Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today, Stuart Briscoe continues a series, Truth for Troubled Times, answering the question, "What does happen when the people of a nation want nothing to do with God?" Far too often, this is our nation, and Stuart shares more in a moment.

Jill Briscoe: When life's storms suddenly come your way, how do you respond? Do you doubt God's presence, questioning His concern for you? Or do you see storms as part of God's plan for your life and rest assured He cares for you and is in control of all things?

We want to help you trust in God's care and control in all the storms you face by sending you Jill Briscoe's message, *Weathering the Storms of Life*, as well as a set of 12 beautifully designed scripture cards to encourage you in troubled times.

In *Weathering the Storms of Life*, Jill teaches from the Gospel of Mark, examining the disciples' experience in a sudden storm to address the issues of suffering and faith, challenging you to examine your belief in God in the midst of trouble. Her teaching and the scripture cards will encourage you as you discover how you can be sure of God's love for you and His control over every circumstance, no matter how sudden, severe, or unexpected.

*Weathering the Storms of Life* and the set of 12 scripture cards are our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of *Telling the Truth*.

Guest (Male): So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Stuart with "The Potter's House."

Stuart Briscoe: Jeremiah was a prophet. He was a prophet in Judah. You remember that God had created the nation of Israel, uniquely set this group of people apart for Himself. He wanted the nations of the world to see a nation functioning as a nation was supposed to function, and that nation was Israel.

Unfortunately, Israel didn't work out the way it was supposed to, and eventually it split into two, Israel and Judah. Israel went from bad to worse and eventually just totally went down the tubes spiritually, morally, economically, militarily, and was destroyed, and the people were taken off into exile.

Judah was the relatively small remnant of Israel and had the enormous opportunity and privilege of seeing what happened to a nation that does not respond to what God is saying. But they refused to listen. And God repeatedly sent His prophets to them to call them back to Himself.

But they had a reputation for stoning the prophets. Not only did they not listen to them, they just killed them. They just got rid of them. And so when Jeremiah was called as a young person to be a prophet, he was less than enthusiastic about the idea. He was very quick to tell God that it was a bad choice.

God wouldn't listen to Jeremiah, and so Jeremiah finds himself getting into a prophetic ministry. A prophetic ministry was designed and is designed to this day to be presenting a position, a philosophy, and an outlook that is contrary to the prevailing philosophy and outlook of the culture around. A prophetic ministry is challenging the norms.

A prophetic ministry, if it is a divinely ordained one, is something that is saying, "Look, this is what God is saying concerning what He sees in the culture at this present time, and this is what's going to happen if you continue going on the way that you're going on." And Jeremiah faithfully fulfilled that ministry.

He had a rough time because various kings came to the throne. Some of them were violently opposed to anything to do with God at all. And then along came Josiah. Josiah was a godly king. He was also a young man, as was Jeremiah at the time. And these two young men, they didn't work very closely together apparently, but they were on the same page.

And basically what they were endeavoring to do was to turn Judah back to the Lord. Now, Josiah felt that the way to do it was to get rid of all the trappings of all the stuff that was so contrary to the Lord. They had got into idol worship big time. So his approach was destroy the idols, destroy the temples, and get rid of the priests who've been leading people in this way.

Jeremiah meanwhile is saying, "Look, you can do all the reformation you like on the outside, but if the people's hearts aren't changed, nothing fundamentally will change either." And so Josiah was going around dealing with all the externals, hoping it would lead to a change of heart, and Jeremiah all the time was pounding away at the heart attitude.

Well, eventually Josiah got into an ill-advised military expedition and lost his life as a result of that. And as soon as Josiah went off the scene, his reforms ground to a halt. He clearly was the impetus for them. The impetus was not coming from the people at all. They were just set in their ways. They would go through the motions so far as Josiah was concerned, but they weren't going to change anything.

Jeremiah had a great description of this attitude. He said the people were stiff-necked people. And the reason they were stiff-necked people was that they had turned their backs on the Lord, but not their faces. In other words, they were saying all the right things and pretending all the right things, but in actual fact, they were going in the opposite direction.

The best way to get a stiff neck is to turn your back one way and your face the other way. Don't try it. Just take my word for it, literally and metaphorically. Well, round about the same time that Josiah died and his reforms came to an end, something else of great significance for Judah happened. They had had perennial enemies based in Nineveh called the Assyrians.

And the Assyrians had gone into monumental decline and had basically ceased to be an issue. They, of course, had simply joined a historical succession of powers and superpowers. One of the things we've got to realistically look at in the history of civilization is this: that over the years, there have been great nations that have come to the fore.

