INTRODUCTION
At the end of our Old Testament, we have 16 books by
Israel’s great prophets. The three greatest prophets, the ones who wrote the
longest and most important books, are Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
Isaiah’s career began in 740 B.C., before the Northern Kingdom
of Israel was conquered and her people carried away by the Assyrians.
Jeremiah’s career began more than 100 years after Isaiah. He prophesied
in the southern Kingdom of Judah, the part of Israel that remained. During
Jeremiah’s time, the Babylonians came and carried many of the people of Judah
into captivity in Babylon.
Ezekiel’s career began 34 years after Jeremiah’s call. Jeremiah
and Ezekiel didn’t know each other, because Jeremiah stayed in Palestine, and
Ezekiel went with the exiles to Babylon.
Isaiah was an educated, literary man. He is often quoted in
the New Testament. You have heard poetry from his book in church at Christmas:
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a child is given;
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah had a wonderful call from God. He was in the
Temple and saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, “high and lifted up—and his
train filled the Temple.”
Above the Lord flew the seraphim—fiery, winged
creatures that flew back and forth and crying out,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole world is filled with his glory.”
When Isaiah saw that vision, he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my
eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
And one of the seraphim took a coal from the altar and
touched Isaiah’s mouth, and so sent Isaiah on his mission.
Ezekiel was a priest. He was eccentric. Some of his prophecies
are so strange that ancient Jews argued whether the book should be included in
the Bible.
Ezekiel was the prophet who prophesied in the Valley
of the Dry Bones. You remember the story about how Ezekiel saw the bones coming
together with a rattling sound—and flesh came upon them—and skin covered them—and
breath came into them—and they got on their feet, and they were a great army.
Like with Isaiah, God called Ezekiel to his mission
with a wonderful vision. He was with the exiles in Babylon, by the River
Chebar, when he saw the heavens opened; a stormy wind came out of the north,
and he saw a great cloud with brightness all around about it, and fire flashing
forth—and, in the midst of the fire, four living creatures.
Each of the creatures had four faces and each had four
wings, and their feet were like calves’ feet, and under their wings they had
human hands.
But wait!—it gets stranger still—the four faces on
each of these creatures were the face of a man, the face of an ox, the face of
a lion, and the face of an eagle.
And—it gets even stranger!—they were attached to the
four sides of sort of a cart, with four wheels with rims that were full of
eyes! And the cart and its creatures rolled back and forth.
Over the heads of the creatures there was a kind of
canopy and above that was a throne that looked like a sapphire, and above that
was what seemed to be a human form, and above the human form was a rainbow!
And when Ezekiel saw that vision he fell on his face! And the Spirit entered into him and set him upon
his feet. Then a hand was stretched out and handed him a scroll and said to
him, “Son of man, eat this scroll.” And Ezekiel ate the scroll and it was sweet
as honey.
Then the Spirit lifted him up and took him away to the
exiles and he proclaimed God’s words to them.
I told you about Isaiah and Ezekiel to contrast their
visions with the ordinary, commonplace experience of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a more ordinary sort of fellow. God’s call
to him didn’t involve any drama at all.
God showed Jeremiah an almond tree, and used it for an
object lesson. Then he showed him a boiling pot. The two visions together
symbolized to Jeremiah the beauty and terror of the message he would proclaim.
Jeremiah’s message was full of pathos—but not
spectacular metaphors. He talked about the stork, the crane, the spotted
leopard, and the lion and wolf.
He talked about the shepherd, the plowman, and the
vinedresser, the prostitute by the wayside,
God directed Jeremiah to illustrate his message by
walking around with an ox yoke on his shoulders, and again by burying his loin
cloth in the mud by the Euphrates and later digging it up and showing the
people the rotten loin cloth that represented Judah in her sinful ways.
I. A favorite part of Jeremiah’s book is the story
about Jeremiah’s visit to the potter’s house and what he learned there.
God said to Jeremiah: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you
hear my words.”
“So,” Jeremiah says,
“I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The
vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked
it into another vessel, as seemed good to him to do.”
