Jeremiah chapter 18. Recently I went to a potter's studio and I've been, this message has been brewing ever since. I've been just chomping at the bit to preach this. Jeremiah chapter 18. Let's read the first 11 verses. I'm going to look at more scripture than that here, but I want to just read these first 11. The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter's house. 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 as seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, now here's the message that the Lord gave to Jeremiah, 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. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy, 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. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant? 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. Now, therefore, go to, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord. Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you. Return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. All right, let's just get right into this. You and I are in the hands of God, just like clay in a potter's hand. Just like clay in a potter's hand. Verse 6, He said, Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. Now every man literally is clay. Every man literally is dust. We're all made out of the dust. God formed Adam of the dust. Can you picture a body being molded and formed out of the dust that looks like our body? And then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. We're dust. God's not in our hands. We're in God's hands. God's not at our will. We're at God's mercy. We're at His will. Do what He will. God is not ruled by what we think or what we say or what we do. We're ruled by what He does. What He's purposed. What He's purposed from eternity. He's talking to Israel here. Children of Israel. The house of Israel. Israel came out of Egypt. Red dirt Egypt, where they came from. And they were brought out of there. And they were brought and made a people for himself, formed for himself. That's what his true Israel is. That's what God's true people are. They're vessels prepared afore, prepared before the world began for his glory. for His own glory. That's what His vessels are. He says in Isaiah 64, 8. Listen to this. Let's look over there. Isaiah 64, 8. Here's the heart that He gives. Now, O Lord, Thou art our Father, we are the clay, and Thou our potter, And we all the work of thy hand. This is the heart of the believer. Now God has the power and he has the right absolutely, totally, completely to do with his own whatever he will. Whatever he will. He said here, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter? What did the potter do? Look at verse 3. Jeremiah 18 verse 3. He said, 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. The Lord said, Can I not do with you as I did with that vessel of clay? The wheels of the potter You know, nowadays potters have one wheel, but even on that one wheel, it's automated, it's mechanical. There's some wheels inside the body of that thing turning that wheel. And in the old-fashioned wheels had several pulleys on them to where they turned them and they moved and it spun the whole wheel. These wheels, are a good representation of God's working all things together for the good of them that love God, for the good of them who are called according to His purpose. God, before the world ever started, chose a people and He predestinated He predestinated that people. He predestinated them so that everything that comes to pass, our God we're talking about is sovereign. There's not a leaf falling off a tree today that didn't fall off by the touch of His wind and the drop of His rain and fall exactly when it should have fallen and land exactly where it ought to land. That's how sovereign God is. And everything He works in this earth and everything He's done since He made time, He's been working together for the good of his house, for the good of those that he predestinated to be conformed to his son. Look at Ephesians 1, 5. I don't know why men have a problem with this. We get up every morning and try to predestinate what our day is going to be. From the moment we get up, we try to. And if we had the power to, we would. But God has the power to. And from the day that is everlasting, eternal. before there ever was a day. He predestinated everything. And He brings it back about just as He purposed. Ephesians 1.5, having predestinated us, this is talking about those that He chose. Verse 3, Blessed be the Godfather of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as He had chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. Look down at verse 11. that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated Verse 11, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. Now why did God do it that way? Verse 12 says that we should be to the praise of His glory. God's glory, God the Father's glory, who first trusted in Christ. He gave all this into the hand of his Son. He said, Behold mine elect whom I've chosen, my servant whom I uphold. He'll bring forth righteousness. However, the purpose of God according to election is that his Son might be glorified. God entrusted the whole work of His glorifying His name, of saving His people, He trusted every bit of it into the hands of His Son Christ. And everyone that's going to be brought to trust His Son Christ are going to be to the praise of the glory of His