Title: Mud and the Pottery
Contents
1992. 9. 6
One day, according to God's command, the prophet Jeremiah visited the potter's house. The potter was making pots on a potter's wheel.
This potter's wheel has two stone wheels centered on one axis, the lower one is heavy and the upper one is light. When the potter rolls the lower wheel with his foot, the upper wheel on which the clay is placed rotates to make a vessel that swells the clay. Some of them are long jars, others are wide jars, and while they work hard to make them, they break others with a hammer.
Jeremiah asks God.
“God, why did you let me see this?”
Then God spoke to Jeremiah.
"Look at the potter at work. Can you do that too? As clay is in the potter's hand, so are you all in my hands."
God revealed to Jeremiah absolute sovereignty and the right to create.
We often sit irritably in front of the dressing table and blame God.
"God, everyone has double eyelids, but I don't have double eyelids, my eyebrows don't do well, I don't have brows, and my mouth is thick. Why did you make it so ugly?"
I went to the bathroom and looked at my reflection in the mirror and said, "Why is my body so black? Why am I so tall and tall like a pig leg? Why am I so full? Why am I not gaining weight? Why am I like a pumpkin? Did it become like chicken meat?" And it is easy to resent parents and blame God.
At this point, God's answer is very simple.
“Man, whom do you dare to accuse? How can you say to the maker of things that were made this way? A potter made of a loaf of clay, one for noble use, and the other for humble Do you not have the authority to make vessels?"
We hope that we will go to the potter's house together like Jeremiah and hear the voice of God speaking to us through this potter's lesson in making clay pots and breaking them.
First, the potter makes a bowl out of clay. In Genesis, God did not create man out of anything else. He made man out of clay and made man in the image of God. We are mud. You must understand that life is a lump of dirt that you have no choice but to go to because you came as dirt.
The created man has no right to protest against God the Creator.
Second, the potter made the bowl. Usually, all items that make this pottery are bowls. He did not make rice, money, water, food, or bread that goes into the bowl, but only the bowl that contains them. In other words, please keep in mind that we were created as vessels for the precious treasure of the soul.
Third, we must keep in mind that we are the masterpieces of God's hand. If we look closely at the process of creation in Genesis 1, there are cases where God said to be like the light or the firmament and to be divided, and there are cases where he commanded the earth to come out like plants and animals. But man was created in a special way. The body was made with the hands of dust, and breathed into its nostrils to become the Holy Spirit.
We are not all the same. Even if they were twins, triplets, or quadruplets, they might look alike, but not at all. Everything is different. When God created man, he did not put it into a machine. We are God's handicraft, made by God's hand. God's hand is in it. Keep this in mind.
Man was created for the glory of God. Therefore, you must keep in mind whether what you are doing is what you are doing in the Lord. I am not a human being made to be myself, but a product made to be used according to God's will, so we must live according to His will.
What is good work? It is about managing and governing God's creation. And as mentioned in Genesis 1:28, 'the work of conquering the world ruled by Satan with the gospel'. Just because you have eyes doesn't mean you can see everything. You should not eat this and that, just because it is God-given food. There are foods you cannot eat. There are things you shouldn't see. There are things you shouldn't get close to and things you shouldn't touch.
You should not think that it is only about touching or seeing the fruit of knowledge. They were told not to eat the fruit. It is food made by God, but it is not to be eaten. It is the mission of the earthenware that God made to discern, manage, govern, and conquer it.
But should a human being who was created so preciously spend time in vain without knowing where I came from or why I should live? Losing love, indulging in the world's pleasures, envying the world, just greedy for things on earth, and thinking about eating the fruit of good and evil, you end up eating them all.
Had Eve been able to discern, she would not have even thought of eating her. The devil uses that thought very carefully. Therefore, we must not think, we must not go, we must not see, we must not eat.
Fourth, if we are not made according to God's intention, we will break it. This wave means to wake up. Sometimes the potter breaks the pot while making it.
It is said that God is the potter and we are the vessel, so the principle of breaking is the same.
The representative pottery of the early Joseon Dynasty is Buncheong pottery. If Goryeo celadon or Ijo white porcelain pursued aristocratic beauty, Buncheong porcelain belongs to the savory and simple earthenware.
There is a person who is a surviving master of buncheong ware, who has held exhibitions dozens of times in Japan, and all of the displayed vessels are sold at high prices.
Kaolin called Daeto is kneaded and kneaded well, and then it is turned on a wheel to form a bowl. After drying in the shade for about five hours, put it on the wheel again and sharpen it to a perfect bowl shape. Also, let it dry for at least a day. Then, after 7 hours of unglazing over a flame of about 500, the heat inside the kiln is cooled down for another day. Take out the unglazed bowls and finally glaze them. Then, finally, one bowl is completed by roasting at a high heat of 1,200 3,000.
However, there is still the final stage, which is the examination process in which the finished vessels must satisfy his heart. Usually, he burns about 100 points at a time, but he picks up three or four points and wakes up and breaks them all. The pottery artist's honor is at stake in each finished pottery, so pottery you don't like will be broken without any regrets. The pottery contains the person's devotion and soul.
Why are you waving? It may crack when the soil is too hard.
Why are you waving? It breaks when the soil contains this material such as stones or impurities. Why are you waving? When it is not shaped according to the owner's intention, it is broken.
It is said that God breaks us and then remakes us to please us according to His good will. Verse 6 says, “House of Israel, you are in my hands as clay is in the hands of the potter.” The content of this potter breaking the clay pot while making it means that the servants of the people of Israel, the servants of God's good men, are like vessels, and do not do it according to God's will.
Here is a precious truth given to us believers who are living today. There are times when we get beaten up. There are times when it breaks. Or money, or health, or reputation may be tarnished, broken, and laid flat. Keep in mind that God has a will to re-create us. Being broken may have the meaning of giving great blessings.
It is said that when making pottery, if you listen to good music while making pottery, you can make good pottery that you like. We are clay, we are vessels. When God created us, He made us a masterpiece in His eyes.
But what do we put in the made vessel? Start your day at the Dawn Altar. Before you go home and do anything else, read the Bible first, then play a good gospel hymn. A good idea will come to you. And the day goes well.
It is said that even a cow or a chicken will lay good milk and good eggs if good music is played. When the atmosphere is gracious, your thoughts are good and your actions are beautiful.
We are all bowls. It is the same bowl, but when it goes up to the king's table, it is a gold bowl, and the dog food bowl is a lowly bowl. Even the same vessel is treated differently depending on where it is placed and how it is handled. Although he made a vessel for each of us, depending on our thoughts and actions, we receive lowly or precious treatment.
It was when Pastor Billy Graham led a meeting in London.
Many people believed in Jesus and repented. One evening, a pastor's wife attended the revival meeting and sat in the back seat. Then a man came and sat next to him. Looking back, he doesn't seem like a believer in Jesus at all. He is restless and murmuring.
"Well, I'm going out now, don't you want to go out with me?" It was an amazing decision. The man next to him hesitated for a while, said, "Let's go out together," and got up, took a wallet out of his pocket, gave it to this wife, and said, "It's yours, take it." It was my mother-in-law's stolen purse.
It is the story of the contents of repentance after returning it first because he could not take it with him. This is the content that the thief's vessel is broken and made into a good vessel again through the Word. I hope you all have the courage to wave it too.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be recreated according to your good will and become vessels worthy of God's use. Amen.