Hope you've had a good week and you're expecting the Lord's blessing in another. And it's good to be in God's house, isn't it? And to be able to fellowship with one another. Please be turning to Jeremiah chapter 18 this morning, Jeremiah 18. Again, for those of you who are joining us this morning, we are highlighting our way through the book of Jeremiah and we are looking at a series entitled courage and compassion. And for me, those two words summarize the life and the character of the prophet Jeremiah. We have seen in the past sermons that Jeremiah had great courage to deliver a message that he was told from the outset would not be popular. He had the courage to go and even as we looked at last week to go and stand in the city gates and proclaim the spiritual dearth that had fallen upon this nation. He had the compassion, though, that even though they rejected his message, even though, as we will see in the near future, they would also take him by force and try and attempt to do bodily harm, he possessed the courage to keep on doing the commands of God. And so what a man he is. But it's not just the man that we see and it's not just the biography, as it were, of Jeremiah the prophet that we are to hold up in view. We are to see something about God Himself in this prophecy. And that's Jeremiah's desire as well. And we see our God being compassionate. We see Him being the loving God who reminds His people that though they have deserted Him and though that they have neglected His commands and the message, as well as the messenger, He was compassionate and that if they would return to Him, He was always willing to forgive them of their sins and He was willing to bring about revival. You know, let me reiterate something I've said and I know many times, but I know that like you, when I read the Old Testament, I am continually amazed at how relevant the Scripture really is. That word is bandied about in our day, and they always say, well, we need something relevant for us when we go to church or we need something that's going to help us. Listen, if you read the prophecies of the Old Testament and the characteristics of the nations and the sins that they were participating in, I don't think you can get more relevant than what was going on here to our day, because we see ourselves And again, the character of man's heart reflected in the history of Judah and Israel. So all of these things, my friends, are very applicable for our day and very applicable for you and I as individuals as well. But we come to this chapter 18, and this is one of the more familiar passages, perhaps, in this prophecy. And I like to read the first six verses. Follow with me as I read. The word of the Lord 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 has 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 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. Let us pray. Father, I would ask now that you would calm and still our hearts, that, Lord, we would come to thee with a humble spirit with eyes that are willing to see and ears that are willing to hear Thy Word, and most of all, hearts that are open to receive whatever Thou hast for us today. Help us to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's promptings. Help us to see our God high and lifted up. So, Lord, I ask for Thy presence among us now, and we pray these sayings in Jesus' name, Amen. One of my best remembrances that I have from elementary school was certain field trips that they would take us on. Now, being a kid growing up at BJU on the campus, sometimes our field trips weren't too far. And in fact, one of the things that seemed like that they always did in almost every grade was they would take us to the fine arts wing of the fine arts building. and take us up to the second floor and we would go into the art department there into the pottery area and they would have one of the art teachers take us and we would watch a demonstration on how to make pottery. I don't know how many times we did that. And so we would watch them make something on the wheel and they would take it from the simple a lump of clay and they would put it on that wheel and they would make something and show us all of the process. And and we did that numerous times. The only thing that bothered me about that was I would always think to myself, why don't they let one of us students do it? OK, it always bothered me, you know, at least, you know, let us get some some hands on experience. And I always. wanted to see what it was like to have that clay in your hands and be able to shape it. And I always liked it when they would take and stick their hands and they would raise that clay. Have you ever seen them do that before? They just kind of would raise off of that wheel and they would shape it and mold it. And I always thought, man, why can't you let me volunteer to do that and get my hands in on that? It was always the teachers who did it. But anyway, so I'm still bitter about that. Being being a student and but but nevertheless, still to this day, I've had the desire to at least see what it's like. And I never have had the opportunity to do that. But it's always fascinated me how they could take that clay and they could shape it. And within a matter of seconds, they could change that shape and and make it really into whatever they wanted to. And I've never been able to get away from those experiences and that memory whenever I come to this passage or other passages within Scripture that talk about the potter and the clay. And it brings