They've gone into the ascendancy. They have then developed great power. They have then plateaued, and usually there has been inner deterioration and they have gone into decline and they have been defeated one way or the other and they have ceased to exist.

Travel in the Middle East and it's absolutely fascinating. You will see the remnants of all the great nations. You'll see the remnants of all the great empires. And they all have one thing in common: they're gone. And that was what happened as far as Assyria was concerned.

Now for Judah, this was wonderful because now they didn't have to worry about a military threat. Their homeland security was great. In addition to that, the people who didn't want the reforms didn't have to worry about the reforms anyway because the reformer had gone, the reforms had ground to a halt, and so the Judean people said, "This is so cool. This is so great. We don't have to worry about reform. We don't have to worry about homeland security. Everything is just great, and now we'll have the total freedom to do what we want."

Sounds like paradise for them. There was only one fly in the ointment, if I can mix my metaphors here. And that fly in the ointment was called Jeremiah. And Jeremiah insisted on preaching his message. And he was a real thorn in the side of these people. They did not like what he was saying.

The Lord was very much on Jeremiah's side, of course, because Jeremiah was seeking to do what the Lord wanted him to do. And so the Lord determined a slight change of tactics. Same message, but presented in a different way. Maybe that would get it across. And so the Lord says to Jeremiah, "Go down to the potter's house."

So Jeremiah went down to the potter's house. Now, when he got to the potter's house, he didn't see anything that surprised him. It was just an ordinary potter's house. You go into any museum, if you go into any research into antiquities, one of the things that is very obvious is that all civilizations have had their unique approach to pottery.

In fact, when archaeologists start digging around, that's one of the first things they discover. And as they look at the kind of pottery and the various decorations on it, they are able to identify to a large extent the degree of civilization or development of that particular culture. And of course, in the days that Jeremiah was living, there was a skilled trade of potters.

Jeremiah goes down to the potter's house and there the potter is at work at his wheel. Actually, more accurately, at his two wheels. He had two horizontal wheels, one down near the floor, and his feet would manipulate that and he would get it spinning. There was an axle from that low wheel to an upper wheel, and that was spinning furiously at the level of his hands.

Then the potter would get a big lump or small lump of malleable wet clay, and he would slop it on the spinning wheel. And the clay would then begin to spin. But then he would stretch out his hands and put his hands on the clay.

And with the momentum of the spinning clay and the hold of his hands and the varying grip and the various pressures that his powerful forearms but his gentle fingers would put on the clay, slowly but surely, the form of a beautiful pot or vase would develop.

And of course, there's nothing new to this. This was exactly what Jeremiah expected to see. However, while this process was going on, suddenly the potter detected a flaw in this clay. And he simply squashed the whole thing together, it lost the whole form of the pot, and the thing kept spinning.

But he didn't get this big clump of clay and hurl it on the wall and say, "This stupid clay!" No, he patiently began to reform it. He began to rework the whole thing. And now an entirely different piece of pottery that allows for the flaw begins to develop. And that's the story of the potter's house.

You say, "Great. Can we go now?" No. No, you cannot go now. Because that's the story, but you know that if a preacher tells a story, there's always going to be a tiresome application. Here's the application. But it is not mine, and I don't believe it's tiresome. Because God makes the application here.

And this basically is what He says: "Tell Israel." Now he talks about Israel, but it is primarily Judah that he's talking about. "Tell Israel, tell Judah, this very simple statement: I am the potter, you are the clay." Now there is a powerful application of this vivid picture.

God says Israel needs to know. I am the potter, they are the clay. Now what's that mean? Well, Israel is made up of a lot of individuals. And God goes on to show that He fully understands that while He's addressing a nation, He is addressing a nation which is a conglomerate of individuals.

So there is a national and an individual application to what is being said here. God is saying, in effect, that He is the one who is at work in the affairs of men. Well, as far as the analogy of the potter and the pot is concerned, there are two dynamics at work here.

The one is the spinning wheel. And many people would simply say that life is a spinning wheel, and we are like lumps of clay on the spinning wheel. And we are just plonked down in life and we go through the daily round or the common task, as the old hymn would say it.

And life is just one monotonous, tedious spinning of one day following another, one week following another, a month following another, a year following another. We don't get anywhere, nothing happens, it's just boring. And that is life. It is pointless, it is aimless, it is empty. I feel like a big old blob on a spinning universe getting nowhere fast.

I'm afraid that's life for a lot of people. They just get up in the morning and they go to work, and they don't like their work very much. They come home at night and they're tired from the work and they spend a little time doing whatever it is they want to do, but then they drop into bed to get their energy up so they can go to work.

