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King Hezekiah was one of the greatest kings of Judah. He was righteous and served the Lord with all of his heart. His father, Ahaz, had been a horrible king and had worshipped idols and nailed shut the doors of the Temple to Jehovah God. In the first month of King Hezekiah's reign, he reopened the temple. He called together all of the priests and Levites and had them cleansed for service again in the temple. The temple was cleansed and the correct sacrifices were made and the people began to worship the One, True Living God! Hezekiah began to tear down the groves of idol worship and the statues that his father had built. He began to remove everything from his kingdom that people worshipped other than the true living, God. He passed laws stating that everyone was to worship only Jehovah God. In 722 B.C., Hezekiah began to celebrate the Passover again and even invited the remnants of the rebel northern tribes to participate. No other king was so thorough in his cleansing of idolatry and zealousness to restore true worship of Jehovah God.

The prophet Isaiah, was the man of God in Hezekiah's life, his pastor if you will, and the King listened faithfully to the direction of Isaiah. Under Isaiah's supervision, Hezekiah began to search the countryside for places of idol worship and destroying them. When Hezekiah heard that some of the people had kept the bronze serpent that Moses had lifted up in the wilderness to heal the snake-bitten people, and that they were worshipping it, the King had the serpent destroyed.

When Isaiah told Hezekiah that he was terminally ill, Hezekiah prayed to God to prolong his life. God rewarded Hezekiah's faithfulness and promised him 15 more good years of life. God gave Hezekiah a sign of this promise and as the king looked at his father's old sundial in the courtyard, God caused the shadow to go backwards 10 degrees! This was not only a great miracle, but also a prophetic utterance in that Hezekiah's goodness and righteousness was turning back the evil brought upon the nation and family by his father!

One would think with Hezekiah being such a great king and having received such a promise and blessing from the Lord, that his son would have served the Lord also. Unfortunately, Hezekiah's son, who was named Mannaseh, was quite the opposite.

Committed to idolatry, Manasseh restored everything Hezekiah had abolished. Manasseh erected altars to Baal; he erected an image of Asherah in the Temple; he worshiped the sun, moon, and stars; he recognized the Ammonite god Molech and sacrificed his son to him <2 Kin. 21:6>; he approved DIVINATION; and he killed all who protested his evil actions. It is possible that he killed the prophet Isaiah; rabbinical tradition states that Manasseh gave the command that Isaiah be sawn in two. In fact, scripture summarizes Manasseh's reign by saying he "seduced them [Judah] to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel" <2 Kin. 21:9>.

He was so evil and so horrible and yet, King Manasseh found a place of repentance. He was briefly taken into captivity into Assyria. Several older copies of the scriptures give extra notes about his captivity. The Chaldean text adds to verse 12:

Mannaseh's prayer of repentance was recorded in Jewish History and is a part of the Apocryphal books. These are the closing lines:

Manasseh was saved from death in the iron mule, and found God's mercy, despite all that he had done! God even allowed him to go back to the throne and Manasseh became diligent in destroying the idol worship which he had once supported:

We serve a merciful God! Nothing you've done is too far for God's mercy to reach! Don't ever think that God doesn't love you for the merciful God of Manasseh is the still the merciful God of today!

Just ask King David who committed adultery and then murder to cover it up. And yet God forgave him and he became "a man after God's own heart." And God gave David the eternal claim to the throne of Israel, and allowed him to be the great (26x) grandfather of Jesus Christ!

Just ask Jacob who was the loser of the family, the deceiver, the liar, and conniver, and yet God met him one night and Jacob's name was changed to Israel and God's chosen people came out of the one who had once been everything that God stood for!

Just ask Saul who persecuted the church and killed thousands of innocent women and children and volunteered to hold the coats of those who were stoning the great evangelist Stephen and then later was met by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and surprisingly didn't receive judgment but mercy and became the greatest theologian and missionary that ever lived.

Just ask Peter who denied Jesus Christ 3 times and fled from the scene and then found a place of repentance and 50 days later preached the first, Apostolic, Holy Ghost-filled sermon.

Just ask the lady caught in the very act of adultery who was thrown down at Jesus' feet with accusers standing by with stones and yet found only forgiveness in the master's eyes and not condemnation.

Just ask James the brother of Jesus who spent the years of Jesus' public ministry in rejection of the message, but later found a place of repentance and became the leader of the Early church in Jerusalem.

Just ask the people in the church in Corinth:

God is a merciful God! The reason that you and I are here today is because of the mercy of God! He saved us by His grace, but the reason that we can stand here in praise is God's mercy!!!!!

