Two Sure Things
July 7, 2024
Preached by Tony Pitts
Scripture Reading
Jeremiah 18:1-19:15
18:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. 11 Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’
12 “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’
13 “Therefore thus says the Lord:
Ask among the nations,
Who has heard the like of this?
The virgin Israel
has done a very horrible thing.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion?
Do the mountain waters run dry,
the cold flowing streams?
15 But my people have forgotten me;
they make offerings to false gods;
they made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient roads,
and to walk into side roads,
not the highway,
16 making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
Everyone who passes by it is horrified
and shakes his head.
17 Like the east wind I will scatter them
before the enemy.
I will show them my back, not my face,
in the day of their calamity.”
18 Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.”
19 Hear me, O Lord,
and listen to the voice of my adversaries.
20 Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for my life.
Remember how I stood before you
to speak good for them,
to turn away your wrath from them.
21 Therefore deliver up their children to famine;
give them over to the power of the sword;
let their wives become childless and widowed.
May their men meet death by pestilence,
their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.
22 May a cry be heard from their houses,
when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!
For they have dug a pit to take me
and laid snares for my feet.
23 Yet you, O Lord, know
all their plotting to kill me.
Forgive not their iniquity,
nor blot out their sin from your sight.
Let them be overthrown before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.
19:1 Thus says the Lord, “Go, buy a potter's earthenware flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests, 2 and go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. 3 You shall say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. 4 Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, 5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind— 6 therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. 7 And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the earth. 8 And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its wounds. 9 And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’
10 “Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you,11 and shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that it can never be mended. Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. 12 Thus will I do to this place, declares the Lord, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. 13 The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah—all the houses on whose roofs offerings have been offered to all the host of heaven, and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods—shall be defiled like the place of Topheth.’”
14 Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the Lord's house and said to all the people: 15 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing upon this city and upon all its towns all the disaster that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their neck, refusing to hear my words.”
Good morning. My name is Tony, I’m one of the pastors here at Community.
This morning we continue in our series through the book of Jeremiah titled “Hope for Those Who Surrender”.
Well, if you haven’t been here, or if you’ve been here and just haven’t been paying attention. We’ve been going through the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived about 600 years before Jesus. Which means almost 3,000 years before us. He lived in a small town outside of Jerusalem called Anathoth. He was called by God to be a prophet. He became a priest and delivered a series of messages to God’s people. And those messages were not well received. Those messages, poems he wrote, and autobiographical stories were compiled into a book by a scribe named Baruch. That compilation is what we call the book of Jeremiah. And almost 3,000 years later his message to Israel is relevant to us today.
I’ve titled today’s message “Two Sure Things”. Years ago I was at a big Christian Men’s conference when I saw a t-shirt that has stuck with me. On the front of the shirt it said There are two things in life that are for sure. #1 There is a God. I had to wait for the guy wearing it to walk by so I could read the back. On the back it said #2 you’re not Him. A simple concept it would seem. But one that we often fail to grasp ever since God first made us. Adam and Eve in the Garden, in direct communication with the God who made them. Given direct instructions of what to do and what not to do. Decide (with the help of a serpent) to do what they want to do. And people have been making that mistake ever since. What hope do we have? I’ll ask again. What hope do we have?
Will you pray with me?
#1 there is a God, and #2 you are not Him. Theologians call this the Creator/creature distinction. It’s a slightly fancier way of saying, #1 there’s a God, and #2 you’re not Him. Really grasping this is what the Bible calls the beginning of wisdom.
To this most people say …..“I know” I know there’s a God, and I know I’m not Him. And probably the people that Jeremiah is giving his message to in todays passage would say that as well. We know there’s a God and we know that we’re not Him. Jeremiah is simply pointing out to them that they’re not acting like they know.
Their walk is not lining up with their talk. And their walk (the way they’re living) is not just a little off. But so far off, that God is about to do something drastic about it. And God is sending Jeremiah to warn them.
Chapter 18 begins:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
If you’ve ever tried using a pottery wheel to make something with clay, you know it is a common occurrence for the thing you are making to be spoiled. The wheel is spinning too fast. The clay is too wet. The clay is too dry. You made the vessel too thin. There are a lot of ways things can go wrong. But, most of the time when they do, you can gather up that lump of clay and start over.
Chapter 18 continues:
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. 9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.
