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Jeremiah
Chapter Eighteen
Jeremiah 18
Chapter Contents
God's power over his creatures is represented by the
potter. (1-10) The Jews exhorted to repentance
and judgments foretold. (11-17)
The prophet appeals to God. (18-23)
Commentary on Jeremiah 18:1-10
(Read Jeremiah 18:1-10)
While Jeremiah looks upon the potter's work
God darts
into his mind two great truths. God has authority
and power
to form and
fashion kingdoms and nations as he pleases. He may dispose of us as he thinks
fit; and it would be as absurd for us to dispute this
as for the clay to
quarrel with the potter. But he always goes by fixed rules of justice and
goodness. When God is coming against us in judgments
we may be sure it is for
our sins; but sincere conversion from the evil of sin will prevent the evil of
punishment
as to persons
and to families
and nations.
Commentary on Jeremiah 18:11-17
(Read Jeremiah 18:11-17)
Sinners call it liberty to live at large; whereas for a
man to be a slave to his lusts
is the very worst slavery. They forsook God for
idols. When men are parched with heat
and meet with cooling
refreshing
streams
they use them. In these things men will not leave a certainty for an
uncertainty; but Israel left the ancient paths appointed by the Divine law.
They walked not in the highway
in which they might travel safely
but in a way
in which they must stumble: such was the way of idolatry
and such is the way
of iniquity. This made their land desolate
and themselves miserable. Calamities
may be borne
if God smile upon us when under them; but if he is displeased
and refuses his help
we are undone. Multitudes forget the Lord and his Christ
and wander from the ancient paths
to walk in ways of their own devising. But
what will they do in the day of judgment!
Commentary on Jeremiah 18:18-23
(Read Jeremiah 18:18-23)
When the prophet called to repentance
instead of obeying
the call
the people devised devices against him. Thus do sinners deal with the
great Intercessor
crucifying him afresh
and speaking against him on earth
while his blood is speaking for them in heaven. But the prophet had done his
duty to them; and the same will be our rejoicing in a day of evil.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 18
Verse 6
[6] O house of Israel
cannot I do with you as this potter?
saith the LORD. Behold
as the clay is in the potter's hand
so are ye in mine
hand
O house of Israel.
Cannot I do — That God hath an absolute
sovereign power to do what he pleases with the work of his hands: but he acts
as a just judge
rendering to every man according to his works.
Verse 14
[14] Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from
the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another
place be forsaken?
Of Lebanon — Lebanon had rocks
and also
fruitful valleys; snow fell upon these rocks
and upon a thaw ran down into the
lower places. Reason teaches men not to forsake a greater good for a less
tho'
that greater good was but a poor creature comfort
not to be compared with God.
Verse 15
[15] Because my people hath forgotten me
they have burned
incense to vanity
and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the
ancient paths
to walk in paths
in a way not cast up;
Vanity — Idols.
Ancient paths — The ways wherein Noah
Abraham
Isaac
and Jacob
and all the ancient patriarchs walked.
To walk — In a way not cast up
not fit for God's people to walk
in.
Verse 16
[16] To make their land desolate
and a perpetual hissing;
every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished
and wag his head.
Desolate — Not that this was the end they aimed at
but it was
the end these courses would certainly issue in.
Verse 17
[17] I will scatter them as with an east wind before the
enemy; I will shew them the back
and not the face
in the day of their
calamity.
East wind — The east wind was in those parts
the fiercest wind. As the east-wind scatters the chaff
so saith God
I will
scatter them.
In their calamity — And when they shall
be in great calamity
I will turn my back upon them
I will not regard their
prayers.
Verse 18
[18] Then said they
Come
and let us devise devices against
Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest
nor counsel from the
wise
nor the word from the prophet. Come
and let us smite him with the
tongue
and let us not give heed to any of his words.
For — We have the church on our side; the regular priests
and the prophets
they know God's mind as well as he.
Let us smite him with the tongue — Expose him
representing him to be what the people hate.
Verse 21
[21] Therefore deliver up their children to the famine
and
pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved
of their children
and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their
young men be slain by the sword in battle.
Therefore — But is it lawful for God's
servants to pray for evil against their enemies? It is not lawful for
Christians. It is doubtless our duty
to pray for the conversion
forgiveness
and eternal salvation of our worst enemies.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
18 Chapter 18
Verses 1-23
Go down to the potter’s house.
The potter and the clay
(with Romans 9:19-24):--The potter and the
clay! Is not that parable the germ of all that is most oppressive in the
“terrible decree” of Calvinism? Does it not justify the Moslem’s acceptance of
the will of Allah as a destiny which he cannot understand
but to which he must
perforce submit? Is not this the last word of the apostle
even when he is most
bent on vindicating the ways of God to men
in answer to the question which
asks now
as Abraham asked of old
“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do
right?” “Why doth He yet find fault
for who hath resisted His will?” I do not
purpose entering into the thorny labyrinth into which these questions lead us.
We shall do well to trace the history and to note the bearings of this parable.
Does it really teach what men have imagined that it taught--the powerlessness
of man and the arbitrary sovereignty of God? or does it lead us to acknowledge
a wisdom and righteousness and mercy in the history of men and nations? Does it
simply crush us to the ground with the sense of our own impotence? or does it
rightly take its place in that noble argument which makes the Epistle to the
Romans
more than any other art of Scripture
a true Theodicaea
a vindication
of the ways of God to man?
I. It was in a
dark and troublous time that Jeremiah was called to do his work. The purpose
and promises of Jehovah to His people Israel seemed to fail utterly. It was in
this mood that there came to him an inner prompting in which
then or
afterwards
he recognised “the Word of the Lord.” Acting on that impulse he
left the temple and the city
and went out alone into the valley of Hinnom
where
he saw the potter at work moulding the clay of the valley into form and
fashioning it according to his purpose. The prophet looked and saw that here
too there was apparent failure. “The vessel that he wrought was marred in the
hands of the potter.” The clay did not take the shape; there was some hidden
defect that seemed to resist the plastic guidance of wheel and hand. The
prophet stood and gazed--was beginning
it may be
to blame the potter as
wanting in his art
when he looked again and saw what followed. “So he
returned
and made it another vessel
as seemed good to the potter to make it.”
Skill was seen there in its highest form--not baffled by seeming or even real
failure--triumphing over difficulties. And then by one of those flashes of
insight which the world calls genius
but which we recognise as inspiration
he
was taught to read the meaning of the parable. “Then the Word of the Lord came
to me
saying
O house of Israel
cannot I do with you as this potter? saith
the Lord. Behold
as the clay is in the potter’s hand
so are ye in Mine
O
house of Israel.” Did the thought which thus rushed in on his soul crush it as
with the sense of a destiny arbitrary
supreme
not necessarily righteous
against which men struggled in vain
and in whose hands they had no freedom and
therefore no responsibility? Far otherwise than that. To him that which he saw
was a parable of wisdom and of love
working patiently and slowly; the
groundwork of a call to repentance and conversion. When he passed from the
potter and his wheel to the operations of the great Work-Master
as seen in the
history of nations
he saw in the vessels that were being moulded
as on the
wheel of providence
no masses of dead inert matter. Each was
as it were
instinct with a self-determining power
which either yielded to or resisted the
plastic workings of the potter’s hand. The urn or vase designed for kingly uses
refused its high calling
and chose another and less seemly shape. The Supreme
Artificer
who had determined in the history of mankind the times before
appointed and the bounds of men’s habitations
had
for example
called Israel
to be the pattern of a righteous people
the witness of truth to the nations
a
kingdom of priests
the first-fruits of humanity. That purpose had been frustrated.
Israel had refused that calling. It had
therefore
to be brought under another
discipline
fitted for another work: “He returned
and made it another vessel.”
The pressure of the potter’s hand was to be harder
and the vessel was to be
fashioned for less noble uses. Shame and suffering and exile--their land left
desolate
and they themselves weeping by the waters of Babylon--this was the
process to which they were now called on to submit. But at any moment in the
process
repentance
acceptance
submission might modify its character and its
issues. The fixed unity of the purpose of the skilled worker would show itself
in what would seem at first the ever-varying changes of a shifting will. True
it was that a little later on in the prophet’s work he carried the teaching of
the parable one step further
to a more terrible conclusion. The Word of the
Lord came to him again
“Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle
and take of the
ancients of the people
and of the ancients of the priests; and go forth unto
the valley of the son of Hinnom” (Jeremiah 19:1)
and there in their sight
he was to break the bottle as a witness that
in one sense
the day of grace
was over
that something had been forfeited which now could never be regained.
But not for that was the purpose of God frustrated. The people still had a
calling and election. They were still to be witnesses to the nations
stewards
of the treasure of an eternal truth. In that thought the prophet’s heart found
hope and comfort. He could accept the doom of exile and shame for himself and
for his people
because he looked beyond it to that remoulded life.
II. The age in
which St. Paul lived was like that of Jeremiah
a dark and troublous time for
one whose heart was with his brethren
the children of Abraham according to the
flesh. Once again the potter was fashioning the clay to high and noble uses.
“To the Jew first
and also to the Gentile
” was the law of all his work. But
here also there was apparent failure. Blindness
hardness
unbelief
these
marred the shape of the vessels made to honour. Did he for that cease to
believe in the righteousness and faithfulness of God? Did he see no loving
purpose behind the seeming severity? No
the vessel would be made for what men
held dishonour--exile lasting through centuries
dispersion over all the world
lives that were worn down with bondage--but all this was in his eyes but the
preparation and discipline for the far-off future
fitting them in the end for
nobler uses.
III. The history of
nations and Churches has through all the ages borne witness of the same truth.
Each has had its calling and election. Dimly as it has been given to us to
trace the education of mankind
imperfect as is any attempt at the philosophy
of history
we can yet see in that history that the maze is not without
a
plan. Greece and Rome
Eastern or Latin or Teutonic Christendom--each nation or
Church
as it becomes a power in the history of mankind
has been partly taking
the shape and doing the work which answered to the design and purpose of God
partly thwarting and resisting that purpose. So far as it has been faithful to
its calling
so far as the collective unity of its life has been true to the
eternal law of righteousness
it has been a vessel made to honour. Those who
see in history
not the chaos in which brute forces are blindly working from
confusion to confusion
but the unfolding of a righteous order
can see in part
how resistance
unfaithfulness
sensuality
have marred the work
--how Powers
that were as the first of nations have had written on them
as it seemed
the
sentence passed of old on Amalek
that their latter end should be that they
should perish forever. Spain
in her decrepitude and decay; France
in her
alternations of despotism and anarchy; Rome
in the insanity of her claims to
dominate over the reason and conscience of mankind--these are instances
to
which we cannot close our eyes
of vessels marred in the potter’s hands. Each
such example of the judgment of the heavens bids us not to be high-minded
but
to fear. We need to remember
as of old
that the doom which seems so far from
us may be close at hand
even at our doors
that that which seems ready to fall
on this nation or on that
Turk or Christian
Asiatic or European
is not
irreversible. “At what time soever
” now as in the prophet’s days
“a nation
shall turn and repent
” and struggle over the stepping stones of its dead self
to higher things
there is the beginning of hope. The Potter may return and
mould and fashion it
it may be to lowlier service
perhaps even to outward
dishonour
but yet
if cleansed from its iniquity
it shall be meet for the
Master’s use.
IV. The parable
bears upon the individual life of every child of man
and it is obviously that
aspect of its teaching which has weighed most heavily upon the minds of men
and often
it would seem
made sad the hearts of the righteous whom God has not
made sad. Does it leave room there also for individual freedom and responsibility?
Did the inspired teachers think of it as leading men to repentance and faith
and hope
or as stifling every energy under the burden of an inevitable doom?
The words in which St. Paul speaks of it might be enough to suggest the true
answer to that question. To him even that phase of the parable which seems the
darkest and most terrible does but present to man’s reverential wonder an
instance of the forbearance of God enduring with much long-suffering the
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. The Potter would fain return and mould
and remould till the vessel is fit for some use
high or humble
in the great
house of which He is the Supreme Head. By the discipline of life
by warnings
and reproofs
by failures and disappointments
by prosperity and success
by
sickness and by health
by varying work and ever-fresh opportunities
He is
educating men and leading them to know and to do His will. Who does not feel in
his calmer and clearer moments that this is the true account of the past
chances and changes of his life? True
there is a point at which all such
questionings reach their limit. In the language of another parable
to one is
given five pounds
to another two
and to another one--to each according to his
several ability. But the thought that sustains us beneath the burden of these
weary questions is that the Judge of all the earth shall assuredly do right.
Men’s opportunities are the measure of their responsibilities. “To whom men
have committed much
of him will they ask the more.” The bitter murmur and
passionate complaint are checked by the old words
“Shall the thing formed say
to Him that formed it
Why hast Thou made me thus?” The poorest and the
humblest may find comfort in the thought that if his work be done faithfully
and truly
if he sees in the gifts which he has received
and the outward
circumstances of his life
and the work to which they lead him
but the tokens
of the purpose of the great Designer
he
too
yielding himself as clay to the
hands of the potter
may become in the least honoured work
a vessel of
election. What is required in such a vessel when formed or fashioned is
above
all
that it should be clean and whole
free from the taint that defiles
from
the flaws that mar the completeness of form or the efficiency of use. The work
of each soul of man is to seek this consecration
to flee the youthful lusts
the low ambitions
the inner baseness
which desecrate and debase. Our comfort
is
that in so striving
we are fellow workers with the great Work-Master. Our
prayer to Him may well be that He will not despise what His own hands have
made. (Dean Plumptre.)
Man in the hands of God
I. Man in the hand
of God as morally defective.
1. Humanity throughout all ages and climes has been defective--
2. How this defection occurred is a question that lands us into the
mysterious region whence evil sprang.
II. Man in the
hands of God as morally improvable.
