For the present, we have finished with the particular theme of this conference. We are being led this evening to something which is a message in itself, and it takes its rise from a very familiar part of the Scripture, in the prophecies of Jeremiah—the eighteenth chapter.
“The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words.”
“Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he was making a vessel upon the wheels.”
“And when the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”—Jeremiah 18:1-4
I want to put alongside that these words from the New Testament: Ephesians 2:10.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.”
—Ephesians 2:10
Returning to this well-known illustration of workmanship—the house of the potter, to which the prophet was told to go—as we read it, or perhaps as we have read it in times past, there are three effects that it can have upon us. It depends entirely upon which word we underline, where we stop, where we put the emphasis.
There are three words which stand out in this whole passage, and where we choose to put the emphasis may result in a message that decides a very great thing where we are concerned. It may affect our whole life.
There is the word marred: “the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter.” If we make that the word, then something of hopelessness will come over us.
We shall begin to find that in our thinking, and we shall begin to say, “Yes, I made a mess of things. I spoiled it all. There is nothing for me now.” That will have one effect upon your whole life if you take that word and make it the message.
Thank God, that is not the message. But it may be, even in a small gathering like this, that there is somebody looking back on life with very little gratification—rather with regret and remorse—who falls into this mood.
You think of yourself as the clay. You have, perhaps, made a mess of things. You have not fulfilled all the promise, all the possibilities. You feel there has been a breakdown, and that sense of failure, of lost opportunity, and much more in that direction, creates this shadow over life and makes you feel, “Well, that is it. Now it is just to drift through in some way, and finish up as decently as we can.”
There is another word: “He made it again another vessel.” If we put our line under that word and make it the message, that will open the door to some gloomy thoughts and considerations.
We will at once begin to say, “Well, God has not been able to fulfil His original intentions where I am concerned. I have to be content with being His second best—something other, something different, something that He really did not mean me to be. He is making the most and the best of a bad job. He is just working with me on an alternative line.”
That reduces me to being something of a mistake—not what I was intended to be. You see the possibilities of putting your circle around that word another.
But then there is another phrase here: “As seemed good to the potter to make it.” “As seemed good to the potter”—that introduces an altogether new prospect, possibility, and outlook.
If, after all, it is possible for Him to say, “It is good; My work is good,” and to find His own pleasure and His own satisfaction, that will certainly be far better, higher, and greater than my greatest satisfaction could possibly be. His standard is so much higher than my best. If He can say, “It is good,” well, I say again, that opens up a new prospect, does it not?
That introduces the triumph of His grace, in spite of everything—in spite of what we are, and of all our failure, and of all His difficulty with us. His great triumph, His wisdom, triumphs over all the problems in us. His love overcomes all the difficulty that He has with us.
Yes, over all the aspects that He has encountered in us, if the end is, “It is good in His sight; as seemed good to the potter,” I say that brings an altogether new situation into view. These are the three possibilities that arise out of these words.
We choose the word that is the message. That is the message that I want to bring to you.
Now, our method this evening will be to take the principle that lies right at the heart of this, lifted out of its immediate context and setting just for a moment, and see it in a larger relationship and application.
The Bible opens with the Potter’s house. It is a very big Potter’s house, very much bigger than thirty miles. When we open our Bible, we find a shapeless, chaotic mass. To view it, it might present the aspect of utter hopelessness and impossibility. What can you do with that?
It is simply said that the earth was waste and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. It was chaos. But the next thing—the very next thing—is the great Potter getting to work upon that shapeless, distorted mass of clay.
He made it again. He made it again. And then He stood back from the work of creation, the making again, and He looked upon all things, and it was, in the Divine word, “very good.”
The principle has a very large application, has it not?
But then it is not long before we come to another breakdown in the whole thing. Once more the vessel is marred. We know the story: Adam sinned. He drew the whole creation into judgment, again under a curse.
He himself was marred and spoiled. The creation came under the sentence: “Because thou hast done this, cursed is the ground for thy sake; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Oh, we know a good bit about that.
To the woman He said other things—suffering associated with her life and her function. The clay was marred in the hands of the Potter.
But does He throw it aside? Does He give it up? Does He say, “It is hopeless. It is impossible. I can do nothing with this,” and so discard the whole thing? That is not the God of the Bible.
He has got poor stuff. It is true, the poor clay has proved to be very poor stuff. But He sets to work again with that stuff, and He makes it again—another vessel.
Out of that poor stuff, we see a man named Abel emerging: a man who stands in the Bible with honour, whose name is held right down through the ages as something which found the approval of God. The New Testament puts the distinct approval of God upon Abel.
