A lesson in the potter’s house

Jeremiah #29: A lesson in the potter’s house        Jeremiah 18:1-23

The Lord speaks to Jeremiah in several stages in this chapter.

There is first a private word of instruction to direct him to go to the Potter’s house with the promise of further instruction when he gets there. Obedience to what God has already said is the only way to obtain further teaching from Him.

At the potter’s house he is given a message from the Lord to guide and instruct him personally.

Having left the potter’s house he is sent out to speak publicly a further word from the Lord, v11ff.

I  AN OBJECT LESSON FOR THE PROPHET.

The truth that Jeremiah is to learn at this point relates to the sovereign power of God over men. It is a particular aspect of that sovereign power that the Lord reveals here. It is not His power to pre-determine the course of men that is in view; but, specifically, His right and power as the sovereign judge to deal with men according to how they appear before Him.

1. The inalienable right of God over men, v6. This is seen in the relation between the potter and the clay. He can do with this nation just as the potter did with the clay. He has the right and power to act in wrath or mercy toward men. Cp Rom 9:18-24. Men are clay in His hand.
2. He has power to do as He determines. The critical truth is set out in the words as seemed good to the potter… Cp Matt 11:25-26. God is His own arbiter. He determines what is right and acts independently of all other determinations. He makes, implements and enforces His own Laws. His determinations are always right. Cp Gen 18:25.
3. He restores or ruins men according to their moral state before Him. The potter had power mar, or ‘destroy’ the vessel he was making, v9-10; he had power to remake the ruined clay, v7-8. He would act in either way according to whether there was repentance or not.
4. He can do either instantly, v7, 9. ‘In a blink’ sin can ruin a people; or repentance restore them to favour with God.

II  THE MESSAGE APPLIED TO HIS HEARERS.

Only when he was thus instructed in the ways of God did Jeremiah go at God’s bidding to speak again to the people. His experience at the potter’s house carries over into this message. N.b. I frame.. v11 > potter.

1. A warning of judgement and a fresh call to repent, v11. Judgement was only a ‘blink’ away! It could justly fall at any instant.
2. Stubborn refusal, v12. His audience refuse his message on the basis that there appears to them to be no hope. That is, they refused to accept that God could, like the potter, instantly remake the ruined vessel. The promises of restoration, recovery and the removal of the sentence of wrath.
3. Unnatural and unprecedented wickedness, v13-15. Various illustrations of the madness of the choices sin makes are used.
4. The inevitable end of their course, v16-17.

III   THE TRAGIC OUTCOME.

1. The response from the people, v18.
2. A misplaced confidence. These things named seem to act as guarantees against wrath! This is what they trusted to. There was no power, it seemed to them, could shake these values. They had forgotten the power of the potter over the clay!
3. Opposition to Jeremiah. They launched a vitriolic campaign of slander and criticism.
4. A determination not to listen. They steeled themselves against his word.
5. Jeremiah takes it to the Lord.
6. He had laboured among them for their good. He had preached and prayed for their benefit.
7. Now he prays imprecations against them, v21-23. He does so simply taking God at His word. This is what is involved in God ‘marring the vessel’.