Some years ago, an old "Pukachumpi" Indian named Mateo confessed Christ as his Savior. He was a potter by profession, and frequently visited us in Tambala, bringing a variety of pots with him. I used to visit him in his mountain home on the side of what is known as "Lliqui" or the inner Andes mountains of Bolivia. It was there I understood in a clearer sense the meaning of Jer. 18:1-6. Some of the lessons I learned watching dear old Mateo at work were:
1. I learned to stoop in order to enter his workplace, for his pottery work was not done in an upper room. It was even so in the days of the prophets. Notice: "Then I went down to the potter's house." v. 3. How contradictory this sounds, but God's way is ever thus. If we would diligently learn this lesson, it is always so that the way up first leads down.
2. In dear old Mateo's hands the unlovely mass of clay became a thing of beauty. We are the clay, which left to itself is ugly, but in His hands, our wise, kind, skillful Potter transforms such into things of beauty.
3. I noticed that the clay did not resist, did not strive against dear old Mateo's skillful hands. Here is a picture of sanctification. How great the gulf between the clay down in the workshop, and the perfect specimen above! God makes a new vessel out of the clay "as seemed good to the potter to make it." Thou art the Potter, we the clay.
God's eye rests, not on our feeble, faulty works, but on the perfect obedience of our great High Priest. How wonderful it is that we stand before our God positionally in all the perfections of our blessed Lord. Our condition varies according to our communion with His blessed heart. Not till Peniel did Jacob become clay; there he was vanquished, and only such become victors.
4. Another thing I noticed was that dear Mateo kneaded the clay over and over again. (Isa. 41:25.) "Why?" I asked. The reply was, "To rid the clay of air bubbles." "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words." Air bubbles caused the vessel to crack open when heat was applied, and the vessel was marred in the hands of the potter. Pride destroys the beautiful vessel. Oh, may we keep low down, remembering always from whence we have been digged.
How many lessons I learned that day! In Jer. 18 we read of the "wheel." Yes, it was a wheel with its axletree sunk into the earth. Mateo with his foot caused it to spin and the formless mass of clay was placed on the wheel, leaving his hands free to make and mold the vessel. Sometimes we think the wheel spins in our little lives altogether too fast; pain is the result. But remember, the Master's hand is molding the clay, even though it hurts in so doing.
5. Then Mateo would burn color into the vessel. How beautifully he did this by a secret process known only to these Indians. Some of us are not willing for this. We are not willing to go through the fire, forgetting that the Master is in the fire with us and in the fiery trial (Dan. 3:24, 25; Isa. 43:2; 2 Tim. 4:17). He trod the winepress alone, but we are never alone in the fire. And so He would have all His blood-bought ones finished vessels, "as seemed good to the potter to make it.”
“In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work." 2 Tim. 2:20, 21.
E. F. Smith