THOU ART THE POTTER, I AM THE CLAY

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: JEREMIAH 18:1-6



INTRODUCTION:


  1. About 100 years ago at a prayer meeting, an elderly lady prayed, "It really doesn’t matter what you do with us, Lord -- just have your way with our lives."
  2. A lady named Adelaide Pollard was at the prayer meeting that night and was moved by this simple prayer.
  3. Miss Pollard had been going through a difficult time. She felt God had called her to Africa as a missionary, but she was unable to raise the necessary financial support.
  4. So she was discouraged that night at prayer meeting, but was greatly impressed by the woman’s prayer, "It really doesn’t matter what you do with us, Lord -- just have your way with our lives."
  5. When Miss Pollard returned home from prayer meeting, she starting reading and meditating on Jeremiah 18:3, 4. Before going to bed that night, she had composed her famous hymn,

    6. "Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
    Thou art the Potter, I am the clay:
    Mould me and make me After thy will,
    While I am waiting, Yielded and still."


  6. According to the Bible, God is the Potter, molding each and every one of us. Some of us, like Adelaide Pollard, desire to be molded into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
  7. Unfortunately, others refuse to yield to God, and become useless vessels, fit only for destruction (cf. Rom. 9:21-23).
  8. The figure of the potter and the clay is found all throughout the Bible: in the book of Psalms, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah, the apostle Paul, and the book of Revelation. In all these references, one thing is very clear: God is the potter and He does what He wants with the clay.

I. GOD IS THE POTTER
  1. One of the reasons people sin with such impunity is they have an unscriptural concept of God. God is not "the man upstairs." God is not some old senile man with a long beard, or some jolly old Santa Claus. God is not some impersonal force.
  2. Like a potter creates an earthen vessel, God created us. They teach in the public schools that men have evolved from monkeys. This is wicked. The Bible teaches that God created us (cf. Isaiah 64:8).
  3. When the Bible speaks of God as a potter, it means that He has a plan for our lives. He has the power to change us, and to guide us, and to control us. But we have to be willing to want to be changed, and guided, and controlled.
  4. God is sovereign over all the nations, including the USA (cf. Jer. 18:6-10).
  5. Clay cannot mold itself. People say they want a change, but at the same time they are not willing to let God change them. Remember: God is the potter. Allow Him to work on you. But this takes faith in God.
  6. Many years ago, back in Florence, Italy, a sculptor threw out a piece of marble. He had tried to make something out of it but gave up. "I can do nothing with it," he said when he tossed it out. Other sculptors heard about this, and they too tried to work with it. Eventually they all gave up, and that piece of marble lay on a rubbish heap for 40 years. One day Michelangelo was out taking a walk when he spotted this piece of marble. He saw something in it no one else could see. He brought it to his studio. Friends came by and said, "What is that?" He told them, "That is King David!" But all they could see was a big block of marble. Well, Michelangelo got to work and before long he had created his masterpiece, "David."
  7. Beloved, God looks down on this dirty old world and sees a bunch of clay -- big blobs and little blobs of clay. Some are on the rubbish heap of sin. But God looks down and says, "I can make something good out of that blob down there!" "I can make something beautiful with that clay down there!"
  8. You might say, "But my life has been marred by sin." God knows that. He is a skillful potter, "so He made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it" (18:4). Notice: "So he made it again another vessel..."
  9. I am not the same old dirty vessel I was when God saved me. "He made it again another vessel" (18:4). Jesus said, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). Only God can do that. God is the potter. I am glad I’m in the potter’s hands. What about you?
  10. God has a plan for your life; God has a plan for my life. Just like Michelangelo had a plan for that old piece of marble, God has a plan for us.
  11. Like a master potter, God sees the finished product, and He will mould us the way He wants to if we will let Him (cf. Eph. 2:10; Phil. 1:6).