11 Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’
12 “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’
God has given Jeremiah this message for Israel. He, God, reminds them of who He is (the potter who can shape the clay as He pleases), He reminds them of who they are (the clay) and then tells them to repent.
This word repent. It comes up a lot in sermons and Bible studies. Sometime street preachers will yell it at people walking by. And often it comes up without being defined. It’s generally not a word we use conversationally.
What it means is to change your mind, to point your life in a different direction. But not just any different direction. Biblically, it means to orient your life away from idols, away from sin, and toward the one true God. I’ve often heard repentance defined as turning away from sin. And that’s part of it but without also turning to God, our orientation is still off. If we don’t end up with our lives pointed toward God, we can stop swearing, stop looking at porn, stop getting drunk, stop lying, stop stealing, and yet still be headed in the wrong direction. Still following our own plans. Still living as if we are the potter and all of God’s creation is our clay.
Right from the beginning of the Bible, God tells us what we are made of. In the 2nd chapter of Genesis verse 7 God’s word says:
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature
Just so we’re clear, God took his dirt from his ground and breathed his breathe to make his creatures. And yet somehow our most pressing question seems to be, “what does God want me to do with my life, my time, my money, my talents?” The best things we can do is acknowledge that our lives are not our own. The earth and everything in it belongs to God. So the question should be what does God want me to do with everything I’ve been calling mine, that actually belongs to Him? And the answer…Surrender.
Let’s admit, this isn’t easy. This sermon series is titled Hope for Those Who Surrender. The type of surrender that God calls for is not only difficult, without His supernatural help it’s impossible. Because apart from God we aren’t just a little off, we are like I said earlier, way off. Our hearts apart from God are evil and stubborn. In verses 13-16 of chapter 18 God is describing Israel’s evil as something so bad it’s unheard of. They’ve forgotten the God who has delivered them from bondage and sustained them. They have turned to false gods and the consequences are undeniable. Author Ayn Rand said “you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality”. Israel has forgotten God, and it shows. The same is true for us today. When we ignore God, the consequences to a culture eventually become impossible to ignore.
We seem to be living in a culture that doesn’t know who made them or what they were made for. Each person decides for themselves why they are here. As if we made ourselves. Isaiah speaks of this in the 29th chapter of the book of Isaiah. He says:
You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
“He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
The truth that Israel is trying to ignore, is that God is sovereign. He is in control, and He is in control absolutely. And as we see in these chapters in Jeremiah, if what we want is different from what God has made us for there is tension. An important part of resolving the tension is knowing that the only proper response to a Holy God is surrender. And just what are we responding to? In our case it is the same as Israel’s. God’s goodness. The loving hands of the Father. And again what is that right response? Surrender. It’s a surrender that shows itself in how we live, how we love, how we worship the God who made us. Ask yourself the simple question. Do I live like someone who knows there is a God who owns it all? And do I live like I know I’m not him?
Is this surrender a once and done thing? In one way, yes. By God’s grace we turn from our sinful prideful desire to live life on our terms and turn to God and say “save me” and when we do that with sincerity God’s word tells us we will be saved. But in another way our surrender grows, it matures as we mature. Years ago a pastor taught me the acronym RACAS. The R is for rebellion, and the S is for surrender. Sometimes God takes us straight from the R to the S. One day you love getting drunk and God does something in you that from one day to the next causes you to hate getting drunk because you just realize deep down it doesn’t belong in the life of a Christian. But often the road from rebellion to surrender is longer and more winding. There are 3 more letters in between and often we go through them. So in that RACAS the first A is Admittance. This is where the Holy Spirit has shown you that there’s something in your life that you need to change your mind about. You’re willing to give lip service to the idea that God is right, but you don’t want to do anything about it but verbally admit it. Something like “I shouldn’t gossip about my coworkers” or “I should spend more time praying than I do complaining”. You’re able to say it but nothing changes in your behavior. So that’s Admittance. You’ve made progress. You’ve gone from an outright rebellion where you see nothing wrong with your sin to a place where you can admit it’s wrong you just aren’t willing to change. The next letter is the C. This stands for compliance. This is where you begin to do the right thing but you don’t like it. I’ll try to stop looking at things on the internet that I shouldn’t look at, but I really don’t understand what’s wrong with it. As we mature we move to the next A which is acceptance. So we’ve gone from rebellion to admittance to compliance and now acceptance. Acceptance is where by God’s grace we are convinced that God’s way is better than our way and it's sinking in that God’s commands are not burdensome but rather they are for our good. When this acceptance reaches it’s fullness we move to the final letter S, surrender. So quick review. Rebellion, admittance, compliance, acceptance, and finally surrender.
