We have noted how God has sent Jeremiah on some missions as a living parable to teach the people regarding their condition and what God is doing. We have seen Jeremiah use spoiled linen undergarments to show how the people have defiled themselves. Jeremiah was not allowed to be married or go to funerals, weddings, or parties to show the lack of joy, peace, or comfort in their future. God has another living parable for Jeremiah to live and show to the people of Judah.
The Sovereignty of God (Jeremiah 18:1-11)
In Jeremiah 18:1-2 the Lord tells Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house and then he will tell his prophet more once he is there. Jeremiah goes to the potter’s house and sees the potter working clay on the wheel. As the potter was working, the clay was marred. You can imagine that there is a flaw in the forming of the clay and so the potter reworked the clay into another vessel. There are two important points that are made in this living parable. First, the clay has a problem. The clay is marred or flawed requiring the clay to be reformed. Second, at the end of verse 4, the clay was reformed “as it seemed good to the potter to do.” The potter decided to make another vessel and he did this as seemed best to him.
Now the message comes to Jeremiah from the Lord beginning in verse 5. The Lord asks if he is able to do with Israel just as the potter has done with the clay. Listen to the words at the end of verse 6. “Behold, like clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand, O house of Israel.” God explains what he means in verses 7-10. God is able to declare destruction on a people, the people turn from their evil, and God relent from the disaster proclaimed. We see God do this in the book of Jonah. The message against Ninevah was 40 days and then it would be destroyed. But the people listened and repented. So God relented from bringing the disaster proclaimed. But the opposite is also true. God can proclaiming blessings and building up for a people, but the people do evil and refuse to listen to him, and God relent from the blessings proclaimed. God can relent from the good he intended to do (Jeremiah 18:10).
I want us to hear the sovereignty of God in this scripture. God is the potter and he has the power and ability to change what he is forming. God can reconsider his work. God can reconsider the trouble and judgment that he had planned. God can also reconsider the good and blessings that he had planned. As God works the clay, God is able to reconsider what he is doing as he sees what is best. We will think more about the importance of this message a little later in the lesson. But for now let us hear what God meant for Israel in verse 11. The message Jeremiah is to proclaim to the people of Judah and Jerusalem that God is shaping disaster against the people. So they need to turn and change their ways so that there can be a chance for God to rework what he is planning.
Hopelessly Marred (Jeremiah 18:12-23)
Now I want us to imagine if we heard such a message. Imagine the prophet telling you that disaster and judgment are proclaimed for you due to your sinful ways. But if you will return to the Lord and change your ways, then God is able to rework the clay and relent from his plan, rather to do good to you rather than bring disaster. What would you expect the overwhelming response of the people to be? I think we would expect every person to respond the way the people of Ninevah did in the days of Jonah, turning their hearts and actions with a complete and wholehearted repentance. What will this people do? Look at verse 12. The people will not reply with sorrow and repentance. Rather, the people are going to reply with stubbornness. They will say that it is hopeless to change. We will continue to following our own plans and we will act according to the stubbornness of our evil hearts. It is a shocking response! The Lord even notes that everyone should be shocked by this response. Look at verse 13 where God asks, “Who has ever heard anything like this?” Who would have this kind of response? Who would ever forget the greatness of the true and living God?
Not only will the people respond to the Lord that it is hopeless to follow the Lord, they are also going to make plans to rebel against Jeremiah (Jeremiah 18:18). They will make plans against Jeremiah because they do not believe what Jeremiah is telling them. They are going to verbally attack Jeremiah because they do not believe anything that he says. In verses 19-23 Jeremiah now cries out to the Lord to not let the people succeed in their wicked plans against him. He asks God not allow the people to repay his righteous works with evil. Please do something to the people in judgment before they destroy me (Jeremiah 18:21-22). They are going to kill Jeremiah. Please bring judgment on them before they are successful against me (Jeremiah 18:23).
