Jeremiah 18:3-4

(with Jeremiah 19:1-2, Jeremiah 19:10-11)

I. There is a Divine ideal possible for every man. God has not made any man simply for destruction. He has an archetype or pattern before Him, which it is possible for each man to reach. That ideal is not the same for all, but it is in each appropriate to and in correspondence with the environment in which he is placed.

II. This ideal is to be attained by a man only through implicit faith in God, and willing obedience to His commands.

It was a profound saying of a great philosopher that "we command nature by obeying her." And similarly we may affirm that we command God by obeying Him.

III. If such faith and obedience are refused by a man, that man's history is marred, and it is no longer possible for him to become what otherwise he might have been. Sin mars the Divine ideal for a man. It deprives him of the full advantage of the skill and help of God in the development of His character. It is no longer possible even for God, in consistency with the moral nature of His government, to make of him all that was originally attainable by him.

IV. If the man should repent and turn to the Lord, he may yet, through the rich forbearance of God, rise to a measure of excellence and usefulness, which, though short of that which was originally possible to him and intended for him, will secure the approval of the Most High.

V. If the man harden himself into persistent rejection of God, show stubborn impenitence, there comes a time when improvement is no longer possible, and there is nothing for him but everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. The clay that was plastic was made into another vessel; but the bottle that was burned into hardness, and was found to be worthless, was broken into pieces and cast out. So when impenitence is perversely persisted in there conies a point at which the heart is so hardened that impenitence is neither thought of nor desired, and the man is abandoned to perdition.

W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds, p. 150.

Jeremiah 18:6I. Every human life is, first of all, an idea in the mind of God. The potter is an artist, and it is the thoughts of his head he embodies in the vessels he makes. Our beings are Divine productions, embodied thoughts of the Divine heart, the very work of the Divine hands.

II. Every human life is shaped for a Divine use. When the potter turns a vessel on his wheel, the first pulse of thought concerning it touches its use. It is the use which determines the shape. And this holds good in the shaping of human life by God. We are created to be vessels for God, and of God; vessels of His sanctuary, set apart for His service, and filled with all sweet and wholesome things.

III. The third truth in this parable is that lives tried in one shape are sometimes broken up and re-shaped to fulfil themselves in new spheres of different capacities and shapes of the Divine character and life.

IV. God has left it to man himself to decide whether he will be a vessel of honour or dishonour. If we were mere clay, God being Lord and Maker of us, each would pass to the fulfilment of the Divine purpose as stars and trees do, and there would be no after-story of sorrow—no divergence from the Divine intention. But we are human beings, not mere clay. The Creator has power over the lives He moulds, but it is never so wielded as to quench the power of choice He has given to us.

V. Be true to the Divine intention and shaping of your lives. The Great Householder reserves for the highest honour the cup which carries the wine to His own lips or to the lips of His guests. Be, each of you, that cup for God. So shall God be well-pleased with the work of His hands.

A. MACLEOD, Days of Heaven upon Earth, p. 23.

References: Jeremiah 18:11.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 279. Jeremiah 18:12.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xii., No. 684. Jeremiah 18:18-19.—J. S. Howson, Good Words, 1868, p. 617. Jeremiah 19:13.—S. Greg, A Layman's Legacy, p. 223.