back to mind, and I can vividly see those things. In Jeremiah's day, they didn't have all of the the electric wheels or whatever, but the method was much the same. It hasn't changed over the thousands of years that they've been doing it. And so maybe some of you have done that or you've seen that you can picture in your mind this process and how it works. But it is interesting, is it not, that Here, Jeremiah, he is ministering to the Lord and all of a sudden the Lord comes and says, Jeremiah, I want to take you on a field trip and I want you to go down to this potter's house. And he obviously knew which one to go to. And he says, and here you're going to learn an object lesson. Now, again, it's very interesting that sprinkled throughout this prophecy, God had these kinds of experiences for this prophet. One of the chapters that we didn't cover, but you can go back and read for yourself in chapter 13, is a very interesting object lesson where he said, I want you to take this this sash or it's translated in the King James as a girdle, but it's actually a linen sash. And he said, what I want you to do is I want you to take that sash and I want you to obtain it, take it and I want you to bury it in the River Euphrates and leave it there and So Jeremiah did that. So then he says, Jeremiah, I want you to go and now I want you to go dig it up after a period of time. And so Jeremiah goes and he digs that thing up. And it was it was all marred. It was it was not worth what it once was. And and we read that scripture. We think, what in the world possibly could he learn by burying a linen sash? But God, he wanted to picture for these men, and it wasn't, by the way, just Jeremiah. There's an interesting command that God gives Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter five. I've always tried to think of a sermon that I could preach from Ezekiel five. And I've always thought about a good title for that would be a sermon in a shave. OK, because God tells Ezekiel to shave his beard. He says, I want you to go to the city square and I want you to divide that beard, that hair into three parts and then burn one of them. In strange commands of God, there's a whole other thing. You're thinking, what in the world could they learn by these things? It was designed to do this. It was designed to picture for them, in front of them, to have their eyes behold an object lesson so that they could understand God's mindset towards the nation. And even though those may sound ridiculous to us in our day, they were designed to give first hand knowledge to the messenger what God's message really meant. And here was another one of those in Jeremiah 18. Jeremiah, go down. I want you to take a field trip to the potter and I want you to observe what he's doing. Now, did not Jeremiah, this man, this one who grew up, know what a potter did? Obviously, he most likely did. He knew the process. He knew what took place, but God wanted him to see it. He wanted him to understand his mindset. And so Jeremiah does this. So we see this morning in verse three, we see, first of all, the vessel molded, the vessel molded. It is interesting in the first two verses of introduction that Jeremiah, I think what comes to my mind here is here is a prophet, again, who was delivering a message of immense difficulty and he was up against great opposition. But here was one who was always open to the word of the Lord. Here was one who had the heart and the sensitivity in his mind and in his heart to receive the words of the Lord. We never see a time where he says that I don't want to hear it anymore. Now, there are verses where he gets discouraged and we'll see some of those. There are verses where he wants to give up, but he never does so completely. He never comes to the point where he says, I'm through with this. He is a human like us and we'll see some verses in the near future again. where he is very discouraged and he's very downtrodden, but yet he doesn't give up. And then we see in the other part of this introduction, we see he says arise and go down to the potter's house. Here he is. And again, what do we see him? He obeys immediately. Here's one who's open and he's obedient. And here is one who is always doing what God says. There's no questioning. There is not the idea, well, Lord, I already know what a potter does. Lord, do I really have to go down there and see this? I understand what he does. He makes clay pots and that's great. Here's one who does exactly what the Lord says to do when he says to do it. Folks, I think that there is a great characteristic that you and I should emulate, that we should do exactly what God tells us to do when he says to do it. A lot of times we will procrastinate and say, well, Lord, I really don't know about that, Lord. And we may not utter it in a voice audibly, but in our mind we'll say, well, Lord, I really think I know what I'm doing here. And Lord, I really think I know better. And we might reluctantly and eventually do what God says, but not right away. Here's one who says he goes, he arises and he does what he's supposed to. And here he says to Jeremiah, I want you to hear. my words." Now, that's a very interesting phrase because it would be all picture. It would be all demonstration. But this demonstration of the potter's actions were God's words. And so we see the vessel molded in verse three. Then I went down to the potter's house and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. So what words, what was it that he was supposed to learn