A Life Made Over
“So he made it again.” Jeremiah 18 -.4.
AT the time Jeremiah was called upon to prophesy, Jerusalem and the people of Israel were in a lamentable condition and seemed daily to be drifting farther and farther from God.
Jeremiah has been called the “Weeping Prophet,” and he was well named, because he realized the sinfulness of sin and understood, as did no other man of his times, the awful condition into which Israel had drifted. He seems to be seeking in every possible way to turn them back again to Jehovah. Waking and sleeping, they are in his mind and on his heart, and all that he writes is in the nature of a plea that they should turn again to Him who waits to receive them with all the tenderness of a father and the pity of a mother.
One day he makes his way to the house of the potter, and at once he is interested in the work which is going on under the potter’s direction. He sees him take a lump of clay, hold it for a moment in his hands, then place it carefuly upon the wheel, and, as he turns the wheel quickly, with his deft fingers, he fashions it into a vessel, which to the untrained eyes of the prophet seems to be perfect enough; but when the work appears to be finished the potter takes it in his hands and examines it with critical eye, and, as a shade of disappointment passes over his face, he crushes the vessel in his hands, places it upon the wheel once more and makes it over again.
THE DIVINE POTTER
There were but two lines of operation open to him in fashioning the vessel. One was to leave it in its imperfect condition, which was doubtless caused by some imperfection in the clay, but the vessel would then have been of the commoner sort; the other was to remove the obstruction to the working out of his plans and make a vessel which might have been used in the king’s palace.
Jeremiah is most interested in this work, and at once his mind turns to Israel, and he exclaims, “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.”
This is an oft-used figure in the Bible; both in the Old Testament and in the New we find it. Isaiah uses it when he says, “But now, O Lord, thou art our father, we are the clay and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.” And St. Paul makes use of the same figure when he exclaims, “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?”
If this illustration is to apply to our experience, then we are the clay and God is the potter. If He is given the right of way in shaping our lives, they can but please Him, and they must be beautiful in His sight. 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.
THE SINNER REGENERATED
One day in the city of Venice, I went into a great Venetian glass storeroom. The finished work I saw there was superbly beautiful, but my friend by my side insisted that I go into the workroom, which seemed uninteresting enough until I beheld one of the glass blowers blowing upon the glass and saw it take shape as his mind influenced it and his will formed it, and, as I stood gazing upon him, as fine a bit of Venetian work as I have ever seen was in his hands. What the glass blower can do through the glass God can do in our lives, if we but give Him an opportunity.
This is to me an illustration of regeneration. I was preaching in a New York village one evening, several years ago, when an old man, who for sixteen years had not been in the church, came to the service ] to hear “the singer sing.” He was a hopeless and j helpless drunkard, his children had forsaken him and his wife was dead. He was the first to lift his hand j when I made the appeal and the first to go into the. after-meeting as I gave the invitation. I saw him J kneel; I heard him breathe out a prayer of penitence and confession, and watched him as he arose an absolutely changed man. I have known him for years, and he has never swerved from the path of duty and privilege open before the Christian. The man who was once despised is now respected, and the outcast of other days is the reputable citizen of to-day. This is but another illustration of the potter and the clay.
OUT OF TUNE WITH CHRIST
On the day of our conversion we yielded to God, for men are converted when they say “I will” to Him, and only then; and when we begin the Christian life we place ourselves in His hands and He is supposed to direct our every step; but the Christian experience of some of us has not been altogether satisfactory. There may have been some imperfections which have strangely influenced us, some secret sin which we would not give up. We may have had some controversy with Him regarding the following out of His plan for our lives, and thus the life which began so well is marred, the harmony seems to be gone and we are out of tune. We are Christians, but in experience we are joyless. We are likewise fruitless, and we are also shorn of power. We long to be holy, but know we are not. We desire to be pure in heart, but we are conscious of our weakness. We know the value of fellowship with Him, but we are still in bondage.
It is a comforting thing to know that with this consciousness of failure we are still in the potter’s hands. If we do not yield to His will and let Him make us over, we shall continue to be shorn of peace and power and blessing, and the vessel will be marred and unfit for the best use of the King. But we ought to learn the lesson from the potter and the clay, that God can make us over if we will but let Him. God would and man would not is the secret of many a failure.
In crossing the continent to the Pacific coast at one time, I was urged to go by the Santa Fe Railroad and was ticketed in the special Limited Express. The journey was fine and the equipment was palatial, and all went well until we came to the desert; and then, although every ventilator was closed, every window shut and every blind drawn down to save us from the glare of the sun upon the sand, the journey was most trying.