No greater approval could be given than that God should call him righteous: “righteous Abel.”
And Abraham—how glad I am that in these great men God never, never hides what poor stuff they were in themselves. He lets us see their flaws, the flaws in the clay. He lets us see their weaknesses. He lets us see them break down.
He lets us see that, but for that mighty hand of His, they would make shipwreck like all the rest. They in themselves are no better than others. But they are in His hands. These are men in His hands.
And there emerges out of that clay—the same clay, the same place where we are—there emerges this man, Abraham. What a lot in the Bible there is which is of this character: “very good, as seemed good unto the potter.”
And what shall we say about Jacob? No one needs to be told that Jacob was poor clay. We know, we know. Really, that word is the very synonym of human frailty, weakness, and wrong.
Yes, he belongs to that clay, but he is in the hand of the Potter. And when the Potter has done His work, He is afterward proud to say, “I am the God of Jacob.”
So we might go through all the Old Testament, picking out this one and then another. We lift out Elijah, and then hear what the Apostle James says: “Elijah was a man of like passions with us.”
Yes, the same clay, the same stuff. And we know that even in his life there was breaking under the strain, under the tension. But he stands in great honour with God.
He made it again. Out of that breakdown in Adam—out of that broken-down Adam and all that Adam represents—He has taken this and made it as seemed good to the Potter to make it.
We might go on to look at the men who failed and whom He reworked. One translation which I rather like says, “He reworked it.” He reworked it.
“We are His workmanship” was the passage we read. We are His workmanship. He reworked it.
It would be difficult to know where to start and where to finish, but a man who broke down and whom He reworked—we might just take, from the Old Testament, one outstanding illustration and example: no other than David himself.
We have read his psalm tonight. Psalm 51 of David—overwhelmed with the consciousness of his sin, his breakdown, his failure. A great sob rises out of that psalm.
If you look to see the history that lay behind it, you see the good cause for David to weep before God, confessing his sin and praying:
“Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.”—Psalm 51:10
Anybody who has the slightest knowledge of the story of David knows the tragedy of David’s life, the breakdown. Oh, indeed, indeed, this vessel was marred in the hands of the Potter. He failed. He broke down. He became a tragedy from one standpoint.
But God did not give him up. I am not stopping to give you the details. There are some of them too terrible to tell. You are going to make the man incapable of doing that until you know your own heart.
There you are: this man grievously, terribly broke down. Did God discard? Did God cast away? He made it again.
So the David that comes down to us today is not that David, but another David—a David of honour, the sweet singer of Israel, the David of the beloved psalms. Oh, what should we do without the Psalms of David?
The greatest of Israel’s kings—and this: “I have found David, a man after My own heart.” Is it possible to say anything greater than that?
Something has happened. Something has happened. He reworked it. He made it again.
Or if we pass out of the Old Testament into the New, men there leap onto the stage who embody this great principle. Think about Peter. Did Peter break down? Was Peter poor stuff?
“I will follow Thee even unto death.” The next breath: “I tell you, I know not the man”—denying, as it says, with oaths and curses.
You do not like talking about men in this way and bringing up their faults, but you have to see that dark side in order to see the marvel of Divine grace. There is Peter. Did that clay disclose flaws—sin, unworkableness, resistance to his Lord, to his Master?
“Such shall never come unto Thee.” “This shall never be.” “Not so, Lord.” Something there in the clay, you see.
What a Peter we have today, have we not? That is not the Peter we have in the old story—the clay which broke down. Peter we have now is a very different Peter.
We love to read his letters. Wonderful help and inspiration come from his two letters in the New Testament. We love to see him on the Day of Pentecost standing up. We love to see him later dragged before the rulers, standing on both his feet and challenging them with all courage and firmness.
What a changed picture from that fireside denial in the lower hall when his Lord was standing His trial for His life. What a change!
Ah, He reworked it. He made it again, as seemed good to the Potter. And we all have to say, “It was good, and it is good.”
Or take one other example and illustration from the New Testament. These are not the only ones: a young man by the name of John Mark.
John Mark was a young man who lived in Jerusalem, evidently in a godly home, in a place where the Lord and His disciples were wont to gather. Wonderful times, no doubt, in that room; and John Mark lived there.
Then came Barnabas and Paul, and they took that young man with them on their great missionary journey. On and on, town to town, city to city, he saw the wonderful things that God was doing. He beheld the wonderful works of the Lord.
