The Cup and the Fire - Part 4 — T. Austin-Sparks

The Potter’s House and the Workmanship of God

For the present, we have finished with the particular theme of this conference, and we are being led this evening to something which is a message in itself, and it takes its rise from a very familiar part of the scripture in the prophecies of Jeremiah, the 18th chapter, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise, and go to the Father's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my word.

Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was making a work on the wheels, and when the vessel that he made of the clay was in the hand of the potter, he made it again, another vessel, as seemed good to the potter.

And I want to put alongside that these words from the New Testament, the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 2, and verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God aforeprepared, that we should walk in them.

Returning to this so well-known illustration of workmanship, the house of the potter to which the prophet was told to go, we read it, or perhaps as we have read it in times past, there are three effects that it can have upon us.

It depends entirely upon which word we underline. We start where we put the emphasis, three words which sum up this whole paragraph, and which of those words we choose to resolve into the message will decide a very, very great thing where we are concerned.

It may affect our whole life. There's the word marred. The vessel which he made was marred in the hands of the potter. If we make that the word, then something of a spirit of hopelessness will come over us, and we shall begin to find inwardly a thinking, and we shall begin to say, yes, I've made a mess of things.

I've spoiled it all. That will have one effect upon your whole life, if you take that word and make it the message. Thank God that is not the message, but it may be. Even in a small gathering like this, there is somebody who's got there, looking back on your life.

You do so with very little gratification, pleasure, rather with regret, perhaps remorse. You fall into this mood. You think of yourself as the clay. You have, perhaps, made a mess of things. You have not fulfilled all the promise, all the possibility.

You feel there's been a breakdown, and that sense of failure, of lost opportunity, and much more in that direction. This shadow over life, and make you feel, well, that's it. Now, it's just to try and get through, in some way, and finish up as decently as we can.

That is a despairing outlook on life, and that will, most surely, be the result of putting your circle around this word, variously translated. Here, in the version from which I have read, now, in another version, spoiled, spoiled.

There's another word here. He made it another, another vessel. And if we put our line under that word, and make it the message, that will open the door to some gloomy thoughts and considerations, which at once begin to say, well, God has not been able to fulfill his original intention.

Well, I am concerned. I have to be content with being his second best, something other, something different, something that he really did not mean me to be. That is, making the most and the best of a bad job.

He's just working with me on an alternative line, and well, that reduces me to being something of a misfit, not what I was intended to be. You see the possibilities of putting your circle around that word, another vessel.

The Triumph of Grace in the Potter’s Hands

But then, there's another phrase here. As seemed good to the potter, to make it. As seemed good to the potter. That introduces an altogether new prospect and possibility and outlook. If, after all, it is possible for him to say, it's good.

My work is good. And to find his own pleasure and his own satisfaction, that will certainly be far better and higher and greater than my greatest satisfaction could possibly be, if God is satisfied. His standard is so much higher than my best.

If he can say, it's good. Well, I say, James, that opens up a new prospect, doesn't it? That introduces the triumph of his grace, in spite of everything. In spite of what we are, and of all our failure, and of all his difficulty with us, his grace triumphs.

His wisdom triumphs over all the problems in us. His love for the difficulties that he has with us. Yes, over all the setbacks he may have encountered in us. If the end is, it's good, in his sight. As seemed good.

I say, that brings an altogether new situation into view. These are the three possibilities that arise out of these words. We choose the third. That is the message. That is the message that I want to bring to you.

Now, our method this evening will be to take the principle that lies right at the heart of this, lifted out of its immediate context and setting, just for the moment, and see it in its larger relationship and application.

Creation, Sin, and God’s Continuing Work

The Bible opens with a father's house. It's a very big father's house, very much bigger than Jeremiah's. When we open our Bible, we find a shapeless, distorted, chaotic mess. To view it, it might present the aspect of utter hopelessness, impossibility.

What can you do with that? It is simply said, the earth was without form, void. Darkness was over the face of the deep. It's chaos. But the next thing, the very next thing, is the great father getting to work upon that shapeless, distorted mess of clay.

He made it again. He made it again. He stood back from the wheels of creation, the making again, it says. He looked on all things, and it was very good. It was God's verdict. It is very good. Principle is our very large application.

But then, it is not long before we come to another breakdown in the whole thing. Once more, the vessel is marked. We know the story of Adam's sin, by which he drew the whole creation into judgment, again under a curse.

He himself came there to spoil. The creation came there to the man, he said, because you've done this, the earth is cast to your feet. Thorns and dryers shall it bring forth by the sweat of thy brow, to eat thy bread.

Oh, we know a good bit about that. To the woman, he said, other things like that are going to be suffering, associated with her life and her function. The clay is marked in the hand, but does he throw it aside?

Does he give it up? Does he say, it's hopeless, it's impossible, I can do nothing with it. And so, discard the whole thing. That is not the God of the Bible. He's got the poor stuff, it is true, the poor clay.

It's proved to be very poor stuff. He sets to work again with that stuff. He sets to work again, and he makes it again, another. And out of that poor stuff, we see a man named Abel emerging. A man who stands in the Bible with much honor, whose name has come right down through the ages.

Something which has found the approval of God. The New Testament puts the distinct approval of God upon Abel. No greater approval could be given than that God should call him righteous. And Abraham, and Abraham.

I'm always so glad you know that in these great men, God never, never, what poor stuff they were in themselves. He lets us see their flaws. The flaws in the clay. He lets us see their weaknesses. He lets us see them break down.

He lets us see that, but for that mighty hand of his, they would make shipwrecks like all the rest. They in themselves are no better stuff than others. But they're in his hands. These are men in his hands.

And there emerges out of that clay, that same clay, the same clay as we are. There emerges this man, Abraham. And what a lot in the Bible there is, which is of this character, is very good. It's very good.

As seen good unto the potter. And what do we say about Jacob? No one needs to be told that Jacob was poor clay. We know, we know, Jacob. Really that word is the synonym for human weakness and worth. Yes, he belongs to that clay.

But he is in the hands of the potter. And when the potter has done his work, he forever afterward is proud to say, I am the God of Jacob. God of Jacob. So we might go through all of the Old Testament, picking out this one and this.

Lift out Elijah and then hear what the Apostle James says. Elijah was a man of like passions. Yes, the same clay, the same stuff. And we know that even in his life there was breakdown. He shows his weakness under the strain, under the tension.

But he stands in great honor with God. He made it again. Out of that breakdown in Adam. Out of that poor, broken down Adam. And Adam represents. Take him this. And made it as it seemed good to the potter to make it.

Principality is at work everywhere. We might go on to look at the men who failed and who were, to use one translation which I rather like, quite a fresh one, who were reworked. That version says he reworked it.

He reworked it. We are his workmanship was the passage we read. We are his workmanship. He reworked it. It would be difficult to know where to start and where to finish with a man who broke down and he reworked.

David Reworked by Grace

We might just take one, I think, of the Old Testament who is quite an outstanding illustration and example. No other than David himself. We've read his psalm tonight. I wondered if you noticed David's way of a heart.

Overwhelmed with the consciousness of its Savior. Its breakdown. The great sobs rising out of that psalm. And if you look to see the history that lay behind it, you see the good cause. Good cause for David to weep before God.

Confessing his sins. Crying, creating a clean heart. Oh God, renew a right spirit within me. And anybody who has the very slightest knowledge of the story of David knows the tragedy of David's life. The breakdown.

Oh indeed, indeed. This was not in the hands of the Father. He failed. He broke down. He became a tragedy from one standpoint. But God didn't give him up. I'm not stopping to give you the details. There are some of them too terrible.

Too terrible. You're amazed. The man was capable of doing that until, until you know your own heart. There you are. This man. Grievously and terribly broke down. Lay with Mark. Boy. But look again. Did God discard?

Did God cast away? He made it again. So that, the David that comes down to us today is not that David, but another one. The David of honor. The sweet singer of Israel. The David of our beloved psalms.

Oh what should we do without the psalms of David? The greatest of Israel's kings. I have found David after my own heart. Impossible to say anything more than that, greater than that. Some things happen.

Peter’s Failure and Restoration

He reworked it. He made it again. Or if we pass out of the Old Testament into the new. At once there leap onto the stage. Men who embody this great principle. What about Peter? Did Peter break down? Was Peter poor stuff?

Andres, I will follow thee even unto the next breath. I tell you I know not the man. Denying as it said with oath. Denying his law. You don't like talking about men in this way and bringing up their false facts.

You have to see that dark side in order to see the marvel of divine grace. And there's Peter. Did that clay disclose law? Seeming unworkableness, resistance. Dear him, to his Lord, to his Master. This shall never come to thee.

Something there in the clay you see. But oh, what a Peter we've got today. Haven't we? That's not the Peter we had. Remember that? The old story? The clay which broke down? Peter we have now is a very different Peter.

We love to read his letters. Wonderful help and inspiration come from his two letters in the New Testament. We love to see him on the day of Pentecost standing up. We love to see him later dragged before the rulers, standing on both his feet and challenging them with all courage and firmness.

What a changed picture. From that fireside denial in the lower hole. When his Lord was standing his trial for his life. What a change. Ah, he reworked it. He made it again. As it seems good. And we all have to say, and it was good, and it is good, it is good.

John Mark’s Failure and Restoration

Or to take one other example and illustration from the New Testament, and these are not the only ones, a young man by the name of John Marr. John Marr. A young man who lived in Jerusalem, who lived evidently in a godly home, who lived in a place where the Lord himself and his disciples were going together to a temple, to have their fellowship.

Wonderful times, no doubt, in that room, and John Marr lived there. The day came when Barnabas and Paul took that young man with them on their great missionary journey from town to town and city to city.

John Marr saw the wonderful things that God was doing. Behold the wonderful works of the Lord. But it was strenuous going. It was costly. And when he reached a certain point on the journey, he said, I am not going any further.

I can stand no more of this. I am going home. The narrative tells us that he left them and went back to Jerusalem. Clay had given up. He found wanting. He had broken down. That is not all. As he reflected upon it, I wonder what his reflections were.

I am quite sure that they were very gloomy reflections. Oh, I have made a mess of it. I tend to think that I have been the cause of the separation of these two great men, Barnabas and Paul. I have been the occasion of their parting, thunder, the end of their united missionary activities.

That is what happened. Over him this thing happened. Those are things, dear friends, which might well lead to some gloomy reflections. The clay seems to have been barred and spoiled. But that is not the end of the story.

Most of you know your Bibles and have leapt ahead. You know how the story finishes. Even Paul says, bring John Mark, for he is profitable unto me. There are some lovely things said about this young man in the end.

Recover, restore, recommission. Full time. And it is he who has given us this beautiful book which goes by the name The Gospel by Mark. And all scholars today are one in the conclusion that Matthew built his gospel upon Mark and Luke very largely did the same.

But Mark was the source of the other stories. He made it again. These are men who broke down in the process of grace trials. Potter did not discard the poor clay. Oh, so much depends, does it not, upon how we interpret this Potter.

The Character of the Divine Potter

Let us look at him. Who is he? This Potter is not a man. How differently men would deal with these people. This is God. He has the clay. Yes, the poor stuff. And he is seeking to work it. And he comes suddenly upon something in it that does not yield.

And to resist for a moment, to pause it, to know what's this, what's this, this. What does he do? Not this Potter to say we can go no further. We must give it up. All our intentions are impossible of realization.

We just throw it aside and look for something better. Not this Potter. That's not the God of the Bible. Watch him. He may be sorry that he has missed that something, whatever it might be. He might for a moment have to pause and think.

But then you see light come into his face. You see the triumph of the smile of his grace and of his wisdom, he said. We'll not be defeated. We'll have something for our pleasure and satisfaction, whatever we find.

That's the God of the Bible. All this that I'm saying to you has one thought towards which I want to lead. And I want to come to that as quickly as I can. God is a God of purpose. God is a God of purpose.

And God does not undertake anything that he knows he can never achieve. And when he does so, he can perfect that thing. He has the resource. He has the wisdom. He has the patience. He has the grace. He has the love.

He has the power. He can do it. That is the God of hope. Glad our brother in his prayer used that phrase tonight. A little complimentary to me over the message. The God of hope. The God of hope. That means the God who never expects something for our comfort.

Those Who Were Not Reworked

But you know, we must always be perfectly honest and perfectly faithful while all this is true in the Bible along the line that we have first used. There's another line in the Bible of those who were spoiled and never remade.

The dark side, we hardly like to look at it, but we must. In order to get a popularity, there were some spoiled and never reworked. You can call them to mind at once. There's Abel's brother, Cain. There's Jacob's brother, Esau.

There's Saul, the first king of Israel. In the New Testament, there's Judah. Yes. These are people who have gone out into the dark. There's nothing about them that is to God's pleasure. But one mentions that for a purpose.

You see, to see the why, the why that was so, is to do two things. Firstly, it is to explain their opposite. That is to tell us why these others did come out to the glory and praise of God. To see why the others did not.

And the other thing is this, to see the explanation will bring us to the door of hope and to promise. Let's look at these men quite quickly. Cain. Why was he unretrieved? Why was he not reworked, made again?

In him, there was nothing. It seems completely lacking the sense of sin. I cannot tell you the whole story of these men. I have to trust that you know enough. And if you don't, you will believe what I'm saying as a summary of their lives.

Cain was a self-righteous man. Cain was a self-sufficient man. Yet with all, a man that had some religion, he built an altar. He brought an offering. To God, he had some religion. If he lived today, he would have gone to church.

But his religion was either just mere superstition or patronage. Religion that acknowledges God, you know, for fear that if you don't, it will go bad with you. It will go ill with you. Thought of safeguarding religion, superstition, or patronage.

Recognizing God, of course, he recognized God. He acknowledged that God is. But minus a sense of sin, to build a religion without having that essential consciousness of your Savior. That's Cain. Cain was a man who did not know his own heart.

If you had said to Cain earlier on, Cain, it will not be very long before you commit the foulest murder. You will take the life of your own brother by your hand. Your own brother will lie dead at your feet.

His blood will be trickling into the foot of Cain and place his head. Oh, he would never have believed that. But that was what was in him. He had no sense of sin. He did not know his own heart. And you know God can't do anything with that.

You notice that all the men on the other side of whom I've spoken, the men who had this deep consciousness, men who believed in the Lamb of sacrifice, men like David, I acknowledge myself. I acknowledge myself.

I gave to thee only if I had done that which is evil in thy sight. They were men with a consciousness, a sense of the need of a Savior, every one of them. But Cain was not like that. And that puts the man out of the hands of God.

He can do nothing with that. He can't rework that. That brings after this the way, the way of the purpose, the way of the glory, the way of the divine satisfaction, the way of the realization, the way of the consciousness of sin.

And if you have that, it's a thing of promise, a thing of hope that brings us to the door of hope, the most hopeless person before God is the one who does not realize in their heart of hearts that they need what he has provided in his Son, a Savior.

He saw Jacob's brother. You know about him. Here again was a fatal lack. He lacked the sense of the supreme importance of things spiritual. The birthright, birthright which brought him or would have brought him into that place of standing for God.

You see, the first God was supposed to stand for God, to be God's representative. He was the priest in the family. He had to do with holy things. He was the one that led the family into the presence of God.

That was the birthright. Much more was bound up with the firstborn and his birthright. But he thought, the Bible says, and this is the final condemnation of that man. He despised his birthright. That is, he lacked this essential consciousness of the supreme importance of things spiritual.

And whatever you have to say about Jacob, that was not true of Jacob. He may be sold the birthright, but he did at least recognize the superlative value of spirit. And wherever you find them in the Bible, you find the same thing, the utter lack of the sense of the supreme importance of spiritual things.

Holding spiritual things lightly and thinking that a mess of potty should gratify some passing whim and appetite, light and pleasure is more important. God can do nothing with that. He never works that again.

Here again is another fatal lack. He lacked that spirit of meekness which trusts and obeys the Lord. That's how it came out at the end. The final downfall of Paul came about because, first of all, he didn't trust the Lord.

He was put to the death. He was given a magnificent opportunity at showing that he implicitly trusted the Lord. And he showed that he did not. His trust in the Lord would have led him to do a certain thing that Samuel the prophet told him to do in the name of the Lord.

And he disobeyed because he did not trust. And that faith, God can't do anything about it. The kingdom was rent from Saul. He went out amarred and never remade better. God is going to do this thing. He must have in us that simple faith which trusts him and obeys him.

It's the very least that he asks of us. And Judas, finally Judas. Lots of things can be said about Judas. But to sum it up, what does Judas mean? Well, Judas fatally lacks an adequate sense of the greatness of his opportunity.

I think that sums it up. He lacks an adequate sense of the greatness of his opportunity. Just what would you give to be called by Jesus Christ into the circle of immediate discipleship, to be with him wherever he went, to share his ministry, to be his companion, to be his helper.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, here in the flesh, and a man in his life, and in the great purpose of God for which he came into the world. Yes, utterly lacking in a sense of the greatness of his opportunity.

The Supreme Importance of Eternal Things

Here we are. We here, every one of us, are called into the fellowship of God's Son. We are all called into the most honorable company and circle that this universe has, living fellowship with God's Son.

In life, in service, in companionship, in suffering for him. All that accepts the call for every one of us. Oh, what an opportunity! What an honor! What a privilege! What an unspeakable! The fellowship of his Son, Paul put it, called into the fellowship.

If God is going to realize all his great design, fulfill all his purpose, make out of this poor clay something that is pleasing to him, as is good in his sight, dear friends, you and I have got to have this, a sense of the great, great honor that is conferred upon us, being called into the fellowship of his Son.

To sum it all up, there must be, as differing from all these men, Cain, and Esau, and Paul, and Judas, there must be in us an over-mastering sense of the transcendent importance of eternal things. That eternal things outweigh all other considerations in this life.

Use a phrase of the Lord Jesus, Be ye first the kingdom of God, that the things of the kingdom of God shall be to us of such paramount importance that must be compared with them, or to come in their way.

All else is worthless. However great the kingdoms of this world, what shall it profit a man? He shall gain the whole world, lose his own soul, which means lose the purpose for which Christ redeemed you.

No over-mastering sense of the transcendent importance of things eternal, if that is in accordance with us, we may be poor stuff, we may be very poor stuff, but make it a gain, a vessel, is good, good, possible, that at long last, or short last, at last, he might look upon his work in you and in me and say, so great, it is very good.

That is the possibility, that is the prospect. The Lord find in us the things that will make it not only a possibility, but an actuality. Shall we sing from the Ketik hymnal, on the Ketik hymnal number 225, through the noise of our ten thousand voices, songs of joy and din of bismarck, comes the sound to which thy near mast hearkens, is the saviour knocking at thy heart.