—As Jeremiah watched the potter and saw the first
vessel ruined—and how the potter started over—a new conception of how God works,
flashed through Jeremiah’s mind, and he said this to his people—
The word of the Lord came to him and he said, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you
as this potter has done? … Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are
you in my hand, O house of Israel.
“If, at any
time, I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break
down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns
from its evil, I will change my mind
of the evil that I intended to do to it.
“And if, at
any time, I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and
plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good
which I had intended to do to it.
“Now,
therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus
says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping evil against you and devising a plan
against you. Return, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and
your doings” (Jeremiah 18:1-11).
II. Here
is the application: God is the potter and we are the clay.
A. Like with Israel, God has a plan for us—to make of
us something useful, to make us a blessing in our world.
I have tried my hand at pottery making. It is a work
that takes skill, and I never succeeded in making a pot. But I have seen
potters at work, and they are fascinating to watch.
God is not like a blacksmith who beats a piece of iron
into the shape he wants.
He is like a potter, who puts his hands on us and
shapes us with his own hands, gently making us into something beautiful and
useful.
A good potter makes his pot quickly on a spinning
wheel. But when I have watched potters, sometimes the clay doesn’t cooperate. Then
they squash down the clay and start over. It may take the potter several tries
to make a beautiful piece.
This is the point God is making to Jeremiah. God tries
and tries, and he doesn’t give up when the clay doesn’t cooperate. He starts
over.
It is a great comfort that God doesn’t easily give up.
We have all failed, but God keeps working with us. He gives us second chances—and
third chances.
B. The story of the potter tells us that God has
freedom and we have freedom. We can frustrate God’s desires for us, but we can
also change our ways and allow God to finally succeed in his plan for us.
We read several times in the Bible of God “changing
his mind.” One notable example is in the story of Jonah.
God told Jonah to go to the heathen city of Nineveh
and announce to them that because of their wickedness, the city would be destroyed
in 40 days.
But the people of Nineveh repented. The king put on
sackcloth and sat in ashes. He decreed that no man, nor beast, herd, nor flock
should eat anything or drink water, but be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily
to God—and turn from their evil ways. And all the people of Nineveh did so.
And, we read, “when God saw what they did, how they
turned from their evil way, God changed his mind about the calamity
that he had said he would bring upon them.”
CONCLUSION.
People change. In our son’s church, each month they
devote five minutes of their service to a “Faith Story” from one of their
members. One Sunday an elderly retired doctor gave his faith story. He began
with this: “One year ago I was a pagan…” And then he told how he had found
Jesus—in his old age—and how a new and meaningful life opened up for him. That’s
unusual, but it can happen.
When we become impatient with people, we need to
remember the lesson God taught Jeremiah. People change. None of us is a
finished product. We are all like the construction sign says: “A Work in
Progress.”
One of the benefits of growing old is that we have
opportunity to change—to correct old mistakes, to repent, to accept
forgiveness, and draw closer to God. Do you feel yourself to be drawing closer
to God? I do. I can look back 5, 10, 20 years and know that I am not the same
person I was then. I have learned, corrected mistakes, and learned better what
it means to follow Jesus and to be a servant of others.
But that doesn’t mean that I am out of danger. I have
also sometimes slipped back. We have to keep on to the end, letting the Lord
mold us and make us into the person he intends us to be.
We aren’t clay. We can choose. Our God is powerful and
skillful, but he needs our cooperation, and we need to keep on to the end of
the road. Because if we aren’t moving forward, we are slipping backward.
I read of a prominent Christian leader who refused to
have his biography written while he was still alive. He said, “I have seen too
many drop out of the race on the last lap.”
I said, one of the benefits
of growing old is that we more time to change—to draw closer to God.
But one of the dangers
of old age is that we have more time to drift away from God—to gradually and
gently and without really realizing it—to loosen our hold on God.
That is why St. Paul counseled his younger friend
Timothy: “Fight the good fight of faith;
take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made
the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12).
That is my hope and expectation for all of us here. There’s
a favorite old song about God, the potter, and us, the clay—
Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
While
I am waiting yielded and still.
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