THE POTTER’S HOUSE (with Deuteronomy)
#614bb THE POTTER’S HOUSE (with Deuteronomy)
Scripture Deuteronomy 20:1-4; Jeremiah 18:1-6, NIV Orig. Date May 10, 1981
Passage:
Deuteronomy 20:1-4
When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3 He shall say: “Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be terrified by them. 4 For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”
Jeremiah 18:1-6
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.”
Purpose: To share a message at a special gathering of high school students.
Keywords: Discipline Banquet Revelation Relationship Youth
Introduction
It was one of those intolerably hot August days. A hiker had come out of the high regions and was beginning to see signs of civilization. Occasionally, in the distance, a house. Here and there, cultivated land with crops laid by. The hiker was now thinking only of finding a place to get a cool drink of water.
Down the way, he saw an old mountain house. As he drew nearer, he saw a man seated in a rickety chair on the run-down porch. As he approached he determined to be neighborly to the man, hoping that he would be so in return. He spoke, then called attention to the disagreeable weather. Still no invitation to rest came. He went on, “How is your cotton doing in this hot, dry weather?”
“Ain’t got none!” replied the mountain man.
“Didn’t you plant any cotton?” asked the surprised traveler.
“Nope,” he replied, “’fraid the boll weevils’d get it.”
“Well,” said the passer-by, “How is your corn?”
“Ain’t got none of that either,” said the old farmer, “And if you gotta know, I figured there weren’t gonna be no rain.”
Still hoping for an invitation to rest, and a drink of water, the hiker plunged in again. “Really, well what did you plant?” he asked.
“Didn’t plant nothing,” said the farmer, getting up to enter the old house. “I just played it safe.”
There are lots of good reasons why we do what we do. Some of them even good ones, and our excuses become the determinants of the way our lives are lived. To be a farmer and not to plant is ludicrous. To live in God’s world and make excuses for discounting Him is also.
There’s a shorter story of an avid golfer who was checking with his spiritual adviser about golfing in heaven. The adviser said, “There’s good and bad news. The good news is that the golf courses in heaven are many and lavish.” “That’s great!” the golfer happily exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?” The adviser said: “Tee off time is tomorrow at 10a.m.”
At first glance, Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote, has little to offer young people. It is the story of a thought-to-be senile old man, and his fat and 50ish servant. They launch a quest to do something about the evil in the world, the don on a sway back horse and Panza on a mule. They stop for the night at a less than becoming inn, and his strange ways continue. He addresses the slovenly inn-keeper, “Behold, you are the Lord of this great manor.” The abused kitchen servant was seen as a beautiful maiden, and he requests a token to carry with him into his battles with evil. But what happens is that people who have never been trusted before respond to Quixote’s kindness, and it changes their lives, and does affect the evil in the world by affecting the lives of evil people.
You are at the place to decide your quest: A part of the evil, or an attempt to do something about it. Why you?
The New Orleans TV market had an unusually fine TV program a few years ago that ended with the sudden and unexpected death of the host, Jim Metcalf. He chose for a portion of one program to see life through a child’s eyes. “I now recall only how to look. I do not recall how to see.”
You must decide quickly, before you join a great host of others who recall only how to look at the world, not how to see it. How to experience the world, not how you feel about that experience.
Jeremiah is a case in point. It is here that I invite you to venture with Jeremiah to the potter’s house.
I. With All of His Experience, there was a Lesson that He had Missed. It was not an obvious lesson: not wasted clay, though we Americans have something to learn about waste—our loss of credibility. The lesson was in the symbol of wasted clay. It was a revelation. Not new, but very old. The symbol declared that it was God’s purpose to take what seemed to be useless and give it meaning and opportunity. It is a lesson that must not be pushed too far. The clay does not have free will with which it can resist the potter. Jeremiah did, and we do.
II. You See, Even as God’s Prophet, He had Compromised an Ideal. The world out there waiting for you is beset with bargains.
Soren Kierkegaard told a story about wild geese who chose to stay behind in a farmer’s field because it was safe. A wild goose, with broken wing, entered a farmer’s flock. After winter, with healed wing, he heard another flock flying north. He extolled the other geese to fly with him, but they would not, for the farmer’s corn was good, and the barnyard secure.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote: “When was it that I completely scattered the good seeds, one and all? For, after all, I spent my boyhood in the bright singing of Thy temples.