1. God can improve the “marred” vessel of humanity.
2. The Gospel is the power of God.
III. Man in the
hands of God as morally free.
1. Man is responsible for his conduct. The social history of the
world
the universal consciousness of man
and the concurrent teachings of the
Bible all show this.
2. Man is responsible for his destiny. Humanity will be “plucked up
”
and “pulled down” by God
or built up and planted according to its conduct. (Homilist.)
The potter and the day
I. Every man
naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam
is
in the sight of an
all-seeing
heart-searching God
only as a piece of marred clay.
1. As man was created originally “after God in knowledge
” as well as
righteousness and true holiness
we may rationally infer that his
understanding
in respect to things natural as well as Divine
was of a
prodigious extent: for he was made but a little lower than the angels
and
consequently
being like them
excellent in his understanding
he knew much of
God
of himself
and all about him; and in this
as well as every other
respect
was
as Mr. Collier expresses it in one of his essays
a perfect
major: but this is far from being our case now. Men of low and narrow minds
soon commence wise in their own conceits; and having acquired a little
smattering of the learned languages
and made some small proficiency in the dry
sciences
are easily tempted to look upon themselves as a head taller than
their fellow mortals
and accordingly
too
too often put forth great swelling
words of vanity. But persons of a more exalted and extensive reach of thought
dare not boast. No: they know that the greatest scholars are in the dark in
respect to many even of the minutest things in life.
2. This will appear yet more evident
if we consider the perverse
bent of his will. Being made in the very image of God; undoubtedly before the
fall
man had no other will but his Maker’s. God’s will
and Adam’s
were then
like unisons in music. There was not the least disunion or discord between
them. But now he hath a will as directly contrary to the will of God
as light
is contrary to darkness
or heaven to hell.
3. A transient view of fallen man’s affections will yet more firmly
corroborate this melancholy truth. These
at his being first placed in the
paradise of God
were always kept within proper bounds
fixed upon their proper
objects
and
like so many gentle rivers
sweetly
spontaneously
and
habitually glided into their ocean
God: but now the scene is changed; for we
are now naturally full of vile affections
which
like a mighty and impetuous
torrent
carry all before them.
4. The present blindness of natural conscience makes this appear in a
yet more glaring light. In the soul of the first man Adam
conscience was
no
doubt
the candle of the Lord
and enabled him rightly and instantaneously to
discern between good and evil
right and wrong. And
blessed be God! some
remains of this are yet left; but
alas! how dimly does it burn
and how easily
and quickly is it covered
or put out and extinguished.
5. Nor does that great and boasted Diana
I mean unassisted
unenlightened Reason
less demonstrate the justness of such an assertion. The horrid
and dreadful mistakes which the most refined reasoners in the heathen world ran
into
both as to the object as well as manner of Divine worship
have
sufficiently demonstrated the weakness and depravity of human reason: nor do
our modem boasters afford us any better proofs of the greatness of its
strength
since the best improvement they generally make of it is only to
reason themselves into downright wilful infidelity
and thereby reason
themselves out of eternal salvation. Need we now any further witness that man
fallen man
is altogether a piece of marred clay?
6. But this is not all
we have yet more evidence to call; for do the
blindness of our understandings
the perverseness of our will
the rebellion of
our affections
the corruption of our consciences
the depravity of our reason
prove this charge; and does not the present disordered frame and constitution
of our bodies confirm the same also? Doubtless in this respect
man
in the
most literal sense of the word
is a piece of marred clay: for God originally
made him of the “dust of the earth.”
II. The absolute
necessity there is of this fallen nature’s being renewed. Archimedes once said
“Give me a place where I may fix my foot
and I will move the world”; so
without the least imputation of arrogance
with which perhaps he was justly
chargeable
we may venture to say
Grant the foregoing doctrine to be true
and
then deny the necessity of man’s being renewed
who can. I suppose I may take
it for granted that all hope after death to go to a place which we call heaven.
But permit me to tell you
heaven is rather a state than a place; and
consequently
unless you are previously disposed by a suitable state of mind
you could not be happy even in heaven itself. For what is grace
but glory
militant? what is glory
but grace triumphant? This consideration made a pious
author say
that “holiness
happiness
and heaven
were only three different
words for one and the self-same thing.” And this made the great Preston
when
he was about to die
turn to his friends
saying
“I am changing my place
but
not my company.” To make us meet to be blissful partakers of such heavenly
company
this “marred clay
” I mean these depraved natures of ours
must
necessarily undergo a universal moral change our understandings must be
enlightened; our wills
reason
and consciences
must be renewed; our
affections must be drawn toward
and fixed upon things above; and because flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven
this corruptible must put on
incorruption
this mortal must put on immortality. Christ hath said it
and
Christ will stand. “Unless a man
” learned or unlearned
high or low
though he
be a master of Israel as Nicodemus was
unless he “be born again
he cannot
see
he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God.” If it be required
Who is to be
the potter? and by whose agency this marred day is to be formed into another
vessel? Or in other words
if it be asked
how this great and mighty change is
to be effected? I answer
not by the mere dint and force of moral suasion.
Neither is this change to be wrought by the power of our own free-will. We
might as soon attempt to stop the ebbing and flowing of the tide
and calm the
most tempestuous sea
as to imagine that we can subdue
or bring under proper
regulations
our own unruly wills and affections by any strength inherent in
ourselves. And therefore I inform you
that this heavenly Potter
this blessed
Agent
is the Almighty Spirit of God the Holy Ghost
the Third Person in the
most adorable Trinity
co-essential with the Father and the Son. This is that
fire which our Lord came to send into our earthly hearts
and which I pray the
Lord of all lords to kindle in every unrenewed one this day. (G. Whitefield
M. A.)
A visit to the potter’s house
I. Mind originates
power. The work is a work on the wheels; but the power begins with the workman;
it is spirit that presides
it is will that controls; an intelligent being
makes use of the power he has set in motion to fashion his design. The perfect
type is in the mind of the workman
and he must give it form and shape
and
impress it on matter. All power originates with God
and is under His control.
II. Divine patience
is associated with Divine power. You do not see in the potter at work what God
can do if it pleases Him
but what it pleases Him to do; not what He may do
with the clay
but what His purpose is. We are taught the intention of the
Divine worker to mould men and nations according to a Divine pattern
that
there is nothing arbitrary in His procedure; that every act is regulated by a
reference to His plan
and that Divine patience is constantly and perseveringly
at work.
III. Divine patience
perseveres in the accomplishment of its design. How often have you been marred
through want of submission to a perfect and loving will
manifested in God’s
providential dealings with you or in His Gospel? The clay may be broken so
often that it loses all its adhesive properties
and when placed on the wheels
may splinter into fragments and become utterly worthless.
Conclusion--
1. There is a fixed and settled plan
an original idea in the Divine
mind
according to which His work is to be conformed. “Known unto God are all
His works from the beginning.” Man is God’s work. God found in Himself the
pattern of this wondrous creation. He made man in His own image
in His own
likeness. Man was a failure; the world therefore was a failure
and the flood
was brought in
and the work destroyed. There was to be a new manifestation of
humanity. Men were to be distributed into families and tribes
into nations and
kingdoms. We are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.” We
are to be “like Him”: our bodies are “to be fashioned like unto His glorious
body.” There is a perfect type of society. There is to be the universal diffusion
of truth and righteousness. There is a perfect type of a Church.
2. God does not make anything for the sole purpose of destroying it.
See the interest God takes in what is going on in the world
and the effect it
has on Him.
3. That there is no waste in life. There is no waste in nature. There
was in Christ’s miracles no waste of power. There is no waste in human life.
That part of it which is introductory to the rest
which we call childhood
is
not waste; it has its relations to the rest of life. That portion which is
tried and tested
which is subjected to many experiments
is not waste. The
sorrows and tears of life are not the waste of life--toil
strife
agony
are
not lost. All these things that seem to fall from life
are worked up again into
new forms. Life may be a marred and broken thing
but God can work it up into a
form of Divine beauty.
4. Life is a “work on the wheels.” Character is in the course of
formation: it will come out either marred or perfected
just as you submit to
the Divine will
or resist the influences brought to bear upon you. (H.
J. Boris.)
Pottery
Such was the invitation which came to me as I spent a holiday
among the potteries of North Staffordshire.
1. The preparation of the clay. In my ignorance I had thought very lightly
of that. I supposed that the clay was brought from some place or other
and
after being kneaded
would be used for the purpose of the potter. But as we
looked over the various processes
several things astonished us very much in
this preparation of the clay. In the first place
we were astonished at the
materials used. There was
of course
the clay as we understand it
but in
addition we found stones of the very hardest description and flints also used.
In one factory some eight or ten mills did nothing else but grind to the very
smallest powder these hard flint stones mixed with the clay. And then these
ground flint stones were further churned with water until it became a fluid
mass. Another interesting feature was the straining
and the use of magnets to
extract any iron that might be there. At last it was run into bags placed under
a press and the water squeezed out
and the clay left behind. It was then
turned out as plastic clay for the potter’s use. We often speak of the potter
and the clay
and we are warranted by the Scriptures to use this simile for the
sovereignty of God. And
no doubt
we must hold fast the eternal sovereignty of
God. But I am not quite sure that we do not see here the process anterior to
what we speak of as the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God is shown in
the form of the vessel made from the clay
but here we have something anterior
to the making of the vessel--the preparation of the clay. And while we believe
in the sovereignty of God
we also believe that salvation is perfectly free.
Your heart may be as hard as a flint
or without any stamina as that liquid
mass
and yet it is quite possible from that hard flinty rock
or from that
fluid liquid mass
to make the clay which shall be plastic for the Potter’s use.
Are you willing to be made clay?--willing to be just put into His hands?
2. The making of the vessels. Nothing could be more beautiful than to
watch the skilful potter mould the clay upon his wheel until it became a
beautiful vessel under his touch. Here I learnt what a great variety of vessels
the potter made. Here were vessels which would adorn the tables of the rich
and also vessels necessary for the poor; here were vessels which might only be
for ornaments
and others of the greatest practical use. Oh
if you are only
willing to be as clay in the Great Potter’s hands
He is able to make you
vessels meet for the Master’s use. The use may be very varied
and the vessels
may differ in form and beauty
but if you are willing to be as clay in His
hands
He will fashion you so that you may be a vessel for His glory
and for
the benefit of those around you.
3. The varied processes to fix the shape of the vessels. Until the
vessel was fired
the potter could break it up
as he did
and throw it back
into the mass
but when once the vessel was fired
its shape and form were
fixed. Two things about the firing interested me. The one was the gradual
preparation that the vessel had to go through. I asked why it was necessary to
dry it so slowly by steam first
before it was put into the great oven. I
received the reply that if it was put into the oven at once
it would break.
There must be the slow process of drying by steam. Ah! and is it not so with
our Great Potter? Does He not gently train us? He does not put us into the
fiery oven all at once. He prepares us by less difficult temptations for the
fiery heat which we must all go through. Every man must pass through the fire
in order that the stability of his own character may be brought out. God knows
the amount of heat which is necessary
and He will not send one temptation more
than we are able to bear. Another interesting thing in the firing was
that
every vessel had to be separate from the others. They were packed up in the
saggers so that not one single clay vessel should touch another. And the
reason
they told us
was that the two vessels would be so fused in the fire
that both would be spoilt. Is it not true with the great fiery oven through
which the Great Potter passes us? We must pass through the fire alone.
4. Then we came to the decorative process. First
there was the
making of the pattern. The pattern was made upon a copper plate
and then taken
off upon the tracing paper and placed upon the plate. The pattern in many cases
was very similar. One machine rolled off some millions of patterns. The
Christian has only one pattern--the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His purpose that
we should be conformed to His image. The next thing that struck us was the
number of hands through which the pattern had to pass. An ordinary dinner plate
had to pass through some ten or twelve different hands--one filling in one
colour
and another another colour
until it passed down the whole line; one
fining in a little stroke of blue
another red
another colouring a leaf
until
at last the whole pattern was brought out upon the one plate. Is it not so with
the Christian? The pattern must be the same
but the pattern is variously
brought out. It may be a very different colour. We take our pattern from those
we mix with day by day
and if we are only upon the lookout we may find many
things to colour the pattern of Jesus Christ in our lives. Here we may colour
with a little bit of unselfishness
here a little bit of charity
here a little
bit of self-sacrifice. You may take from one and another impressions which will
bring out the grand pattern. Another interesting thing was the firing in order
to fix these colours. The vessel must be put into the kiln to fix the colours.
There is intense scorching heat in there. And is it not so with the Great
Potter? Does He not often put us Christians into the kiln in order to fix the
colour? How many Christians you see who have had their colours fixed by
adversity! This one’s love is brought out by trial; this one’s charity by
temptation. Then came the last process. Once more the vessel is put into the
kiln
and the fire brought to bear upon it
and then the colour and pattern
come out still more glorious than before. The glaze is now dry
and the work of
the potter now finished. And so ofttimes the Christian is plunged into
despondency
losing all the evidences of his faith; is plunged once more into
the fire; and in the fire he sees that there is One walking with Him
and His
form is as the Son of God
and he sees the pattern is being brought out by the
great Potter.