here? Again, we must understand that this prophecy is not just about Jeremiah and his times. It is not simply a historical record of what happened in Judah. What we're supposed to learn, and Jeremiah was learning this personally. He was supposed to learn something about his God. My friends, we need to understand something. That in almost every page, and in particularly the Old Testament, we're supposed to learn something about Almighty God. We're supposed to learn something about Him. And that's the design and the scope of the Old Testament and all the way through the New. It's designed to teach us something about Him. It is not just the literary narratives and all of those things that are important, but those things are not the real reason that we have what we have in the Scripture. The real reason that God has preserved His Word for us is so that we will learn something about Him And so that we will serve him better as his children. That's exactly what he was trying to teach Jeremiah. What was he trying to learn or teach, I should say, Jeremiah and eventually the nation about himself through the wheel and through the makings and the arts craft of a potter? Well, first of all, that the potter, which is representative of God himself, is sovereign. The potter is sovereign. He's sovereign over what? He's sovereign over that old lump of clay. Now, one of the overarching themes that you'll find again in the Old Testament is the whole idea that God is sovereign. You can go from the book of Genesis all the way to Malachi. And you'll find that one of the things that God desired to drill into the hearts and the minds of the people was that Jehovah God is sovereign over the earth. He's sovereign over the nation. He was sovereign over Israel. And though they went their own way and they were controlled by their own devices and sin, God was still sovereign. You know, I think there's a good application for us. Here we are in the 21st century, a man thinks he's figured out everything. Here we are and we have the super powers and the super nations that have all kinds of technology and things that we think that we have done. And we're all proud of ourselves. But yet, I will say this, my friends, that God is still sovereign. God is still sovereign. He is sovereign over this nation and He is sovereign over the nations of this world. Even though man may not realize that, man may not come to terms with that, God is still on His throne and He is the all-powerful One. This is what Judah rejected and they didn't want to see because, again, they were right in their own eyes and they were hardened towards that. The potter is sovereign. The clay, was unable to do or become anything on its own. Again, I think back about those demonstrations as a child. They would take that chunk of clay and and they would actually slam it down on the middle of that wheel, and all it was was just a hunk of clay was it was nothing at that point. And so they would begin to mold and they would moisten it and put the put the water on that and they would begin to spin that wheel. And with their hands, they could take something that was nothing. And make it into something. And there's the picture that God was trying to get a hold of or to show Jeremiah. He says, you, those who are actually made of the dust of the ground, you are nothing until God comes along and He with His hands, He crafts and He molds and He puts the ingredients there so that that lump of clay can be moldable. And I like the word malleable. Malleable means that it can be shaped and configured. He says that is exactly what you are. God's sovereign. And the other principle is that man, the clay, the nation, the individuals that make up that nation are nothing without the potter. Folks, I think there's a lesson again in there for us. Help us, Lord, never to forget that we, all of us, even as his children, we are nothing without the hands of the potter. Let us always remember that. The clay again, here's another principle. The clay has no intrinsic value on its own. The clay has no intrinsic value on its own as it sits there on the middle of that wheel as an old lump of clay. Nobody's going to pay for that. Nobody's going to buy that. It's not pretty. It's not anything. It's just an old lump. But yet what? But the potter can fashion it into something that is valuable for his purposes and for the purposes of others. He says, that is what I want to do. That is the desire. The potter is sovereign over all of that. It can't do anything without the potter and neither can we. We also see something else in verse three. The potter is not only sovereign, the potter is skillful. And this goes right along with what we're saying here. Again, He is the Creator. He is going to create something out of essentially nothing. It's there. It's that clay and it will remain clay. It will remain lifeless and formless until He does something with it. And so, again, as He goes, He watches this guy and back in those days, of course, they didn't have the electric wheel, so they turned these wheels with their feet. And they became skilled and adept at turning those potters wheels with their feet. They were probably in pretty good shape, those potters, after doing that for a long period of time all day. And that was their vocation. That was their job. And here he watches him in the last part of verse three, he says, he wrought a work on the wheels. Who? The potter. He wrought it. He created it. And he says that Jeremiah is to be a reminder that I'm the skillful one, that I'm the one who can make you. We find the works of beauty came from his hands and the value of the clay comes from the retention and the reflection of the potter or the artist's desire. The value comes when he molds it, He makes it and what? It retains its shape. It reflects the desire of what the potter wanted. Let's think about that for a moment. Here we are and we have to admit that, yes, OK, I understand God is the potter. I'm the clay. But it goes beyond just that recognition. We have to realize that what we are to reflect and retain whatever and however he wants to mold us and make us. Now, sometimes that's not an easy process, is it? Sometimes he has to start over again, as we'll see in a moment. Sometimes, and I remember seeing, again, the artists as they took that clay and they would show us what happens when air bubbles would get into the clay and And it would cause a defect or something like this. So they would take a thin little wire and many times they would take it and they would just kind of cut the top of it off, that clay, and they would take that which was discarded and kind of throw it away. And they would start molding and shaping what was left there once again. And again, it brings back to mind that God, sometimes He has to take out the discipline, the chastening, of the one who loves us because of the defects. And he starts over on us again and he wants to make us and mold us into what he wants us to be. Let me ask you this morning, as he has tried to do that throughout your life, and by the way, how does he do that? Well, we know that figuratively speaking, God does that. by way of directing us, by way sometimes He does it through the trials that He allows into our life. Now, that's not always pleasant. And those trials are as it were the potter coming with his hands and he is molding that sometimes stiff, that difficult clay, and he's trying to make it malleable. He's trying to make it moldable for his purpose. And I wonder sometimes if we don't realize, you know, the trials that come my way are actually good for me. The trials are God's way of of making me what he wants, and I need to reflect and retain the shape that he's trying to make me in. Many times, again, events come in our life and we don't understand why they come. Many times there are things that happen and directions that are taken and we don't understand at the time why they are. But again, who is it that's doing that? Who is sovereign over the clay? It's the potter. And he's trying to make us into something. Folks, this morning, aren't you thankful that we have a potter who cares? Aren't you thankful that we have one who hasn't said, you know, this old lump of clay, I'm just going to give up on him and he's going in the trash can. No, we don't have a potter like that. We don't have one like that in Judah was needed to, although many of them didn't. They needed to recognize that their potter was not like that. We find that the second thing in the first part of verse four this morning, not only was the vessel molded, the vessel was marred. 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. So we find that the failure here or the problem with the clay was that there was a failure to respond to the potter's touch. The potter, as he molded that, he shaped it and he worked his hands with that clay. Oftentimes, the clay is such that it won't respond, if you will. And so he has to do what? Take it and start over again. And sometimes we have had that in our lives because we have been stubborn, perhaps. And you see what he says here in the last part of the verse, so he made it again, another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it again, what comes into play, his authority, his sovereignty, his skill is the one who's going to do all of that. We may question why does God do the things that he does? Because he's the master potter. And the master potter knows better than you and me. We need to understand that we just say, you know what, he's a better artisan than I am. He knows what he's doing, my friends, and he has the skill to make us into what he wants. It's also a failure to retain, as we mentioned earlier, the intended shape, the clay when it will not be moldable and malleable in the potter's hand. What is it? Well, the clay remains as clay. It's never going to become that which might be used or might be admired by others. It's not going to have any other value. Yes, it's clay. It could and has the potential to be used. But if it's not going to mold to the potter's wishes. And it's not going to be malleable in his hands. It still remains the same. With the potential of being something. I wonder sometimes, as I thought about that, how many times Christians or we as God's children are like that. Oh, yes, it's we have the potential to be something that God can use. But listen, if we're not willing to be shaped by God, listen, to do whatever He wants us to do, we remain the same. We remain as clay that's not really valuable at that point. Oh, Christian, be willing to say, God, do with me whatever You will. Now, folks, that's a hard place to get to in our Christian life. But as we mature and as we grow in the Lord, that's exactly where he wants us. I think of the old excuse me, the New Testament, where there was one individual who I admire in the New Testament who reached that level of discipleship in his life, and that was the Apostle Paul. And I know that there are others in the New Testament who reach that as well. But he stands out as one who basically says, you know what? It doesn't matter what happens to me. It doesn't matter what what befalls me. The only thing that matters is that Christ is glorified through me. It only matters that I can preach the gospel. It only matters that people can see Christ reflected in this old vessel. And if he has to do something to it to reflect himself, then so be it. Remember where he says, you know what, he can do with me whatever he wants because his grace is sufficient for me. And he says, you know what, he can do whatever he wants to with me. Paul also realized that the potter or the pot itself wasn't all that valuable. But it was what the what the pot retained that was valuable. In fact, let's turn over to Second Corinthians five for a moment, I want to show you kind of a corresponding idea here. Second Corinthians, chapter five. Actually, excuse me, chapter 4. Let's back up to chapter 4. In chapters 4 and 5, Paul is talking about the motivation for his ministry. And it's interesting that he uses something very interesting in way of our message this morning. Look at verse 7. He says, but we have this treasure in what's that word there? Earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. To me, this is one of the statements that that summarizes his life. The word for earthen vessels, there is a very interesting word in the Greek, it's called the word is ostraconos, and the word literally means clay pot. For we have this treasure in clay pots. And it reminds me, it corresponds somewhat with what Jeremiah is trying to get across here. He's saying, look, we have this treasure in clay pots. The treasure isn't of ourselves. It's what God puts in it. And he's put in that the heavenly message of the gospel of Christ. And we're supposed to pour that out to others. He realized that, you know what, an old clay pot is really nothing. An old clay pot is not really attractive. It's disposable. A clay pot is, again, only valuable by what it contains. It can be discarded at any time. And I realized that I'm just an old clay pot. And you know what? There's a lesson in there for us, my friends, because when it really comes down to it, you and I are just old clay pots. And the value that we have is the value of what the Lord, the master potter places within us. Listen, they can be broken and they can be replaced. Oh, you can dress up a clay pot. Have you ever seen some ladies who have gardens and plants and they tie ribbons and stuff around an old clay pot? Well, guess what? It dresses it up a little bit, but in the very end, it's still an old clay pot. And you can dress it up and do all that. But when it chips and breaks, you know what? You discard it and you go on to another. Paul is trying to say, you know what? That's me. I can be discarded at any time. The real value is what is placed in it. We find that when he sees this vessel marred and this one starting over again, he realizes that sin of any kind will mar the vessel. And we have to be the kind of clay pots that God desires to use in his service for him. There's one last thing I want us to see this morning. That is, again, as we saw in the last part of verse four, the vessel remade, the vessel remade. It's interesting again as I think back upon that illustration of the artist in the pottery room there making that and they would show us the way they could easily be marred and they would start over again and within just a short period of time they were back and they were creating what they wanted to show us. Once again, it didn't take very long, but it takes perseverance and it takes patience. Aren't you glad, my friend, this morning that the Master Potter doesn't give up on us? What a wonderful thing that is. And I am amazed at the depth. Of the grace and the mercy of God, we sang about that this morning, one of my favorite songs, the mercies of God, what a theme for my song. And the author of that song, Theo Chisholm, he basically says, you know what he says, if you start to try to count them, you can't do it. My friends, the mercy of God, it is unfathomable. It is. We can't measure it. We cannot understand it. But we know this, that God has a large supply of it. And for that, I'm thankful. as I know you are, because you look back and we can all look back on our lives when we have failed over and over and over again, and we go to an Almighty God, and we as those unvaluable vessels, as it were, we can go and say, Lord, fill me again. And He'll do it. Lord, I messed up again. And He'll fill these old clay pots again. And He'll continue on with us. But it's remade, he says, so he made again another vessel that seemed good to the potter to make it. Oh, what a wonderful thing that this this one who molds us, he doesn't just discard us, but yet he tries to shape us and he continues. So we see the potter's determination and we see the potter's desire. Verse five, then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?" Here is the object lesson or here's the bottom line principle that Jeremiah was to learn himself. And he was to take this principle and he was to, again, apply it to the nation as a whole. And God asked a very significant rhetorical question here. And isn't it interesting as you read that verse, do you see the compassion of the Lord as well? Here was one who could and and at this point, the nation deserved to be completely annihilated, really because of its sin. They had rejected God and everything that he had given them, everything that they knew was right, they had rejected God. And yet again, the