“Bookish subtleties sparked brightly, piercing my arrogant brain, the secrets of the world . . . in my grasp, life’s destiny . . . as pliable as wax.
“Blood seethed . . . and every swirl gleamed iridescently before me. Without a rumble the building of my faith quietly crumbled within my own heart.
“But passing here between being and nothingness, stumbling and clutching at the edge, I looked behind me with a grateful tremor upon the life that I have lived. Not with good judgment nor with desire are its twists and turns illumined, but with the even glow of the higher meaning which became apparent to me only later on.
“And now, with measuring cup returned to me, scooping up the living water, God of the universe! I believe again! Though I renounced you, you were with me!”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Gulag II (Harper and Row—1968)
III. It was Now Time to Certify the Word from God. What God had to say was to be revealed in the work of the potter.
It speaks of confidence. There is something to believe in. There is a dependable world.
It speaks of obedience. James Michener’s book, The Source, is a fictional account of Moses. El Shaddai said to Zadok-the-Righteous, “As long as you live old man, you will be free to ignore my commands. But in time, I will grow impatient and will speak to others.” Zadok: “My home is the desert. I was afraid to leave.” El Shaddai: ‘I waited because I knew that if you did not love your home, you would not love me either. I am glad that you are now ready.”
It speaks of faith. I watched with more than a smile as a little girl, 4 or 5 years old, waited at the baggage belt in the air terminal in New Orleans. Just the three of us waiting for luggage at Moisant. She asked about putting her stuffed bear on the belt. Her daddy assured her it would come back. You cannot imagine the look of concern on that father’s face as he waited with her for his word to be trustworthy.
IV. The Lesson had to do with Discovering a Destiny. “Cannot I do with you as this potter? . . . As clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.”
Let me remind you of your dependence. This is not what your contemporaries want you to consider. It is threatening to them.
Let me remind you of design. The will of God is not a trite “preacherism.” It is ultimate truth. A little boy in a small town heard a “circus” was coming. He did not know what it was but posters and talk convinced him. For weeks he saved pennies till he had 25 cents. On the day, he got to town and was told where to go for the beginning of the parade. He saw lions, tigers, bears, elephants with people riding on them, beautiful horses, acrobats, jugglers, clowns, the circus band. As the last person appeared, the little boy stepped into the street, put five nickels into the man’s hand, and ran home to tell what he had seen. He had not been to a circus but to a parade.
Let me remind you of discipline: the calloused feet; the tools—wheel, rasp, chisel, fire. The light then came on in the prophet’s brain. Life’s meaning is found on the shaping wheel of grace, tempered in the fires of God’s providence.
Conclusion
Herman Hegedorn wrote after the initial atom bomb blast in New Mexico: “I went to call on the Lord in His high house on the hill, my head full of 150 million people having to grow up overnight. If ever a people needed a miracle! The Lord!! He looked at me as a mountain might look at a molehill.” ‘So you want a miracle. My! My! You want a miracle. You want me to come sliding down a sunbeam and make 150 million self-willed egotists into 150 million cooperating angels.
‘Brother,’ said the Lord in a voice that shook the windows, ‘that isn’t the sort of universe you are living in. That isn’t the sort of God I am. . . .
‘Give me your life, and I will make it a spade to dig the foundation of a new world.’”
THE ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
#103 THE ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
Scripture Jeremiah 2:5-13 NIV Orig. 11/22/64 (11/78)
Deuteronomy 1:10-11, 21 NIV Rewr. 11/22/86
Passage:
Jeremiah 2:5-13
5 This is what the Lord says:
“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
and became worthless themselves.
6 They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord,
who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
7 I brought you into a fertile land
to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
and made my inheritance detestable.
8 The priests did not ask,
‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
following worthless idols.
9 “Therefore I bring charges against you again,”
declares the Lord.
“And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
10 Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar[a] and observe closely;
see if there has ever been anything like this:
11 Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols.
12 Be appalled at this, you heavens,
and shudder with great horror,”
declares the Lord.