grace who first trusted Christ. Now, that potter uses that wheel. to shape that clay. All that wheel, those wheels, are used to shape that clay. And everything God's doing in this world, He's doing to bring His people to Himself, and having brought them to Himself, He's making them molded into what He would mold them into. He's making them molded into the image of Christ His Son. I went and watched this potter, and I asked him some questions while I was watching him. And he was explaining to me two things that the potter does on the wheels. The first thing a potter does when he takes a lump of clay, there's just a lump there, and he reaches first and he gets a lump out of it. He gets a lump out of it for himself to make what he wants to make. That's what God did in divine election. He chose whom he would out of this lump of fallen humanity. And he take that lump, that potter takes that lump and he puts it on that wheel. He slaps it down on that wheel, plants it on that wheel. And he centers, he centers that clay on that wheel. He centers it so that the shape that that vessel makes gets its shape from the center of that wheel. You put something on a wheel, you know, you put any kind of vessel on a wheel, if it's all lopsided or all centered, it's going to be lopsided. It's going to wobble. Well, that potter's setting that clay on that wheel, and he's centering it on that wheel. with God is Christ Jesus. That's the center. Let me read you this, Romans 8, 29. Whom he did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. He is that one God is molding his people to. He's the one that, he's the center. This is the second thing that potters do it. And that clay, that clay has what's called silica in it. It's pebbles and it's piece of particles. It's all the little bitty, little bitty rocks and things that's been ground up that makes that vessel, that makes that clay and all that silica in there. When you watch a potter, he starts, he puts it on there and he takes water and he moistens it and he takes his hand and he starts working from the inside and the outside and he starts working that pot up and he works it back down. and he works it back up, and he works it back down. And I said, why do you do that? Why are you working that clay up and down like that? And he said, I'm turning the silica in this clay all in the same direction. If you take a lump of clay, And that silica hadn't been turned all in the same direction. You can fashion it and shape it into something, into whatever kind of form of a vessel you want to. But when you put it in the kiln, when you put it in the furnace and you put it in the heat, because all those particles in there are facing all different directions, it's going to bust and break and fall apart. You know what God's doing in everything He's doing right now in your life and in my life? He is turning every one of His children. He's making them pliable and He's turning all the little rocks and pebbles that make up His vessel. He's turning them all one direction. He's turning them all to Christ. All to Christ. Not to each other. They'll go in that fire and they'll bust right apart. but he's turned them all to Christ. If they're all facing one direction, when they enter the fire and they enter the heat, they temper together and that vessel becomes solid and it becomes, it's a vessel. It's a vessel. A good vessel. That's what God's doing in everything he's working in Providence. Everything he's doing. Now, look here at this this first thing that we learn. God's the potter. He's the potter. Absolutely, irresistibly sovereign in the salvation of His people. He's able to do with His own whatever pleases Him. Even as the potter has power of the clay, He said, Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand. So are you in My hand. When we get finished, we're going to sing a song. 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, while I am waiting, yielded and still." Just fashion as he would. Here's the second thing. God exercises this sovereign will in absolute equity and justice. absolute equity and justice. When God gives his light to a people, when he gives light in a place to a people, and they begin to turn from his salvation, from walking in the light that God has given, God gives plenty of warning. He gives them space to repent. And if they repent, God delights to show them mercy. Look at verse 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. This is what he sent Jeremiah to tell them. This is what he was fixing to do. He said, and at what instance I speak that I'm fixing to destroy a people. If that nation against whom I pronounce turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. Does that mean God repents? He's speaking in terms we can understand. God never changes. But he, he, he, as it appears to us, he does, he's speaking to us so we can hear it. But now if he does this work, if he if he if we turn, he gets all the glory. He's the one doing the molding. I want you to see this in a moment. But now look, if that people harden their hearts, Like a pebble-filled lump of clay. That's what that potter was telling me. When you start working that clay, if there's too big of pieces in there, isn't that a beautiful picture? If we think we're too big, we're going to mar the vessel. We're going to mar it. And if it starts working and there's any of that silicon, it won't turn in the right way, it'll It'll be marred in his hand as he's working it. Marred in his hand. But now he says this, if they harden their hearts like a pebble filled lump of clay, the potter's gonna take away his presence. And he's gonna bring to pass his promised wrath. Look at verse 9. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it. If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I'll repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. They turn from me. And there's nobody to blame but the sinner. There's nobody to blame but the sinner. Now, be sure you get this. God is sovereign. God's grace is free. God's grace is sovereign. Let's look at Romans 9-11. God chooses whom He will, and it's not based upon any good or evil in the sinner. But God doesn't send men to hell for that reason. God doesn't arbitrarily predestinate men to hell. Would it be just? God's a just God. Everything He does is just and right. Men go to hell because we sinned against God. We go to hell because we did it. That's what He's saying here. He's just and He's equitable. If we're saved, He gets the glory. If we turn from Him, we got nobody to blame but ourselves. Well, I can't reason that in my mind. I can't either. I just bowed to God's Word. We just read what He said. Look at what he says here, Romans 9.11. The children, being not yet born, having done neither good nor evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. These boys weren't even born yet. He said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Is there unrighteousness with God? No. Look down at verse 15. He said to Moses, I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion. So then it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Now, we're saved by His grace. Colossians 112 says, We give thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet, fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, fit, prepared afore unto glory, for glory by Him. But if a sinner attempts to come to God any other way, And this is the sin. This is the condemnation. This is the sin right here. This is the sin Adam committed in the garden. And this is the condemnation that passed upon all men. If any man turns from God, from complete and total salvation in the Lord, if we try to come to God any way, But God, our Savior, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the wages of that, our own sin and rebellion, the wages of it is death. We earned it. Right now, some of the young people are having jobs for their first time. And Alexis is real happy right now. She just got her first job. AJ's not real happy. He's been working at his for a while. But you earn those wages. That's what you, you earn those wages. Well, salvation's not, it's not a wage earned. It's by God's grace. But if we perish, it's a wage earned. We earned it. We got what we worked for. Got what we worked for. This is the condemnation. Lights come into the world and men love darkness rather than light. He that believeth is not condemned. But he that doesn't believe, he's condemned already. Why? He doesn't believe on God. He hadn't trust. He's turned from God in Adam. And he's dead. He's spiritually dead. He's condemned. He's under the wrath of God. But those who are called by His grace, they come to the light. They come to Christ to light, that their deeds may be made manifest, open, open, declared publicly, professed before the whole world. All my deeds are worked in God, by God, by the potter, by Christ the Lord. Now this was the offense of what Israel was doing. Now this is the third thing. You see, first, God the Father, God Himself is the potter and His people are the clay. The second thing is, what God does is equitable and just. He saved in perfect justice. He calls His people in perfect justice. He calls them through truth. He calls them through the gospel. He calls them through His Word that He sends. And when He does that, He calls them and makes them anew in heart to behold all this salvation is wrought by God in His Son Christ Jesus the Lord. And He did it justly Judgment has been brought forth in truth. We never could do that. We never did do that. Israel didn't do it. None of the Gentile nations did it. None of that. And this is the condemnation. Now, we're going to see that salvation is in the Lord sort of as we look at how Israel rejected him. Alright, let's look here. God is speaking of this nation Israel. And you know everything, we've looked at this over and over in the scriptures in the Old Testament. Everything that the Lord God did to Israel, giving them the tabernacle, giving them an altar, giving them a mercy seat, giving them a high priest, giving them a lamb, giving them that foundation of redemption in that tabernacle. Everything that was in that tabernacle. That tabernacle itself and every piece of furniture in that tabernacle. Whether we can see it or enter into it or understand it or not, everything in that tabernacle glorifies God's Son, His salvation, Christ Jesus the Lord. Everything about it does. He's the high priest. He's the lamb. He's the mercy seat. That's what the word propitiation means. He's the mercy seat. He's the place where God will meet with His people over the mercy seat. Because the blood's got to be shed, and that broken law's got to be covered, and His people got to be made righteous, and they got to come to Him in perfect fidelity. And that perfect perfection is Christ Himself. Now look, that's what this offense was with Israel. That's what