Jeremiah 19:10-11 “Then shalt thou break the bottle in the sight of the men that go with thee, And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Even so will I break this people and this city as one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again: and they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury.”
During junior weeks at the Ranch, we have an “Illustrated Message” in which we illustrate Bible truth with something from cowboy life. Sometimes God asked his prophets to do strange things to illustrate His truth. We see a different type of illustrated message in Jeremiah 19.
God instructed Jeremiah to gather a clay bottle and some of the “ancients of the people and of the ancients of the priests”-older folks who were influential leaders in Israel-and go on a trip to a junkyard. Jeremiah was to throw the bottle down on the ground in the group’s presence. That bottle was fragile, unbending, and sun-baked; after he broke in on the ground, it was unrepairable.
Contrast the sun-baked, unbending bottle in chapter 19 to the fresh, pliable clay in chapter 18. Jeremiah went to the potter’s house and saw him work with the pliable clay. God reminded them that He is sovereign and His plan includes applying pressure. What a contrast the pliable clay was to the hard-baked vessel that was broken!
Why had the leaders and people become hardened? They became hardened the same way we are. Time can harden us. Over time, we can become less pliable and more hardened, especially in the ministry. The end result of breaking you is the only way God can move you. Self-will can also harden us. We can blame God for matters when we have not asked His mind on it and selfishly do our own will.
There are two things we can learn from Jeremiah’s illustrated message. First, there is a reason to reach young people while they are still pliable. As marred as they may be, they are still pliable and still have hope to be shaped. Second, there is reason to take stock of ourselves. Are you pliable in the Potter’s hands, or are you a hard-baked, old vessel that illustrates unbending hardness? Will you bend or break?
The talk recently has been about your “biological age.” That is, your chronological age ( ___ years old) can be different from the age your body actually is. You may be thirty-five years old, but your body may be closer to one hundred, depending on how you have treated (or mistreated) it! I think it would be good to have a test for your “pliability age”-a number to describe your pliability and flexibility when it comes to God and His Word. Are you pliable clay or an unbending bottle? Whether you bend or break is up to you.
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