Clay in the Hands of God

Text: Jeremiah 18: 1-6

God uses many images to describe His relationship to His people.  He speaks of the shepherd/sheep relationship; husband/wife relationship; Father/children relationship and so on.  All of these are wonderful and teach us many valuable lessons on life, ourselves, and our God.  We, like sheep, are protected and provided for by the shepherd.  As a wife, we are loved without condition by the husband.  As His children, we’re constantly under the watchful eye of the loving Father.  There’s another aspect of our lives that must be factored into the equation. The parable of the Potter and the clay.

A parable is a simple story of every day life that reveals Kingdom truth about God to those whose hearts are prepared to hear.  But to those whose heart is unprepared, the truth is concealed.  This parable is one of the greatest portraits of God and His people to be found in the scriptures.

Jeremiah was ordained by God before his birth.  God had already determined that he would be a prophet.  He prophesied for forty two years.  He was one of the bravest figures in history.  He had the ability to reach into his own heart and hear the meaning in the heart of God.  When he felt the broken heart of God, he expressed those words from the heart in a dramatic fashion.

In today’s story, Jeremiah is wearing a yoke around the city of Jerusalem to warn the people that if they did not heed to God’s Word, they would go into exile.  The text opens with Jeremiah receiving a summons from the Potter.  Who is the Potter?  God Himself. Isaiah 64:8:  "Oh Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand".

Traits of the Potter:

Omniscient - All knowing.  He knows all about you. Psalm 139:1: "Thou has searched me, and known me".  The Potter knows all your inward thoughts, motives, desires, fears, circumstances, talents, and weaknesses.  Verse 4: "There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether".

Omnipresent - Wherever you are, He is there.  There are times you may separate from family/friends on occasion.  You’re never separated from God.  Psalm 139:7-8: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit?  or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there;  If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou are there".  We’re under constant guidance and care at all times.

Omnipotent - He is all powerful.  There’s no limit to what His Almighty power can do for you.  It can procure (bring out) and produce you.  Can’t resist Him nor restrain Him.

OmniExistent - Always was and always will be.  He will no more have an end than He had a beginning.  However unstable you and I may be, God is immutable (doesn’t change).  Same God then; same God now.  Never forgets, never fails, never falters or forfeits His Word.  He’s love, and his love is uninfluenced.  He didn’t love us because we loved Him.  He loved us before we even loved Him.  His love is infinite.  You can’t even began to fathom the depths of His love.  Its height can’t be scaled.  Its length and breadth can’t be measured despite our sins and shortcomings.  He keeps right on loving you and me.  Aren’t you glad He is the Potter?!

When you think of potters, they’re people who make pots and vases used to decorate one’s house.  They’re in the class with artists and crafts people.  In Jeremiah’s day, potters produced plastic bottles, glass, jars, and tin cans.  When a pot was made, they would get a large heap of clay and put it on a wheel.  The potter would turn the wheel with a pedal moved with his feet.  He would shape a pot from the clay.  Usually the pot would come out just the way the potter wanted it to turn out - constantly turning the wheel; always having their hands on the clay - molding it, pressing it, using tools to make it into a work of art.  Fingers, palms, thumbs all working together, a little pressure here; a little there, pushing, gliding, making a hole, scooping out the excess.  Always keeping it wet to keep it moldable.  The clay does what the potter forms it to do.

Sometimes, the potter starts to make one kind of pot or vase, but it doesn’t work out the way he wants it to.  When that happens, often he/she will stop the wheel and re-work the pot back into a lump of clay and start all over again.  It’s his clay, his work, his imagination and his decision so he can do whatever he wants with it.

Jeremiah arises and goes down to the Potter’s house.  He saw the Potter making a pot. The vessel he was making was marred in the hands of the Potter (ruined, not suitable for Potter’s use).  Clay represents Israel.  Israel means governed by God.  God wanted Israel to look to Him for their protection/provision and to worship Him alone.  He called Israel “the tribe of His Inheritance”.  He wanted them to be different - set apart from the whole world in order to show the world that He was the true/living God.  He had great plans for them, yet they kept turning away from Him.  God continued to warn them through His prophets to forsake their sins and return to Him lest they face judgment.  Still, Israel continued to be stubborn and resistant.

Now through Jeremiah, God creates an illustration of a Potter with a lump of clay to help his people understand the relationship they should have toward Him - God - and the dysfunction of that relationship when their hearts are hard.  God’s plan/ His intention was to take clay and produce vessels.  He wants to make vessels that will reap a profit; that will be found useful; that will bring honor unto Him.  The pieces he manufactures are intended to be used by Him.

Why clay?  The condition of clay as it's found in the ground is not suitable for use.  It’s dug out of the ground and brought to the pottery and allowed to weather for weeks.  The dry material is dumped into cement lined tanks/wooden troughs and covered with water. When the lumps have softened, they are stirred in the water until all have disintegrated and a thin “slimy mud or slip” has been formed.  The slip is drawn off into settling tanks. All the stones and lumps remain behind.  When the clay has settled, the water is drawn off and the plastic-like material is worked by treading with the feet. The prepared clay is finally packed away and allowed to stand approximately six months before using during which time the quality, plasticity is improved.