compassion, the mercy, the grace, the love and kindness, the long suffering of a holy God. He says, oh, house of Israel, can you not hear those pleading words? Can you not see and understand the compassion of our Lord as he says these words in the ears of the prophet? Oh, house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? What did God want to do with Judah? He wanted to mold them and make them into what he wanted. And yet they were stubborn, said, we will not be molded and we will not be made into what you want us to be. But yet that was his desire. He loved them even though they rejected him. Oh, what a God we serve. Oh, what a master potter we have. who loves us as he loved them. He wanted them as his desire goes. He wanted this vessel to meet his intended desire. What was the desire? What was his intended desire? Well, we know that pretty basic, it was that this nation, like all other nations and like all other individuals, that they Be holy because He's holy. There was one message that was, again, very important in the nation of Israel that should have been ringing in their ears and lived out through their lives. That here's a holy God who has made us. Here's a holy God who has delivered us. And we need to be holy because of this holy God. That was His intended desire. He also desired that this vessel would serve His purpose. What was the purpose of Him coming to Israel and Judah and becoming their God and they being His chosen people? It was that they would reflect to all the nations of the earth that God is good and that God is just and that God is right. That was the purpose they were to serve. And again. That the vessel. Be ultimately perfected. That was the third desire, how is that vessel ultimately perfected? When they would take the when they would finish the demonstration of whatever they were making. They would always show us one last step in the process and that was after they had molded this vessel or pot or whatever they were making, they would take it and they would show us the kiln. They would show us how they would fire that and how hot it was and they would stick it in there and that's the firing process. The firing process was that last step and it showed that here the firing process would also, many times, bring about any imperfections that could not be seen or detected at the time of its making. It was the last step of it being perfected, as it were. And through the trials and the temptations and the sins and all of the things, God wanted to perfect His own. And it was as if the potter was saying, let me put you in the fire. Let's go through the firing process. And in doing so, you can see the weaknesses of your own ways. Or did he not tell them that over and over that they were not to seek their own ways and their own desires and their own devices? And he said to them, let me perfect you. That was the potter's desire because he loved them. As Jeremiah will remind this nation, he said that he loved them with what kind of love? Everlasting. From of old. From eternity past. He was reminding the people of God. That from eternity past, he always loved them and he always would. Even though they rejected him and they deserve judgments, which they would experience. We sing the phrase in the song. Mold me and make me after thy will. while I am waiting, yielded and still." Those are words that God Himself would have desired to hear from the heart and from the lips of His own people. He's the Master Potter and we're the clay. And the things that come into our life, my friend, this morning, are designed to mold us and make us. And the question may be this to you and to myself as an individual. That only you can answer before him, am I moldable? Am I yielded and still and say I'm the clay, Lord, that's all I am. Do with me what you will. It reminds me of a verse In Isaiah chapter 64, he also mentions this and let this be our prayer. Let this be the attitude of God's people. And it's interesting, he uses the same idea here in Isaiah chapter 64 and verse eight, he says this, but now, oh, Lord. Thou art our father, recognizing the sovereignty, we are the clay and thou are Potter. And we all are the work of thy hand. Let us pray. Father, we thank you so much. For the skill that you have in making us. For the sovereignty that you have over us. Oh, Father, forgive us for our stubbornness. Lord, forgive us for rejecting those things in which you have tried to make us what we ought to be. Lord, today, I pray that you'll help all of us to realize that we are only valuable because of what you have done and what you have placed within us. Oh, Father, I pray that we would have the humility to recognize that only In the potter's hands, can we be made into something that you can use? And Lord, I pray today that there would be those who before they would confess. Lord, I haven't been moldable. I haven't been that which which has cooperated with the potter. But I desire to be. Father, we know that there's probably not an individual in here who is a child of God who hasn't at one time operated in His own stubborn way and with His own stubborn will. And Father, we need and we know and we recognize that we need to come to Thee and ask the Master Potter to do with us what He desires. And Father, there may be some today under the sound of my voice who needs to come And they need to ask the potter to do with them what he wills. So, Lord, I would pray that you would give us that humble heart. So that we may do so and we pray these things in Jesus name, I wonder.