Jeremiah 18

 Chapter 18 is an important lesson for Israel and all nations. The Lord commanded Jeremiah to go to the potter's house to "hear My words." Jeremiah obeyed and witnessed the potter making something at the potter's wheel. 

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. 

These were the words of God that came to Jeremiah:

O house of Israel, can I not do with you as the potter? Look, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! The instant I speak concerning a nation and...a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against...turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and...a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said would benefit it.  

Again, the Lord commanded Jeremiah to warn the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem that He is devising a plan against them: "return now every one from...evil way[s], and make your ways and your doings good." 

But the people rejected the Lord's warning, calling it hopeless: "So we will walk according to our own plans and we will...obey the dictates of [our] evil heart."

The people did not believe Jeremiah and they concieved wicked plans against him. Therefore, Jeremiah prayed that God would judge them according to His will. He is done with these people!

COMMENTARY

This chapter is an object lesson for us all. It is a picture of the sovereignty of God.

In this lesson, God is the Potter and Israel is the clay, though we can easily see how each individual today is the clay. Even Paul makes several references to clay in his epistles. (See Romans 9:21, 2 Timothy 2:21.)

Here we see the potter is making a vessel but it would not yield; it became marred in his hands. The clay must be workable. The potter has power over the clay. This is God's authority, His will, which will prevail. He will have his way and He answers to no one. The whole universe is for His pleasure. Man is a speck of dust in the grand scheme of the universe.

The clay is nothing. We read in Ephesians 2:1, 12 -- 'man is dead in trespasses and sins...having no hope, and without God in the world." In Romans 5:6, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

God is the Potter with the power because "...it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy" (Romans 9:16). It is God who grants mercy on us, free to act as He wills. 

But while clay does not have power, man does have options. The clay on the wheel in Jeremiah's lesson does not have any will; but mankind does have some power to do God's will. The clay cannot "cooperate with the potter;" but mankind can cooperate with God. After all, God created man in His own likeness and He breathed into him the spirit of life, and man became a living soul. Man can exercise a will in obedience to the Potter. 

Also, the Potter has a purpose with mankind. The Creator made us with purpose, for His purpose. We may not know everything now or understand why, but someday we'll know why we suffered or lived in the circumstances we did. His purpose is to make us more like Christ, and one day we will be like Him. He takes the broken pieces of man and he makes them into His beautiful creation, which one day will be like Christ. 

from World Challenge