If you are reading according to the new Bible Book Club schedule, Jesus is COMING in ONLY 142 more days! I know all this gloom, doom, and destruction can be wearisome, but He is coming!!!!!
BACKGROUND
Jeremiah 18 - "Parable of the Potter"
God's people were like clay in His hand, and He could press them down and form them into another pot! Notice the "If . . . then" statements in this chapter. If they obeyed the covenant, then they would have blessings. If they continued to do evil, then they would face judgment. It was very simple.
The people responded to this pronouncement by making plans against Jeremiah. They would slander and malign his message, plot to kill him, and pay no attention to his word. Jeremiah no longer asked God to turn away His wrath (18:20; 7:16; 8:20-22) but to "deal with them" in the time of His anger!
Jeremiah 19 - The Broken Jar
In Hebrew, the word for clay jar is baqbūq. Commentators believe this is an onomatopoetic word that imitates the sound of the water being poured out.
Jeremiah was to take a group of elders and priests and walk outside the Potsherd Gate to the Hinnom Valley (Now called the "Dung Gate"). This is where the people would dump out their broken pieces of pottery ("potsherd"). This was a perfect location for Jeremiah's message because it contained the high places of Baal where they participated in child sacrifice. This place would be renamed the "Valley of Slaughter" because He would destroy the people there through the Babylonian siege that would even cause them to resort to cannibalism! This would be a fulfillment of the promised curses of Leviticus 26:14-39 and Deuteronomy 28:15-68. To bring drama to this message, God commanded Jeremiah to break the jar he had carried through the Potsherd Gate. God would smash them for their idolatry just like the jar.
Jeremiah was to take a group of elders and priests and walk outside the Potsherd Gate to the Hinnom Valley (Now called the "Dung Gate"). This is where the people would dump out their broken pieces of pottery ("potsherd"). This was a perfect location for Jeremiah's message because it contained the high places of Baal where they participated in child sacrifice. This place would be renamed the "Valley of Slaughter" because He would destroy the people there through the Babylonian siege that would even cause them to resort to cannibalism! This would be a fulfillment of the promised curses of Leviticus 26:14-39 and Deuteronomy 28:15-68. To bring drama to this message, God commanded Jeremiah to break the jar he had carried through the Potsherd Gate. God would smash them for their idolatry just like the jar.
I know more destruction. I have battle fatigue after so many months of the prophets! Some of you are probably struggling with a loving God doing this to his own people. I do not want to be glib, but "He is the Potter, and we are the clay". He is sovereign and just. I know that is hard to accept sometimes, but it is true.
It had been approximately 820 years since the "blessings and curses" of the covenant in Deuteronomy and the fulfillment of this carnage in the Babylonian captivity of 586 B.C. God is long-suffering!
So, what does this chapter have to do with us? It tells us that we need to be malleable clay ("capable of being altered or controlled by outside forces or influences, having a capacity for adaptive change") in the Potter's hands.
Without His touch, we are just a big blob!
"The clay is not attractive in itself,
but when the hands of the potter touch it,
and the thought of the potter is brought to bear upon it,
and the plan of the potter is worked out in it and through it,
then there is a real transformation."
J. Wilbur Chapman
Have you fully yielded to God so that you are capable of being changed to be more like Him?
In what ways have you been resistant to God's molding in your life lately?
Think about the people God has used to mold you into the person you are today:
Parents
Siblings
Teachers
Pastors
Disciplers
Authors
(I am aware that some of these may be bad molders. So, think of the good ones.)
Have you been F.W.A.T. (Faithful, Wholehearted, Available, and Teachable) toward their guidance? Do you have people in your life who can help you in the transformation process?
Have you been F.W.A.T. (Faithful, Wholehearted, Available, and Teachable) toward their guidance? Do you have people in your life who can help you in the transformation process?
Dialogue with God about this.
God uses people and circumstances to mold us. Another way to become like clay is to pray this Welcoming Prayer:
PRAYER
For your prayerful meditation today:
2 comments:
Perhaps that's why so many "read through the Bible" programs have readings in both the OT and NT every day! It does seem like a lot of gloom and destruction, but I think that to truly understand what Jesus has done for us we HAVE to understand our sin and waywardness. Grace is not grace apart from the law. Mercy is meaningless if there is no such thing a sin (violating God's standards). I am so glad we've spent so much time in the OT because, actually, I'm realizing so much more how Jesus is there, too.
I am more likely to let go and let him be the Potter! I suppose it comes down to our concept of God. Is our concept of God that He is good and committed to our welfare and FREEDOM or is he a capricious God who is not good?
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