Jeremiah 18
JEREMIAH now got another object-lesson from God Who directed him to go down to the potter's house, promising there to speak to His servant.
The potter was busy at his trade, and the vessel he made of clay was marred in his hand; so he made it over into another vessel as seemed good to him (verse 1-4).
It was then that the word of Jehovah came to the prophet, saying,
"O house of Israel, can not I do with you as with this potter? saith Jehovah. Behold as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel" (verses 5 and 6). The reborn Israel of the last days will, ere long, say,
"But now, O Jehovah, Thou art our Father; we are the clay and Thou our potter, and we all are the work of Thy hand" (Isaiah 64:88But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. (Isaiah 64:8)). This was, however, far from the language of erring, willful Judah in the days of Jeremiah.
"Hath not the potter authority over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" Why are men not afraid, and hurrying to seek His mercy while yet there is hope?
About two hundred years before the time in which Jeremiah's prophecies were given, Nineveh, the great city of its day, the capital of the powerful kingdom of Assyria, was appointed for destruction, and God sent Jonah to tell the Ninevites of it. They repented, and He did not, until two centuries had passed, carry out the judgment He had spoken of through Jonah. Indeed, Nahum's prophecy, pronouncing the final doom of Nineveh, was spoken about one hundred years before God caused it to be executed. The people of Judah must have known this, unless the service of Satan had completely blinded them.
Assyria, too, once feared by the king: of Judah, the conqueror of the ten tribes of Israel, came to its end at this time ii Judah did not recognize that God was concerned with that and with Babylon. Assyria's greater successor in the rule of the East, they would soon have it told them (Jeremiah 25).
Judah must be warned again (How many warnings they had already been given!), Jeremiah telling them that Jehovah was preparing evil against them, and bidding them turn everyone from his evil way and amend their ways and doings (verse 11).
The answer of the hardened people of the land to this gracious appeal is in substance in verse 12. There is no hope; they care naught for God now, and will walk after their own devices; each one will do according to the stubbornness of his evil heart. For this cause judgment is again pronounced upon Judah (verses 13-17),
We venture to suggest a clearer translation of verse 14; "Shall the snow of Lebanon cease from the rock of the field? Shall the. cool flowing waters coming from afar he dried up (or abandoned)?"
Now the long pent up enmity toward Jeremiah because of his prophecies of evil to come, takes definite form (verse 18). Wholly misled, they are trusting their Satan-controlled priests, wise men and false prophets; and scorning the Word of God truly given them by Jeremiah they propose to "devise devices" against him: The beginning is to smite him with the tongue, but their thoughts take in his murder, if needed to silence the faithful witness.
Jeremiah now raises a prayer to Jehovah (verses 19-'23). His language, his desire for vengeance upon his enemies, are not what befit Christians, as we have before observed, but they according to the mind of God, suited to the coming dispensation in which He will judge His enemies while delivering from them those who will be suffering at their hands,
Messages of God’s Love 10/28/1934