13 “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Deuteronomy 1:10-11, 21
10 The Lord your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky. 11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!
21 See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.
Purpose: To call my people to remembrance of blessings of God to His people and that their spiritual prosperity was linked to their obedience
Keywords: God’s Blessing Promises Hebrew History Promises
Thanksgiving Thankfulness
Introduction
The attitude of gratitude is not borne easily. Not only is its existence a troubled one, bearing it can sometimes be a struggle to those near at hand.
Anonymity claims the pen which wrote the verse:
“Be thankful every day for bread;
For clothes and shelter, clean and warm;
And God’s protection in life’s storm;
For life and health, and those who care;
For peace and quiet, and love and prayer.”
But in its lines is “the attitude of gratitude.” Without such, there is little to life’s meaning. There is no maturity, no personhood; certainly, no discipleship.
Bishop William Quayle, upon hearing of the death of his friend, the naturalist John Burroughs, reflected aloud, “Poor John, he loved the garden, but he never met the gardener.”
Joyce Kilmer, on the other hand, was unapologetically a believer. Before he died on a battlefield in France at the age of 32, he wrote,
“Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife
And the sting of His chastening rod.
Thank God for the stress and pains of life
And, Oh, thank God for God.”
The Hebrew people to whom Jeremiah spoke, and around whom Deuteronomy was written, shared a heritage of blessing in the promises of God. A part of that observance was the Feast of Tabernacles. They knew this celebration as “Sukkot,” and shared together in this feast at the end of the harvest season. The purpose was to give thankfulness to God for the fulfillment of all His promised blessings to them. But their history, like ours today, is checkered with those occasions of great blessing, with little or no response from those to whom the blessings are given.
I. The Attitude of Gratitude Examines the Record from the Past. Jeremiah 2:7, “I brought you into a plentiful country to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof.” So the Lord is the key to time and circumstance. Dr. Sidlow Baxter teaches an important lesson in the lives of the seven great men of Genesis. Abel was 1st, not a man reaching in toward himself as was Cain, but reaching out to the unknown: to God. 2nd was Enoch, immortalized forever as the man who walked with God. 3rd was Noah, forever the man of spiritual renewal; he followed his God over the cold water to a new day of hope. 4th was Abraham; he was a man who walked by faith, was “accounted as righteous” and called “the friend of God.” 5th, a little later, came Isaac; from him we get our first taste of sonship; he was of special promise, of special birth, almost a sacrifice for sin. Then, 6th, came Jacob; in him was the life of service—busy, untiring, blessing, a prince at prayer. Finally, 7th, came Joseph, a life thrown away, but picked up again, blessed and used.
It is not such men that we need today, but people with such a grasp of God, committed to pray, promise, and perform.
It was in some similar way that God moved to bring America to the forefront of nations. The year was not 1492, by the way, nor was the man Columbus. The year was 1455, and the man was Gutenberg. If you do not recognize the name, he was a printer. Printing came alive, the equivalent of the computer. The Bible, and its vision of men and women in freedom, was only a step away.
It was not long before doctrinal integrity replaced Ecclesiastical hierarchy (1517) in Luther’s 95 Theses at Wittenberg. During that same period. The persecution of Separatists, your spiritual forebears, pointed believers toward a distant wilderness and freedom’s dream.
God’s concern in America today is not in a land, but in a vision; not in a political entity, but a people. Isaiah 1:18 “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall become as wool.” Colossians 2:2, “God’s secret . . . is Christ himself. He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge.
II. The Attitude of Gratitude Considers Performance of God’s Dealings with His People. Deuteronomy 1:10 “The Lord your God hath multiplied you and behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.” The good gifts of God to Israel were a stewardship trust.
They were gifts clearly from God. The Ark of the Covenant symbolized God’s presence. 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." We abuse holy things.
They were gifts centered for service. Deuteronomy 26:5, “My father was a homeless Aramean who went down into Egypt with a small company, and lived there until they became a great nation.” It was clearly their responsibility to use those gifts to the glory of God. To examine Israel during those years of glory is to be aware of the awe in which others held them. In the world of nations between 10th-8th Centuries BC, they were the rich kid on the block. Others were jealous, but could do nothing. Then it was discovered that the mansion of Israel had roaches and termites just like the shacks by the river. They had been given a chance to help others. Their greatest failing was that they did not. What will our greatest failing be?
