will heave a sigh of
relief."....
This is the kind of sigh God sighs. That is the way he repents. He
has one thing in mind -- to make a vessel according to his design -- and nothing
will stop him. But he does not like to judge. He does not like harshness and
severity and chastisement. In fact, in the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah
says...
(Lam 3:31-33
KJV)
For the Lord will not cast
off for ever:
{32} But though he cause
grief,
yet will he have compassion
according to the multitude of his mercies.
{33} For he doth not afflict
willingly nor grieve the children of men.
Isaiah calls it God's "strange" work. Judgment is not according to
the desire of his heart. What he is doing is bringing pressure, molding and
shaping the clay, forcing it up and out and into the shape of the vessel he
wants it to be, hoping the clay will conform. And when it yields to his touch,
he breathes a sigh of relief: "This is enough pressure, I don't have to bring
any more."
But there is also the sigh of sorrow, the sigh which says, "Oh, it
has to be done, there's no other way out." That is what you see occurring here
in Judah. Verse 11:
(Jer
18:11 KJV)
Now therefore go to,
speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
saying,
Thus saith the LORD;
Behold, I frame[Heb=to squeeze as a potter] evil against
you,
and
devise[Heb=weave] a device[H=plot] against you:
return ye now every
one from his evil way,
and make your ways and
your doings good.
There is the heart of the potter, hoping that the pressure he is
exerting will be enough so that he can sigh with relief as the clay yields to
his hands. But as verse 12 makes clear, in Judah's case it did not
happen:
(Jer 18:12 KJV)
And they said, There is no
hope:
but we will walk after our
own devices,
and we will every one do the
imagination of his evil heart.
And so God sighed with sorrow. He expressed it in the verses which
follow:
(Jer 18:13-14 KJV)
Therefore thus saith the LORD;
Ask ye now among the heathen, who
hath heard such things:
the virgin of Israel hath done a
very horrible thing.
{14} Will a man leave the
snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field?
or shall the cold flowing
waters that come from another place be forsaken?
That is, "Does this ever happen in nature? Does snow melt away from
the tops of the high mountains? Do the waters of these streams ever run dry when
the snow is continually melting? No, it is absolutely contrary to
nature."
(Jer
18:15-17 KJV)
Because my people
hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity,
and they have caused them
to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths,
to walk in paths, in
a way not cast[H=raised up;
{16} To make their
land desolate, and a perpetual hissing;
every one that passeth
thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head.
{17} I will scatter
them as with an east wind before the enemy;
I will show them the back,
and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
That is the Potter, smashing the clay down into a lump again, that
he might begin anew and make it yet a vessel according to his own
design.
Jeremiah had been to the potter's house. He had seen the potter
making a vessel, and he knew that it was love behind the Potter's pressures, and
that when the vessel was marred, the Potter was capable of crushing it down
again, bringing it to nothing but a lump, and then molding it, shaping it once
again, perhaps doing this again and again, until at last it fulfilled what God
wanted. That is the great lesson Jeremiah learned at the potter's house, and
that we can learn at the potter's house, as well. In Paul's second letter to
Timothy he says,
(2 Tim 2:19-21 KJV)
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.
{20} 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.
{21} If a man therefore purge
himself from these,
he shall be a vessel unto honour,
sanctified, and meet for the master's use,
and prepared unto every good
work.
...This once again is God's wonderful reminder of the heart
of the Potter. For if you watch this Potter very carefully, at work in your
life, you will find that his hands and his feet bear nail prints, and that it is
through blood, the blood of the Potter himself, that the vessel is being shaped
into what he wants it to be.
When we are in the Potter's hands, feeling his pressures, feeling
the molding of his fingers, we can relax and trust him, for we know that this
Potter has suffered with us and knows how we feel, but is determined to make us
into a vessel
(2 Timothy 2:21 KJV).
...meet for the master's use, and
prepared unto every good work.
What a tremendous lesson, what a beautiful lesson Jeremiah
learned at the potter's house -- one which I hope will guide us and guard us
under the pressures which are coming into our lives these days.
Remember that the Potter has a purpose in mind, and the skill and ability to
fulfill it, no matter how many times he may have to make the vessel over again.
Isa 64:8 (KJV)
But now, O LORD, thou art our
father;
we are the clay, and thou our
potter;
and we all are the work of thy
hand.
IXTHEUS CHRISTIAN GROWTH DEVOTIONALS
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God Bless You.....brother
bob.......<><
