Echoing Down from Jeremiah, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Jeremiah 18:1-11

18:1  The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
18:2  "Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear My words."
18:3  So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel.
18:4  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.
18:5  Then the word of the Lord came to me:
18:6  Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord.  Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
18:7  At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it,
18:8  but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change My mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.
18:9  And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it,
18:10  but if it does evil in My sight, not listening to My voice, then I will change My mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.
18:11  Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

The prophet Jeremiah -- sometimes called "the weeping prophet," and a man persecuted by his own Jewish kinsmen who cursed him, beat him, and threw him in prison -- writes between 680 and 530 B.C. about the final prophecies to the kingdom of Judah.  He warns of the nation's coming destruction if they do not repent.  Jeremiah practically begs the nation to return to the God of their fathers.   And yet, all the while he recognizes how inevitable is Judah’s destruction due to the idolatry and immorality from which it will not turn back.
Earlier in his writings Jeremiah even understands how difficult it is for them to turn their back on their pleasures, writing in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”
So, who is this Jeremiah, that he should have the final word of God?  Jeremiah the prophet was a man who had been given a very difficult task by God.  He loved the nation of Judah, but he loved God more.  So as painful as it was for Jeremiah to tell his own people God had judged them, he knew he needed to be obedient to God.  He could hope and pray for mercy, but He also trusted God to be good, just and righteous in this matter.
Still he often became frustrated and angry with the people of Judah for their refusal to set aside their idols, as he prophesied for a quarter of a century before the siege of Jerusalem and the monumental destruction that included the razing of Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadnezzar.  At times it was apparently more than Jeremiah could handle, and he had to lay it at God's feet.  And yet for those of us in this age, the words Jeremiah brought to the people of Judah from God come echoing down through the ages to us.
When we must finally lay everything at God's feet, in our powerlessness, do we trust that God, in His infinite mercies and in His wisdom, will bring about His perfect plan and, in the end, what is best for us?  That's what Jeremiah had to do.  We of New Testament times absolutely should, even in our overwhelming difficulties believing in the truth of Romans 8:28, "He works all things together for good to those who love God, and are called according to His purposes."  
Jeremiah's story of his visit to the potter's house, and how God uses the potter's working of the clay is a metaphor for God's own work, on the one hand clear and straightforward, but on the other hand, raising questions for us.
For example, God has given us life, and for those of us in America, freedom and the gift of opportunity and hope for the future.  But if we spoil that gift of life, of freedom, of opportunity and hope, Jeremiah says God will scrap what we have spoiled and make of it "what seemed good to Him."
For those of us in America, the historic events happening around us would seem to make it clear we are in "the Potter's House", and as the potter's metaphor makes clear, God will have the last word.  A remolding is taking place, for the first effort has been spoiled.  The very best thing we can do is make God's will our will.  Can we discern meaning in the historic events happening around us at this time?  Does the history of similar events hold lessons for us?
Jeremiah urges us to find meaning in this.  We are not Israel, but we serve the same God now as Israel served then.  And while Jeremiah makes clear that the Lord God may change His mind if the criteria for His judgments change, yet the values, the standards for God's judgments do not change.  It is left for us to change, for us to come up to His standards.  The potter does not allow the clay to create its own standards of perfection.
The very first thing we see in this chapter of Jeremiah is that God changes the prophet's position.  "Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.  So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel," say verses 2 and 3.
We must be in the right position to hear what God wants us to know.
Our natural position is one of bankruptcy.  Physically we are dying and morally we are bankrupt.  “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved . . .” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
God, by His grace through faith has moved us from our position of corruption, wearing the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ, to a position within the royal family of God.  And yet, we are undeserving sinners, saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.  And if we are undeserving sinners, then we have sinned against God’s common grace and have provoked His wrath to His face. We deserve righteous judgment.
But just as God moved Jeremiah to the potter's workplace to see first-hand what He was about to do to Judah, so God moves us under the righteousness of the Son, with eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of the Gospel, to see and to know the deadliness of sin and the consequences of remaining in it.
Just as God was offering the people of Judah a second chance through Jeremiah, the mystery of the gospel is that even though we were corrupt and unrighteous, working against God and without any love for God, yet He gave us the gift of hearing the gospel.  God’s grace -- the mystery of His mercy -- saves us for His glory despite our natural and willful condition.
Today, just as with Jeremiah's people, we have our idols to which we give our time, our money, and our adoration, while tipping our hat to God one day a week.  Do we think God doesn't notice?  Maybe He doesn't care?  The people of Judah had the luxury of hearing Jeremiah's warnings for 25 years before God dropped the hammer on them, and the overwhelming forces of King Nebuchadnezzar's army came rampaging across them, destroying and killing.
If God gave America the same 25 years, the problem is we don't know when He started the clock.  It's terribly obvious this nation is in dire trouble as regards the economy, jobs, our security, and our morality.  Recent surveys show a drastic drop in the public's confidence in both the federal government and the news media.  Murder, mayhem, selfish violence, and a deep lack of morality fill the news each night.
Across America in churches, on television, the Internet, through ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the voice of Jeremiah is heard urging men and women to turn away from the idolatry that occupies them, and turn their attention back to God.  It is not as if we are not being warned.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of studying the book of Jeremiah is knowing that from chapters 24 on, Jeremiah records King Nebuchadnezzar conquering Judah and making it subject to him (Jeremiah 24:1).  Judah had a promising future, protected by the benevolent and mighty arm of God.  But when they turned away from Him, He merely removed His arm of protection.
After further rebellion, God allowed Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies back to destroy and desolate Judah and Jerusalem (Jeremiah 52).  When God's people do not learn, when they do not respect the God who has cared for them and protected them, then in the end, God's judgment falls on them.  They did not change.  Neither did God.  "He who has ears, let him hear."  (Matt. 11:15).  Amen.


Meditations

August 26-September 2, 2012

Invocation:  Lord Jesus Christ, whose cross was raised on Golgotha's brow, casting its long shadow over Jerusalem's soul, may the cross be raised at the center of my life, casting its shadow over all my desires and all my motives.  In Your strong name I pray.  Amen.

Read: Psalm 18:1-19

Daily Scripture Readings
Monday John 1:19-28
Tuesday John 14:1-11
Wednesday Colossians 1:15-23
Thursday John 6:66-71
Friday John 12:20-36
Saturday John 11:1-16
Sunday 2nd Samuel 23:1-7; Ephesians 5:21-33; Psalm 67;
John 6:55-69

Reflection: (silent and written)

Prayers for the church, for others, for yourself.

Hymn: "How Can We Name a Love"

Benediction: I bind myself today to the strong name of Jesus.  My God, I call You to the center of my life.  Come to me, stay with me, all the day long.  Amen.