Page 52 - Fundamentals Ebook Final

What I would like to do is to illustrate His present work, right now
and how His present work pleases Him. I want to illustrate it by His
title “The Potter”. Isaiah 64:8, “But now, O Lord, Thou art our
Father. We are the clay, and Thou our potter; and all of us are the
work of Thy hand.” If we can understand the potter and the clay, it
will help us with His present work. The illustration that I want to
give is from Jeremiah 18 which talks about the prophet going to the
potter’s house. “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there
I shall announce My words to you.” Let me give the background of
this story.

The background is that God, after the captivity, was going to bring
them back to Jerusalem. To do that he was going to use a man
named “Cyrus”. Just like they didn’t understand how a Holy God
could use sinful Babylon, they couldn’t understand how a Holy God
could take a sinful man like Cyrus and bring them back to the land.
They were happy that they were going back but they didn’t like
God’s method. “Do it another way.” They had a controversy with
God. They had an argument with the Lord, not about the end but
about the means to the end. “I want to be conformed to Christ but
do I have to go through bankruptcy?” “I want to be conformed to
Christ but does that mean I have to get cancer?” “Does that mean
that my children must go in a wrong direction?” “Does that mean
divorce will come into my life?” “I like the end but I don’t like the
means.”

Israel reacts to God’s work. The story of the potter is God reacting
to their reaction. With that as background, Jeremiah 18:1&2, “The
word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, ‘Arise and go
down to the potter’s house, and there I shall announce My words to
you.’” God tells the prophet, “Go to the potter’s house.” At the
potter’s house they would hear the word of God. That’s a strange
place to hear the word of God. I go to church to hear the word of
God. I go to Bible study to hear the word of God. I have a quiet
time to hear the word of God but I don’t go to a potter’s house to
hear the word of God.