I am a retired pastor currently living in the Nashville, Tn. area and we attend First Church, Bro. Ron Becton pastor. We are putting our sermons and Bible studies on the web. We have been doing this for five years and have more than 3 million visits on it.
We would like to share some of our studies and writings with all the people on Everyone Apostolic.
My wife, Mary Lee, has Bible Quizzing questions on almost every verse in the Bible and would like to share this also.
James & Mary Lee Thornton VESSELS REFINED, REMOLDED, REMADE, AND
REPAIRED.
By, James L. Thornton
After
one has been “born of the water and the spirit,” God with loving and careful
hands begins to remold, remake, and refine our vessel to make it what it ought
to be for His glory.
Trials, testing, challenges, and adversities are like the fire that
refines the gold by taking out the impurities. Trials are like the refining
process that iron goes through to make pure steel.
Jeremiah 18:4 “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.”
NO CHRISTIAN IS EXEMPT FROM THE REFINING PROCESS
The
refining and remolding process is sometimes slow and painful but the End
result is a high quality vessel that is pure and clean and ready for the Master’s use.
Determination was born out of the struggles of Jacob’s life.
Patience was born out in Joseph’s life.
Science tells us that diamonds are formed under tremendous Pressure.
God has left us a beautiful example of His
work in our lives in the book of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 18:1 “The word
which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there
I will cause thee to hear my words.
3 Then I went down to the potter's house,
and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
4 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.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me,
saying,
6 O house of
God wanted to teach Jeremiah how He was working for
the good of the people of Israel, so He sent him down to the potter’s house to
watch the potter at work.
As Jeremiah watched, the potter took a lump of clay
and began the process of fashioning a vessel on the wheel. As the potter worked with His hands shaping the lump of clay into a
vessel of his own design something happened, and the vessel he had planned to
make was suddenly marred, or miss-shapened, in His hands.
(The clay did
not fall off the wheel)
As Jeremiah watched, the potter, did not, at this
point, cast the clay away, but, in his great patience, put the clay back on the wheel and
fashioned another vessel from the same lump. (The most important character in this is the potter)
We want to look at this passage and learn, as Jeremiah
did, something about how God works in our own life. We will see some of the
same procedures being applied in His task of fashioning us into a vessel “Fit For The Master’s Use.”
Something is
taking place in the Church, (Helps
to shape our life) because the
Potter is at work.
One day God
put on His work clothes. (Philippians 2:5-8)
God is the potter
who works in the potter’s house.
The mind of the
potter rules there.
There (in the
church) we will hear the Word of the Lord.
It takes a
special kind of clay for the Potter to make a vessel from.
It is dug out of the river bottoms, out from
underneath the surface.
Psalms 40:2 “He brought me up also out of an
horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and
established my goings.”
God is
looking, digging, for you.
The clay is worthless without
the Potter.
The clay has
to be broken in His hands.
REPENTANCE
I WANT EVERYONE TO NOTICE THAT THIS ENTIRE
PROCESS TAKES PLACE IN THE HANDS OF THE POTTER:
The Potter takes the clay (that’s us) and breaks it apart
and kneads it like a baker kneads the dough, working it IN HIS HANDS.
We can liken this unto
conviction when the Holy Spirit begins to work on us and we become broken on the Altar, weeping and agonizing before
God. This is God’s way of separating us from our sins and the things of the
world, we call this repentance.
WATER BAPTISM
Then the Potter washes the clay to wash away the dirt
or earth which is not real clay.
We submit to Water Baptism to wash away our sins, (Acts 2:38) or the elements in us which will
not make a vessel which can be used.
THE PRESS
Then the Potter takes the lump of clay which has been
broken and washed and puts it in a press. This process is very necessary
because the press is used to get rid of impurities,
sand, gravel, twigs, leaves, and all foreign matter.
The press is very essential to rid the clay of all
impurities because when the vessel is baked it will break if there are impurities
left in it. So next time we feel the pressure maybe it
is God trying to rid us of some impurity. Let us pray day by day that God’s will be
done in our lives
The pressure comes as a natural process of following
God. If we read the history of God’s people they were all
under pressure at various times.
THE WHEEL
After the clay has been broken, washed, and pressed,
the Potter takes it IN HIS HANDS places
it upon the Wheel. The Potter’s wheel consists of a round table top attached to
a shaft that is rotated by petals which the potter turns by His feet and legs.
Round and round the top spins and the Potter grasps
the clay with HIS HANDS forming a circle
around It. He applies slight pressure and the clay begins to rise in HIS HANDS, and take on the form of a vessel.
The Potter touches the clay and shapes it as it spins on
the wheel. The Potter has in His mind the shape and size of the vessel He wants
to make from this particular lump of clay.