5. At last we were taken up to the showroom
and here were displayed
all the triumphs of the potter’s art
and we could have spent hours in admiring
the work of the potter. So we look forward to the show room when we leave all
the dross of the workshop and the whirl of the factory; and when we ascend up
to the showroom where we shall see the triumphs of the Great Potter’s art
we
shall simply wonder that out of these stones and liquid clay it is possible to
make such vessels as He has prepared for His glory. (E. A. Stuart
M. A.)
The teaching of the potter
Divine revelation is a possible thing only because of that great
and earliest fact in the record of human history
“And God made man in His
image
” a fact which nothing
not even sin
can destroy. God’s words to men are
made possible and meaningful because of the fact that
in spite of rebellion
and fall
there is enough deep
true kinship left to afford resting place for
His appeal and interpretation of His speech. As long as spiritual being lasts
this must be true. Now proceed a further step. The method of communication is
not a matter of essential importance. So long as I make you understand what I
mean
the way in which I do this does not matter much. We meet with those who
do not speak our language
or perhaps any tongue that we can speak and
understand; but we find that some sufficient things can be said by signs. We
can buy this or that by pointing to it
and showing the value in coin. There is
one further step to take
and then we shall arrive at the position from which I
want to look at the words of this text. The activities and occupations of men
are full of resemblances to the activities of God. What we have to do
and are
doing every day
illustrates much more fully than
perhaps
we have ever
thought
what God is doing around us and within us; so that we may rise
somewhat to comprehend His work in its grand patience and victory over
hindrance and pauseless triumph
by means of a fuller understanding of our own.
And
significantly enough
this is the more completely true of those
occupations which are simple and manual
most necessary and least artificial
compelled by the wants which are common to us all
rather than of those which
are the creation of empty social custom and artificial routine. The Divine word
to Jeremiah
both in itself and in the manner of its communication to him
is
strikingly suggestive. What was the word? Jeremiah had been a very faithful
minister and messenger
and yet his endeavours had been unavailing to stay the
torrent of national disaster. As a rock
staunch in midstream
only adds to the
tumult of the waters that dash
and break
and hurry on their way
this man’s
obedient and firm obstruction only made him to suffer the fretful wrath of the
people
whose downward rush would not be stayed. It seemed as though he were a
protest and nothing more. For the people there was nothing but hopeless ruin.
God wants to show His servant that such despair is not true. What the people
might have been they refused to be
but they might yet be something. What the
potter does with the clay with which he works
the Lord can do with the men
with whom He deals. What is that? Well
go down to the workman’s house and
watch him. See the frame
and the wheels
and the mass of ready clay. See the
man’s tutored hands and nimble fingers. He has purpose
ability
design. His
power is complete. He can do what he likes. He can take the lump of clay in his
hands and say
“This shall be a fair and stately vase fit to stand on the table
of a king”; or
“This shall be a thing for common use
one among a thousand
like itself
winning no regard or admiration
to be appraised at no appreciable
value.” He can bid the clay be what he chooses. Can he? Let us see. Now the
workman has put clay upon the wheel
and it begins to whirl; the beginning of
the design is manifest
some outline of a shape appears under the touch of his
plastic hand. But then comes a pause: something has gone wrong. Where is the
fault? Not in the care and genius of the workman? Surely not in the clay? Yes
there is a flaw
a rebellious and intractable mingling of impurities
and the
workman cannot do as he had purposed. What will the potter do? Toss the clay
away? Clay is plentiful and cheap. No
not if the workman’s heart is right and
his enthusiasm true. A fellow workman may say
“I would not trouble with it. No
one can make anything of that piece; it is utterly useless.” But the
right-souled man says
“I waste nothing
and despise nothing. I can make
something of this clay if you cannot; and I shall make what can be made
if not
what I hoped
at least the very best that is according to its nature possible.”
“So he made it again another vessel
as seemed good to the potter to make it” (Jeremiah 18:4). And so can I do
says the
cheery word to the prophet
so can I the Lord do with this apparently hopeless
and intractable nation. With them
as with the piece of clay
there is a
resolute
rebellious intermingling. They show themselves unworthy. They make
themselves incapable of the high destiny among the nations to which My call
would lead them. They must lose their crown. My purpose must be fulfilled in
other ways
and by other instruments and ministries. But--and here speaks the
heart of generous
patient love--I have not done with them. I shall do the very
best that can be done with them
and put them in a place which they can fill.
This is My pleasure anything short of it would be anguish. But
to do the possible
best
even with the most unpromising material
is the object and aim of My
redeeming hand. The right-hearted workman is like-minded of God
and
in his
sphere
does an identical work. The man who makes two ears of corn grow where
only one would grow before; the man who shapes wood
or beats and moulds metal
into fashions of use
beneficence
and comeliness
is
besides all the
wage-profit that his industry brings
doing a redemptive work that is akin to
Divine. Industry
cleanliness
usefulness
beautifying labour--these are far
more than means of livelihood
they are means of might and spiritual life. (D.
J. Hamer.)
The relation of the will to character and destiny
The figure of the potter is of frequent occurrence in Scripture;
and its meaning is the more easily understood
because there is scarcely any
craft of which the principal tools have been less altered in the lapse of the
centuries. The purposes for which the figure is used in the Bible may be
arranged under two chief heads. In every case the power of the potter over the
clay is emphasised. But while some passages stop with that fact
--that the
potter’s power is absolute
without measure or limit
that he can do what he
likes with the clay
--others teach distinctly that the potter is not ruled by
his fancy or caprice
or by any momentary or arbitrary impulse
but the
exercise of his power is itself determined by something
some quality or
fitness
within the clay. Of these two lessons
the former is most frequent in
Isaiah and in Paul
although other writers adopt or enforce it. That is the
most obvious meaning of the figure
to be found in almost every literature
never to be forgotten by the reverent--the potter has complete command over the
clay. He
at his wheel
is the symbol of power: the clay
of helplessness and
necessary submission. There has probably never been a man who believed that
more thoroughly than did Jeremiah. In this very chapter he represents God as
saying to the house of Israel
“Behold
as the clay is in the potter’s hand
so
are ye in Mine hand.” In his account of his own call
the prophet describes a
Divine voice as speaking to him: “Before thou earnest forth out of the womb I
sanctified thee
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” He never
hesitates in his ascription to God of the right and power of complete control
over man
or to man of the necessity of submission and the obligation of
obedience. But according to Jeremiah that is not a complete account of the
relation
either of God to man
or of man to God. And in this chapter he uses
the figure of the potter to show
on the one hand
that the potter’s power is
not exercised arbitrarily
and on the other
that its exercise is determined
and even in some sense conditioned
by the clay itself.
1. With regard to the figure
it is in the particulars of the fourth
verse that Jeremiah’s use of it differs from that of most other scriptural
writers. As soon as the potter saw that the clay he was dealing with would not
answer the purpose he had in view
with a slight touch of his hand he crushed
it down into a shapeless heap of mud
began anew
and made it into “another
vessel.” In other words
the potter’s treatment of the clay depends upon his
knowledge or discovery of its qualities
its capability
or its faultiness. Or
dropping the figure
God does not always act upon and complete His first
apparent design with a man; and any change of design on His part is determined
by some adequate cause
which is always to be found in the man himself--in the
way in which he exercises his freedom of will
or in the attitude in which he
puts himself towards conscience
and duty
and truth. There has sometimes been
a disposition
amongst nations and amongst individuals
to imagine that some
moral character had been stamped indelibly upon them by God
and was permanent
and unalterable
whatever they did. So far was Jeremiah from believing that
and so far is the Bible from teaching it
that it represents man’s will as in a
sense entrusted with the supreme control over his spirit and over his destiny.
The plastic skill and power of the Great Potter
in themselves immeasurable and
without limit
are yet not applied arbitrarily
under the impulse of fancy or
caprice
but depend at least for their direction upon the clay itself.
2. That truth is sometimes overlooked
or qualified
or even
rejected. Some of the current philosophies deny it in theory
but
when
pressed
will reluctantly acknowledge that consciousness can be quoted in its
favour
or
as the greatest English psychologist of the day puts it
“The
assumption of the freedom of the will is in a certain sense inevitable to
anyone exercising rational choice.” In the Old Testament it is an especial
favourite of Jeremiah’s
though not confined to him; and in this single
paragraph he is not contented with the dubious form it assumes in the figure
but recurs to it once and again afterwards. When verse 14 is compared with the
preceding verse
it becomes evident that the prophet wanted to point a contrast
between the steadfastness of the phenomena and laws of nature
and the apparent
fickleness of those of morals. To the one the eternal will of God which knows
no change is central; to the other
the uncertain will of man. The forces that
seem to play in the cloud forms and the winds
to move with slow rhythm in the
solid structures of the ages
or with quick inapparent catastrophe and
explosion
the life that modifies the cell and pulsates in a myriad forms
through the universe--all simply fulfil their Sovereign’s will; and the only
power
not in the same way subject to His rule
but permitted to rebel against
Him
and to check and alter His purposes
is that of the personality or will of
man. To that extent the Potter renounces His power over the clay
and the clay
is allowed to determine the design of the Potter.
3. The same truth is put in a third way in verses 7-10. The inference
evidently is
that neither God’s threats nor His promises are absolute
in the
sense that they are incapable of diversion or of change. Every word that goes
forth from His lips is of necessity law; but the nations
the individuals
are
left at liberty to choose which of the words shall govern them
and the
occasions of choice are more than one. It appears accordingly that men can
actually
by their choice of evil or carelessness concerning right
frustrate
God’s purposes or grace
just as by penitence and self-reform they can avert a
doom that is impending. That is the word of the Lord by others than Jeremiah (Ezekiel 18:20-24). Nor does the New
Testament reject such a lesson
which is in accordance further with the
teaching of reason and with the fundamental conception of justice. There is no
finality in God’s design for a man
until the man’s will has either frittered
itself away
or hardened itself into invincibility. But by the attitude towards
God into which men put themselves
they determine the pattern according to
which His methods mould them
and every change of attitude on their part is
quickly followed by its appropriate and necessary change of design. Nor is this
modification of God’s design represented as confined to nations or communities.
Jonah himself was called of God to be a prophet
but the action of his own will
made him a sacrifice to appease the sea
until
when he willed better things
God’s plan for him changed back again. There is thus cumulative evidence
in
Scripture
in history
in human experience
that God does not always act to the
end upon His original design for a man
but that His designs are sometimes
changed on account of something in the men themselves. What is that something?
This chapter alone
to say nothing of teaching that abounds elsewhere
leaves
no room for doubt. “If that nation turn from their evil
” is laid down with all
emphasis in the eighth verse as the one condition upon which the modification
of God’s purpose depends; and the most powerful and essential human factor in
every act of moral turning is of necessity the will. The responsibility for a man’s
character rests substantially
it would be hardly too much to say entirely
upon himself. It is a terrible responsibility
of which men have tried to rid
themselves in many ways; but so long as human nature remains what it is
free
to choose the right or the wrong
it is a responsibility which every man must
face and every man must bear. God gives
in the conscience and by His Spirit
a
clear revelation of what is right
and in His Son a source of strength that is
sufficient for every duty. He gives opportunities
allurements
warnings
without number; and having given those
ceaselessly present with us
His part
in the formation of character may be said to be done. The man has then to
determine
by the action of his own will
whether the law of perfecting or the
law of perdition shall work in him. (R. W. Moss.)
The potter and the day
The whole revealed Word of God takes for granted
appeals to
and
proceeds upon two facts: first
that nothing can proceed from God which is not
like God; next
that man is a co-worker with God in the shaping out of his own
destiny. The Bible is all quick with the great truth that man can escape from
evil
and that the work to which the good God has
more than anything else
set
Himself is to help him to escape. Even the heritage of misery and disease which
a bad parent leaves to his child is--in God’s world--not so potent but that the
child may rise above it.
I. 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. He is thus
a likeness to us of God. Such men as Bernard Palissy and Josiah Wedgwood did
not spend their instructive lives only to make clayware for human use
but also
to reveal to us
and enable us to understand
the working of the Divine Artist
in the formation of human lives. Can you recall
you who have read Palissy’s
life
the passionate eagerness with which he sought out beautiful forms in
nature? Do you remember how his unresting brain toiled to make new combinations
of colour and form? And with what unwearying zeal he sought to bring beauty and
strength and polish into the vessels he made? It is all a far-off portrait of
God. The human artist who never saw a wonderful conjunction of natural objects
of form and colour
in field or wood
without bringing it in straightway to his
workshop in the brain
is but an outshadowing to us of the Divine Artist
and
of the thought
the care
the skill
the beauty
which God expends on every
life He makes. It is true that the Divine Artist has to work with inferior
clay. He has to embody the thoughts of His creative mind in material that has
been soiled by sin--flesh that has corrupted its way
and transmitted its
taints and diseases and weaknesses to the children. But
all the same
the life
and the outshaping of the life are the work of God. The gladsome fact
therefore
in the teaching of the potter and the clay
is that our lives are
not shaped by accident; nor are the materials of our life combined by blind
chance. My personality
as truly as my body
is the work of His hands. But here
is my joy. In this very fact I have a ground of appeal to God. When my spirit
is overwhelmed by the mysteries of existence
or my way hedged up by moral
difficulties
which I have in myself no strength to overcome
I can go to Him
and say: “O Maker of my being
O Planner out of my lot
Thou faithful Creator
I am poor and needy: wilt not Thou have respect to the work of Thy hands
and
make haste to help me?”
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.
Anterior to the infinite variety of shape in our lives is this grand common
fact for all life
We are not driftwood on a tumbling sea. We are created to be
vessels for God and of God
vessels of His sanctuary
set apart to His service
and filled with all sweet and wholesome things. This great primal purpose of
the Creator seeks to fulfil itself many ways in our lives. But in all ways the
Divine intention is that we shall contain and give forth some fair measure of
his own life. One is set to fulfil this purpose on one level
another on a level
higher or lower. One must do it by work
another by suffering. But for one and
all this is the Divine purpose and requirement
that we be vessels of truth and
righteousness
embodiments and manifestations--up to the measure of our natural
capacities and shapes--of the Divine character and life. It is the sad fact
as
we all know
that this primal use intended by our Creator is not fulfilled in
all. But our shortcomings do not alter the fact that we were made for this
purpose. In the fulfilment of this end our happiness consists. He who made us
has linked the right use of life and our personal well-being together.