Why clay?  Clay taken from the ground is worthless.  God excels in taking old worthless clay and transforming it by His grace into vessels of honor and glory.  This is a portrait of a lost sinner.  We’re worthless to God in our natural condition.  Why? 1 Corinthians 2:14: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:  for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned".

God is able to see the vessels we can become.  So He begins the process that will bring us to a place of usefulness.  This process takes time and energy on the part of the potter.  He uses several instruments to bring the clay to a usable state.

Shovel - used to break ground and dig us out and clean us up.  It’s used to level the ground and prepare it for the foundation.  This is the Spirit of God pricking your heart and speaking to you in a convicting power drawing you to him.  Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This may be where some of you are right now if the Potter is digging around in your life. He is calling/inviting you to come to Him.  Jesus said it best speaking to Saul on the road to Damascus, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5).

Mallet - (hammer-like) wood/rubber.  After the clay has been cleaned and processed, it’s placed on a table and beaten with a mallet.  Sometimes bubbles (trials, losses, stressors, afflictions) appear in the clay of your life.  The blows that come to you are from the Potter beating out the bubbles.  It isn’t fair but it’s necessary.  If he doesn’t, the air bubbles will form a pocket that will produce a weak spot and cause the vessel to be fragile and unusable.  You may not like the pounding of the mallet, but the sole purpose is to make you more pliable and useful in the Potter’s hand.  The blows will make you better, not bitter; mold you, not mar you; make you profitable, not painful.  Don’t push away the Potter’s hands.  It’s the same hands that were nailed to the cross for you and me. The marring could have come from blemishes.  They sometimes appear in the clay, and they must be beaten out.

Even in the Potter’s hands things can still go terribly wrong.  The fault is not with the Potter, but with the clay.  There are times when even with the best of care, the vessel still gets out of shape.  Isn’t this the way life seems at times.  You’re going along just fine and seem to be growing in the grace of the Lord; then along comes a temptation or a trial for whatever reason.  You’re thrown off balance, and you become marred in the Potter’s hand.  Every turn of the wheel makes the blemish more visible.  It becomes evident that God cannot use you in that present state.

Witness - Moses marred God’s plan with a harsh temper and missed the Promised Land.

                David marred God’s plan through lust and lost his own son.

                Jonah marred God’s plan through disobedience and was swallowed by a big

                fish.

                Noah marred God’s plan through drunkenness and lost his usefulness.

But because the Potter’s hand is resting on the vessel, he knows instantly when a problem arises.  He senses the changes in the clay and begins necessary steps to correct the problem.  Truth be told, there are times when we are all just cracked pots.  Don’t ever think that you can hide something from the Potter.  "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Proverb 15:3).

Look into your life.  Search your heart.  Is there something in your life that’s unpliable, unyielding?  Are you marring the Potter’s plan by some short coming or sin?  That sorrow and frustration you’re going through may be the hand of the potter using his mallet to remove those obstacles.  When venetian glass blowers discover a flaw in any vessel they’ve made, they set it aside and call it "Fiasco" meaning a failure.  It’s still a vessel, but set aside because of some flaw.  Why don’t you yield to the Potter?  I declare he’ll turn your frustration into fruitfulness; your pain into power; your trials into triumph. At any cost, you must stay in the center of God’s will.  He is still in the business of making us look just like HIM.

Wheels - A large bottom wheel, usually made of stone mounted on a shaft that sits in a stone socket.  Coming out of this large stone is an upright shaft that extends about 3 feet with another smaller wheel mounted on top.  The Potter, using his feet, spins the large lower wheel.  As he does, the upper wheel is turned.  This is where the clay is placed.  As the clay turns, the Potter will place His hands upon it and shape it according to His will. Again, wheels are situations/circumstances that life brings our way.  Life sometimes seems like a big circle.  Seems like we get past one trial, and it comes around again with another.  It can be hard to take and leave us broken and confused.  Remember, the Potter controls the speed of the wheels, and they rotate according to his will.  Whatever you’re facing today, remember Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God".

Hands -While the clay spins around on the wheels, it is never out of contact with the Potter’s hands.  A potter must be willing to get his hands into the clay.  He is involved with his creation.  He is involved with you and me.  He doesn’t just stand at arms length from His work.  He gets his fingers and hands into it.  He is constantly molding, shaping, bringing the clay along through His loving guidance.  If He were to remove His hand, the clay would spin right off the wheel and would be lost.  That’s why He remains with the clay until it becomes what He desires it to be. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians. 4:13).

Although, at times, He may seem remote, removed, and a million miles away from our needs, He has promised us that He will never leave us, nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).  As His child, we never have to fear that He would walk out on us and leave us spinning out of control.  It doesn’t matter how fast the wheel spins, or what comes our way.  Rest assured, our Potter will never remove His hands from us.  For we are clay in the hands of the Potter.

~ Evangelist Brenda Hansley