The Lord said to Jeremiah, “Arise and go!” Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He said to His disciples in Matthew 28:19, “Go!” In Acts 9:6, on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared to Paul and said to him, “Now get up and go.” We should do as these did... arise and go when Jesus calls us.
In Acts 10:3-22, the Lord gave the Roman Centurion Cornelius a vision of an angel. The angel told him a place (Joppa), a name (Peter) and an address (Simon the tanner’s house by the sea). Cornelius contacted Peter. Peter shared Christ with the people gathered in Cornelius’ home. They believed in Christ. Jesus filled them with His Spirit.
In John 15:14, Jesus said to disciples , “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
In Acts 26:19, Paul told Agrippa, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
“Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel.” Jeremiah 18:3
The ministry of God’s Word is most effective when people are hearing from God in a personal way and following His instructions.
“But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter. So, he made it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.” Jeremiah 18:4
Jeremiah arrived just in time to see that the potter’s handiwork did not meet his standard.
Isreal needed a revelation that being a descendant of Abraham did not automatically mean that they had God’s approval. As a potter has the prerogative to replace an unusable vessel with a useful one, God can choose receptive people over those who reject Him.
In Matthew 3:9, John the Baptist told his Jewish listeners, “Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”
“Then the Word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter? says the Lord. Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!’” Jeremiah 18:5-6
In Matthew 8:10-12, after a Roman centurion demonstrated faith in Jesus, Jesus turned to the religious leaders and said, “…I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! …Many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham… in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness...”
Galatians 5:6 says, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.” Jesus desires faith and love. Not a particular biological pedigree! Not antiquated rituals!
Parking yourself in a garage does not make you a car, and going to church does not make you a Christian. Having a parent or a grandparent who believes in Jesus, does not make you a Christian. Your salvation must be of God. Be saved and filled by Him! Be His workmanship!
“The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 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.” Jeremiah 18:7-8
In Jonah 3:4, Jonah preached, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” In Jonah 3:5, “The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.” Jonah 3:10 says, “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.”
In Matthew 12:41, Jesus used Nineveh’s testimony to prod the irreligious leaders of Jerusalem to repent. He said, “The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.”
Ezekiel 33:11 says, “As I live! declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?”
Joel 2:13 says, “Rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil.”
“And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.” Jeremiah 18:9-10
The Lord compares nations and kingdoms to plants that can be uprooted or preserved by Him. The criteria for preservation is simple. Cooperation with the molding hands of the Potter!
In Genesis 6:5-6, the wickedness of the people was great. Every intent of the thoughts of their hearts were evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made them.
In 1 Samuel 15:10-11, the Lord regretted that He made Saul king because Saul turned back from following Him and did not carry out God’s commands.
“Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good.’” Jeremiah 18:11
As with Jonah, the Lord gave to Jeremiah an urgent message. His listeners must turn to the Lord and repent lest they suffer God’s wrath.
In the days of Noah, the Lord gave people 120 years to repent. Only Noah’s family listened to the Lord. They entered the ark and were saved. The ark was a type of Christ. Salvation is of Christ.
Isaiah 64:8 says, “We are the clay, and You are the potter. We are all the work of Your hand.” Let us submit ourselves to the Potter’s hands and let Him do His transforming work in us.
“And they said, ‘That is hopeless! So, we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.’” Jeremiah 18:12
In Deuteronomy 29:14-23, the Lord warned us to beware of a heart that turns away from Him to serve other gods. He warned against touting, “I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart.” In such a case, the Lord promised that every curse that is written in this book would settle on such a person. The Lord would blot out his name from under heaven. The whole land would burn with brimstone like unto Sodom and Gomorrah.
It is good to be mindful of what the Lord said to the last king of Babylon before his nation was conquered by Persia. In Daniel 5:23, the Lord said to the king, “The God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified.” Are we glorifying the Lord?
“Therefore thus says the Lord: “Ask now among the Gentiles, who has heard such things? The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.” Jeremiah 18:13
Jonah 2:8 says, ““Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy.” Gentiles were loyal to their powerless idols. How could Israel forsake their faithful loving Father God?
“Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon, which comes from the rock of the field? Will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters?” Jeremiah 18:14
God offered them cool refreshing streams of pure doctrine, but they drank strange waters. They preferred streams polluted with false doctrine.
“Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, from the ancient paths, to walk in pathways and not on a highway, to make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and shake his head.” Jeremiah 18:15-16
What did forgetting God do for them?
Bound them to idols.
Ruined their land.
Caused them to stumble.
Put them on crooked paths.
Increased their shame.