III. Lives tried in
one shape are sometimes broken up and reshaped to fulfil themselves in new
spheres or different capacities. And He breaks up Joseph the dreamer and the
slave
and forms Joseph the wise statesman
administrator
and prince of Egypt.
That was a strong well formed vessel who went forth from Jerusalem to Damascus
carrying fiery zeal for God
cruel death for God’s people. The Divine Artist
takes this vessel--formed of good clay
impact of such energies
such zeal--and
breaks it up and puts it on the wheel
and reshapes it for higher levels and
wider ends. Christian biography is full of such instances. Here is one who was
only a timid lad at the outset
shrinking from boisterous companions
retiring
to woods for meditation on God’s Word. The timid lad becomes a fearless
preacher
and the founder of the Society of Friends. Here is another
a poor
cobbler
piecing together little scraps of different coloured leathers to make
a map of the world
and by the black pieces to point out to his friends the
extent
of heathenism. The poor mapmaker becomes William Carey
the founder of
Missions to India and the translator of the Bible into Indian languages. A
third is at first a poor piecer in a spinning factory on the banks of the
Clyde. But at last he is the voice of one crying in a wilderness: “Prepare ye
the way of the Lord: make a highway in the desert for God.” And so great in
this ministry that black men carry his bones
when he dies
a year’s journey
from the depths of Africa to England; and white men there reverently bury them
in the sepulchres of their kings
because he had done good to God and to man.
God breaks up the first-shaped clay which has promise in it to make better
vessels for His use. Shall we turn aside and look at the Divine Artist at this
work of reshaping? Those awful times in the experience of His people when He
comes with a succession of trials
when He sends whole tides of sorrow into the
soul
are the times when we shall best see God at His work
when He reshapes
for higher ends the clay that was shaped for lower ends before.
IV. God has left it
to man himself to decide whether he will be a vessel of honour or of dishonour.
“Hath not the potter power over the same lump to make one vessel unto honour
and another unto dishonour?”--that is one side of this mystery. “If a man purge
himself”--from being a vessel unto dishonour--“he shall be a vessel unto
honour
sanctified and meet for the Master’s use”--this is the other. But the
one side does not contradict the other. 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. In respect of natural capacity
position in society
function
time and place of birth
joy and sorrow
health and sickness
this power of God
is absolute. He appoints the bounds of our habitation. He alone designs the
fashion of our personality. He alone fixes the doom on sin. But at those points
in the development of life
where the real battle of the soul is waged
where
the decisive shocks of the conflict between righteousness and unrighteousness
have to be sustained
and the burden of responsibility taken up
we are in a
region where God leaves man as absolutely free as He is Himself. The Creator
has power over the life; but
as put forth by God
it is a power tempered with
justice and mercy
and quick with all the goodness of the Divine character.
V. Be true to the
Divine intention and shaping of your lives. Do not lower yourselves to evil
shapes. Do not suffer yourselves to degenerate into vessels set to vile uses
and filled with base
unwholesome things. What the great King desires is that
we should all be vessels for Him
vessels to carry and pour forth His love
His
life
His purity
in all we do and wherever we go. And what He seeks to fill
our souls with is His own life as God
that eternal life which He has poured
out for us all in Christ. And this is eternal wisdom to receive that life of
God into the heart. This is the one grand
informing
outshaping
abiding power
for human life. This will reshape the most unshapely into the very image of God.
(A. Macleod
D. D.)
The Divine Potter
Am I clay in the hands of the Divine Potter? The Bible does not
say so: yet apparently this is the very thing that it does say. The context
does not teach us that God is speaking about the individual man
or about
personal salvation
or about the eternal destiny of the individual soul: the
Lord is speaking about nations
empires
kingdoms
vessels which He only can
handle. Moreover
He Himself descends into reasoning
and therefore He gives up
the arbitrary power or right
if He ever claimed it. He bases His action upon
the conduct of the nation spoken about. So His administration is not arbitrary
despotic
independent
in any sense that denies the right of man to be
consulted
or that undervalues the action of man as a moral agent. The potter
did not reason with the clay: God did reason with Israel. The analogy therefore
can only be useful up to a given point; never overdrive any metaphor; always
distinguish between the purpose of the parable
its real substance and its
accessories
its incidental draperies and attachments. Let us take the inquiry
in its crudest and most ruthless form. Can He not do with a man as this man
does with the clay? The answer is in a sense Yes
in a larger sense No. As a
matter of power
crudely defined
God can do with us as the potter does with
the clay: but God Himself has introduced a new element into power; He is no
longer in relation to the soul simply and merely omnipotent
He has made
Himself a party. In so treating Himself He exercised all His attributes. He
need not have done so
but having done so He never shrinks from the conditions
which He has created and which He has imposed. Observe
He does not give up any
part of His sovereignty. In the first instance He created man
devised a great
scheme and ministry of things: all this was done sovereignly; it was not man
that was consulted as to his own creation
it was the Triune God that said
“Let us make man.” The Lord
then
having thus acted from the point of His
sovereignty
has Himself created a scheme of things within which He has been
pleased to work as if He were a consenting and cooperating party. When did God
say
By the exercise of a potter’s right I will break you
the soul
in pieces
although you want to be preserved and saved? When did Jesus Christ ever say to
any man
You want to be saved
but I do not want to save you; I doom you to
everlasting alienation from the throne of light and the sceptre of mercy?
Never. May not a man
changing the level of inquiry
do what he likes with his
own? No. Society says No; law says No; the needful security without which
progress is impossible says No. Yet we must define what is meant by can and may
and cannot. Then in the use of the word “can” we always come upon the further
word “cannot” at the same time. You can and you cannot
in one act. Why
how is
that? Is not that a simple contradiction of terms? No
that statement
though
apparently paradoxical
is one
and admits of easy reconciliation in both its
members. If it were a question of mere power or physical ability
as we have
often seen in our study of this Bible
we can do many things: but where are we
at liberty simply to use ability or power in its most simple definition? Power
is a servant; power is not an independent attribute that can do just what it
likes: power says
What shall I do? I am an instrument
I am a faculty
but I
am intended by the Sovereign of the universe to be a servant--the servant of
judgment and conscience and duty and social responsibility. Power stands in an
attitude of attention
awaiting the orders of conscience. Mere power therefore
is one thing
mere ability
and it is a faculty that never ought to be
exercised in itself
by itself
for itself. It must be always worked in
consent
in union
in cooperation. I repeat
power--great
self-boasting
power--must obey orders. “Let no man say when he is tempted
I am tempted of
God.” May not a man do what he likes with his own? What is his own? Not his
child. He says
This child is my own; we say
Yes and No. Once more we come
upon the double reply. Every child has two fathers. There is a little
measurable
individual father
and there is the greater father called Society:
may we not recognise a third
and say
there is the Father in heaven? Your
child cannot speak
and yet you cannot do with it what you like; your child has
no will
no opened judgment
and yet you cannot do with the child as you
please. Society has taken its name
and its age
and the eyes of Society are
upon that child night and day
and if you slew it at midnight you would have to
answer for its blood at midday. Here
then
we rest
in presence of this great
doctrine of Divine sovereignty in relation to man. We may search the Bible from
beginning to end to find that the sovereignty of God ever said to a man
I will
not save you when you want to be saved
and we shall find no such instance in
the record. With regard to nations
it is perfectly evident from the face of
things that there is a Power that is placing nations where they are
and
working up the great national unit to great national ends. God has always had
as it were
a double policy
and it is because we have confounded the one
policy with the other that we have been all our lifetime subject to bondage
through fear lest God may have predestinated us to hell. He never predestined
any man to such a place. He predestined unrighteousness to hell and nothing can
ever get it into heaven; into that city nothing shall enter that is unholy
impure
defiled
or that maketh a lie. Eternity has never been at peace with
wickedness. The infinite tranquillity of immeasurable and inexpressible
duration has never been reconciled to one act of trespass
one deed of
violence
one thought of wrong. (J. Parker
D. D.)
The potter’s wheel
Does God rule the nations of the earth? When men set themselves in
opposition to what are believed to be the laws of righteousness
will the
nation prosper as it would have done if righteousness had been its aim? That
was the question which perplexed the prophet. God’s work
he believed
was not
frustrated by man’s sin
only the nation which set itself against God was
broken. Somehow the human mind came to suspect that each man was in direct and
intimate relationship with God
that He was dealing with him as truly as if
there were no other being in the universe. Every word of Jesus tended to deepen
that impression. “The very hairs of your head are all numbered . . . Not one
sparrow falleth to the ground without your Heavenly Father. Are ye not of more
value than they?”
I. The first thing
which attracts our notice is the clay. It is of different qualities. Some of it
is very pure and pliable
other is too soft--“fat” the potter calls it--to be
used in its present state; some is almost white
and will make the finest
porcelain
other has such an excess of iron that it will make only coloured
ware; some is doubtful
--it will form
but it will twist or crack in the
firing. The clay of the potter is human nature
good
bad
and indifferent. Is
there any of it so bad that it cannot be used? Not if it be clay. There is no
clay that the potter cannot employ. He cannot use stone
and he cannot make a
vase of water. There are men so hard that they seem to be stone; there are
others so flabby that it seems as if they never could hold together on the
revolving wheel; still
if they be men
something can be done. It may not be possible
to make poets and statesmen of them
any more than it is possible to make
Sevres china of Jersey clay; but they can be moulded and fixed into some form
of usefulness as long as they are men. The difficulty
however
which arises in
some men’s minds
even when that is settled
is this: Is not the best what we
want? Can we rest satisfied with any dealing with human nature which leaves the
large majority of the race on a low plane
and exalts only a chosen few? Now
if we cannot
how can the Creator? Must we not suppose that He too is
disappointed in His work
and that He is limited in His operations? How
then
can we believe in One who is omnipotent? Is not He too limited by necessity
and are we not right in saying that that which determines character is the
previous condition of the material with which God works? And does not this lead
finally to disbelief
in God? It certainly does lead to a disbelief in such a
God as we have fancied. But it may lead to a belief in a nobler God than that.
The potter puts his hand on a lump of clay. He can never make pure porcelain
out of it. Well
who said that he intended to? Who told us that he tried to and
failed? Did not the potter bring the clay into the house? Did he not know what
he would find there? Not so. The fineness of the pottery is determined by the
quality of the clay
and so is its colour
but not its form. That is the work
of the potter alone. It is in that that we see the power of his genius. And the
coarser the material and the cruder its colour
the more are we led to marvel
at the genius and the goodness which was content to embody itself in such
material. The more we study human nature
the more we become convinced that God
never intended all men to be alike. The more we study sociology
the more we
feel convinced that it would be a fatal thing to have a town with but a single
industry
a nation with no variety of employments
a world perfectly
homogeneous. We all admit that it is not possible for every man to have all the
moral qualities in an equal degree. The important thing in life is that each
man should be faithful in the employment of those which he has. It is with
individuals as with nations. We say that we cannot
and God ought not to be
content with anything less than the best. But what is best? Is it best that all
the clay in the world should be turned into Dresden china? By no means. What is
best is that there should be a great variety fitted for different purposes.
There are certain virtues which would be out of place in certain conditions of
civilisation--that is
in certain individuals. Refined sensibility would be as
embarrassing to a frontiersman as a carriage hung on delicate springs. What is
needed is that he should be brave and just. We say that it is not as high a
type as the courteous gentleman who would shrink from profanity as from
physical pollution. But the test is to be found not in the quality of the
virtue
but in the faithfulness with which it is used. Two things
then
ought
to be learned from a consideration of the clay in the potter’s house. The first
is
that God is dealing with men as individuals indeed
yet not as isolated
beings
but as members of a great family. It is to the advantage of the family
that they should differ
and it is to their own advantage too. This difference
in the clay
of which we have many theories
such as the law of heredity
or
the influence of environment
are the conditions which God Himself has
ordained. All creation is self-limitation. God is working in clay. He must make
what the clay is capable of expressing; only
there is no clay which is not
capable
on a higher or lower plane
of being conformed to the image of Jesus
Christ.
2. The second thing which we see in the potter’s house is the wheel.
On it the lump is placed
and the unseen foot presses the treadle
and the
wheel revolves. About the wheel
too
men have formed a theory. First they
began with the clay--the substance of human nature. And there was evolved many
a philosophy. It has produced the spirit of agnosticism. Men
weary with
speculations which lead to nothing
have said there is nothing to be known of
the constitution of the clay nor the mind of the worker. And they are right:
there is nothing to be known by the exclusive study of the human mind. And so
they have turned to the study of the revolutions of the wheel. The clay is on
the wheel
and it turns and turns
and slackens not its speed
still less stops
in answer to curses or groans. If you ask whence came the clay
the answer is
the wheel made it. If men asked how it took forms of beauty
the answer was
given by pointing out that
if the wheel went slower by one revolution in a
thousand years
the thing of beauty would be marred; that if it increased its
speed but the fraction of a second
the clay would be destroyed. The wheel
never changes. Well
how does the ease stand today? Men have roused themselves
and asked at length
What moves the wheel? Such a simple
natural question! But
no one can answer it. “We do not know
” say the wisest students of nature.
“Every increase of knowledge only serves to widen the surrounding abyss of
nescience. And what is more
nothing can ever be known of that secret
for we
have learned enough of nature to know that no study of it will tell us any of
those things which we would like to know.” The study of the clay was formulated
in metaphysics
and led to agnosticism. The study of the wheel has done the
same. There are
however
certain impressions which the mind has received from
the study of nature which nothing will ever shake. The first is the
universality of law--that nothing happens anywhere except in accordance with
invariable rules
which are never changed. That is the one thing we have
learned from the study of nature
and almost the only thing we have learned
which throws any light on the great problem which perplexes us. Is this all
that can be learned from the potter’s house? So many tell us
but as we turn
away there comes
we cannot tell how
& feeling that we have not seen all.