Formed or Broken (Jeremiah 19:1-15)
God is not done with the teaching of the people and his prophet. The message continues in chapter 19. This appears to be an unfortunate chapter break because Jeremiah is still watching the potter at his wheel as we come to the beginning of chapter 19. Jeremiah is told to buy a clay jar from the potter and take it some of the elders of the people and some of the priests. I want you to notice where Jeremiah is instructed to go to teach these spiritual leaders. Jeremiah is to go to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. This might sound familiar to you from the teachings of Jesus who used the Valley of Hinnom as a place to illustrate the severity of eternal punishment. Gehenna (valley of Hinnom) is the New Testament word commonly translated as “hell” (cf. Matthew 5:29-30; 10:28; 18:9). So Jeremiah stands at the gates of the valley that would be the image used to describe eternal judgment. What is the message? Look at verse 3. God proclaims that he is bringing disaster on this place so severe that the people will shutter. God is doing this because the people have abandoned him as seen through their sins. They are shedding innocent blood. They are killing their infant children. God is going to ruin their plans and they will fall by the sword (Jeremiah 19:7-9).
After proclaiming this message, Jeremiah is to shatter the jar in the presence of the people. This not only symbolized the shattering of the people in judgment but also represented how the people cannot be mended. The people are no longer clay on the wheel that can be formed, molded, and changed. The people are the clay jar that cannot be changed. The only thing that God can do is shatter the flawed jar. The people cannot be mended or repaired (Jeremiah 19:11). The message ends with Jeremiah going to the temple and telling everyone who were in the temple courts the same message (Jeremiah 19:14-15). Judgment is coming because you have stiffened your necks and would not listen to God’s words.
God Is The Potter and We Are Clay
There is one overarching message that I want us to learn from these two chapters and four applications that we are going to make from this one overarching message. The overarching message is this: God is the potter and we are the clay. God is constantly trying to teach us this. So what does God want us to learn from this image?
First, repentance is acknowledging that this is the relationship. Repentance means that we understand who God is and who we are. We will acknowledge, admit, and live our lives with this truth that God is the potter and we are the clay. This is how the prophet Isaiah proclaimed this as he voiced the future repentant people of God:
But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:8 ESV)
The problem is that we invert the relationship. We act like the relationship is the other way around. Listen again to the prophet Isaiah as he describes this problem:
You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (Isaiah 29:16 ESV)
Should the potter be treated like he is the clay? We do not get to tell God the way it is. We do not put God on the potter’s wheel and act like we are the potter. But we do this all the time. Listen to the way Isaiah says we do this. We do this when we do not acknowledge God as our maker. The thing made cannot say to its maker, “He did not make me!” Can you imagine the clay telling the potter, “You did not make me”? The one in charge is the potter. You cannot deny where you came from. God made you. God formed you. When God called Jeremiah into ministry he told him, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” The psalmist proclaimed this:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13-14 ESV)
No human can say to God that he did not form you or that he is not the potter and you are the clay. It is absurd for the created to deny their Creator.
Second, this truth means that we are not to argue with the potter. Since God is the potter and we are the clay, then we are not in the position to tell God what to do. We do not complain about the decisions God is making. Isaiah said this in Isaiah 29:16. The thing formed dare not say to the one who formed it, “He has no understanding.” We do not get to tell God that he does not know what he doing. Listen to another way Isaiah pictures this problem:
Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, “What are you making?” or “Your work has no handles”? (Isaiah 45:9 ESV)
We do not tell God that is messing up. We do not get to charge God with wrong. We do not act like God’s hands are broken and he is making a mess of what he is forming. We must not fight with God about what he is doing in the world. We must not fight with God about what he is doing in this country. We must not fight with God regarding what he is doing in our lives. The apostle Paul quotes these Isaiah scriptures to make the same point in Romans 9:19-22. Woe to us when we complain about our lives. Woe to us when we are disappointed with God and what he is doing. We are the clay and we do not question the potter.
Third, we are marred and flawed clay that God is reworking in his hands. One of the repeated pictures of the scriptures is that God is molding us and transforming us. We are not to be conformed to the world but transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). As we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). God molds us through suffering. God works on us through trials. God is constantly at work, testing our faith by fire, so that our faith can be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Christ (1 Peter 1:7). But this is the good news. When we stop arguing with the potter, we can see that God is reforming the marred clay to be what he sees is best for us.
Finally, God does not change but he will respond to our change. You have to love this picture in Jeremiah 18-19. If we allow ourselves to be formed by him, he will keep forming us and molding us into what he sees is best. But if we say it is no use and we resist his forming, then there is nothing to do but to shatter the clay jar. We must be formed or be broken. We have a song that tells us to “Let Him Have His Way With Thee.” He is the potter and we are the clay. We are marred. God is forming us. Let him have his way with you.