You see, the truth of moral and spiritual responsibility is eternal. To know God is to be morally and materially responsible for sharing that knowledge persuasively. Isaiah 62:6 “I have set watchmen upon the walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace, day or night . . . . Give Him no rest till He establishes, till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”
Not to share that responsibility is soul damning. Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”
“O Zion haste, thy mission high fulfilling, to tell to all the world that God is light,
That He who made all nations is not willing one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.
Proclaim to every people, tongue, and nation that God in whom they live and move is love.
Tell how He stooped to save His lost creation, and died on earth that man might live above.”
III. The Attitude of Gratitude Speaks Also of Promises in Prospect. Deuteronomy 1:11 “[May] the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as you are, and bless you, as He has promised you.”
Let us remember that God is righteous, and our sin is a burden to Him. The world was created and ordered under His perfect hand. It awaits people of faith and dedication to open the chalices of promise.
About ¾ century ago Albert Einstein stood before colleagues and wrote an equation that has literally changed the world. E = MC2. Energy is proportional to mass. And the atomic age came into being. Will it always bode evil and war? Can it not also bring good?
The fulfilled promise is one in which sin is brought to light in Christ.
It is the eternal link of blood. Leviticus 17:11 “For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Hebrews 9:22 “Without the shedding of blood is no remission.”
It is the building blocks to the universe. Isaiah 28:16 “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.”
God’s promise is first an invitation. Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye who labor.” I Peter 2:9, ‘Ye are a chosen generation called . . . out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Revelations 22:17 “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.”
Conclusion
The early charters of the colonies that became the United States were treatises dedicated to God through His Son. Plymouth, Delaware, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, Rhode Island had the stated purpose, “to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God almighty.”
The closing words of the Declaration of Independence confessed the nation’s dependence. Congress appointed a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer in 1776, that the colonies, “through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness.” Congress ordered the first Thanksgiving in 1777 asking “the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . and their humble earnest supplication, that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to blot out our sins of remembrance.”
Abbreviated version of #103
When you hear today of someone with “an attitude,” it usually has a negative connotation. However, if I understand the word aright, it can be used positively as well. Just as we are able to express strong negative emotions, we are also able to express powerful positive emotions. It is in that sense that I speak to you this morning on “The Attitude of Gratitude.”
Anonymity claims the pen which wrote the verse:
“Be thankful every day for bread,
For clothes and shelter, clean and warm;
And God’s protection in life’s storm.
For life and health, and those who care,
For peace and quiet, and love and prayer.”
Such lines as these contain that “attitude of gratitude.” Without such, life’s meaning is extremely the more complicated. Bishop William Quayle, upon hearing of the death of his friend, the world-renowned naturalist, John Burroughs, reflected aloud, “Poor John, he loved the garden but never knew the gardener.”
Joyce Kilmer, on the other hand, was unapologetically a believer. Before dying on a battlefield in France at the age of 32, he wrote:
“Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife
And the sting of His chastening rod.
Thank God for the stress and pains of life
And, Oh, thank God for God.”
The Hebrew people, who were Jeremiah’s audience, and the subject about which Deuteronomy was written, shared a heritage not unlike our Thanksgiving heritage. It was a celebration called ‘Sukkot.” It came at the end of the harvest season, and was intended as an expression of thankfulness. But their history, like ours today, is checkered with manifold evidence of blessing, and little more than token response from those to whom the blessings are given. The “attitude of gratitude” must examine Past Perceptions, Present Performances, and Promises in Prospect.
The early charters of the colonies that became the United States were treatises dedicated to God through His Son. Plymouth, Delaware, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, Rhode Island had the stated purpose, “to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God almighty.”
The closing words of the Declaration of Independence confessed the nation’s dependence. Congress appointed a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer in 1776, that the colonies, “through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness.” Congress ordered the first Thanksgiving in 1777 asking “the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . and their humble earnest supplication, that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to blot out our sins of remembrance.”