Chapter 18
This begins Jeremiah's 7th message. The opening phrase is "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord..." Back to third person. So...maybe third person except when the message was for Jeremiah to go to a specific place and preach? Except...The word was for Jeremiah to go down to the potter's house.
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. [Jer 18:4 ESV]
Surely I have heard some sermon's on this? If you mess up the purpose God has for you, then he will just make you into something else, according to what HE, the Potter, decides for us. We don't choose what we will be for Him, but He can always use us in some way. So never, ever stop trying. Needs to go on FB for sure. HOWEVER, in context this was about a nation, not a person. God goes on to say that if he plans disaster for that nation, and they turn from their sin, He will relent. Conversely, if He plans good for a nation, and they turn to sin, He will also relent of the good He had planned. Perhaps this applies to individuals, perhaps not. Why risk it? The point in vss 7-10 is that God can do what he wants with nations in the same way that the potter can do as he wants with clay. The Potter is not obligated in his purpose by the clay that he works with. It has no claim on his ambitions. It is only clay. Nations are just clay in God's hands. He works with nations and peoples with the same sovereignty over them as a potter has over his clay. God can change his mind in the middle. You wouldn't fault a potter for changing his mind and making a chamber pot instead of a goblet after the clay is on the wheel. Why then would you fault God for changing. This is a good FB post. But first, look back and see how many other posts you've made about this passage...
2023 - It is also possible that the lesson here was that Israel should not depend on ancient promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to protect them from God's just wrath no matter what they do. This was likely the attitude of Jeremiah's audience. The lesson, in context, was not that God can always make you a useful vessel, but that God can make you a chamber pot after promising you he'd make you a King's crown if he decides that's what he wants to do. In this case, God changed the direction of Israel because of their idol worship, their insincere worship, and their corruption in all that they did. We can understand this without much trouble. However, God could have just picked another people for his own, and since he is the Master Potter, we'd have no more grounds to complain about the second case than we do the first.
Did a FB post on this in 2024.
In vs 12, Judah rejects this message, and says it won't work anyway (They are hearing as if from Jeremiah, and not from the living God?), so they will just stick with what they've been doing. Evil and injustice in all quarters.
In vss 13-17, God replies to this. 17 sums it up:
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." [Jer 18:17 ESV]
And in the face of this message, this continuing warning, this offer to bless them if they will only behave? Judah comes up with a counter-strategy:
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." [Jer 18:18 ESV]
Kill the messenger. Ignore the message. Listen to the lies we like and not the truth. Here's the deal...that only works if God isn't paying attention. They believed there was a God, but they didn't believe Jeremiah was delivering an accurate message. They chose to believe what they wanted to believe from fake prophets. They believed liars. How can we tell the difference? Another for FB..
vss 19-23 are Jeremiah's prayer concerning the plots against him. He asks that good (his) not be repaid with evil (theirs). He reminds God that he spoke good of Judah, he interceded for them, and this is how they 're repaying them. Then for several verses Jeremiah prays the worst for them. Death and destruction and sorrow. This is surely a non-defensive prayer, and this time, it isn't David that is praying it! NDP
I have read sura's that are like this, where Muhammad wants his enemies killed. But I don't remember Muhammad ever saying he tried to do good for them. Mostly, he only wants revenge. One might do a study comparing these sura's and the specifics of what they call for against Muhammad's enemies to what Jeremiah wishes on his enemies in these chapters. Almost seems like Muhammad identified with Jeremiah and so believed he could pray the same kind of prayers. That would be interesting...
2021 - A few verses as examples:
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. [Jer 18:21-23 ESV] Jeremiah has changed over from advocate for them to enemy. Look at the horror he is praying for. Keep in mind though, that God has already promised that all these things are coming to them anyway because their time has run out. So as severe as these prayers are, they are exactly in sync with what God has already said he will do. Perhaps that is the secret to our own NDP's. We need verses, preferably from the NT, like the ones I read today in 2Tim3, asking for the false teachers, the lovers of self rather than God, to be exposed for all to see. Let them be shamed, exposed, revealed as the self-serving charlatans they are. That is a good NDP for our time.