And to me that is
after all
the greatest mystery of life. How did it ever
come to pass that man should dream that there is more to be known than can be
seen? That is the mystery. From what does it arise? How is it that I
a
creature of a moment
without power
an infinitesimal particle in the universe
should come to believe that this is not the whole story of my life
but that
there is a hand upon me fashioning me and moulding me
making me walk in the
paths which I would not
and comforting me
and filling me with hope? It is
because of something else which is in the potter’s house. That which the
prophet saw first of all: “I saw the potter work a work on the wheels.”
It is on that that our eyes must be fixed if we would gain comfort and hope. It
is on that that the eyes of thoughtful men must be fixed before we can have a
philosophy of life. The study of the clay will show us only the limitations of
the clay. The study of the wheel will teach us nothing but the conditions under
which the clay is moulded. The contemplation of the hand alone will yield
nothing but unsubstantial dreams. The result of the first has been formulated
in philosophy; of the second in science; of the third in theology. Should there
ever be a complete philosophy of life
it must be from the combination of what
each thing in the potter’s house has to teach us. The clay we can analyse. The
wheel we can watch. How can we learn from the hand? Only by taking the
testimony which the clay itself bears to its own experience
only by noting the
effects produced on the human soul by the awful
mysterious experiences of
life. The limitations of your life and mine were fixed long before we saw the
light. We have learned that to begin with. The experiences which come to you
and me are not made to break in upon the course of this world
violating the
law which governs life. They come by rule. There is an undeviating law which
governs life. That
too
we have learned. Where
then
is Providence? That is
to be seen in the moulding of our life. God’s hand is on us
and in the turn of
the wheel which brings joy He lifts us up
and in the turn which brings
calamity He moulds us for some use. That is what men forget. The race has
always believed
that there was overruling
but supposed that the proof of it
was to be found in the events of life
and then was dumfounded when these
events proved different from what had been expected. It is not in the events
but in the result of them
that we shall find the proof of the hand
of God. That thought frees us at once from the deadness of spirit which comes
with the knowledge of inexorable law. If there be a hand fashioning
we may be
sure that it chose the clay to make that which it knew the clay could become.
If there is a hand moulding our souls
it must be that these laws were prepared
by it because He knew that no condition which those laws produce is
unfavourable to the development of the life which He loves. And more than that
if there be laws for the clay and laws for the wheel
there are likewise
we
may be sure
laws for the moulding hand as well. What are these laws? That we
do not know
and that is why there is so much confusion and fear. There is one
thing more to be said
and that is
that the parable is incomplete in one
respect. There are times when we can speak of humanity as clay in the hands of
the potter
but we all know that this human clay has the power of resistance.
It can tear itself from the moulding hand; it can fatten itself in sin
so as
to frustrate the work on the wheels. So the house of the potter has an
exhortation for us
as well as an object lesson. What it is saying to every man
is
Do not resist
but cooperate. Look at the clay--it is yourself
it has its
limitations. Two things are before you when that truth has entered into your
soul. You may despair; you may throw away your life because it is physically
mentally
or morally incomplete or marred. Or you may submit. You may learn to
be content; you may rise to thank God that you are what you are. You may be
made useful
and in the eyes of the Master beautiful
because expressing the
love of God. Look on the wheel. It is the revolving life
with all its manifold
experiences. They may be so joyous that we forget that we are here for a
purpose
and pass the time in the enjoyment of things which unfit us for beauty
or power. They may be hard and bitter
and you may upbraid God. You may say
I
have been a religious man
and look at me
old and poor and sad! Are not these
laws
which He established
and which now bear heavy on me
for a purpose? We
may go further
and say
“The consolations of God are not small with us.” We
may hear the voice of the apostle saying
“My brethren
think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial” as if some strange thing happened to you; there
hath no trial taken you but such as is common to man. He wrought a work on the
wheels. Let nothing shake that faith. Submit your souls to God. Do not ask Him
to make you great
only to make you useful. The hand of the Potter is on your
life
moulding it in the midst of manifold experiences. It is the hand of your
Father--the same hand which was on Jesus
and moulded that sweet Jewish boy
into the perfect manifestation of His own glory. Remember that
and He will
make you a thing of beauty
fit for the Master’s use. (Leighton Parks.)
The Potter and His clay
You can really see the prophet in his loose flowing robes
walking
slowly and softly out of the temple
and away through the narrow streets of
Jerusalem towards the Eastern Gate. Then selecting his road
he wanders down
the slopes into the Valley of Hinnom. The voice of God is in his ear. The
Spirit is directing his steps. Listen! He is reciting over the pathetic words
of his great predecessor
with almost as much pathos as Isaiah himself. “O that
thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river
and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” The prophet has come forth from
a night of sore travail of spirit. The deep thought of his soul was ever this
“How different may have been the course of Israel
and the flow of their
national life
if only God’s rule had been supreme.” He had chosen them to be a
light to the Gentiles
but
alas! they were darkness. In their evil choice and
deeds they had foiled the Divine plan
and frustrated the Divine purpose. A
father loves his boy dearly. He conceives a plan unto which to shape his life.
The boy is the one object for which he lives; to carry out his ideal he saves
his hard earnings and seeks to inspire the lad to its lofty attainment. But
there is resistance
and the plan is abortive. Again the father tries to shape
the lad’s life according to another plan
only to result in another failure.
Still the father never despairs
he will try again and again
until upon some
noble model he has shaped the career of his lad. Now
while Jeremiah was
wandering on
he was thinking something like that about Israel. Presently the
prophet reaches the base of the Valley of Hinnom
and pauses in front of a
potter’s bench. Here he stands and observes. He sees the potter take the clay
that is on his bench
knead it until it is soft and pliable to the touch. What
was the great truth that God forced home upon the prophet’s heart? Some have
thought it was that men are irresistibly in God’s hand
that He is the absolute
Sovereign
“working all things after the counsel of His own will.” We do not
deny this truth
but we do not believe that was the lesson God taught Jeremiah
by the side of the potter’s bench.
I. It is not a
discussion of “fixed fate
free will
foreknowledge absolute.” God’s will had
not been absolute in Israel
or there would have been no Divine pleadings
“Turn ye
turn ye
for
why will ye die.” But another and more hopeful lesson
came into the prophet’s heart. When the vessel was marred
the potter did not
throw away the clay
but changed the pattern
and remoulded it. When God first
called Abraham the type was patriarchal
afterwards it was theocratic
when God
governed them by the dispensation of angels
prophets
and judges. After this
there was set up a kingdom
wherein David was God’s viceroy
but now
as the
11th verse of the 19th chapter makes clear
God was about to change the pattern
again
and ever will
until Shiloh shall come. Israel shall yet be perfected.
II. The symbols
employed. The clay
the worker
the wheels
and the production. The people are
the clay. God made man of the dust of the earth
and breathed into him the
breath of life. Though made in the image of God
man fell; but God lifts man
out of the pit of destruction and from the miry clay
that He may by
regeneration conform him into the image of His Son. That clay is resistant or
pliable. It was not for want of skill on the part of the potter that the vessel
was marred
but there was some hidden defect in the clay itself
that would not
yield to the plastic guidance of wheel and hand. But where the clay is pliable
the potter perfects the vessel. The Worker is plainly God Himself. He is
represented as possessing will
intelligence
and ability to execute. There are
two wheels
an upper and a lower
a heavenly influence and an earthly circumstance.
His hand is on the upper
His foot upon the lower. While the Divine Potter by
His Spirit moulds us
He keeps His foot upon the lower wheel. Providence is
under His control as well as grace. The productions are various. He may mould
of the clay a common vessel or a beautiful vase. But we are all to be vessels
for the King’s use
we are all to bear a likeness to His dear Son.
III. God has design
in the life of every believer. What is the difference between the work of an
unskilled workman and an artisan? We may define it thus. The unskilled man
creates his design as he proceeds
according as necessity determines
or his
ideal grows. A skilled man designs first
and then constructs according to
plan. The Divine Potter is not shaping our lives indefinitely
but is moulding
our character according to His will and purpose. You cannot understand the
drift of your life
there is so much mystery in it; it often seems chaotic
a
mere tangled skein. But patience! “Hope thou in God.” Be of good courage. We
are not the creatures of chance
the subjects of a blind force that is whirling
us round and round without purpose or aim. God employs all things to accomplish
His will. God’s unique power is to use all things in our life to His glory
and
our highest good. There may be a full flowing river
with a desert land on
either side
but its larger usefulness is lost until it is skilfully employed
to irrigate the land through which it flows. In the economy of God’s
providence
nothing runs to waste. “All things” are turned to good account. All
defeats
as well as victories
all the blightings of our hopes
as all
fulfillments
are made to “work together for good to them that love God.”
Herein is the power and the wisdom of the Master Potter. God works wonders out
of the most disappointing lives. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and the knowledge of God!”
IV. Much depends
also upon the material. With one piece of wood you may be able to do much
but
with another nothing--it flies off ink chips
and breaks into fragments at the
touch of the chisel. There are some souls that never yield to God’s moulding;
others only when they are melted in the fires of affliction. There our wills
bend. Now see this vessel that is marred in the hands of the potter. But why is
it marred? There is no lack of skill. No
but there is some gritty substance
there
some stubborn resisting quality that will not yield to the deftness of
the potter’s hand. Human nature is often resistant
rather than pliable
to
God’s touch. An evil disposition in our nature mars the vessel in the hands of
the Potter.
V. The patience of
the potter. Jeremiah was not particularly impressed with the fact that the clay
was marred in the hand of the potter
but what made the deepest impression was
that when the clay was spoilt there was no sign of anger upon the face of the
potter. That was the great lesson for Jeremiah
and for us. He had laboured for
Israel
and failed; but had he been as patient as this? Had he not despaired
when he should have commenced afresh? And have not we been Jeremiahs
and do we
feel this rebuke? I have seen a mechanic spoil a piece of handicraft
and
because he spoilt it
in a passion of wrath
dash it to the ground. That is
never God’s way. If Israel has failed to answer to the one mould
He will try
another. There are broken ideals
over which we all mourn. But God is patient
and if He cannot make us of such a glorious pattern as He first designed
He
will go on shaping our life according to another pattern
and finally perfect
us for the palace of the King.
VI. The process to
which the clay was subjected. Had the clay possessed mental
sensitive being
it might have complained of the method
the pressure of the kneading hand
the
spinning of the wheel. But objection is unwisdom. We are sometimes whirled
round and round upon the wheel of life
until the head is giddy and the heart
sick. But there is not one unnecessary pang. “Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth.” Courage! Trust in God. God’s will is of the highest purpose.
Character can only come by discipline
and through suffering we pass into the
perfect beauty of holiness. (F. James.)
On the potter’s wheel
Perhaps this second vessel was not quite so fair as the first
might have been
still it was beautiful and useful. It was a memorial of the
potter’s patience and long-suffering
of his careful use of material
and of
his power of repairing loss and making something out of failure and
disappointment. O vision of the long-suffering patience of God! O bright
anticipation of God’s redemptive work! O parable of remade characters
and
lives
and hopes! Who is there that is not conscious of having marred and
resisted the touch of God’s moulding hands? Who is there that does not lament
opportunities of saintliness which were lost through the obdurateness of the
will and the hardness of the heart?
I. The Divine
making of men.
1. The potter has an ideal. Floating through his fancy there is the
vessel that is to be. He already sees it hidden in the shapeless clay
waiting
for his call to evoke. Before the woman applies scissors to the silk
she has
conceived the pattern of her dress; before the spade cleaves the sod
the
architect has conceived the plan of the building to be erected there. So of God
in nature. The pattern of this round world and of her sister spheres lay in His
creative thought before the first beam of light streamed across the abyss. So
of the mystical body of Christ
the Church
His Bride. So also of the
possibilities of each human life. See that mother bending over the cradle where
her firstborn baby son lies sleeping! Mark that smile which goes and comes over
her face
like a breath of wind on a calm summer’s day! Why does she smile Ah!
she is dreaming; and in her dreams is building castles of the future eminence
of this child--in the pulpit or the senate; in war
or art. If only she might
have her way
he should be foremost in happiness
renowned in the service of
men. But no mother ever wished so much for her child as God for us
when first
cradled at the foot of the Cross.
2. The potter achieves his purpose by means of the wheel. In the
discipline of human life this surely represents the revolution of daily
circumstance; often monotonous
common place
trivial enough
and yet intending
to effect
if it may
ends on which God has set His heart. Many
on entering
the life of full consecration and devotion
are eager to change the
circumstances of their lives for those in which they suppose that they will
more readily attain a fully developed character. Hence
much of the restlessness
and fever
the disappointment and wilfulness of the early days of Christian
experience. Do not
therefore
seek to change
by some rash and wilful act
the
setting and environment of your life. Stay where you are till God as evidently
calls you elsewhere as He has put you where you are. In the meanwhile
look
deep into the heart of every circumstance for its special message
lesson
or
discipline. Upon the way in which you accept or reject these will depend the
achievement or marring of the Divine purpose.
3. The bulk of the work is done by the potter’s fingers. How delicate
their touch! How fine their sensibility! It would almost seem as though they
were endued with intellect
instead of being the instruments by which the brain
is executing its purpose. And in the nurture of the soul these represent the
touch of the Spirit of God working in us to will and to do of His good
pleasure. But we are too busy
too absorbed in many things
to heed the gentle
touch. Sometimes
when we are aware of it we resent it
or stubbornly refuse to
yield to it. The wheel and the hand worked together; often their motion was in
opposite directions
but their object was one. So all things work together for
good to them that love God. God’s touch and voice give the meaning of His
providences; and His providences enforce the lesson that His tender monitions
might not be strong enough to teach.
