Then the plan of the potter is always a varied plan. He told them that the dreaded Babylonians were going to invade their land, cause great destruction, and take many of them to Babylon as captives. Our God is an incredibly patient potter. He was sent there by God to learn God's mind and will concerning the nation, and as he looks at the potter he notices how with those clever fingers of his he is able to create a beautiful vessel out of a piece of ugly, shapeless clay. The Skill of the Potter. Sometimes we need just the opposite of what we seek. God is the author of beauty and of order, and yet at times we meet those who blame God for this thing and the other.
Coach Price went over to where the dejected player was sitting and said, "Roy, didn't you hear me? " At other times God says to Jeremiah, ''Act out the sermon. '' And so Jeremiah heads off down the street to the potter s workshop. Not so long ago I went through some of the English potteries, and there I found great heaps of clay that had been softened in this way. That means that the problem must have been with the clay. The best of men sometimes become discouraged. It s not just a matter of patching up the old pot and trying to make it good enough to sell but it s a matter of smashing down the clay and with careful strong fingers God takes our rough clay and makes something new. We think that we know what we need. But those who resist God's work in their lives never become what He designed for them to be.
The three basic differences are how far away from their original source they have traveled, the number of foreign components they contain, and the temperature of heat they can endure. There self must be cast as the dust at His feet, Ere man is renewed and for service made meet. Repentance is a painful business. Paul prayed that God would complete the work He had begun in them Philippians 1:6 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;- God is working to make us what He desires us to be. We are helped as the result of the fiery furnace, but never forget that the Lord Jesus is ever between, that nothing can harm you, that nothing can reach you apart from divine permission. May each of us pray that prayer: "Lord, take me, break me, make me. " The Potter 'Remaking' a Vessel.
5: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. He is preparing the platform and ere long the Lord Jesus will return and be seen as the King of kings and as the Lord of lords. It is more complicated than that, but we repeat the mantra, anyway. Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: There are three important truths that we need to glean from this verse. E-mail: More sermons. The potter could have thrown the clay away; but instead he chose to refine whatever was wrong with the clay and start again. She asked, "Sir, is something wrong? " "Your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).
Yet the potter didn't give up on the clay. Let me fasten upon three outstanding phases of the theme confronting us this evening. Yes, the Potter loves variety and that means that we must strive to serve God to the limit of our capacity and never concern ourselves about other people. All that stretching and pressure placed on the clay leads to something beautiful being created. Why is this an appropriate image of ourselves & God? You have worth no matter how small and insignificant you may think yourself. Romans 9:20, 21 – Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?
Yet at such times we must resist the temptation to become angry with God and to accuse Him of doing something that is wrong. It could be an application of the Ten Commandments or Jesus radical interpretation of God's will for our lives that brings to our attention our brokenness in our relationship with God and the people in our lives. Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. There wasn't just one problem with the clay, there were several. There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful stores. It doesn't happen instantaneously or automatically. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter? " She was trying very hard to be a good witness. God the Son, Jesus, stepped down from Heaven and got dirty taking our sin upon Himself. Because of their wilfulness and greediness, because of their arrogance and tolerance of injustice and idolatry, God would need to break them down; otherwise they would never reach their potential as his chosen people. Before he really got started, he would carefully study that lump of clay and consider its possibilities.
The potter could have thrown the clay away at this point. At this point the potter had a major decision to make. When the vessel has been created and when he has traced upon it some figure or design, he puts it into the furnace, into the kiln, and burns it. First of all, the clay must be softened. Nothing is ultimately a failure, nothing is wasted.
But God has never lost His interest in the Jews and although there are bad Jews, we must have the divine view-point concerning them. That's when peace is won in anyone's life--when you bow before the Son of God and say, "Lord, I give it all to you. It's the word 'longsuffering. ' He must have that clay of his as soft and as pliable as silk; there must be no hard substances whatever in it. Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 1 John 1:5 tells us He is Light and there is NO darkness in Him. Earthenware or common clay develops after being transported the farthest from its source and having picked up the most impurities, it melts at a lower temperature than other clays. I think of a lady who came to me concerned about her husband. Like the potter who took the clay and wadded it into a ball and threw it back on the wheel to begin the process again, so God took the nation of Israel and broke them so that He might remake them. Therefore we must choose to trust in the goodness of God and seek His will and He reveals it. In the last place, there is the potter's disappointment.
God used every conceivable method to get His message through the prophet Jeremiah to the people. This message looks at Jeremiah's imagery of God as the Potter. God plans for every person not only to be saved, but also to live a morally clean life. There is nothing within the clay that enables it to realize its potential. There are places... by Daniel Rodgers. Any artist will tell you there are limitless combinations of colors and glazes making each piece not only hand-formed unique, but also individually decorated. 4:7 "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" The NIV says "jars of clay. " Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. So the Potter beings there, He softens the clay. It is becoming a nobody that we might, by the mercy of God, become really somebody - a somebody who is made a joint heir with Jesus Christ a somebody who in God's eyes is about as perfect as anyone can be because of the blood of Jesus. Maybe the clay was too wet or too dry. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, 'Let me alone, ' but he only smiled and said, 'Not yet.
Then they fell in love and ultimately married, and then somehow God changed His mind concerning their lives and they came to believe that it was not His will that they should go to the heathen field, but stay at home. There is a blessing if you are broken this morning. 3:20) God has a great advantage over man in the work of molding lives for the better. They threw their lives on the altar and had the inner witness that their surrender had been accepted and they tried to equip themselves in every possible way for service among the multitudes in heathen darkness. We tell ourselves anyone can work hard, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become a millionaire. He has been call the ''weeping prophet'' simply because his heart broke as he looked upon the sins of Israel to repentance. "Go down to the Potter's house" – Read Jeremiah 18:1-6 – 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 you to hear My words. I look back over the past and realize what I might have been and how God could have used me if only I had been fully surrendered to Him, how at times I have crossed His will and frustrated His plan, and yet He has not discarded me. He graduated from the University of California in 1931 with a major in agriculture, taught and coached football at both high school and college levels, served as an officer in the U. S. Army Air Corps during World War II, and then became a successful business man, forming his own agricultural chemical company. 4 HE WAS MAKING A POT FROM CLAY. The created cannot always see the areas in their lives that need improvement.