“I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy. I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their calamity.” Jeremiah 18:17
Jeremiah 18:17 uses the imagery of winnowing wheat. In Matthew 3:12, John said of Jesus, “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
During winnowing, moving air is used to separate heavier, desirable material (like wheat) from lighter, unwanted material (such as chaff). A common method involves tossing the threshed or dried crop into the air, allowing the wind to blow the lighter husks away, while the heavier grain falls back down to be collected. This process improves the purity of the harvested product.
The Lord neither glosses over nor turns a blind eye to the chaff amongst His wheat. He winnows the chaff out. Some dishonest sellers might try to mix chaff in with the wheat, but not the Lord. He will harvest only the wheat and drive away the chaff.
“Then they said, ‘Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah; for the Law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us attack him with the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words.’” Jeremiah 18:18
Jeremiah’s truth-telling yielded for him persecution from priests, prophets and politicians.
David experienced persecution. In Psalm 118:12, he wrote, “They surrounded me like bees. They were quenched like a fire of thorns. For in the Name of the Lord, I will destroy them.”
In John 8:59, religious leaders took up stones to throw at Jesus, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.”
St. Augustine wrote, “Jesus fled from stones, but woe to those from whose stony hearts God has fled!”
“Give heed to me, O Lord, and listen to the voice of those who contend with me!” Jeremiah 18:19
Jeremiah’s words “GIVE HEED” contrast with the words of his enemies. They say, “let us NOT give HEED to any of his words.” Jeremiah wants God to HEED what they are saying and take righteous action upon them.
What are imprecatory Psalms? Imprecatory Psalms are cries for divine judgment (curses) upon enemies. They are pleas for God to vindicate His own righteous cause against sabotages.
Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 191, says, “Pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the Gospel promulgated throughout the world.”
“Shall evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my life. Remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your wrath from them.” Jeremiah 18:20
Turning away God’s wrath on sinners is what Christ did. Romans 5:9 says, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Since I am in Christ, God looks at me just-if-I’d never sinned. Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath against sin so that I would not have to drink it.
The cup of divine wrath is difficult to drink. Jesus asked the Father three times if the cup could be taken from Him, but each time, finished that prayer, by saying, “Not My will be done but Yours be done.” There was no other sinless human that could be a perfect sacrifice for our sin. So, Jesus drank it. Now, we can drink from His cup of salvation.
Jeremiah sought to turn God’s wrath from his fellow Jerusalemites by leading them back to God. When God asked him to find one man that did justice and spoke the truth, he could not find one. What he did find out was how evil they were.
“Therefore deliver up their children to the famine and pour out their blood by the force of the sword. Let their wives become widows and bereaved of their children. Let their men be put to death, their young men be slain by the sword in battle.” Jeremiah 18:21
Jeremiah found out that God was right about his fellow Jerusalemites. They did horrible things to their children. They sacrificed them to idols by destroying them in fiery rituals. There was no faithfulness in their marriages. They were murderers. They were thieves. Conniving! So, he joined with God in desiring wrathful judgments on them.
“Let a cry be heard from their houses, when You bring a troop suddenly upon them; for they have dug a pit to take me, and hidden snares for my feet.” Jeremiah 18:22
The brothers of Joseph threw him into a pit. Daniel was thrown into a pit with lions. Jeremiah was thrown into a pit. In a sense, Jesus was thrown into a pit when His body was placed into a grave. All these were rescued from their pits by God’s power.
Jeremiah wanted to rescue people from harm. They dug a pit for him and prepared a trap for him.
“Yet, Lord, You know all their counsel which is against me, to slay me. Provide no atonement for their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from Your sight; but let them be overthrown before You. Deal thus with them in the time of Your anger.” Jeremiah 18:23
In Romans 2:5, Paul wrote of the irreligious leaders of his time, saying, “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
Jeremiah wanted these irreligious leaders overthrown. These were the kind of leaders who stir up mobs to destroy the best of a nation’s people.
The last thing a servant of God wants to do is to pray pain on people, but they were hindering the message that God wanted His people to hear. They were leading people away from God.
When it comes to imprecatory prayers, it is important to remember the context of these prayers. Jeremiah was trying to save his nation from being destroyed. The future of his nation was hanging in the balance.
When it comes to personal abuse, both Jesus and Stephen chose to forgive their enemies. In Matthew 6:15, Jesus said, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” “Lord Jesus, help me to forgive those who have sought to destroy me. I do forgive them. Please also forgive me for the times I hurt and Your servants.”
We want evil to expire. Let us pray for that! But let us also pray, “Lord Jesus, please convert more persecutors into preachers.”
I am grateful that God forgave my sins. I am grateful to know the Lord. God is gracious unto me.
In Hebrews 8:10-11, the writer quotes Jeremiah 31:34, saying, “None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” This is all Jeremiah ever wanted... that people have their sins forgiven by God, and that they would know the Lord in a personal way.
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