II. God’s remaking
of men. “He made it again.” The potter could not make what he might have
wished; but he did his best with his materials. So God is ever trying to do His
best for us. How often He has to make us again! He made Jacob again
when He
met him at the Jabbok ford; finding him a supplanter and a cheat
but
after a
long wrestle
leaving him a prince with God. He made Simon again
on the
resurrection morning
when He found him somewhere near the open grave
the son
of a dove--for so his old name Bar-jonas signifies--and left him Peter
the man
of the rock
the apostle of Pentecost. Are you conscious of having marred God’s
early plan for yourself? Whilst into the soul the conviction is burnt: “I had
my chance
and missed it; it will never come to me again. The survival of the
fittest leaves no place for the unfit. They must be flung amid the waste which
is ever accumulating around the furnaces of human life.” It is here that the
Gospel comes in with its gentle words for the outcast and lost. The bruised
reed is made again into a pillar for the temple of God. The feebly smoking flax
is kindled to a flame.
III. Our attitude
towards the Great Potter. Yield to Him! Each particle in the clay seems to say
“Yes” to wheel and hand. And in proportion as this is the case
the work goes
merrily on. If there be rebellion and resistance
the work of the potter is
marred. Let God have His way with you. We cannot always understand His
dealings
because we do not know what His purpose is. (F. B. Meyer
B. A.)
A shattered life restored
Dr. Pope says
“When I was in Florence I saw a triumph of
restorative patience and skill. There is a statue there which had been found
broken into a thousand fragments
and a patient man
with fine tact
replaced
the shattered particles
and eventually the broken image was restored; and
there it stands in its elastic beauty
as wonderful and as perfect as in the
ancient years. And I say that in Christianity we have a supreme Artist who can
pick up the most shattered life that the philosopher would cast to the void
with the rubbish
and He can hold that life up in moral beauty and perfectness
and He does do it every day.”
Restored manhood
Restored! Men can restore many things. I have read of them
restoring pictures
cleansing them from the dust and filth that have gathered
in the course of years
and restoring them to something like the brilliance and
beauty they had when they left the painter’s easel. I have read of them
restoring old buildings--grand old cathedrals
monuments of the genius and
devotion of past generations--which have begun to show signs of decay. But
there is a restoration work greater far than the restoration of one of the old
masters or the restoration of a cathedral
and that is the restoration of man
himself. For man is a wreck
a ruin; a wreck so complete
a ruin so utter
that
his restoration has seemed hopeless and desperate. The best of men gave up the task
shook their heads over publicans and sinners
and said
“The ruin is beyond
restoration.” But Jesus came and looked upon these wrecks of humanity
and
said
“These
too
can be restored
” and He has justified His word. He found
Zacchaeus a wreck
and restored him; He found Onesimus a wreck
and restored
him; He found Augustine a wreck
and restored him; He found Henry Barrowe a
wreck
and restored him; He found J.B. Gough a wreck
and restored him. Out of
these battered ruins and shattered wrecks of humanity He has made temples of
the living God. (J. D. Jones
M. A.)
O house of Israel
cannot
I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord.
The answer is Yes-and No
. So far as all physical energy is concerned
the Lord can do with
us as the potter does with the clay; but the Lord Himself cannot make a little
child love Him: there is a point at which the clay lives
thinks
reasons
defies. The potter can only work upon the clay up to a given point; so long as
it is soft he can make it a vessel of honour or a vessel of dishonour
he can
make it this shape or that; but once let him burn it
and it is clay no longer
in the sense in which he can fashion it according to model or design. A
marvellous thing is this
that the Lord has made any creature that can defy
Him; and that we can all defy Him is the testimony of every day’s experience.
Let the Lord say
Can I not crush the universe? and the answer must be
Yes
in
a moment
in the twinkling of an eye; Thou hast but to close Thy fingers upon
it
and it is dead
and Thou canst throw the ashes away. But almightiness has
its limits. There is no almightiness in the moral region. The Lord cannot
conquer the human will by any exercise of mere omnipotence: the will is to be
conquered by instruction
persuasion
grace
moral inducement
spiritual
ministry
exhibition of love upon love
till the exhibition rises into
sacrifice and indicates itself in the Cross of Christ. “Behold
I stand at the
door and knock.” Why does He not go in? Because He has no key of that door that
can open it by force. Why does He not break it with one tremendous blow?
Because then the heart would be crushed and killed
and would not be persuaded
into becoming a guest chamber for the King. We have it in our power to say No
to God
to defy the Lord
to withdraw ourselves from the counsel and guidance
of heaven. (J. Parker
D. D.)
Verse 7-8
If that nation
against whom I have pronounced
turn from their
evil
I will repent.
Fast sermon
I. The being and
condition of countries and communities
of nations and kingdoms
are under the
control of the Most High. To suppose Him watchful of the operations in the
universe
and yet not active in the management of them
would seem
irreconcilable with the inefficacy of all laws without His might; with the
appearance of design in most events; with the effects of a sublime power which
many of them display; and with the existence
on peculiar occasions
of some
occurrences which have been departures from the ordinary course of nature. To
believe any affairs to be under the guidance of His providence
and yet to
imagine that the fortunes of whole countries and people are free from His
observation and care
would be inconsistent with the variety and magnitude of
the interests which are in those fortunes always involved. But it may be
objected
if it is thus certain that the events of time are under the
superintendence of God
why are there so great evils both in the natural and political
world? To this it would be sufficient to reply
that in us beings of yesterday
who see but a few links of the vast chain in which the Almighty hath connected
all occurrences in the universe; who with the utmost effort of our faculties
are unable
in this our low position
to perceive the final results of any of
His operations; it is vainly presumptuous to attempt to fathom the counsels of
His mind; and worse than presumptuous
with the evidences which He hath
vouchsafed to give us in His word and works
of His wisdom
goodness
and
rectitude
to doubt that all His arrangements will terminate to the honour of
His government
and the greatest possible benefit of His creatures. As the
objection
however
is plausible
it may be well to observe further
that our
estimate of what appears to be evil may often be erroneous. Somewhere I have
seen it with striking force and beauty asked
whether the insect whose
habitation the ploughshare overturns knows that its motions conduce to that
fertility of the earth which is to sustain many intelligent creatures? In like
manner
from the convulsions and terrible occurrences in the moral world
there
may be educed by the Being who bringeth good out of evil
such results as will
advance His purposes
and the general welfare.
II. The great cause
of perplexities and troubles
calamities and ruin
in any region
is the
predominance of corrupt principles and manners. For the evils which the Divine
Providence sends upon the world
there can be no other cause than the transgressions
of the inhabitants thereof. The Scriptures again and again represent the
calamities of a people as the punishment of their sins (Hosea 14:1; Jeremiah 5:9; Jeremiah 5:25; Jeremiah 18:9-10; Habakkuk 3:12-13; Psalms 75:9-10; 1 Kings 9:7-9). Nor is reason less
explicit upon this truth than revelation. Upon a little reflection she
perceives that the Almighty
being perfectly holy
wise
and good
will approve
and encourage virtue. This necessarily implies the condemnation and punishment
of vice. In beings destined to exist hereafter
there is extensive opportunity
for the fulfilment of the Divine intentions. Their immortality opens a wide
field for the display of the justice of God. And hence it is
that in this
present state vice does not always in the individual meet its retribution
nor
virtue its reward. But nations and communities
as such
are not immortal. It
should therefore seem reasonable that they should in their present existence
enjoy the rewards due to their virtues
and endure the punishments which their
vices deserve. To place the point beyond dispute
experience
weeping as she
reviews her venerable annals
declares from them that the indignation of Heaven
has frequently been brought upon whole communities by their sins: that debase inert
calamity
and ruin have resulted to them from the predominance of depraved
principles and manners.
III. By a timely
reformation of their principles and lives
communities may avert the
displeasure of the Almighty. Contrition is estimable
and acceptable through
the Redeemer
in an individual. It has turned away the wrath of Heaven from
many an offender. But when a community
as one body
is roused by a sense of
danger
or by the calls of the Most High
in alarming occurrences
in foreign
examples
or in His holy Word
or by their own consciousness of a relaxed state
of religion and morals
to “consider their ways
” and turn with sincerity to
God
to humble themselves before Him
and to express their earnest desire to be
made objects of His forgiveness and favour: if ever He may be said to be taken
with holy violence
it is by such an act. (Bishop Dehon.)
Verse 11
Return ye now everyone from his evil way.
“Return! Return!”
My text is all about repentance; it is an exhortation from God
very brief and sententious
but very earnest and plain: “Return ye now everyone
from his evil way.” I want you all to notice that this is the call of mercy.
God would have you saved
and therefore He cries to you
“Return
” because He
is willing to receive you
and to blot out all your sin. But remember that it
is equally the call of a holy God
the God who knows that you cannot be saved
except you turn from your evil ways. Thou must be made to hate thy sin
or
else
where God is
thou canst never come.
I. What does the
text say? The picture is that of a man who is going the wrong way. He is
trespassing
he is on forbidden ground
he is advancing in a dangerous road
and if he shall continue to go in that direction
he will by and by come to a
dreadful precipice over which he will fall
and there he will be ruined. A
voice cries to him
“Return!” What does that word mean? It is very simple
and
that I may make it plainer still
perhaps
for practical purposes
let me say
that the first thing such a man would do would be to stop. If I was out in the
country
on a road which I did not know
and I heard a voice crying out to me
“Return
” I should certainly stop
and listen; and if I heard the cry repeated
with great eagerness and earnestness
“Return! Return!” I should pause
and
look round
and try to see who it was that had called to me. I wish that all of
you who are wandering away from God
would stop
and consider where you are
going. In God’s name
I would arrest thee; as God’s officer
I would put my
hand on thy shoulder
and say to thee
“Thou must stop; thou shalt pause; thou
shalt consider thy ways. I cannot let thee go on carelessly to thy ruin
like a
sheep into the slaughter house
or a bullock going to be killed.” Stop
I pray
thee. Suppose a man did stop
that would not be returning; it is but the
commencement of the return when a man stops
but it will be necessary for him
next
to turn round. The order for him to obey is
“Right about face.” There
must be a total
a radical change in you
ii you are really to obey the
command
“Return.” I think I hear you ask
“Who can effect this change?” And I
am glad to hear that question
for I trust it will lead you to pray
“Turn me
O Lord
and I shall be turned!” There is something done towards returning when
a man stops
there is still more done when he turns round; yet he does not
actually return until
with persevering footsteps
the wanderer hastens back to
him from whom he had departed. What God desires is that all His prodigal
children should come home
that His stray sheep should be brought back to the
fold
that the lost pieces of silver should be put into the treasury again;
that
indeed
you who have wandered in sin should be as they are whom Christ
has washed in His precious blood
whom the Holy Spirit has regenerated
and
whom the Father has adopted
and put among His children.
II. When are
sinners to return? “Return ye now everyone from his evil way.” The voice of God
bids you to return now
and I would urge you to do so
because life is so
uncertain that
if you do not return now
you may not live to return at all. He
who would have his estate rightly ordered when he is dead should have his will
made
everybody says that; and he who would have his eternal estate ordered
aright should yield himself at once to the sovereign will of the Most High
for
life is uncertain. Return
now
for the calls of grace may not always come to
you. Recollect
also
that your sin will be increased by delay. If you keep on
in the wrong path
not only will you have sinned the more
but that sin will
have taken a more terrible hold upon you. Habits begin like cobwebs
but they
end like chains of iron. Moreover
it is well for us to return unto our God
now
because the sooner we return to Him the sooner we shall enjoy His favour
and the more delightful will our life become. Peace with God makes even this
life to be a blessed life; and he who has it begins
even here
to enjoy the
felicities of the glorified. Do you not see
too
that God will have the more
service from you? The sooner you are brought to Him
the longer will you have
of life in which to serve Him. If any of you have gone past youth
into
manhood
and to middle age
or even to old age
then the word “now” should come
to you with a sharp
clear crack
as of a rifle. It comes like a staccato note
in music
“Now! Now! Now!” Yet once more
return now
because
if ever there is
a reason for returning
that reason points to the present moment. If there is a
hope that a man will leave his sin some time or other
there must be a better
hope that he will leave it now than that he will leave it in a year’s time.
Wisdom’s voice cries
“Now!” It is folly that says
“Tarry.”
III. Who is the
person that is to return? “Everyone.” Many of you have returned. But every man
every woman
every child who has not returned
should hear the voice of the
Lord repeating this message. “Well
” says one
“perhaps there will be some
people converted through this sermon.” Do not talk so
I pray you. Will you be
converted through it? Possibly some of you are like the man we read of in the
papers some time ago. He was walking by the seaside
and trod on a large chain
and slipped his foot right through one of the links. When he tried to draw it
back again
he could not
for he was held fast. The tide was coming in
and
there he was a prisoner. He had to call long and loud before anybody came; and
by the time the people arrived
he had very much hurt his foot in endeavouring
to extricate himself. He begged them to run for the smith
that he might come
and break the iron. He came
but he brought the wrong tools with him
so he
could not accomplish the task. It would be some time before he could be back
and
meanwhile
the tide had come in
and the water was up to the man’s feet
so he cried
“Run for the surgeon. Let him come
and cut my leg off; it is the
only hope of saving my life.” But by the time the surgeon came
the water was
up to the man’s neck
so the doctor could not get down to where his foot was
fast in the iron chain
and there was nothing that could be done for him. There
he was
poor fellow
and the tide rolled over him
and he was drowned. Some of
you seem to me to be just like that man
held fast by some invisible force;
yet
when I try to get at the chain
I cannot find out what it is
it is so far
under the water. Perhaps you do not yourself know what it is. I am going to
make a dive to try to get at it
as I ask my last question concerning the text.
IV. From what are
these people to return? “From his evil way.” Then
each man has a way of his
own
--an evil way of his own
--some personal form of sin. What is your own way?
