Study From the Book of Jeremiah,18

Study From the Book of Jeremiah,18

Today is the eighteenth part of this series, where we study chapter 18. Here, there are two biblical principles and their lessons which are useful in biblical counselling.

God ordered Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house. The potter’s vessel was marred and thus unsuitable for its intended purpose. Instead of throwing it away, the potter remoulded the clay into an acceptable and unblemished work that symbolized God’s action in reforming Israel. The people had become marred and defiled and had to be reformed into a vessel fit to be identified with the Lord.

If a nation threatened with destruction would turn from its evil, God would relent of the promised disaster. God the potter was more willing to forgive the iniquity and stubborn of Judah.  Unfortunately, the people continued in their stiff-necked ways. In Gal. 4:19 Paul uses this imagery to depict the formation of the image of Christ in the obedient Chrisian. God was fashioning a disaster, a calamity of Judah if it did not repent or return to Him and change its actions from evil to good.

The people’s response to God’s warning was rebelliously pursued their own ways. These feelings were the direct result of the evil heart that is   characteristic of people who continually turn away from the Lord and His ways.

Nevertheless, the people devised plans to counter the words of Jeremiah. Instead of showing their appreciation for Jeremiah’s intervention, the people dug a pit in anticipation of his   demise.

Structure:

Verses 1-11: the potter and the clay.

Verses 12-17: God’s warning rejected

Verses 18-23: Jeremiah persecuted.

Principle 30: verse 18:6:    --"Look, as the day is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel.”

Lesson 30: God wants to mould us and shape us into something of indescribable beauty.  The process is not quick, nor does it always feel pleasant, but we can trust the hand of the Potter to finish what has started.

Principle 31, verse 18:8: ---“if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.”

Principle 31: In the days of Jonah the prophet, God spared the wicked city of Nineveh, even though He had sent Jonah there to proclaim. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” God loves mercy above judgement.24/3/2024.