But it was strenuous going. It was costly. And when he reached a certain point on the journey, he said, “I am not going any further. I can stand no more of this. I am going home.”
The narrative tells us that he left them and went back to Jerusalem. The clay had given up. Stamina was found wanting. It had broken down.
But that is not all. He reflected upon it. I wonder what his reflections were. I am quite sure that they were very gloomy reflections: “Oh, I have made a mess of this.”
“And then to think that I have been the cause of the separation of these two great men, Barnabas and Paul. I have been the occasion of their parting, the end of their united missionary activities.” That is what happened. Over him, this thing happened.
Those are things, my friends, which might well lead to gloomy reflection and hopelessness. The clay seems to have been marred and spoiled. But that is not the end of the story.
Most of you know your Bibles and have read ahead. You know how the story finished. Even Paul says, “Bring John Mark, for he is profitable to me.”
There are some lovely things said about this young man at the end: recovery, recommissioning, usefulness. And it is he who has given us this beautiful book which goes by the name, The Gospel According to Mark.
There is the story: He made it again. There is a man who broke down in the process of a great plan. The Potter did not discard the poor clay.
Oh, so much depends, does it not, upon how we interpret this Potter. Let us look at Him. Who is He? This Potter is not a man.
How differently men would deal with these things. Here is the clay—yes, poor stuff—and he is seeking to work it. Then he comes suddenly upon something in it that does not give, something that resists.
For a moment he pauses. Now watch this. Watch this. What does he do? Not this Potter—to say, “We can go no further. We must give it up. All our intentions are impossible of realization.”
He does not throw it aside and look for something better. Not this Potter. That is not the God of the Bible.
He may be sorry that He has met that something, whatever it might be. He may, for a moment, have a look of concern upon His face. But then you see light come into His face. You see the triumph—the smile of His grace and of His wisdom.
And He says, “I will not be defeated. I will have something for My pleasure and satisfaction wherever I find it.” That is the God of the Bible.
All this that I am saying to you has one thought—the word which I want to leave with you. I want to come to that as quickly as I can.
God is a God of purpose.
God is a God of purpose, and God does not undertake anything He knows He can never achieve. When He does start, He has the perfect end in view. He has the resource. He has the wisdom. He has the patience. He has the grace. He has the love. He has the power. He can do it.
That is the God of hope. I am glad our brother, in his prayer, used that phrase tonight—a little confirmation for me of the message: the God of hope. Thank God, there is hope. That means that God’s purpose never is defeated.
There is something for our comfort. But, you know, we must always be perfectly honest and perfectly faithful. While all this is true in the Bible along the line that we have first used, there is another line in the Bible: those who were spoiled and never remade.
There is the dark side. We do not like to look at it, but we must, in order to get the full picture. There were some spoiled and never remade.
You can call them to mind at once: Cain, Abel’s brother; Esau, Jacob’s brother; Saul, the first king of Israel; and, in the New Testament, Judas.
These are people who have gone out into the dark. There is nothing about them that is to God’s satisfaction. But I mention that for a purpose. You see, to see why that was is to do two things.
Firstly, it explains their opposite—that is, it tells us why these others did come out to the glory and praise of God. You can see why the others did not. The other thing is this: the explanation will bring us to the door of hope and promise.
Let us look at these men quite quickly. Cain—why was he not retrieved, reworked, made again? In him there was nothing that seemed to indicate a sense of sin: the sense of sin.
I cannot tell you the whole story of these men. I have to trust that you know it now; and if you do not, you will believe what I am saying as a summary of their lives. Cain was a self-righteous man. Cain was a self-sufficient man, yet withal a man that had some religion.
You see, there was an altar. He brought an offering to God. He had some religion. If he lived today, he would have gone to church.
But his religion was either mere superstition or patronage—religion that acknowledges God, you know, for fear that if you do not, it will go badly or you will go ill. A sort of safeguard is religion: superstition.
Or patronage: recognizing God, of course. “Do you recognize God?” “We acknowledge that God is.” But there was no sense of sin, and a feeling of being religious without having that essential consciousness of sin and needing a Substitute—a Saviour.
That was Cain. Cain was the man who did not know his own heart.
If you had said to Cain earlier on, “Cain, it will not be very long before you commit the foulest murder. You will take the life of your own brother by your own hand. Your own brother will lie dead at your feet; his blood will be trickling into the sand,” what would Cain have said?
Oh, he would never have believed that. But that was what was in him. He had no sense of sin. He did not know his own heart. And, you know, God cannot do anything with that.
You notice that all the men on the other side, of whom I have spoken, were men who had this consciousness of sin—men who believed in the Lamb of sacrifice for sin.