they had done. They were turning. They still had a form of godliness. They were still coming actually into God's tabernacle. But, they were worshipping Baal in that tabernacle. Just as they were worshipping Baal outside of that tabernacle. Just as they were worshipping Baal with the people all around them, they were worshipping Baal when they came into His tabernacle. Now watch this. Let's look down at Jeremiah 19.4. And then we'll go back up to chapter 18 and work our way back down. Jeremiah 19.4. Because they have forsaken Me, Now this is what he's going to say. This is why he's breaking this. They have forsaken me and have estranged this place and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocence. They have built also the high places of Baal." It wasn't enough to bring this idolatry into God's house. They've built high places of Baal. "...to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind." God said. Are folks still doing this today? Still doing this today? Still doing this today? You see, they were doing this in the house that went by the Lord's name, Jehovah's name. They were doing this in the house that went by Jehovah Jesus name, doing this in the house and calling out, Lord, Lord. and worshiping Belbel. So God sent his prophet to preach this word. This is why he sent him. Now back up at Jeremiah 18.11. Now he showed him all this lesson in the potter's house and he showed him how God is sovereign and he showed him how he deals in equity and justice and then he says now verse 11 now therefore go to and speak to the men of judah and to the inhabitants of jerusalem saying thus saith the lord behold i frame evil against you and devise a device against you we just saw why he did They turned from the Lord. They had a form of godliness. They had a form of religion. But their heart was far from God. Now watch. Return ye now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good. How does a sinner, how does a sinner make his ways and his doings good? You know what God was calling on them to do? He was calling on them Two, put away everything else but the blood of a lamb. Put away everything else but God's high priest. Put away everything else but God's mercy seat. Put away everything else but Christ Jesus the Lord. That's what he's declaring here. Put everything else away. How do we do good? How are our ways good? This is the work of God. that you believe on Him whom He hath sent." That's the work of God. That's what God's telling them here. All this extra nonsense and all this looking and trying to... trying to... It's nonsense. It's nonsense. And the reason why, brethren, is that One who pictures him, that One who all these things picture, He's made him who knew no sin to be sinned, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And everybody He died for, their sins purged. It's put away. They've got to come to Him because God's going to see to it they come to Him. But He's telling His people here, I've given you this light. What are they going to manifest if they turn away from it? They're going to manifest they weren't ever his Israel in the beginning. But they don't think that. They think they're going to manifest they got some wisdom. They're going to think they're manifesting that they had something about them and their understanding and the way they're doing things that's worthy of rejecting this one that's come and declared this gospel to them. What did they do? Verse 12. He declared that to them, and they said, there's no hope. Who's our hope? Who's the hope of Israel? Christ is the hope of Israel. And they said, there's no hope. There's no hope. But we will walk after our own devices, and we will, everyone, do the imagination of his evil heart. You reckon they said that? I don't know. I believe God's telling us what He heard them saying. and all those pretty words and all those pretty excuses they were given and all those great, glorifying, high-sounding words that they were saying and why they were going to reject what Jeremiah came saying, God said, this is what they're saying. We're going to walk in our own devices and we're going to do the imagination of our own evil heart. Therefore thus saith the Lord, ask ye now among the heathen, go ask folks that have never even heard of me. Just go ask them. He says, ask ye now among thee who hath heard such things. The virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing. Now listen to this question. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh down from the rock of the field? If you didn't have any water, you didn't have any way of quenching your thirst whatsoever, Is there anybody, he said, is there anybody even among the heathen outside of this camp, God said, anybody out there that's that ignorant of just common sense that you wouldn't reject that pure, fresh, clear spring water coming down out of those mountains and coming down those streams and streaming down that hill? Would you say, no, I don't think I'll have any of that. If you're really thirsty, he said, ask among thee, who is that snow of Lebanon? Who is that rock of the field? Where did the rock come from in the wilderness? A rock followed them where they went and it was smoked with a rod and water gushed out of it. pure clear water in the middle of a dry thirsty land so they could drink that water and all their thirst be quenched. Paul said that rock is Christ. He's the purity, the snow, the rock, the