And this is Leslie Curran saying hello and welcome in the Savior's name to our Gospel broadcast. I'm glad you're joining us today, and here to let the Bible speak is the Reverend John Greer. It is my joy and pleasure to come again to you with God's precious Word.

I also want to welcome you. Thank you for tuning in to this program. It's good to have you listening today, and I pray earnestly that the Word of the Lord will come to your heart with freshness and with power.

Now, in Jeremiah chapter 18, we have the prophet Jeremiah being shown a wonderful truth by means of an object lesson. He is sent by the Lord to the house of the potter, and as he went to the house, we are told that he saw the potter busily engaged in his work, and he was working with the clay on the wheel. He was making a pot, and as he did so, we find, as the story goes here, as the record shows us, that that pot was marred in his hand, and yet he did not cast it away, but rather he made it again another vessel.

And these are the words I want us to think about today in verse 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. There are certain truths here in these words that relate to a great facet of the gospel, namely that God is able to reshape the lives of needy sinners. God's able to reshape lives.

Notice first that God's portrayal of men shows the need for a reshaped life. Notice the opening words of this verse again, and the vessel that he made of clay was marred. The words refer to the vessel that the potter was crafting as Jeremiah watched on, but according to the use of this analogy in Scripture between a clay vessel and man, we are being taught that man is a creature of God, and that he is like a clay vessel, and concerning his situation, his status condition before God, there is need for the Lord to reshape him, to renew him, to restore him because of what has happened in his life and in his nature and in his experience.

When you think about a clay vessel or even the lump of clay from which the potter makes the clay vessel, we have there a very fit description of man as a creature, and we are shown something of the feeble nature of man by this particular means of the vessel made of clay. Man's feeble nature, men in their powers and strengths, glory in who they are, but God portrays them as being feeble and weak and frail, and we find throughout the Word of God that there's this kind of language. We find in Job 14 that men dwell in houses of clay, and we find in Job 13 verse 12, your bodies, bodies of clay, and we find Abraham as he stood before the Lord in Genesis 18, 27, saying that he was but dust and ashes, and therefore man is feeble, and since he's feeble or weak and frail in himself, he is a prey to Satan, to sin, to an ungodly world.

Evil is able to take man with ease, and therefore we need to stop and think today about the fact that we need the Lord to intervene in our lives because we're but frail pieces of clay without strength, without power, and yet we can rejoice that the Lord knows all about this, and the Lord has pity upon men, Psalm 103, 13 and 14, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. You may feel utterly weak and hopeless and helpless, but God knows all about you, and God shows pity toward man in all his feebleness and in all his frailty. These words also cause us to think about the fallen nature of man.

Man, being likened to clay, reminds us of the level to which sin has brought him. Man imagines that he's on a very lofty plane, that he is ascending, climbing higher and higher, improving all the time, but God's portrayal of him shows that he has fallen and that he has sunk to the lowest level. He belongs to the earth.

1 Corinthians 15, 47, the first man is of the earth. Verse 40, we have the image of the earthy. Here's the environment in which man is at home, to which he belongs, because he has fallen, and if he's not rescued by God's grace, he will sink lower and lower.

He is mere clay. He is not only feeble, he has fallen. But then you see, he's also faulty.

You take these words again, the vessel they made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. Those opening words inform us that the vessel the potter was making was marred, it was spoiled, and therefore in the clay that was being used, there was a fault. There was a stone or there was a stiffness in the clay, and thereby the vessel was marred.

Now this word marred could also be read to be corrupted, and it's translated that way in quite a few verses. And therefore, we are being given an insight here

“In this sermon, Reverend John Greer reflects on Jeremiah 18, where God shows the prophet a potter reshaping a marred vessel, symbolizing His power to transform broken lives. Just as the potter does not discard the spoiled clay but makes it into another vessel, God does not abandon sinful, fallen humanity but patiently reshapes and restores those who turn to Him. The message emphasizes that man, like clay, is weak, fallen, and marred by sin, unable to save himself. Yet God, in His sovereign and merciful power, can reclaim and renew any life, making it useful for His glory. Salvation, therefore, is God’s gracious act of taking a ruined sinner and creating a new, clean vessel through Christ. The sermon closes with an urgent call to repent and trust in Jesus Christ, the only one who can make a person new and deliver them from sin and eternal loss.”