Men like David: “I acknowledge my sin. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in Thy sight.” There were men with a consciousness of sin, men who knew the need of a Saviour—every one of them.
But Cain was not like that, and that puts the man out of the hands of God. He can do nothing with that. He cannot rework that. That blocks the way—the way of glory, the way of Divine satisfaction, the way of realization.
The way is the consciousness of sin. And if you have that, it is a thing of promise, a thing of hope, that brings us to the door of hope.
Esau, Jacob’s brother—you know about him. Here again was a fatal lack. Esau lacked the sense of the supreme importance of things spiritual.
The birthright would have brought him into a place of standing for God. You see, the firstborn was supposed to stand for God, to be God’s representative. He was the priest in the family. He had to do with holy things. He it was that led the family into the presence of God. That was the birthright.
Much more was bound up with the birthright, but he thought little of it. The Bible says—and this is the final condemnation of that man—he despised his birthright.
That is, he lacked this essential consciousness of the supreme importance of things spiritual. Whatever you have to say about Jacob, that was not true of Jacob. He may have sought the birthright wrongly, but he did at least recognize the superlative value of spiritual things.
A lot is hidden in the veins of Esau. Long, long history—as we pointed out in this conference, the history of Edom. Oh, how that breaks out in the Bible story again and again.
You remember Doeg the Edomite—his vile treachery resulted in the slaying of all the priests of God. Yes, Edom. The Edomites are the descendants of Esau, and wherever you find them in the Bible, you find the same thing: the lack of the supreme importance of spiritual things.
Holding spiritual things lightly and cheaply; thinking that a mess of pottage, gratifying a passing appetite and pleasure, is more important than the things of God. God can do nothing with that. He never reworks that.
The final downfall came about because, first of all, he did not trust the Lord. He was put to the test. He was given a magnificent opportunity of showing that he implicitly trusted the Lord, and he showed that he did not.
His trust in the Lord would have led him to do a certain thing that Samuel the prophet told him to do in the name of the Lord. And he disobeyed because he did not trust. That is it. God cannot remake that.
The kingdom was rent from Saul. He went out marred and never remade. If God is going to do this thing, He must have in us that simple thing which trusts Him and obeys Him. That is what He asks of us.
And Judas, finally—Judas. Many things can be said about Judas, but to sum it up: What does Judas mean?
Judas fatally lacked an adequate sense of the greatness of his opportunity. I think that sums it up. He lacked a healthy sense of the greatness of his opportunity.
Just what would you give to be called by Jesus Christ into that circle of immediate discipleship—to be with Him wherever He went, to share His ministry, to be His companion, to be His helper?
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, here in the flesh and a man’s home; in His fellowship, in His life, and in the great purpose of God for which He came into the world. And away for thirty pieces of silver.
Yes, utterly lacking a sense of the greatness of his opportunity.
Here we are. We here, every one of us, are called into the fellowship of God’s Son. We are all called into the most honourable company and calling that this universe has.
Living fellowship with God’s Son—in life, in service, in companionship, in suffering for Him—all that is the call for every one of us.
Oh, what an opportunity! What an honour! What a privilege! What an unspeakable blessing: called into the fellowship of His Son.
If God is going to realise all His great designs, to fulfil all His purpose, to make out of this poor clay something that is pleasing to Him and good in His sight, then, dear friends, you and I have got to have a sense of the great, great honour that is conferred upon us in being called into the fellowship of His Son.
To sum it all up, there must be, as differing from all these men—Cain and Esau and Saul and Judas—there must be in us an overmastering sense of the transcendent importance of eternal things.
The eternal things outweigh all other considerations in this life. To use the phrase of the Lord Jesus: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” The things of the kingdom of God should be of such paramount importance that nothing is to be compared with them or to come in their way.
All else is worthless, however great—the kingdoms of this world. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Which means, lose the purpose for which Christ came into the world.
If this overmastering sense of the transcendent importance of things eternal is in us and with us, we may be poor stuff. We may be very poor stuff. He will make it again—a vessel that is good to the Potter. Good.
Oh, to think that it is possible that, at long last—or soon enough, at last—He might look upon His work in you and in me and say, through grace, “It is very good.”
That is the possibility. That is the prospect. The Lord find in us the things that will make it not only a possibility, but an actuality.
We will sing from the Keswick Hymnal, number 225:
Through the noise of a thousand voices,
Sounds of joy and din,
A busy world comes a sound
To which thine ear must hearken:
It is the Saviour knocking at thy heart.