water. Look, or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken? Christ is the water of life come down from heaven in a dry and thirsty land. Will we actually forsake Him? Will we actually say, not enough for me? He says first thing, because my people hath forgotten me. That's what he's talking about. Forgotten me. God our Savior, the Lord Jesus our Righteousness. They have burned incense to vanity. They've caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths in a way not cast up. Who's the ancient path? Christ is. He's the way cast up. He's the way God exalted before He made time and purpose to glorify. He's the one God's been exalting from the garden when He said, I'll save in the seed of woman. He's the one that He exalted before King Ahaz when He said, ask a sign. I'll give you a sign. I'm going to, a virgin's going to conceive and bring forth a son. And His name shall be called Emmanuel. He's God with us. He said this when Christ came. They said, show us some signs. Show us some proof. Give us some evidence and we'll believe on you. You know who said that in one instance to Him? People that He just fed 5,000 with bread and fish. And they said, show us something and we'll believe on you. Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. He, they were saying Moses, gave them bread in the wilderness. Do you see how blind, do you see how deceitful the wicked heart is? That they actually witnessed with their physical eyes Him feed 5,000 people with loaves and fishes and turned right around and said, if you just show us some sign like Moses fed the children in the wilderness, we'd believe on you. And he said, Moses didn't feed you, my father fed you. He said, I'm one with my father and I'm the bread coming down from heaven. And he said, there won't be any other sign given. What's the sign? What's the evidence a man has so that he knows he's saved? He believes Christ. He believes God is. He believes Christ is God. And He is all His salvation. And He don't need any other proof. You know, that is the proof. That is the evidence. He is the proof that He creates in the heart. Oh, He's the ancient path. Cast up on the cross. Cast up in the gospel. Look down at verse 18. Then said they, Come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah. Now Jeremiah's God's prophet, but being sent of God, he stands here as a picture of Christ. Christ is that prophet sent of God. This is what, this is what, this is what self-righteousness did when Christ came in the flesh. And God and his ambassadors, they're one. They're one. They were rejecting Christ when they rejected Jeremiah as surely as when self-righteousness rejected Christ when He walked this earth. They said, Come, let us devise devices against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. They're right. They don't know how right they were. It won't from God's priest. His high priest and those he's made priest unto God. The council won't depart from the wise, from Christ who is the wisdom, and from those that he's made himself wisdom unto. It won't depart from the prophet, the one who is the prophet Christ himself, the prophet, priest, and king, and those that he's made witnesses unto him. It won't. They said come. Let us smite him with the tongue. See that reproach we talked about this morning? That rod we talked about? Let us smite him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words. And listen to what Jeremiah does. He prays to the Father. Look at verse 19. Give heed to me, O Lord, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. Do you remember what we saw Thursday night? Look back over there at Psalm 2. Remember what we saw after the Lord declared? And after all the wicked counsel taken against him, he just laughed. And then he said that, then Christ, soon as he sat on his holy hill of Zion, Christ says, I'll declare the decree. The Lord said this from the beginning. He's the one that sends forth the gospel. He's the one that makes it effectual in the heart. He's the one that gets all the glory for doing so. He declares the decree. He's the one that God's given for a covenant of the people to open the blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the prison house, and then them to sit in darkness into the light. He's the one that gets the glory for saying, show yourself and come into the light. These people said, he came, here he is, he's come through Germany, he's speaking to them that day. He's telling them in plain words, using just a simple illustration of a piece of clay in a potter. And he's telling them, he's telling them. And they said, let's devise devices against him. Let's do it with our tongue. Let's talk evil against Him to these men around us. Let's just devise evil devices against Him. Now this is what the Lord said. He said, at the end of all that, He said, The Lord has declared to me, verse 7, the decree, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. He said, and He's speaking here as the mediator now. He's always been the son with the father, but He's talking here as the God-man mediator. Ask of me. This is what the Father said to him, I'll give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And he said, here's what you'll do to them. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now what does Jeremiah do? We're looking at Jeremiah here, the picture of Christ. Look at Jeremiah 19. Look at verse 1. Thus saith the Lord. Now they rejected him, they said, we're not going to have anything to do with him. Thus saith the Lord, go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people and of the ancients of the priests, and go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee. And we just looked at those words that he said, You have forsaken me. I bring an evil upon this place. You have forsaken me, he told them. Now look at what Jeremiah did with that vessel. Verse 10, Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, and shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Even so will I break this people in this city as one breaketh a potter's vessel that cannot be made whole again, and they shall bury them in Tophitt till there be no place to bury them. I was watching that potter the other day when I was at, went to the studio. I was watching him, and he was sitting there making this vessel, and the kids, we were all there. We were sitting there watching him do this. And he's just working it, he's explaining to us everything that he does, everything that's going on there as he did it. And he just shocked us, he just surprised us all of a sudden. He just took his hand and went, bam, and just squashed it flat. Just squashed it flat. And he took it up and started just rolling it back. It's like he wanted to do it. God said, this is what's happened. He said, this is the woe He's saying. This is the warning He's giving. Isaiah 45, 9. Isaiah 45, 9. Christ is that one that's coming forth. You know what this gospel's going to do? I told you the other night, it's not that folks don't understand it. It's that they do. Do you know what God's going to do through this gospel? The Lord of hosts, Christ the King, who said, I will declare the decree. You know what he's going to do? He's going to break every vessel, break every one of them. He's going to break some in mercy, and they're going to come and bow down and worship him. And he's going to break some just like, just like Jeremiah broke this vessel right here. This is the word, Isaiah 45, 9. Woe unto him that striveth with his maker. Let the part should strive with the partridge of the earth, that all the all those broken pieces, they just went back, went to our getting, trying to exalt one another over each other. And God said, Let him alone. Let him do it. Don't do it. Shall the clay say to him that fashion it? Why make a style or that work that work he hath no hands. God has no hands but your hands. Malarkey. Malarkey. He's the potter, we're the clay. Now, it's not as though the word of God took no effect here. When you see that, that he broke that nation Israel, that he's showing us he does the turning, he does the molding, he does the breaking of the vessel, he conforms us to his image. That's what Paul said in Romans 9. They're not all Israel, which are of Israel. That nation wasn't God's people just because they were that nation. I'll tell you one who was in that nation, Jeremiah was. Jeremiah was. That's proof to us that they weren't all Israel. But there was an Israel in there. There was an Israel in there. So, he heard him. He heard his voice. He heard him and he just went and said what he said. Can you imagine living in Jeremiah's day? It's not too hard to imagine, really. They shall become wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, the Lord said. It's not too hard to imagine. You cry and you cry. He called a weeping prophet, you know, for a very good reason. For a very good reason. But he heard His voice. He heard the voice of the Master. There's some here today that you hear His voice. You hear His voice. And He's given you reason to rejoice in His voice. And He's told you this, I'm the potter, you're the clay. You're just clay. That's all you are. Just dirt. Just dust. But listen to this now. He says of my people, you're dust in my hand. You're clay in my hand. Man, I can... I can just... That's a good big hand to just lay down in, isn't it? Oh. And He tells us here He's exercising His sovereign will and righteousness and equity. He's faithful and just. Don't we see how He's redeemed us by Christ? So we know He's going to do everything in this earth that's equitable and just. He's going to do what's faithful and just. So now, let's hear this warning. Turn unto Christ. Oh, let's don't turn from Him. Let's cast all our care in His hands and let's not forsake Him. So shall thy ways and doings be good in God's sight. That's right. Let me send you home with this. Well, I'll give you a couple of scriptures that are real close together. Isaiah 43. Well, God, He preached to us a lot today about judgment. Listen to me. If you've heard His voice, He's turned to you. You've been turned to Him and you're rejoicing in Him. Listen to this now. He don't ever suffer His chosen vessel, the vessel He's made, He don't ever suffer it to be marred in His hand. Not ever. Not ever. Look at Isaiah 43, 21. This is why. This people have I formed for myself. What does a potter do? I formed them for myself. They shall show forth my praise. Look at Isaiah 44, 21. Remember thee, O Jacob, in Israel, for thou art my servant. I have formed thee. Thou art my servant, O Israel. Thou shalt not be forgotten of me. Isaiah 60, 21. I'll show you one more. Thy people also shall be all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands. that I might be glorified. Now, can you rest there? Can we rest right there? Oh, rest in the potter's hand. Let's sing, Have Thine Own Way.