Lesson 394 - Senior
Memory Verse
"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?" (Romans 9:20).
Cross References
I A Lesson at the Potter's House
1. A vessel is moulded, marred, and remade, [JER:18:1-4].
2. Israel as clay is in God's hands, [JER:18:5-6].
3. The nation that turns from evil remains planted, and the one that continues in evil is rooted up, [JER:18:7-10]; [JER:26:13]; [PRO:14:34]; [MAT:15:13].
II The Free Power of Choice
1. God decrees evil against Judah because of their sin, [JER:18:11]; [JER:17:1]; [JER:32:23]; [JER:36:30-31].
2. God calls them to repentance "- to be remoulded by the Potter, [JER:18:11]; [JER:6:16]; [JER:36:3], [JER:36:7]; [JER:38:20].
3. Judah exercises her free will and chooses evil, [JER:18:12], [JER:2:17], [JER:2:25]; [JER:6:16].
III God the Potter and Man the Clay
1. The creation of man was the "Potter's" perfect vessel, [GEN:1:26-27]; [GEN:2:7]
2. The vessel was marred in the fall of man, [GEN:3:6], [GEN:3:17-19].
3. The vessel is remade through salvation, [1CO:15:20-22]; [EPH:4:24]; [COL:3:10].
IV Pliable Clay to Be Vessels of Honour
1. Mortal men, all from the same clay of creation, are permitted to be vessels of honour or dishonour, [ROM:9:21].
2. God is long-suffering with sinful men, [ROM:9:22]; [1PE:5:6].
3. "The children of the living God" are those remade by salvation -" vessels of honour, [ROM:9:23-26]; [2TM:2:20-21].
Notes
The Potter and the Clay
Jeremiah was instructed by the Lord to go to a potter's house and there, through watching the potter in his work, the Lord would give him a spiritual message for Israel. While Jeremiah was watching the potter mould a vessel on the wheel, a flaw or defect developed; and rather than finish the vessel in that condition, the potter crushed the clay back into a lump and started over to make his vessel. Then the Lord said to Jeremiah, "As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel."
Man's Free Will
In Paul's writing to the Romans he said: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" [ROM:9:21]). Paul seems to refer to the incident that Jeremiah saw, but at first reading it might appear that God indiscriminately takes from the same clay to make some vessels for honour and some for dishonour. However, with a closer study, we find that Paul uses the history of the nation of Israel to prove that it was God's desire that every vessel be a vessel of honour. In God's great plan Israel was to be a spiritual nation -" in fact a nation of priests. When they disobeyed God and His commandments, God actually endured with much long-suffering those who disobeyed. It was God's will, even though they had disobeyed, that they should be pliable in His hands and be remade, a vessel unto honour. God asked the question, "Cannot I do with you as this potter?" Not all clay is exactly the same. Some clay may be very pliable and plastic and easily moulded into a perfect vessel. Other clay is less yielding, and though the potter may try time and again to mould it into a perfect vessel, this is impossible due to the condition of the clay.
National Application
God told Jeremiah that if a nation, though under sentence of destruction, would turn from evil, God would not destroy it. In other words, that nation could and would be remade by the great Potter. By the same token, if a nation that had had the blessing of God and had obeyed His voice, should turn from that good, then God said He would repent of the good wherewith He had promised to benefit them.
Jeremiah was then instructed by God to go back to the men of Judah and Jerusalem and tell them: "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." Judah had departed from the worship of God and had turned to idolatry and all kinds of sin; but here now was their opportunity. Here was mercy extended to them, a call to repentance. The great Potter wanted to remould them into a vessel of honour, and Jeremiah was to carry back the message; but the next verse tells us: "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."
The Doom of Judah
The Lord commanded Jeremiah to take a potter's earthen bottle and take with him the representatives of the people and the priests and go unto the valley of the son of Hinnom. He was to break the bottle in the sight of these men, and then say to them: "Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury." (Read [JER:19:1-2], [JER:19:10-11].)
Observe now that this potter's bottle was not in the formative and easily moulded state of clay but was fully hardened. We have here not a process of manufacture but the destruction of a finished product, which had proved to be a failure. The clay had been made into a bottle and its quality as a vessel was irrevocably fixed. It was no longer possible to remould it, and therefore no further pains were taken to make something of it. It was broken into fragments which were cast into the refuse heap that had accumulated in the unclean Tophet.
In both the case of the clay and in the case of the earthen bottle the Lord stated clearly that this represented the house of Israel. However, each was in a different stage of development. The clay denoted Israel's early years when the Law was given and while they obeyed God. Later Israel had failed God and turned to idolatry, but if they would now receive the expostulations and admonitions of the prophet and repent they could yet be made into a new vessel because they would still be pliable as clay. However, in spite of the entreaty of God and His prophet, the people hardened themselves in defiance and stubborn rebellion against Him, and they thereby passed from the soft and easily moulded condition of clay into a hard, fixed, and unimprovable state -- a whole baked vessel which did not answer its purpose. As nothing else could be made of them they would be cast out as worthless and consigned to destruction.
Other Examples
Israel had had plenty of opportunities to see examples of those who had hardened their heart against God and His commandments. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had seen many miracles and had been remonstrated with by Moses, but Pharaoh hardened his heart. Pharaoh chose not to take the word of Moses or the Word of God, and we are told that God then finally hardened his heart and brought ultimate destruction upon him and his armies.
Saul, the first king of Israel, had been a humble man and God gave him a new heart and blessed him as long as he was obedient: but when he disobeyed and would not receive correction, he became a hardened vessel, no longer usable, and brought upon himself destruction.
The Jews as a whole repeated this condition many hundreds of years later in the time of Christ. For three and one-half years, under the ministry of Jesus, they could have been as clay in the potter's hands. But the people as a whole elected to reject Jesus as their Messiah and to crucify Him, thereby turning the clay into a worthless piece of pottery too vile for ornament, too imperfect for use, and too hard to be remoulded -" only fit therefore to be cast out and broken into fragments. Judas himself might have been made by the Divine Father into a vessel of honour and been known as the Son of Consolation, but instead he chose to betray his Lord for the things of the world and has ever since been known as the son of perdition.
Opportunities and Their Limit
Today the same God sits as the Master Potter and pleads with every human soul who is yet unconverted. Much of one's life may be wasted and debauched by sin, yet if there is a prompting from God (though it may be as faint as a spark of the smoking flax, or feeble as the strength in the bruised reed) there is hope that He can mould it anew into a vessel of honour, a trophy of His grace, of whom it may be said, "There shall they be called the children of the living God." But if there be continual rejection of God's mercy and love, and one passes from this world without repenting, there is no possibility of change, for the clay is no longer on the wheel but the God-given opportunities of repentance are forever past.
Questions
1. Explain the operations of the ancient potter.
2. If a vessel was found with a defect in the moulding, what was done with it?
3. Would we be safe to say that the potter always intended to make a perfect vessel? Why were the vessels not always perfect?
4. What is the spiritual meaning of the potter, the clay, and the vessel?
5. What free choice did Judah make?
6. What was the result of that choice?
7. Explain in what way we can become vessels of honour, meet for the Master's use today, also vessels of honour throughout eternity.