A PLAN FOR EVERY LIFE
Opposite my section sat a man who continually raised the blind and looked out of the window. The porter quite as often drew the blind down. I went over to talk with him and complain of the journey and to say that I wished I had gone by the mountains. He looked at me as if I was bereft of reason and said, “This is the most wonderful trip in the world.” I left him almost with disgust. My annoyance and discomfort all the time increased, and after a while, wearied more and more by the journey, I went back to talk with him again. Among other things, I asked him his business, and, as he threw up the window blind, he said, with a smile, “I am an irrigator; and that,” said he, “is why the journey is wonderful, for if I could turn the water in on this desert I could make it blossom like the rose.” I went back to my seat, having learned my lesson: that all that God required was to have the right of way in my life and turn the water in and the result would be victory.
God has a plan for every life. Jeremiah did not know what was in the mind of the potter, but we know what is in God’s mind for us. “For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be confirmed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). And again: “Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3: 12). And nothing less than this can satisfy God, and when we see Him face to face we shall have joy in His presence just in the proportion as we have followed out His directions.
“The years of man are the looms of God,
Let down from the place of the sun.
Wherein we are weaving always,
Till the mystic web is done.
“And when the task is ended
And the web is turned and shown,
We shall hear the voice of the Master;
It shall say to us, ‘Well done.’”
So, if we have failed, God can make us over. He is still the potter and we are still the clay. He has many ways of making us over. Sometimes by outward circumstances like the potter’s wheel, trials and disappointments, days when the sun does not shine and nights when the stars are dead; heart-breaking experiences and open graves before which we stand to place our best loved dead away. All these things are but the touch of the Master’s hand and are intended to make our lives more as they should be.
I can quite understand the block of marble saying, “What does this blasting mean?” when the very foundations of the mountains seem to shake. And when it is on the railroad train, rumbling along to the busy city, I can scarcely wonder at its saying, “And what does this mean?” And still again, when the artist, with mallet and chisel cuts away at it I can imagine it saying, “What can this mean? It is all past comprehension.” But when the angel comes forth from the marble imprisonment, so perfect that if God would breathe upon it it would move its wings and fly to the angel choir, then I can hear the block of marble say, “I understand.”
LIVES MADE OVER FOR SERVICE
Sometimes by His Word he makes us over. God’s Word is a light, and it is in the light that flowers come to bloom and fragrance. God’s Word is a hammer, and, in His loving hands, it is used to break away our imperfections. God’s Word is a fire, and it burns and burns until there is reflected in us the image of Christ.
God’s Word is water, and water always cleanses by displacement. We have only to yield to Him and the victory will be complete.
The Bible has accounts of many lives made over. In the Old Testament, we find Jacob, the supplanter, the cheat by name and also by nature; but when he is in the grip of the angel of the Lord, and the angel wrestles with him, he limps away from the angelic embrace, and to power, and, instead of Jacob the Supplanter, he is Israel the Prince.
Elijah, in the same Old Testament, was a man of like passions with ourselves; but his passions, controlled, were like the very steeds to the chariot which came from heaven to be his escort into the heavenly city.
St. Paul, in the New Testament, bitter as a persecutor, thirsting for the blood of those who believed in the Nazarene, consenting to the death of St. Stephen and persecuting Christians unto strange cities, becomes as gentle as a woman and glories in the fact that he bears in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
St. Peter, who was in other days a man of weakness, ignorance and failure, becomes the mighty preacher of the sermon on Pentecost and is the writer of superb epistles, which scholars say are written in the purest Greek of the New Testament; and what God can do for Jacob and Elijah, St. Paul and St. Peter, he can do for you and do for me.
If our lives were completely yielded to our great Master, the whole world would be charmed by the beauty and power of the Christian life. Then we would be victorious in the time of trial, for even though the nights were dark and the burdens heavy we could hear him say, “Fear not, I am with thee,” “Thou art mine,” “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
“When, sin-stricken, burdened, and weary,
From bondage I longed to be free,
There came to my heart the sweet message:
‘My grace is sufficient for thee/
“Though tempted and sadly discouraged,
My soul to this refuge will flee,
And rest in the blessed assurance:
‘My grace is sufficient for thee/
“My bark may be tossed by the tempest
That sweeps o’er the turbulent sea —
A rainbow illumines the darkness:
‘My grace is sufficient for thee/
“O Lord, I would press on with courage,
Though rugged the pathway may be,
Sustained and upheld by thy promise:
‘My grace is sufficient for thee/
“Soon, soon will the warfare be over,
My Lord face to face I shall see,
And prove, as I dwell in His presence:
‘His grace was sufficient for me/”
Then we would be triumphant in the journey of life; we are not always understood, we are sometimes criticised, but if we are His — fear not, be strong.
“Men may misjudge thy aim,
Think they have cause for blame,
Say thou art wrong —
Hold on thy quiet way:
Christ is the Judge — not they;
Fear not! Be strong!”