And they go to work and don't want to go to work, but they've got to go to work so that they can have a house to come back to and be bored in. And they sit around being bored in their house. They got married but then very soon the wine runs out of that wedding and they just sit around and do nothing much.

And they live under the same roof, but they've pretty well drifted apart. And then the kids come along and that gives a new spark and they get into bringing up the kids, but then the kids take off and the kids do some dumb things and they get all worried about what the kids are up to.

And then the kids start their own families, and then these guys retire. As soon as they retire they say, "Now what am I going to do? All I've worked for was so I could retire. Now what do I do in my retirement? My golf game is awful." And then they die. And that's it. That's it.

It's almost a relief. Just a spinning wheel and a blob of clay. And there we go. It is the situation for many people. But they're overlooking the second dynamic from the analogy of the potter and the clay. Whilst it is true that life is all about living on a spinning planet, whilst it is true that there is a lot of tedium, there's a lot of monotony and there's a lot of repetition, what we've also got to recognize is this: that there are the strong hands of a sovereign God holding this lump of clay in this spinning situation, intent on forming something of significance.

And that entirely transforms the picture. Now this is what the Lord says to Jeremiah. He says, "Jeremiah, go and tell Israel. Go and tell Israel that they have got to understand something, that I am the potter and they are the clay. And they've got to understand how they relate to Me."

"As far as their relation to Me is concerned, they are not in charge, I am. They are not calling the shots, I am. That I am the one who is sovereign and they are not. They have got to understand that. And they have got to understand that My strong hands are actively involved in the affairs of the nations."

"And that this life existence of the nations and this life existence of the individuals is not a meaningless spinning experience that is going nowhere, but they have got to recognize that it is in the spinning of life, it is in the apparent monotony of life, that I am at work and I am bringing My purposes to pass."

Guest (Male): Stuart, even the best ideas for change in the world won't work if people's hearts won't change. How can a believer change their own heart and, in doing so, influence those around them?

Stuart Briscoe: Well, you're quite right in this question that we talk about great ideas to change the world, but what needs changing most more than anything else is people's hearts, people's attitudes, people's motivations. Now the question then goes on, "Well, how can we change our own hearts?"

The short answer, I think, is we really can't. We can do some preparatory work, but in the end, it is God who's got to do a work of grace in our hearts. The preparatory work? Well, I think if we can begin to think in terms of the two tracks on which the spiritual life operates and explore those, I think this can be the beginning of God changing our hearts.

And the two tracks: one is the track called faith. That is where I trust God to do what He's promised to do. Faith. And the other one is obedience. That track is where I am willing to do what God has told me to do.

So what I need to do rather than thinking, "Oh God, how can I change my heart?" That seems like too big a project. Maybe I can start out by saying, "In what areas am I not trusting God to do what He says He'll do? And in what areas am I failing to do the things that God has told me to do?" That can be the beginning of change.

Guest (Male): Stuart, what would you say to that person who really does feel like life is meaningless and what they do never matters?

Stuart Briscoe: Now if you come across somebody who really does feel that life is meaningless and that all their actions have no significance and no consequences, I think you've come across somebody who's deeply depressed. It may well be that they are going to need some very specific help dealing with this depression, for there are many causes of depression.

Now if we're thinking just about spiritual matters here, but let me stress before I answer it from that point of view, we should not look for spiritual answers to some of the causes of depression. Some of it can simply be that the chemicals in our bodies are out of shape. There can be all kinds of different issues.

But as far as a spiritual situation is concerned, I would say the key is: come alongside this person who is spiritually depressed and befriend them. Bring in things that will encourage them, introduce them to things that might delight them, bring to their attention things that they would desire that they didn't really realize they desired, and slowly but surely, you may see some of that depression lifting.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. It means so much to us here at Telling the Truth when listeners take the time to write letters, emails, or posts on our Facebook or mobile app walls, letting us know how God has used this ministry of the Briscoes to somehow encourage or reach out to them.

Linda posted, "Just listened to today's broadcast. Absolutely brilliant explanations linked to scripture. Listening daily has helped me connect with God and acknowledge my blessings rather than dwell on the pain of the past."

When life's storms suddenly come your way, how do you respond? Do you doubt God's presence, questioning His concern for you? Or do you see storms as part of God's plan for your life and rest assured He cares for you and is in control of all things?

We want to help you trust in God's care and control in all the storms you face by sending you Jill Briscoe's message, *Weathering the Storms of Life*, as well as a set of 12 beautifully designed scripture cards to encourage you in troubled times.

*Weathering the Storms of Life* and the set of 12 scripture cards are our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org.

Next time on Telling the Truth, it's more from the Briscoes about how you can experience abundant life in Christ when you open your life to be changed by God. We hope you'll listen then.