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In our text we read about how that God spoke to Jeremiah and told him to go to the local potter and watch him work. There in the potter's house, God began to teach Jeremiah a mighty lesson.

3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 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.

If you've ever seen a potter work, it is really a fascinating thing. A potter first mixes up clay in the right consistency and then mixes it with water and then uses his hands to knead the clay to make it suitable to work. A potter can't just go out into the field and get dirt from the ground and that be suitable for making a vessel, but the clay must be mixed with water and set up and then molded and kneaded repeatedly in the potter's hands. It is quite a long process to get clay ready for the potter's wheel. After the clay is placed upon the wheel, the potter will then work the clay some more and then repeatedly feel the moist lump of clay, and when the clay is at the right consistency and timing then suddenly the potter can cause a slight amount of pressure and almost as if by magic, the vessel will begin to rise from the spinning wheel. In examining and feeling the vessel, the potter can tell immediately the faults of the vessel which ordinary people cannot see. And if there is a defect which would cause the vessel to be weakened, the potter crushes the clay back down and adds water and begins to once again shape and knead and work the clay until the clay is again at the right consistency to form a vessel. He does this process over and over again until He finally has a perfect vessel that is worthy to be cured for use.

This was the process which Jeremiah was observing, the constant working and adding of water to the clay, the constant forming of a vessel, the careful examination and the crushing back down upon the wheel until the pure vessel is created. While he was watching, God spoke to Jeremiah and told him:

From this we learn a tremendous principle. God considers and treats a man or a nation like a piece of clay in His hands. When Adam was created, he was formed from the dust of the ground, that was clay. Jesus repeatedly compared the Holy Spirit to "living water." When the clay of a man's life, and the water of the Holy Spirit come together, they do so for the master potter, Jesus Christ to begin a process of making us into material out of which that he can make a willing vessel!

When you receive the Holy Spirit, you don't automatically become perfect, but the hands of God begin to mix the Holy Spirit in with the clay of your life! The hands of God begin to try to intermingle the clay. If you are becoming to hardened, then God will try to add a little more spirit to you to keep you soft, so that the hardness of the clay is naturally broke down through the kneading process.

That's what God is doing when He begins to reveal more and more of His Word to you. That's why God begins to deal with areas of you life, that you never realized were unGodly. That's why God allows you to go through some trials and persecution because God is trying to work the Holy Ghost into every area of your life. The water must be evenly distributed throughout the clay. Those trials and persecutions that God allows to come in your life, aren't the hand of the devil, but are the hands of Almighty God, the master potter, kneading your life and getting you ready to be made into a willing vessel of honor! If all of the clay is soft and malleable except one small part, then God begins to work on that one part, for the clay can not be placed upon the wheel until it is completely yielding to the master's hands!

Once you are placed upon the wheel, then the kneading and molding begins again. More water is added and the clay must become firmly attached to the foundation of the wheel. The clay must be reworked and then at the right moment, God applies just a little more pressure and then the vessel springs forth from the wheel.

That's why in our life, God places us in situations where it is necessary to build a foundation. We have to make up our mind to stick it out with Jesus even when we can't really see the vessel which He is building. We have to trust God, we search His Word, we go through a time of seeing it for ourselves. God is attaching us to the wheel. And then after a time of faithfulness, God then applies just a bit more pressure and a vessel springs forth from the wheel. Unfaithful people never reach this stage. Unfaithfulness to God and the house of God robs people of the pleasure of seeing the vessel rise out of the pressure! They go through the trials but don't stick it out to see the reason!

Then when that vessel is formed, God begins to inspect the vessel. If he detects a flaw in the clay which was not worked out, then He crushes it back to the wheel, adds more water, and then begins to rework the clay and the process begins all over again!

Never forget that your life is in this continual process. God is in the process of making a beautiful vessel. Some people rise once and when God crushes them back down, they quit, get off the wheel, and allow themselves to harden. Some people jump off the wheel before God can inspect them or as He begins to inspect them. They want God to make something beautiful out of their life, but don't want His Word to see into the depths of their vessel for they know that there are flaws. Therefore they jump off the wheel and allow themselves to harden, and forever stay a flawed vessel to God. Inconsistent, Unfaithful, or having a form of Godliness but denying the power of God in their life. Using God rather than being used of God. As for me, I will choose to stay upon the wheel! I want God to be able shape me into a vessel of honor, and if I must be crushed once more, Lord, I'm willing!