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into the faulty nature of man. Man is marred.

Man's life is spoiled because there's a fault. There's corruption in his nature. There's something in man that has brought about his feeble, fallen, faulty state, and that of course is sin.

When we think about man being portrayed here in this manner, we are brought to see just how destitute man is, where sin has actually brought him and left him and caused him to be in need of God's intervention to be reshaped and to be delivered from his fallen and his sinful condition. So we are shown very clearly therefore God's portrayal of men, and it shows their need of his salvation. But look here at God's power over men.

It says here, he made it again another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it. And then you have the as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand. These words ring with the truth of God's power over men.

Now it is a sovereign power. God has sovereign power over sinners. The vessel did not shape itself, but was reshaped as seemed good to the potter to make it.

In these words, there is the reminder that in the truth of God's sovereign power, there is great hope for sinners. Left to themselves, sinners can do nothing to save their souls or change their lives or alter their destiny, but they will perish and they will sink down into everlasting hell. You must see this.

You cannot save yourself any more than a lump of clay could fashion itself into a particular vessel. But when a sovereign God intervenes in his sovereign power, he is able to bring order out of chaos, light where there was darkness, hope where there was nothing but despair. What a comfort for those who are lost that salvation is of the Lord.

That is a great hope for your soul that the Lord is the one who saves his sovereign, and yet what comfort there is in that fact. If God were not sovereign, no one would be saved. If God did not step in to deliver sinners, no one would ever be delivered or would ever be changed.

No life would ever be reshaped or would never be reformed or delivered from guilt and sin and depravity and wickedness. But when God is brought into the picture in all his sovereign grandeur, oh, what hope there is for So there is here a sovereign power, and there's also a salvaging power. It says, he made it again another vessel.

Now, it might have seemed that the vessel in its initial shape being marred and spoiled was fit only to be thrown on the scrap heap, but the potter didn't throw it away. He salvaged it. He rescued it.

He made something of it. Notice here that it was the same lump of clay formed into a new vessel, a fact that stresses the truth that the Lord can take sinners who are marred and corrupted and ruined by sin and deliver them. Now, take the word vessel.

A number of times this word is used with reference to men whom God saves. Paul is called a chosen vessel in Acts 9 verse 15. Here's a man who was opposed to Christ in the gospel, but he became a preacher.

The Lord can so reshape your life and your soul that you will be used for his glory. And then you find that the Bible also speaks of a clean vessel, 2 Timothy 2, 19 to 21, where it talks about clean vessels fit and meet for the master's use. Oh, I tell you the Word of God sets before you the great truth, the great hope that the Lord's in the business of reclaiming men, restoring them, reversing the works of the devil, delivering sinners from their guilt and their fallen condition, and making something of them.

God is the God who saves, and in saving sinners, He makes something out of sinners. That's really what salvation is. It is God taking a man ruined and lost and guilty because of sin and making something of him.

Oh, I urge you today to consider that very carefully. You may think that there's no hope for you, that you're so far gone in your sin that the whole picture is without any hope whatsoever, but this is not true. There is hope for you.

The devil has ruined your life. Sin has destroyed you. You're on the road to hell, but there's a Christ who saves.

There's a Christ who makes men new. There's a Christ who delivers from the wrath to come. And we notice here God's patience with man leads to this reshaped life.

The potter exercised great patience with this lump of clay, reshaping it and molding it into the desired vessel, and God's patience is thereby illustrated. And when we think about this, God does have patience with men, and He calls them to come, and He leaves before them an open door. He urges you to enter in today by faith alone, resting in Christ alone, and you will be saved.

There's time, sinner. Come to Christ today and trust Him and become a new creature in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.