Is it some constitutional sin to which you are prone? “Well
” asks one
“what
do you think is my evil way?” I will answer by putting another question to you
What is the sin into which you most frequently fall? I should think you can
tell that
and that is the evil way from which you have most to fear. It is
from that one way that you are called upon specially to return. Tonight
if you
were tempted
to which temptation would you be most likely to yield? You do not
know
you say; well then
let me put another question to you. When do you get
most angry if anybody rebukes you? What is it in the preaching that makes you
say
“There
I will never go to hear that man again; he cuts my hair so short
he comes quite close to the skin”? Well now
that will help you to find out
what is your own personal evil way; and it is from that way that you are to
return. Again
what sin of yours eats up the other sins? Where does your money
mostly go? You could have told that Joseph was Jacob’s favourite
because he
made him a coat of many colours; and there are some sins that wear the coat of
many colours
and often
as it were
it is dipped in the man’s own blood
for
everything goes for that particular sin. But I have not hit on your sin yet
my
friend
have I? You have an evil way which you will not tell to anyone; it is
not as bad as any I have mentioned; it is a very respectable kind of evil way
which you have. Your evil way is this
the evil way of self-righteousness. It
makes out that the death of Christ was a superfluity; it tells God that He is
wrong in charging a man with sin; it raises a clamour against God; it claims as
a right every good thing that God has to give; it does
in fact
uncrown the
Saviour
bid the Holy Spirit go His way as no longer needed
and throws the
Gospel
which is the crown jewel of God
into the mire. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Returning from evil ways
There are two things proper to a man that returneth: first
to go
a way clean contrary to the way he went before; secondly
to tread out and
obliterate his former steps
First
I say
he must go a way clean contrary to
his former way. Many men think that the way to hell is but a little out of the
way to heaven
so that a man in small time
with small ado
may pass out of the
one into the other; but they are much deceived: for as sin is more than a
stepping aside
namely
a plain
a direct going away from God; so is
repentance
or the forsaking of sin
more than a little coasting out of one way
into another. Crossings will not serve; there is no way from the road of sin to
the place we seek
but to go quite back again the way we came. The way of
pleasure in sin must be changed for sorrow for the same. He that hath
superstitiously worshipped false gods must now as devoutly serve the true; the
tongue that hath uttered swearings
and spoken blasphemies
must as plentifully
sound forth the name of God in prayer and thanksgiving; the covetous man must
become liberal; the oppressor of the poor as charitable in relieving them; the
calumniator of his brother a tender guarder of his credit: in fine
he that
hated his brother before must now love him as tenderly as himself. (Joseph
Mede.)
Repentance useless without amendment
Repentance without amendment is like continual pumping in a ship
without stopping the leaks. (J. Palmer.)
Verse 12
There is no hope.
Hope
yet no hope-No hope
yet hope
There are two phases in spiritual life which well illustrate the
deceitfulness of the heart. The first is that described in my first text (Isaiah 57:10)
in which the man
though
wearied in his many attempts
is not and cannot be convinced of the
hopelessness of self-salvation
but still clings to the delusion that he shall
be able somehow
he knows not how
to deliver himself from ruin. When you shall
have hunted the man out of this
you will then meet with a new difficulty
which is described in the second text. Finding there is no hope in himself
the
man draws the unwarrantable conclusion that there is no hope for him in God;
and
as once you had to battle with his self-confidence
now you have to
wrestle with his despair. It is self-righteousness in both cases. In the one
ease it is the soul content with self-righteousness; in the second place it is
man sullenly preferring to perish rather than receive the righteousness of
Christ.
I. Considering the
first text
we have to speak of a hope which is no hope. “Thou art wearied in
the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not
There is no hope: thou hast
found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved.” This well
pictures the pursuit of men after satisfaction in earthly things. They will
hunt the purlieus of wealth
they will travel the pathways of fame
they will
dig into the mines of knowledge
they will exhaust themselves in the deceitful
delights of sin
and
finding them all to be vanity and emptiness
they will
become sore perplexed and disappointed; but they will still continue their
fruitless search. Carnal minds with all their might earth’s vanities pursue
and when they are by ceremonies. If you shall addict yourself to the fullest
ceremonial
if you should be obedient to it in all its jots and tittles
keeping its fast days and its feast days
its vigils and matins and vespers
bowing down before its priesthood
its altars
and its millinery
giving up
your reason
and binding yourself in the fetters of superstition; after you
have done all this
you will find an emptiness and a vexation of spirit as the
only result. It is only grace that can enable us to follow Luther’s example
who
after going up and down Pilate’s staircase on his knees
muttering so many
Ave Marias and Paternosters
called to mind that old text
“Therefore being
justified by faith
we have peace with God
” and springing up from his knees
forsook once and forever all dependence upon outward formalities
and quitted
the cloistered cell and all its austerities to live the life of a believer
knowing that by the works of the law there shall no flesh living be justified.
2. A great mass of people
even though they reject priestcraft
make
themselves priests
and rely upon their good works. A poor and wretched man
dreamed that he was counting out gold. There it stood upon the table before him
in great bags
and
as he untied string after string
he found himself wealthy
beyond a Croesus’ treasures. He was lying upon a bed of straw in the midst of
filth and squalor
a mass of rags and wretchedness
but he dreamed of riches. A
charitable friend who had brought him help stood at the sleeper’s side and
said
“I have brought you help
for I know your urgent need.” Now the man was
in a deep sleep
and the voice mingled with his dream as though it were part of
it: he replied
therefore
with scornful indignation
“Get ye gone
I need no miserable
charity from you; I am possessor of heaps of gold. Can you not see them? I will
open a bag and pour out a heap that shall glitter before your eyes.” Thus
foolishly he talked on
babbling of a treasure
which existed only in his
dream
till he who came to help him accepted his repulse and departed
mournfully. When the man awakened he had no comfort from his dream
but found
that he had been duped by it into rejecting his only friend. Such is the
position of every person who is hoping to be saved by his good works. You have
no good works except in your dream.
3. Many persons are looking for salvation to another form of
self-deception
namely
the way of repentance and reformation. It is thought by
some that if they pray a certain number of prayers
and repent up to a certain
amount
they will then be saved as the result of their praying and repenting.
This
again
is another way of winning salvation which is not spoken of in
Scripture. This is a way by which neither law nor Gospel receive honour. To repent
is a Christian’s duty
but to hope for salvation by virtue Of that alone is a
delusion of the most fearful kind. Repentance is a part of salvation
and when
Christ saves us He saves us by making us repent
but repentance does not save;
it is the work of God
and the work of God alone. Now wherefore dost thou weary
thyself in this way also? for surely in it “there is no hope.”
4. Until thou art clean separate from all consciousness of hope in
thyself
there no hope that the Gospel will ever be any power to thee; but when
thou shalt throw up thy hands like a drowning man
feeling
“It is all over
with me! I am lost
lost
unless a stronger than I shall interpose.” Oh
sinner
then there is hope for you.
II. We now turn to
the second text. Here we have no hope--and yet hope. When the sinner has at
last been driven by stress of weather from the roadstead of his own confidence
then he flies to the dreary harbour of despair. As if there were nobody in the
world but himself
and as if he were to measure God’s power and God’s grace by
his own merit and power. Hopelessness in self is what we want to bring you to
but hopelessness in itself
and especially in connection with God
would be a
sin from which we would urge you to escape. If you are sitting down in despair
I want to speak to you first of the God of hope. His name is God
that is good.
He delighteth in mercy: it is His soul’s highest joy to clasp His Ephraims to
His bosom. But you say
Wherewithal shall I come before the Most High God? I
have sinned
and what shall I bring as a recompense? If I had a mint of merits
if I had godly impressions
if I had high moral excellence
I would come with
that to God
and hope to obtain a hearing.” But hearken
sinner
dost thou not
know the name of the Second Person in the Trinity? It is Jesus Christ
the Son.
Now
if thou wantest merit
has not He enough of it? Oh
sinner
if thou hast
no merit
thou needest not wish for any. Take Christ in thy hand
for He is
made of God unto thee
wisdom
righteousness
sanctification
and redemption;
and all this for every
soul of Adam born who trusts in Him alone. But I hear
you complaining again
“Oh
but I have not the power to repent. You have told
me this
and I cannot believe: I cannot soften my heart; I cannot do anything;
I am so powerless. You have been teaching me that.” I know I have; but there is
another Person in the Trinity
and what is His name? It is the Holy Spirit. And
do you not know that the Holy Spirit helpeth our infirmity? A great divine has
said--and I think there is some truth in it--that a very great number of souls
are destroyed through the fear that they cannot be saved. I think it is very
likely. If some of you really thought that Christ could save you
if you felt a
hope that you might yet be numbered with His people
you would say
“I will
forsake my sins
I will leave my present evil way
and I will fly unto the
strong for strength.” In the first place
would it not be wise
even if there
were only a “peradventure
” to go to Christ
and trust Him on the strength of
that? The King of Nineveh had no Gospel message; he had simply the law preached
by Jonah
and that very shortly and sternly. Jonah’s message was
“Yet forty
days
and Nineveh shall be overthrown”; but the King of Nineveh said
“Who can
tell?” Surely if but on the presumption of “Who can tell?” the men of Nineveh
went and did find mercy
you will be inexcusable if you do not act upon the
same
having much more than that to be your comfort. Go
sinner
to the Cross
for who can tell? But
in the next place
you have had many clear and positive
examples. In reading Scripture through you find that many have been to Christ
and that there never was one cast out yet. Moreover
you have comfortable
promises in the Word of God. “Your hearts shall live that seek Him.” If you do
seek Him your heart shall live. Leap on the back of that promise
and let it
bear thee
as the Samaritan’s beast bore the dying man
to an inn where thou
mayest rest--I mean to Christ--where thou mayest have confidence. “Whosoever
calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Now you do call upon His
name. There are many others: they have been quoted in your ears till you know
them by heart. “Whosoever will
let him take the water of life freely”; and you
know that precious one
“Come unto Me
all ye that labour and are heavy laden
and I will give you rest.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Spiritual desperation
One instance of this is related by a well-known religious writer.
He says: “A zealous minister went to the house of an aged respectable man
a
man who bore an unstained character
and there addressing him and his family
he told simply of the salvation that is in Christ
and urged those who listened
to a hearty acceptance of it. The minister finished what he had to say
and
when he left the house
his friend accompanied him; and when they were alone
together said something like this: Spend your time and strength upon the young;
labour to bring them to Jesus; it is too late for such as me. I know
he said
that I have never been a Christian. I fully believe that when I die I shall go
down to perdition.”
I. Its causes.
1. One is the judgments of God
especially those severer
dispensations with which the Almighty sometimes visits us. Their real
significance
I need hardly say
is that our heavenly Father still loves us and
cares for us--that He has not forgotten us
nor given us over to
destruction--that He still thinks there is good in us
and a chance for us; and
that He is bound by loud and louder calls to warn us back from ruin
and by
heavier and heavier blows
if necessary
to drive us from the perilous paths in
which we tread. Nevertheless
with the perversity of a chastised child
we put
upon them precisely the opposite construction.
2. The discovery of one’s sinfulness
and added to it the realisation
of the jeopardy in which it places the soul
will often bring on a fit of
hopelessness. That was the case with Judas. The author of the “Pilgrim’s
Progress” has testified to a similar experience. When conscience had turned the
light upon his life
and sharply reproved him for it
says Bunyan
“I had no
sooner thus conceived
in my mind
but suddenly this conclusion was fastened on
my spirit that I had been a great and grievous sinner
and that now it was too
late for me to look after heaven
for Christ would not forgive me
nor pardon
my transgression.”
3. Not only does the discovery of our sins produce this effect
but
the same is also apt to follow upon long and unsuccessful conflict with them.
For instance
if a man has struggled a great while with some besetting fault
with an appetite that has tyrannised over him--like that for strong drink
to
give a common example
or with some passion
like a hasty temper or an
uncontrollable tongue--if it seems to him that he has never conquered it
and
never can
then there begins to spread over his soul that dark cloud of despair
our text represents.
4. Finally
this feeling of despair may be sometimes accounted for by
supposing it to be simply a satanic suggestion. Dante saw over the portals of
hell this terrible sentence
“All hope abandon ye who enter here.” It is the
devil’s trick
his masterpiece of malice and cunning
to copy that inscription
and trace it on the hearts of men--All hope abandon.
II. The progress
that this disorder of the soul makes when left to run an unchecked course.
1. The first stage of it is misery. It must be. There is a very
dramatic scene in the life of Bonaparte
depicted by Guizot. It is the moment
when “on that solitary road (to Paris) at the dead of night
the grand empire
founded and sustained by the incomparable genius and commanding will of one man
alone
had crumbled to pieces
even in the opinion of him who had raised it.”
It is the moment when the officers announce to the great General that his
capital is evacuated
and the enemy at its gates; and he realises that nothing
is left for him to do but abdicate. The agony that pierced that dauntless soul
who can paint! Napoleon
it is said
“let himself fall by the roadside
holding
his head in his hands and hiding his face.” The onlookers stood by
silently
contemplating him with heartfelt sorrow
unable to utter a single word. But oh!
what is the fall of a kingdom to any monarch--what is his despair
what can it
be compared to the anguish which must seize upon one
when the full conviction
rushes over him that he is really doomed--that no chance is left him to avert
damnation--when he must answer in his heart
There is no hope!
2. The second stage of progress is when insensibility sets in. You
know that some diseases occasion excruciating pain at the start. Then after a
while all disagreeable sensations cease. The patient has got “past feeling.”