Jeremiah went and preached this to the idol worshipping Hebrews! He preached the message of the potter's house! He preached the message of mercy. He told them that "you have not yet gone beyond God's mercy." There was hope. There was mercy being extended. There was forgiveness being extended just as there is tonight! God had sent the man of God with a message of mercy!

But Israel didn't respond. They didn't find a place of repentance. They got angry at the messenger rather than convicted at his message. At the end of chapter 18, they threatened the prophet's life. They rejected God's mercy.

Then in chapter 19, God gave Jeremiah a new message. He told him to take an old bottle. A piece of pottery that had hardened and had been through the fire. He was to call the elders of the city together and he was to raise the bottle above his head and throw the bottle to the ground and shatter it on the ground and then God made a disturbing statement:

You see if the clay ever becomes hardened and to the place where it will not accept the water. It becomes waste, it becomes good for nothing, it cannot be formed up again or molded into anything. So it is thrown broken out into a field and rejected for it became unyielding!

Becoming hardened to the working of God. Becoming hardened to the Spirit of God, the everlasting water. Becoming embittered at the constant molding process is a dangerous action for it causes a person to get beyond the mercy of God! We must not become unmoldable! If we ever reach a place in our life where the Word of God and it's principles are not important enough for us to change our lives, then we have done the unthinkable, we have removed ourselves from the mercy of God!

I could go through scripture after scripture in the New Testament of how many people missed out on the promises of God because they hardened their heart! It is prophesied that the days of the end would be a time where men's heart would be hardened and they would have their conscience's seared with a hot iron! You need to make up in your mind, that you will never question God's ways. Allow God to mold you in whatever way He sees fit. Don't harden yourself against the living water of the moving of the Holy Spirit, for to do so is to remove yourself from beyond the reach of God's mercy!

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Why did God forgive King Manasseh despite the evil things that he had done? Because Manasseh allowed himself to be crushed in the hands of the master potter. Remember his prayer?

Manasseh, wretched sinner though he was, allowed his heart to become soft in the hands of God!

Why would God forgive David after such wicked and horrible sins? Because of his heart's condition. Listen to his prayer of repentance found in the 51st Psalm:

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The potter's field is only found one place in the New Testament. It is in the story of Judas Iscariot realizing what that he had betrayed an innocent man, and throwing down the 30 pieces of silver in the temple and going and hanging himself.

The Pharisees took the money that they had paid Judas to betray Jesus, and they bought a parcel of land in which they could bury criminals and people who had no money or family. But the field that they purchased was the "reject" field of an old potter! The ground that was bought with Judas' betrayal money was literally covered with pieces of broken pottery that had been rejected and cast out of the potter's house for becoming too hard and unpliable!

Verse 9 has often puzzled Bible scholars because it seems to state that the using of the thirty pieces of silver to purchase land was a fulfillment of the prophet Jeremiah's prophecy. But Jeremiah never prophesied about the 30 pieces of silver. It was Zechariah that prophesied about 30 pieces of silver being the betrayal price. So some Bible scholars have thought that Matthew erred in writing.

But the point of the prophecy is not the thirty pieces of silver in Zechariah, but the potter's field of Jeremiah. . It is a direct fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy that we have read as our text of the field that held the cast away pottery

Why did Judas Iscariot not find a place of repentance? Because he had become so hardened that the Holy Spirit could not work in his life! His legacy was to forever be the potter's field of castaways. Of people who became so hardened that they took themselves out of the reach of God's mercy! Judas Iscariot couldn't use the typical excuses for why people will not let God's Word mold them. It wasn't the preaching that Judas heard, because he was hearing heaven's finest. It wasn't the teaching, because the Ancient of Days was teaching him. It wasn't a lack of power, because he had seen the dead raised and even been anointed of God himself to heal blind eyes and cast out demons. It wasn't a lack of commitment because he had been willing to forsake his life and follow Christ. It wasn't because of time because right until mere hours before the arrest, Judas had an opportunity to repent. It wasn't because a lack of compassion or love because Jesus Christ got down on his knees with a wash basin and lovingly washed Judas' feet minutes before those feet would walk out on the Lord.

When all of the excuses are pushed through, and every mask is pulled off, why do people grow cold in God. Why do people fall away? Why do people quit church? Because they harden their heart. The excuse masks a hardening toward the Spirit of God and the moving of God in their life. But Oh that we can have the attitude of David, of the repentant Manasseh, of Peter who wept bitterly and repented! A broken and contrite spirit, God will NEVER refuse!