II. WE ARE THE CLAY
  1. Strictly speaking, in Jeremiah’s day the clay represented the house of Israel (Jer. 18:6). But as we compare Scripture with Scripture, we see that this principle applies to all people. God created us all; He is the potter; we are all clay (cf. Isa. 64:8; Acts 9:15; Rom. 9:20-24; II Cor. 3:6, 7; II Tim. 2:20, 21).
  2. The Bible says, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).
  3. The LORD said to Adam, "For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen. 3:19). "For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14).
  4. And what is clay, but dust mixed with water. Clay by itself is of little value, but it can become something wonderful if molded by the right hands.
  5. If you were to give me some clay, I would not be able to do much with it. But if you were to give that same clay to a master potter, he could create a masterpiece. Remember, God is the potter, and we are the clay.
  6. Nobody can calculate the tremendous potential in an individual’s life. But without God working on him, and molding him, man is nothing but a worthless blob of clay, or a marred and useless vessel, good only for the trash heap. What good is a cracked jar or a broken vase?

  7. G. Campbell Morgan, in his commentary on this passage said, "There are vaster secrets wrapped in humanity than humanity has ever yet discovered; higher and nobler purposes to be fulfilled through this strange race of which we form a part, with all its passion, and its power, and its doubt, and its groveling, and its ascending, than we have ever dreamed."
  8. The most important quality of clay is that it yields. If it fails to yield to the hands of the potter, it will soon be spoiled (cf. Rom. 12:1, 2).

III. GOD HAS TO BREAK SOME VESSELS OF CLAY
  1. Chapter 19 is a continuation of chapter 18 (Jer. 19:1). We need to remember that. Chapter 19 is a very important chapter in the Bible. God told Jeremiah to "go forth into the valley of the son of Hinnom" (19:2).
  2. The valley of the son of Hinnom was a place right outside the city of Jerusalem where the Jews would worship idols and sacrifice their children to devils (19:3-6; cf. 7:30, 31).
  3. This valley of the son of Hinnom is referred to in the Greek language as Gehenna. The word is translated as "hell" in our English Bible. This word is used 12 times in the NT and it always refers to eternal torment in hell.
  4. King Josiah turned this wicked, idolatrous Gehenna into Jerusalem’s garbage dump (II Kings 23:10).

  5. Our Lord used the word Gehenna to describe hell because everyone in His day understood exactly what that meant -- hell was like Gehenna but much worse (Mark 9:43-48).
  6. Hell is God’s garbage dump. No one is sure where the name "Tophet" came from or what it means (II Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31; 19:6). Many Bible teachers believe that the name comes from the Hebrew word toph which means "drum." As the idol-worshipers were sacrificing their babies to Baal, the babies would scream and the men would start beating on drums. What a picture of hell! To me hell is going to be an endless rock concert with screaming and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

  7. The Lord told Jeremiah to go into this valley of the son of Hinnom, this Gehenna, and to take with him "a potter’s earthen bottle" (19:1, 2). In that wicked place, Jeremiah was to preach (19:3-6).
  8. After preaching this message of judgment, Jeremiah was to "break the bottle" (19:10, 11).

  9. I want to give out an important warning. When sinners humble themselves before God, and repent of their sins, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God cleanses them, and forgives them, and saves them. He makes them into a new vessel (Jer. 18:4).
  10. But when sinners refuse to repent, and they harden themselves, they oftentimes reach the point of no return. And God says this bottle is useless -- break it! Throw it down into the valley of Hinnom (hell)! {Jer. 19:11}.
  11. When clay becomes hard, it can no longer be molded. And when sinners get too hard (cf. 19:15), God has to break them, just as He instructed Jeremiah to break the clay bottle (Jer. 19:10, 11).
  12. Unsaved friend, do not trifle with God. God is gracious, and patient, and compassionate, and longsuffering. God is the potter; we are the clay.
  13. What kind of clay are you?

CONCLUSION:
  1. The potter’s field was right next to the potter’s house. It wasn’t much to look at, just a muddy old field. The potter would often throw some of the wreckage out into the field. The potter’s field formed quite a contrast with the potter’s house, where the shelves were filled with beautiful pottery.
  2. As I prepared for today's message, I was reminded that the potter’s field in Matthew 27. Why don’t we turn there? (27:3-10).
  3. Here we see the potter’s field was bought with the blood money Judas Iscariot threw down on the temple floor (27:5-8).
  4. So now the potter’s field is called "The field of blood" (27:8), the blood of Christ! That precious blood was shed for our sins.
  5. Perhaps right now you are a wrecked vessel lying in the potter’s field. But Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and He can make you into a new vessel. Why don’t you let Him?
    6.

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