"god Uses Broken Vessels."

SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES

(2 Timothy 2: 20, 21) (20) "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor." (21) " If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

(Jeremiah 18:1–6) NKJV (1) "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying:" (2) “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” (3) "Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel." (4) "And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make." (5) "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:" (6) “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord.“ Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!"

(Isaiah 64:8) " But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."

(Jeremiah 29:11) "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."

PREFACE SUMMARY

Beloved, this is a timely message on the life of the prophet Jeremiah that will help open our eyes to the way God uses the trials and heartbreaks to break our stubborn will and produce Godly character that will prepare us to be leaders in the coming battle with the kingdom of darkness.

The prophet Jeremiah lived in a dark time in Israel's history, and he is known as the weeping prophet because of his burden for his people to turn from their wickedness and turn back to the Lord who gracefully delivered them from Egypt's bondage but instead of embracing his message, the people turned on him. They placed him in solitary confinement with sand in the bottom.

Did you know there was a time in the prophet's life when he said he would not mention the name of God again but later recanted that statement, saying, "It was like fire shut up in my bones, and I could not stay? (Jeremiah 20:9)

God wanted the prophet Jeremiah to realize that his ways are not like man's ways and he does not see the way man sees; therefore, he instructed his prophet to go down to the potter's house and observe the work that the skilled potter would work in making a vessel upon the wheel.

The message these scriptures present for us today helps us understand the pruning process needed to produce Godly character by breaking our self-centered ways, including our fleshly desires, which can only lead to destruction.

Look at all the hate and unrest in the age we live in that is putting pressure upon church pastors, causing them to resign because it is affecting their ability to lead, for they know they have no one they can trust to help them with their problems but God because other leaders will expose their secrets to make themselves look good.

In this inspirational message, we will give the vessel being fashioned on the potter wheel a voice that it might talk back to the potter, complaining about the way it was made and its reluctance to go through the fire that is designed to harden its exterior and cause it to stay together.

Did you know that Judas hanged himself in what they call the potter's field, and did you know that that field was called that because it was a place they used to discard their broken pieces of pottery? And did you know that if pottery has a flaw, no matter how often they moist and put it back on the wheel, they can never remove the spot?

Did you know that someone once discovered that if they find a specific tick that has been sucking the blood of a lamb, the mixture of that tick's blood, which represents the world, and the lamb's blood, which means the blood shed by our Lord on seven different places on this Earth during the atonement for our sins, will cause the piece of pottery to go back flawless?

Beloved, Jesus may have never had the kind of entrance into this world like King Solomon, but God wrapped his birth and destiny in creation. Even today, if we were to go to a courthouse to get a deed or some other important document, the critical document would read, " In the year of our Lord A.D."