THE POTTER AND THE CLAY

Rev. Bertrand Comparet

  When God's People ISRAEL entered Palestine, they were one nation of 12 Tribes (like the United States ), and they continued so until the death of King Solomon, in 975 B.C. Then the 10 northern Tribes formed a separate kingdom, keeping the ancient name ISRAEL; while the 2 southern Tribes formed the Nation of JUDAH, keeping the old capital city of Jerusalem. In each of these kingdoms, even at their best, there were always some indi­viduals who did not worship God, but were atheists or idolaters; in each, even at their worst, there were always some people who were loyal to God.

   The southern Kingdom of JUDAH kept its OFFICIAL, NATIONAL loyalty to God‑‑‑at least in name and form ‑‑‑almost to its end; however, the number of its people who really lived up to the national religion became fewer and fewer through the years.  Almost Immediately after it broke away from Judah, ISRAEL rebelled against its God ‑‑‑for its first king Jeroboam, feared that If his people returned to the Temple at Jerusalem to worship, they might also renew their political loyalty to Jerusalem; so he led them into idolatry (I Kings 12: 26‑33). Though they rebelled in religion, they still retained God's Laws for their civil government until their sixth king, Omri: then they abandoned the Laws of God for the Statutes of Omri. Despite all this, God allowed ISRAEL two centuries more for repentance, before their Assyrian captivity and exile ‑‑‑a long time in the lives of men, but a short time in the life of a nation. Though ISRAEL was then rebellious, God knew that it would even­tually do His will.

   JUDAH still officially proclaimed the old religion, and gave lip‑ser­vice to God's Laws. Yet the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel gave eloquent testimony to the hypocrisy of this pretence: a religion of form only, without understanding of Its truths; and oppression, usury, robbery, adultery and murder, practiced commonly, without punishment, even by the ruling classes of Priests and Nobles whose duty it was to enforce the Law.

   Jesus Christ illustrated the condition of the two nations in one of His parables, in Matthew 21:28‑31 ‑‑‑"A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go work today in my vineyard.' He answered and said, 'I will not': but afterward he repented and went. Tie came likewise to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said 'I go sir.’ and went not. Which of the two did the work of his father? They say unto Him, 'The first.' Jesus saith unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, that the Tax Collectors and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you'". ISRAEL at first refused, but finally obeyed the will of God; JUDAH professed to obey, but really did not. But God does not wait until after the thing has happened before He first speaks of it. While ISRAEL was still rebellious and JUDAH still making empty promises, the prophet Jeremiah was told to explain this. The time was 601 B.C.‑‑‑over a century after ISRAEL had been conquered by Assyria and deported from its land, never to return; and in the very beginning of JUDAH'S 70 years' captivity at Babylon. In the 18th Chapter of Jeremiah, God told him:  “Arise and go down to the potters house, and there will I cause thee to hear My words.' Then I went down to the potters s house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 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 potters hand, so are ye in Mine hand, 0 House of ISRAEL.' " That is to say, Israel’s captivity and deportation from their land was not their destruction: it was only God’s hand re‑mold­ing them into a vessel fit for His use in the future.

   JUDAH, however, had a very different destiny: its hypocrisy could not go on forever. In the 19th Chapter of Jeremiah is given another parable, this time for JUDAH: "Thus said t Lord: Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people and of the ancients of the Priests; . . . and say, "Hear ye the word of the Lord, 0 kings of JUDAH and inhabitants of Jerusalem; thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: 'Behold, I will bring calamity upon this place . . . Because they have forsaken Me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense In it unto other gods . . . and have filled this place with the blood of inno­cents; . . . I will make void the counsel of JUDAH and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of them that seek their lives: and their carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the earth. And I will make this city desolate and an hissing: everyone that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof. And I will cause then, to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, . . . in the siege and straightness, wherewith their enemies and they that seek their lives shall straiten them. THEN SHALT THOU BREAK THE BOTTLE IN THE SIGHT OF THE MEN THAT GO WITH THEE, and shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: 'EVEN SO WILL I BREAK THIS PEOPLE AND THIS CITY, AS ONE BREAKETH A POTTER'S‑VESSEL THAT CANNOT BE MADE WHOLE AGAIN.'"

  The Anglo‑Saxon, Scandinavian and Germanic nations, who are really the ISRAEL of the Bible, have often been stubborn and rebellious: often, God has called them "a stiff necked people"‑‑‑yet He is their God and they His people, and in the end they do His will. If the rebellious clay twists in His hand and is marred, yet He still molds it again into the‑vessel of His choice, and over the centuries it serves His purpose.

   But the nation of JUDAH had become hardened beyond such repair: lip service only, but not honest performance, could come from them. As Isaiah 29:13 says, "This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart far from Me; and their reverence toward Me is taught by the precept of men." Remember how often Jesus Christ denounced the Jews: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites"