WHEN THE CLAY SPEAKS 

ISAIAH 45:1-10

          In this morning’s message we are going to be dealing with the potter and his clay.  When I began looking at scriptures relating these two topics I could see several places where we could began and several titles that the message might have.  But in all the scriptures and titles, there are but two underlying messages.  The first is the sovereignty of God and the second is the yielded state of the clay.  Of the several scriptures that we could began with as a text, God impressed this passage on my heart to be our starting point and the title that he gave me is “WHEN THE CLAY SPEAKS”.

          The history behind this passage is that God uses Isaiah to prophesy that God would use Cyrus, the gentile king of the Medo-Persian Empire to deliver the Children of Israel, namely Judah from the Babylonian captivity.  In fact God anointed and appointed Cyrus for such a task as this.  The prophesy that Cyrus would deliver Israel came over 150 years before Cyrus was born and over 200 years before he made the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.  Some might question God as to why he selected Cyrus.  God’s answer to that is simply verse 4.  “I am the Lord…”  Then in verses 9 and 10 he instructs Isaiah to announce two woes to the people.

ISAIAH 45:9 – 10

          Woe to him who strives with his maker.  We can argue back and forth between each other, but we are not to strive with God.  The Hebrew word translated here as strive is “reeb” which means to contend with, wrestle, argue or debate.  Clay can argue with clay, but clay cannot tell the potter what to do.  So God says here through the Prophet Isaiah, “Shall the clay say to the potter, what are you making”, in such a way as to imply that the clay knows more about what should be done than does the pastor.  This is especially true since the clay has no hands and therefore can not fashion itself. 

          Now many of us would say that pottery can not speak and thus the title of this mornings message, “when the clay speaks” might seem foolish to them.  But today I want to show you that clay does speak.  To get a good understanding of what God is attempting to tell us, we need knowledge of pottery making.

          The first thing that we must understand is that before the potter ever begins working with the clay, he decides what he is going to make.

ROMANS 9:20-21

          The example that Paul is giving here is to express the sovereignty of God.  Cannot the potter or creator make what ever vessel he chooses and for what ever purpose he decides; vessels of honor and of dishonor.  Here we must understand that honor and dishonor do not imply that one is good and one is bad.  For no real potter would take his clay and start out with the purpose of making junk.  This would be better understood as a vessel of beauty and elegance or a vessel of function and use.  To the potter both vessels have their purpose and can bring glory to the potter. One vessel shows the beauty of the potter’s artistry and the other shows wisdom of his craftsmanship.  Both vessels, whether for art and beauty or craftsmanship and function, speak of the excellence of the Potter.  If the piece which is to be sat on the mantle and admired is ugly and difficult to interpret then it probably will not be seen as good art and will not speak well of the potter.  Of if the pitcher that is to be used to carry water from the river is flat with no handles, few will think of the potter as a wise craftsman.  The pottery or clay speaks of the potter. 

          So the potter decides first if he is making an item to be viewed as art or one to be used for a particular function.  The potter is sovereign in this decision.  He does not ask the clay, “What do you want to become?”  In fact this decision is made before the clay is selected.

          How does this relate to us as believers?  Well God as the master potter, sovereignly determines the vessels that we are to become.  When we come to Christ we give up the right to determine the type of vessel we will become.  Will we be a vase to be admired, a cup from which to drink water, a sculptured piece for a museum or a bowl from which to feed a pet.  As believers we have no say so.  Ephesians 2:10 tells us “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Philippians 2:13

          As believers, children of God, we must understand that we have given ourselves over to God to do with as he chooses.  We must be sold out to him.  We have by invitation said to God work in me as you will.  Do that in me which is your good pleasure.   And so the master potter sets out to make a vessel of his choosing.

          Now because the potter is sovereign in his choice of what to make he also takes on much of the responsibility of associated with making the vessel, the first of which is the selection of clay.  There are two types of clay; primary clay and secondary clay.  Primary clays are those that have remained in their natural forming ground.  There are only a few of these clay fields in the world.  Primary clay is very pure but it is also non plastic which means it is harder to mold; much like those who think of themselves as good people already.  Secondary clays have been eroded and carried away by water and earth movement to be deposited as clay layers below pools of water, rocks or soil; much like those who recognize themselves as the great sinners that we were before coming to Christ.  The weathering process undergone by secondary clays makes them more plastic because exposure to the elements has helped to breakdown the clay particles.  For the modern potter there a five different types of natural clay; one primary clay and 4 secondary clays.  The potter must choose the clay to be used based on the effect he is trying to achieve and the techniques he will use in making the vessel.  However, it is rare for the potter to use 100% of any one type of natural clay.  Also the potter usually adds other raw materials to the clay to achieve a workable balance of plasticity, shrinkage, firing temperature and strength. 

          The most important quality of the clay is its plasticity.  This is what allows the clay to maintain its shape and hold together.  How the clay will respond to bending, rolling, pulling and pressing, the rate of shrinkage, resistance to warping, the unfired strength and the throwing ability all depend on the plasticity of the clay.  This group of properties is called the handling strength because they can only be determined by handling the clay.

          What does this have to do with us?  Well just as the clays are different because of the difference in weathering conditions it has encountered, so are we, each one of us is different when we come to Christ and our differences are based mainly on the set of circumstances we have encountered in life.  Just as not one of the clays can be used alone to make a high quality vessel, neither can any of us alone fulfill God’s purpose in saving us.  Even as the potter must mix the clays adding in necessary additives so God mixes us in the body of believers as he sees fit that the body of Christ as Ephesians 4:16 explains might be fitly or properly framed together and compacted.  Those whom God has placed here at New Freedom are a part of the clay that is to be mixed together that New Freedom might be forged into the vessel God intends for us to be.  With each person that the Spirit of God uses to impact our spiritual lives God is putting in additives in us to increase our handling strength that we might become a quality vessel.  God selects the clay and chooses the blend ratio.

          Having selected the clay, the potter must then prepare the clay for molding.  This requires that the potter first allow the clay to sit and dry out.  Then he must and crush the clay into grains or a fine powder, sifting it often to remove any impurities.  This is similar to the Holy Spirit’s work in us as He purges us of the impurities of sin and ungodly attitudes.

II Corinthians 3:18

          The potter by experience knows when it is time to begin crushing the clay.  He takes a mallet or hammer and breaks the clay into smaller pieces.  Then he takes a heavy rolling pin and crushes it further. The Potter know through experience just how much pressure is required to granulate the clay without destroying its character.  Likewise the God knows what trials and stresses to allow us to encounter that we might be purge of imperfections and changed into the image of Jesus from one glory to the next.

          Having crushed and filtered the clay the potter now mixes it into a paste and allows it to dry into the stiffened, tacky form that we think of as clay.  When it is time to use the clay to make a vessel the potter must wedge (Pound hard) and knead (as one would dough) the clay to mix it thoroughly.  The wedging and kneading is very strenuous work for the Potter.  He must be careful to remove any air bubbles and he must work the clay until it has the proper consistency. 

If the clay could talk this would be one of those places in the process where it would scream to the potter leave me alone.  This is a hard time for the clay because it must be beaten, pound and squeeze into a malleable material if it is to make a good vessel.

Isaiah 64:8

          Judah after years of being in captivity because they refused to submit and yield to God, as they cry out for deliverance, have finally come to the understanding that God is the potter and they are they clay.  Israel by resisting God after all of his warnings only made it hard on themselves.  When the clay insists upon resisting the potter then it must undergo more pound and kneading, more stress.  The potter cannot allow the clay to have its way because if he does he will be unable to forge a good vessel and the vessel produced by the potter speaks of the potters artistry and craftsmanship.  When we resist God we are like rebellious Judah or stubborn clay.  We force the potter to intensify our stress and allow more trials to come our way.  The sooner we learn to yield to the potter’s hand, the sooner we will move towards becoming the vessel God has purposed us to be.  As long as we are calling ourselves sons and daughters of God, he will not quit because the vessel he is creating will speak of his artistry and his craftsmanship.

          It is at this point that the clay is finally ready for the wheel. It is on the wheel where the potter begins to shape the vessel into its final form.  He starts with a flatten base of clay and adds clay coils to build the desires shaped, smoothing each coil into the previous coil.  If the clay was properly prepare in the previous step it will be soft enough to easily adhere to the previous coil.  If the clay is unyielding the potter must sprinkle the coils with water to soften them.  Again the clay must yield to the potter if it is to be properly shaped into the desired vessel.

JEREMIAH 18:1-4

          Here as the potter was forming this vessel, the clay was unyielding to his hand, this caused the potter to have to reshape the vessel.  Maybe the clay was cracking because there were still some impurities remaining in it.  Maybe the coils would not mold together because the clay refused to endure more pounding by the potter.  Maybe the clay refused to be smoothed in some areas.  What ever the reason, the potter was not able to make the desired vessel from the clay. 

          We too can become just like this lump of clay.  We can refuse to yield to the Spirit of God as he works to create a clean heart in us, a pure soul and a godly lifestyle in us, and the vessel we become will then be full of cracks.  We can refuse to endure the trials we face in a Christ like manner and seek to handle them in our own way.  This would be the same as the clay saying stop pounding on me; I think I am ready to be a vessel just like I am.  This clay would not be fit to mold in with the other clay and in fact would be difficult to smooth into the vessel.  Now a vessel without a smooth surface can never be considered fine china and it will be difficult to decorate with beauty.  If the clay will not yield to the potter it can never speak of his artistry because it will not make a beautiful vessel, nor can it speak of his craftsmanship because it will be cracked or marred.

          Isaiah writes this like the potter just decides to make something else.  In fact the potter normally returns the clay to his reclaim or waste bucket.  There he pours water on it and allows it to sit and age some before he restarts the whole process.  This process of starting over is possible until the vessel is fired in the oven.

Isaiah 30:14

          Here God threatens to break Israel into tiny pieces like a broken potter’s vessel because of their rebellion.  If the potter was not pleased with the vessel even after he had completely shaped it on the wheel and allowed it to dry, he would break it back down into pieces called potsherds and return it to the reclaim bucket.  A good potter only showcases or sells vessels of good quality, because the vessels speak of their potter.

          After decorating the vessel the final step is to fire the vessel in a kiln.  It is firing the vessel that causes clay pottery to become ceramic.  The principle is to supply enough heat over a specific period of time to create chemical and physical changes in the clay body.  The temperature used in firing is determined by the clay mixture used and whether the vessel being made is intended to be earthenware or porcelain (stoneware).  Earthenware is fired at a lower temperature (1800 to 2000 °F) producing a porous material.  Porcelain is fired at 2100 to 2400 °F.   In the firing the chemical structure on the clay is broken down causing molecules to move about and bond together to form a ceramic, nonporous structure.  It is the firing that gives the vessel added strength and stability.  Once firing has occurred the clay can no longer return to its base state.

          There are stages in our Christian journey when we feel that God has tossed us in a furnace much like that used on the 3 Hebrew boys in Daniel 3.  Though the heat of the furnace of life is very uncomfortable it is necessary if we are to be forged into vessels fit for the potter’s purpose.  We cannot jump out of the fire, nor can we demand that the temperature be turned down.  We are the clay, not the potter.  It is the potter who has the expertise even with the firing process.  The potter can not pull the vessel from the fire to soon, nor can he reduce the temperature.  If he does then the vessel will not speak well of the potter.  We are the clay and God is our potter.  God will not skip any pertinent steps, nor will he hold back on the wedging, pounding, kneading, filtering or the firing required to make us vessels of beauty and purpose. The potter will do his part.  Will we as the clay, yield to the potter that we might become vessels that speak great volumes about our potters artistry and craftsmanship. When you speak, what do you say about our potter?