Sometimes, as in the instance Jeremiah witnessed, the
clay that the Potter is working with, for some reason, does not form, or shape
to His satisfaction.
Maybe it was too firm or stiff, so He adds a little
more water to the clay making it more pliable, kneading it with HIS HANDS until it
feels just right. It may have been too soft, so He adds a little more clay to
the lump and works it in with HIS HANDS.
Whatever the reason for the marred vessel, THANK GOD THE POTTER STARTS ANEW, repeatedly if necessary, with the same lump of
clay, on the same wheel, to make another vessel.
YOU AND I ARE THE CLAY IN THE HANDS OF THE
MASTER POTTER, and no matter what happens, no matter
how many times He has to start over with us, DO
FALL OUT OF HIS HANDS as round and round we go.
STAY ON THE WHEEL AND LET HIS HANDS MOLD US
INTO A VESSEL HE CAN USE. This is very necessary for, as we
describe the further process there comes a time when the vessel can no more be
reworked.
THE
CURING PROCESS
At length the Potter puts the finishing touches on the
vessel and when He finishes He gently sets it aside somewhere on a shelf with hundreds
of other vessels.
This is called the Curing
Process. This also is a very necessary process. The vessel sets there
not being used for days, sometimes weeks, just Curing
Out, not yet ready for service.
Did You Ever Feel Like God Has Just Set You
Aside And Forgotten About You?
Remember I told you how important that the Curing Process was.
THE FURNACE
In the back of the Potters
House is a furnace and a green vessel, or one that is not cured, will
not stand the awful heat of the furnace.
God knows us best, and He knows what we can stand, HE IS A MASTER POTTER and
will, if we will allow His Process to work in
our lives, make of us a Vessel FIT FOR HIS USE.
The furnace is heated to near One
Thousand Degrees and the cured vessel is placed in there for hours and hours,
this is called firing, or the cooking process.
In the wall of the furnace there is a small opening
into which the Potter can look at each vessel to see how they are standing up
to the firing process. Remember God never takes His eyes off of you.
If each process has gone well a smile will
come across His face as He watches each vessel become the finished product He
started out to make.
But if one vessel begins to sag a little it has not
had time to cure before it was placed in the furnace, then he will take a long
rod to push it over into the fire lest it turn over and take others with it.
If there have been any impurities left in any vessel, a
twig, a leaf, even a grain of sand, it will literally explode from the extreme
heat.
Now we can see the importance of each of these processes
as we place ourselves INTO THE HANDS OF THE POTTER and ask Him to make of us a vessel for His service.
This is the trials, and for some, tribulations, and
others, severe persecutions to endure. This is the finishing touch; this is
what makes the clay into a vessel that can be used for many things.
Without this process the clay would never become an
enduring vessel. Some fired clay vessels are among the oldest objects, made by
man, that have ever been found. Some are thousands of years old. God Is Fashioning Us For Eternity.
THE
POTTER’S FIELD
Out behind the Potter’s House
is a waste refuse where all the broken pieces of pottery, which would have been
a vessel, are thrown, it is called The Potter’s
Field.
A walk through the potter’s field would reveal a
terrible waste. There are not only broken pieces, but crooked vessels, and Marred Vessels, some with no handles, pitchers without
a pouring spout, and on and on, Vessels Of No Use
To The Potter.
It doesn’t have to be like that. Everything that is in
the Potter’s Field was intended to be a
vessel of some kind.
Everything that ends up in The
Potter’s Field is there because of flaws of some kind. Some, the clay
Was Impure, Inconsistent, Others Broke When The Heat From The Furnace Was
Applied.
BIBLE HISTORY IS FILLED WITH BROKEN AND
MARRED VESSELS:
The Lord chose twelve
lumps of clay to make special vessels from.
He found them.
He dug them out of various
occupations and places.
One was a tax collector,
Four were fishermen,
Another was sitting
under a fig tree,
One was a Zealot,
The rest were men
of varied occupations.
He took them into
His Hands and began to work with them.
He put them on
the wheel and applied gentle pressure.
At times He set them
aside to cure.
Then He put them
in the furnace of trial.
One of them sagged
and denied Him,
But Jesus took him
in His hands and reworked him.
And was cast out
into The Potter’s Field.
Acts 1:16 “Men and brethren, this scripture must
needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake
before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
17 For he was numbered with us, and had
obtained part of this ministry.
18 Now this man purchased a field with the
reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and
all his bowels gushed out.
19 And it was known unto all the dwellers
at
20 For it is written in the book of
Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his
bishoprick let another take. (KJV)
LET US ASK GOD TO MAKE US INTO A VESSEL
LIKE HE WOULD HAVE US TO BE:
Write to us Godsgrazingfield@att.net
By, James L. Thornton