SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/5/2014
8:06 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Jeremiah the Threatened Prophet PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
18:1-10
Message of the
verses: I mentioned in our last SD
that we would go back to the book of Jeremiah today, and so we begin looking at
chapters 18-23 with the help of Warren Wiersbe and maybe some others. Dr. Wiersbe entitles this chapter, which is
chapter six in his commentary: “The
Prophet, The Potter, And The Policeman.”
We know that the prophet involved is Jeremiah, and we don’t know who the
potter is, but the policeman is Pashur who was the one who was in charge of
keeping the peace at the temple, and he did not like Jeremiah. Probably the king at this time was Jehoiakim
who was in that list of bad, and ungodly kings from Judah.
As we begin to look at the potter we will also be looking
at the sovereignty of God, and the potter is used as a wonderful example of God
being sovereign. Verses 1-17 speak of
God’s sovereignty, but we will only look at verses 1-10 in today’s SD.
Let us begin with a quote from J. Wilbur Chapman who
wrote “The clay is not attractive in itself, but when the hands of the potter
touch it, and the thought of the potter is brought to bear upon it, and the
plan of the potter is worked out in it and through it, then there is a real
transformation.” I suppose that when we
look at this statement we can see us as the clay, not too attractive, but then
the Lord, who is the potter, begins to work in our lives He will transform us
into something very useful and even beautiful to Him, for He is the One doing
the work in us.
Jeremiah has been following the Word of the Lord and
doing what he is commanded to do, but sometimes this got him in trouble: “He did not get his flash of insight while he
was praying but while he was watching a potter engaged in his daily work,’
wrote Charles E. Jefferson. ‘God reveals
Himself in strange places and at unexpected seasons. For instance, He once
revealed Himself in a stable.’”
“1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, 2
“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to
you." 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making
something on the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand
of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make (Jeremiah
18:1-4).”
We see in these first four verses that God tells Jeremiah
to go to the potter’s place of work, which may have been in his house. Jeremiah obeyed the Lord and we can see in
these verses what Jeremiah say when he got there. Now when we look at verses 5-10 we will see
the interpretation of what we saw in the first four verses: “5
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, 6 "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with
you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the
potter’s hand, so are you
in My hand, O house of Israel. 7
"At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a
kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken
turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring
on it. 9 "Or at another moment I
might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant
it; 10 if it does evil in My sight by
not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had
promised to bless it.”
Now we see in these verse the sovereignty of God, for God
can do what God wants to do, but He will never do anything outside of His
character or His attributes. Let us now
look at a few verses which speak of God being in control over the nations: “But our God is in the heavens; He does
whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3).” “Whatever
the LORD pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps
(Psalm 135:6).” “9 “Remember the former
things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is
no one like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times
things which have not been done, Saying, ’My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good
pleasure’; 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My
purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, surely I will do it (Isaiah 46:9-11).” “"It is He who changes the times and the
epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And
knowledge to men of understanding’ (Daniel 2:21.)” “"This sentence is by the decree of the
angelic watchers And the decision is a command of the holy ones, In order that
the living may know That the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, And
bestows it on whom He wishes And sets over it the lowliest of men’ (Daniel
4:17).” “34 ¶"But at the end of
that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason
returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who
lives forever; For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom
endures from generation to generation. 35
"All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He
does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of
earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ’What have You done?’
(Daniel 4:34-35).” “"And to Him was
given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of
every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which
will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed (Daniel
7:14).” “And Jesus came up and spoke to
them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth
(Matthew 28:18).” “22 So Paul stood in
the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you
are very religious in all respects. 23 “For while I was passing through and
examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this
inscription, ’TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 "The God who made the world and
all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in
temples made with hands; 25 nor is He
served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to
all people life and breath and all things; 26
and He made from
one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined
their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they
might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and
exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ’For we also are His
children.’ 29 "Being then the
children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or
silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30 "Therefore having overlooked the times
of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should
repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in
which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has
appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead’
(Acts 17:22-31).” “And He put all things
in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the
church (Ephesians 1:22).” Now this is
not an exhaustive list of verses that speaks of the fact that God is in control
of all things, that God is sovereign, but only a sample.
Now we come to another word that has given people trouble
for a long time, a word that will make us think as to what it means when we
look at God, and that word is “relent.” We
see this word in verse eight “8 if that
nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the
calamity I planned to bring on it.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “As the potter has power over the
clay, so God has sovereign authority over the nations. This doesn’t mean that God is irresponsible
and arbitrary in what He does, even though He is free to act as He
pleases. His actions are always
consistent with His nature, which is holy, just wise, and loving. God doesn’t need any advice from us, nor do
we have the right to criticize what He does.
‘for who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?’ (Rom. 11:34 NKJV, quoted from Isa.
40:13 and Jer. 23:18). ‘But indeed, O
man, who are you to reply against God?
Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me
like this?’ (Romans 9:20, NKJV).”
He goes on to write “To be sure, there’s mystery involved
in the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, but we
don’t have to explain the wil of God before we can obey it. We live by divine promises and precepts, not
theological explanations, and God isn’t obligated to explain anything to us.
(If He did, we probably wouldn’t be able to grasp it!) ‘The secret things belong to the Lord our
God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children
forever, that we may do all the words of this Law’ (Deu. 29:29) NJV). Jesus promised that if we obey what we know,
God will reveal more of His truth to us (John 717).”
We can see from the verse in Jeremiah that God is
presenting two scenarios, and both of them represent His sovereign power over
the nations. (Jer. 18:7-10) When we look at the story of Jonah we see
that God was going to destroy Nineveh, but after they repented He did not destroy
them. This represents the evil nation
who repented. Israel was God’s “child,”
or in some other places know as “His wife.”
God gave them a covenant, but they did not obey it and so God would send
them into captivity, which is what Jeremiah was telling them, but they did not
believe him and were about to put him in jail.
John MacArthur writes in his MacArthur Study Bible this
note on verses 8-10: “Though He had
announced impending judgment, the ‘spoiled nation can be restored as a good
vessel by God, who will hold off the judgment (vv. 8, 11). By contrast, if the nation followed sin, He
would not bring the blessing desired (vv. 9-10).”
We looked at Deuteronomy 29:29, which is one of my favorite
verses to help me not get caught up in things that humans are not able to
understand about God. My translation of
this verse is “God has told us things in His Law that we are suppose to follow,
however He has not told us everything, and the things that He has not told us
we need not worry about, but the things He has told us we need to obey. When we look at the sovereignty of God we
will never know all the things about it that we want to know, but we are not to
worry about it. This is where faith
comes into our lives, faith in God, faith to trust God even when we don’t
always understand thing that are going on around us. Jeremiah is going to be upset that he will
end up in jail, but in the end he will trust the Lord to work out His plan for
his life.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I desire to trust
the Lord when things are not going well in my life, trust Him that He will work
out things for my good and for His glory.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Deuteronomy 29:29.
Memory verse for this
week: Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life
that which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved
me and gave Himself up for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “David” (1 Samuel 16:23).
Today’s Bible
question: “To what people was the gospel
of Luke primarily written?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/5/2014 10:39 AM