It is in the fact that this often takes years not days or weeks to happen, that should make us glad that God is patient with us. Often when we see rebellion in others we want swift and heavy justice. Especially if that rebellion is directly effecting us. But when it is our rebellion we want long suffering patience. “Just bear with me Lord, I’ll get it together”.
What is going on here in the 18th chapter of Jeremiah is a rebellion that God describes as unheard of.
13 “Therefore thus says the Lord:
Ask among the nations,
Who has heard the like of this?
The virgin Israel
has done a very horrible thing.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion?
Do the mountain waters run dry,
the cold flowing streams?
15 But my people have forgotten me;
they make offerings to false gods;
they made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient roads,
and to walk into side roads,
not the highway,
16 making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
Everyone who passes by it is horrified
and shakes his head.
This is a people, or if you will a lump of clay that doesn’t know it’s a lump of clay. They’ve lost sight of who they are in relation to who God is and it’s made a mess of things. A horrible mess.
In verse 17 God is declaring his response to their unfaithfulness. Judgement is coming and God says
17 Like the east wind I will scatter them
before the enemy.
I will show them my back, not my face,
in the day of their calamity.”
Upon hearing this, the proud, rebellious Israelites offer a response to Jeremiah.
18 Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.”
Hearing their response to this warning a hurt Jeremiah delivers what I would call a rant to God. He’s angry and for good reason. He’s interceded for a people who not only want to ignore him, but they want to punish him for doing what God has told him to do. I’ll read the prophetic words he says before God in his anguish.
19 Hear me, O Lord,
and listen to the voice of my adversaries.
20 Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for my life.
Remember how I stood before you
to speak good for them,
to turn away your wrath from them.
21 Therefore deliver up their children to famine;
give them over to the power of the sword;
let their wives become childless and widowed.
May their men meet death by pestilence,
their youths be struck down by the sword in battle.
22 May a cry be heard from their houses,
when you bring the plunderer suddenly upon them!
For they have dug a pit to take me
and laid snares for my feet.
23 Yet you, O Lord, know
all their plotting to kill me.
Forgive not their iniquity,
nor blot out their sin from your sight.
Let them be overthrown before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.
And so chapter 18 ends, but the warning of what’s to come continues in chapter 19. Chapter 19 has God instructing Jeremiah to go to the potter and buy a flask. He is to round up various leaders from the people and the priest and take them with him. Jeremiah is to read the grievances God has against them and the consequences he will bring upon them. And they are beyond bad. I won’t detail them here, but you can read chapter 19 for yourself. God tells Jeremiah to break the flask and to let them know this is how God will break them. It is the declaration of God’s coming Judgement. And all that is warned eventually comes to pass. Because God is a God who keeps his word.
All this has happened because they refused to hear God’s words.
I started out saying there are 2 things for sure. There is a God, and you’re not Him. This is an account of a people who have lost sight of that. And they suffered the consequences. All the horrible things Jeremiah prophesied, came to pass.
The good news that’s revealed in the Bible is that we can know why we were made the way we were made. We can know what we were made for. Because we can know the one who made us. His name is Jesus, and he is a potter like no other. If you hear Jesus calling to you today, don’t harden your heart. Come to the one who can show you why you were made, and how you can have life to the full. Jesus is the only one that can move our hearts from rebellion to surrender.
As I close I’d like to put a simple challenge out for our last song(s) There is a universal sign of surrender that is the same in every language. It’s raising our hands. Not like you want to get called on by the teacher. But rather like a soldier that is acknowledging they have encountered a force to great to fight. Would you try with me as we sing to raise your hands in surrender. If you hate it put them down. But I don’t think you will. Surrendering to the God who made us is truly the wisest thing any lump of clay can do.
Will you pray with me?
Sermon Discussion Questions:
Do you ever question the way that God has made you? The circumstances of your life that are out of your control?
How do you respond when you become aware of sin your life?
Have you ever had to deliver news that you knew would not be received well?
Have you ever seen something being used for a purpose it was not designed for?
Have you ever tried to help someone that ended up angry with you for it?