Well
so it is with the soul when attacked by spiritual desperation. From great
suffering at the outset it is liable to pass on into a state of numbness and
indifference. It is a condition worse and more alarming than the first. The
individual I was alluding to a moment since is an instance in point. I mean the
one who begged his clergyman not to waste time upon him
because he had become
persuaded that he was predestined to destruction. I did not quote to you then
all his conversation upon this subject. Let me give it more in detail now. He
said
“I fully believe that when I die I shall go down to perdition. But
somehow I do not care. I know perfectly all you can say
but I feel it no more
than a stone.”
3. The third and last stage is when one arrives at recklessness. That
was the stage reached by those Jews who spoke our text. They said there is no
hope. Then they added
“But we will walk after our own devices
” etc. They
sinned yet more and more
until Nebuchadnezzar came and carried them away
captive. On the deck of a sinking ship
when rescue is impossible
and the end
of all is nigh at hand
a curious scene
it is said
may often be witnessed.
Here is a group weeping over their impending fate; there is another knot
contemplating with utter apathy a watery grave; and yonder
is the strangest
sight of all--men in the very frenzy of despair
cursing and swearing with
their latest breath
and preparing
with wine cup in hand
and senses steeped
in intoxication
to go to their last account. Most singular and dreadful
influence this latter
which unavoidable physical danger exercises over the
minds of men. But it is no more singular or dreadful than the influence of
spiritual hopelessness at times over the soul. The more terrible the doom
hanging over it
the more mad does the soul become to sink itself to lower and
ever lower abysses of guilt and shame.
III. Is there any
foundation in fact for spiritual desperation? Is there any truth in the
feeling
there is no hope? No. It is not true of any living soul that there is
no hope for it. I was reading the other day of an accident that befell an
innkeeper of the Grindelwald. He “fell into a deep crevasse in the upper
glacier which flows into that beautiful valley. Happening to fall gradually
from ledge to ledge
he reached the bottom in a state of insensibility
but not
seriously injured.” What would you say of that man? Well
you would say of him
if you understood what it was to fall into a crevasse
that it was all over
with him--that there was before him only a lingering death. In fact
the man
himself was at first
when he returned to consciousness of the same opinion.
But no
the event proves you both mistaken. When he awoke from his stupor he
found himself in an ice cavern
with a stream flowing through an arch at its
extremity. Following the course of this stream along a narrow tunnel
which was
in some places so low in the roof that he could scarcely squeeze himself
through on his hands and knees
he came out at last at the end of the glacier
into the open air.” So we see a man fallen into the crevasse of terrible sins.
There he lies
spiritually insensible
at the bottom of the awful abyss of
iniquity into which
by careless walking
he has slipped at last. You think
there is no help for him
no opportunity or place of repentance and restoration
left. You dare to say there is no hope. And in his troubled dreams
mayhap (for
sinners dream)
the poor unfortunate himself repeats your words
no hope. But
it is false. A chance for even him still remains. The fallen sinner may yet
wake from his stupor
and like that innkeeper of the Grindelwald
creep out on
hands and knees into the open air and sunlight of God’s forgiveness and eternal
love. Once
it is said
the servants of Richelieu refused to obey his dictates.
“Our Father
” they pleaded
“it is useless
we shall but fail.” The great
Cardinal drew himself up
fixed upon them his piercing eye
and in a tone that
left no place for further parley
replied
“Fall! there’s no such word!” And
when I see anyone today
a servant of the living God
perhaps afflicted
conscience-stricken
baffled
and mocked by whisperings of the Evil One
stand
up and say there is no hope
I must despair
I hear a voice
loud as the wail
of the dying Christ
ring out through the darkness from Calvary and its
blood-stained cross
Despair! there’s no such word!” (G. H. Chadwell.)
The sin
danger
and unreasonableness of despair
I. To despair of
God’s mercy is sinful.
1. The ancient divines were accustomed to call despair one of the
seven deadly sins It well deserves this character. It is directly contrary to
the will of God. He
we are told
taketh pleasure in them that fear Him
and
hope in His mercy. He must
therefore
be displeased with them that refuse to
do this. It is also a great insult to the character of God. It calls in
question the truth of His word; nay
it gives Him the lie; for He has told us
that whosoever cometh to Him He will in no wise cast out. It calls in question
or rather denies the greatness of His mercy. It also limits the power of God.
He has said
Is anything too hard for Me? But despair says
It is impossible
that He should renew my heart
subdue my will
and make me fit for heaven.
2. Despair is the cause or parent of many other sins. As hope leads
all who entertain it to endeavour to purify themselves
even as Christ is pure
so despair leads all under its influence to wander farther and farther from
God
and plunge without restraint into every kind of wickedness.
II. Despair of
God’s mercy is dangerous. When a man gives himself up to this sin
he does
as
it were
give himself up to the power and guidance of the devil; for he
voluntarily throws away everything which can protect or deliver him from the
adversary.
III. Despair of
God’s mercy is groundless and unreasonable.
1. It is unreasonable to despair of God’s mercy
because He continues
to you the enjoyment of life
and the means of grace. Will you say
There is no
hope
while the walls of God’s house encircle you
while the light of the
Sabbath shines upon you
while the Word of God is before you
and while the
Gospel of salvation sounds in your ears!
2. The character of God
as revealed in His Word
shows that it is
unreasonable for you to despair of His mercy.
3. The grand scheme of redemption revealed in the Gospel
renders it
still more unreasonable to indulge despair.
4. The person
character
and invitations of Christ
show in the most
striking and conclusive manner
that despair of salvation is unreasonable.
5. That it is unreasonable to despair of God’s mercy
is evident from
the characters of many to whom it has already been extended. (E. Payson
D.
D.)
Hopelessness condemned
I. Sources of this
despair of amendment.
1. Indolence. It is the property of that quality of mind to be always
seeking an apology for leaving things as they are. Sometimes it imagines
difficulties
and sometimes dangers
neither of which have any real existence.
There is what may be termed a vis inertiae
a power of indolence
in
mind as well as in matter; and perhaps at the great day of account it will be
found that where profligacy has slain its thousands
indolence has slain its
ten thousands.
2. The secret love of sin. If we wish to be bad
how ready are we to
believe that it is impossible to be better! The fallen heart is that marsh of
corruption in which all things monstrous and mischievous find their birth and
their dwelling place
and from whence they issue to the destruction of the
peace of the individual and the injury of those around him.
3. A want of faith in the declaration of God. Will a merciful God
command impossibilities? and yet He says
“Be ye perfect
as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect”: “Be ye holy
as God is holy.” Will the holy God
promise what He will not perform?
II. Some of the
motives for endeavouring to escape from it.
1. This despair of amendment is altogether groundless. Imagine even
your case to be as bad as possible. Suppose not only the spiritual health
impaired
but the soul in a sense “dead
”--still I am privileged
on the
authority of God
to affirm that this death is not necessarily either final or
fatal. It is rather suspension than extinction. It is a state from which your
Redeemer is willing to raise you.
2. The despair of amendment is irrational. Right reason in every
instance demands an implicit acquiescence in the revealed will of God. But I
name the unreasonableness of this despondency of improvement on purpose to
touch on a particular point. If it be possible that you may fail by the one
process
it is certain that you must fail by the other. If the success of
vigilance and prayer be equivocal
the ruin which must follow despair is
inevitable.
3. Such despair of growth in grace and holiness is deeply guilty.
There is a sort of morbid humility on this subject
which leads men to value
themselves on those doubts in the compassionate promises of God
which are in
fact nothing short of a capital offence against Him. Is the earthly parent
flattered by his children refusing to place confidence in his declarations of
pity and love? And can the God of truth and compassion be gratified to find
that
in spite of the language of Scripture
of His past dealings with His creatures
and in the constant experience of His Church
we should still presume to
question His mercies
and doubt whether He
who spared not His own Son
but
gave Him up for us all
will with Him also give us all things? (J. W.
Cunningham
M. A.)
Desperation dangerous
I. A desperate
conclusion.
I. In reference to
themselves: despair as to their own amendment or reformation. There are people
desperate in this regard because of--
2. In reference to Jeremiah and his ministry; despair as to the value
of preaching God’s messages amongst them. There are fortifications to this
purpose
which men raise to themselves to hold out against the workings of the
ministry.
3. In reference to God Himself. They despair of the grace of God
and
call it in question.
II. A peremptory
resolution.
1. Simply and absolutely they declare that they will walk after their
own devices.
2. Reflexively and derivatively
they said this.
The terrors of a despairing heart
Bunyan very aptly pictures Diabolus when he was attacking the town
of Mansoul
as making Captain Past-hope unfurl the red colours which were
carried by Mr. Despair
and he also speaks of the roaring of the tyrant’s drum
which sounded forth terribly
especially by night
so that the men of Mansoul
had always in their ears the sound of hell fire. Hell fire and all this to keep
them from submitting to their gracious prince. Thus
for once
the devil
craftily cooperates with the law of God and conscience; these would drive men
to self-despair
but Satan would go farther
and compel them to despair as
touching the Lord Himself
so as to believe that pardon for transgression is
quite impossible. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The despair of a man who abandoned his belief in God
Mr. Quint in Hogg tells a remarkable story of an incident which
happened quite recently in a great London club. He was chatting with a friend
about a man who had died by his own hand. His friend spoke rather indignantly
of such an ignoble termination to life
and characterised it--rightly
enough--as a cowardly thing for a man to leave others to meet the troubles and
reap the bitter harvest he had sown. A well-known scientific man
who was
sitting close by
turned round and said
“I consider you have expressed a very
harsh judgment. I don’t consider it the action of a coward; and for myself
the
only rest I can look forward to is the grave.” Mr. Hogg’s friend
thinking that
perhaps the gentleman had lost some relative by suicide
qualified his remarks
by saying that such crimes were generally committed with deranged minds
and that
of course
his words did not apply to a man irresponsible for his acts. “There
is something worse than derangement
” was the reply
“and that is despair.” Mr.
Hogg says that his friend was very much shocked at the words and at the tone in
which they were uttered
and began to speak to the scientist as best he could
about the love of God. He told him he could not imagine how those who accepted
the help of God could ever despair. “Ah
” was the sad reply
“I gave up my
belief in God long ago
and I have had nothing but a deepening despair ever
since. I repeat that the grave is the only rest I can hope for--the only home
that remains for me.” (The Young Man.)
Verse 14
Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the lock Of
the field?
Man severed from the inexhaustible resources
The idea of the text is that a man will cut himself off from the
main
will cut himself away from the eternally feeding snow of Lebanon
and
will begin to make himself a little cistern--ah me
a broken cistern
a cistern
that can hold no water. Let us think of the suicide of isolation
the madness
of amputating our life
of leaving the inexhaustible
the eternal
the
infinite--and living little
miserable
self-devouring lives. “Will a man leave
the snow of Lebanon and the fountain that rises from the rock?” You would not
allow it in business. Shall I tell you what I have heard some of you business
men say? Did not one of you point out a man to me
and say
“You see that man
crossing from the Mansion House to the Bank of England?” “Yes.” “Very singular
case
” you say; “that man is living on his capital.” I said
“What harm is
there in that?” “Why
he is eating himself up
consuming himself. He ought to
have his capital so invested that it will bring him in revenue day by day
year
by year
and the capital should be kept intact if possible
and still the
income should be accruing.” “I see!” That is the text from a secular point of
view. “This man is living on his capital
he has cut himself off from payable
remunerative
compensative agencies
and he is eating up what he has.” The
worst thing that can happen in military operations is for the enemy to get
behind and to cut off the supplies. That is the horrible possibility and the
dreadful mischief
that the supplies should be cut off. Take care how you dwell
upon this as an instance of misfortune. I charge you
in the presence of God
and the holy angels
foolish man
with doing this very thing. You have cut off
your supplies
you have dismissed prayer
you are trying to live on your own
miserable individuality and selfhood. Get back to your supplies--back to God
back to the fountain. Live and move and have your being in God
and then no man
can impoverish you
until he has impoverished God. (J. Parker.)
Verse 17
I win scatter them;. . . I will shew them the back.
The sinner’s doom
I. The cause of
the evil threatened.
1. Rejecting the Divine government.
2. Guilty of idolatry.
3. Rejecting the mercy of God.
4. Conduct characterised by the greatest folly.
5. A manifestation of basest ingratitude.
II. The nature of
the evil threatened.
1. God sometimes shows His back in a way of mercy (Exodus 33:23; Job 25:2).
2. But this threat is expressive of Divine wrath.
3. The wrath of God is retributive.
4. A final departure.
III. The time when
the evil shall be inflicted.
1. In the time of adversity.
2. In sickness.
3. When deserted by friends.
4. In old age.
5. In hour of death.
6. At last day. (Helps for the Pulpit.)
East winds
The east winds referred to by the prophets appear to be a violent
form of sirocco. It was the east wind which brought the plague of locusts upon
the Egyptians. It was by an east wind that the ships of Tarshish were broken (Psalms 48:7)
and the ships of Tyre (Ezekiel 27:26). Jeremiah takes an east
wind as the symbol of Jehovah’s punishment of His people
while references to
its withering and scorching properties are numerous; from the seven thin ears
of wheat of Pharaoh’s vision in Egypt to the sultry blast which helped to
afflict Jonah outside the walls of Nineveh. The east wind still breaks at times
with terrific violence upon the coasts of Palestine
and the records of victims
tell of tents that have been blown away by its fury. (H. B. Freeman
M. A.)
Come
and let us smite him With the tongue.
The reformers’ task difficult and dangerous
If there were a hundred violins together
all playing below
concert pitch
and I should take a real Cremona
and with the hand of a
Paganini should bring it strongly up to the true key
and then should sweep my
bow across it like a storm
and make it sound forth clear and resonant
what a
demoniac jargon would the rest of the playing seem! Yet the other musicians
would be enraged at me. They would think all the discord was mine
and I should
be to them a demoniac. So it is with reformers. The world thinks the discord is
with them
and not in its own false playing. (H. W. Beecher.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》