The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-10-10

HELPFUL AND READABLE DISCOURSE
ENTITLED a LIFE MADE OVER"


NEW York CIrY-The Rev. DR. J. VIII
bur Chapman, the popular pastor-eyangel
LET, who breaches to overlooking congrega-
tions in this city, has furnished the follow
ing eloquent sermon 10 the press. II was
preached from the text $50 he made 1t
again" Jeremiah Is: 4.
To any one familiar with the prophecy Of
Jeremiah up TO this point in the Scripture
It will be apparent that Israel was rushing
on TO destruction, and Jeremiah seems
powerless to stop them in their mad
course. One day as he passes along the
highway he beholds potter working in a
booth, and as he turns aside he behods
him with the clay in his hands and the
wheel revolving, toiling away until this
piece of work is finished He looks at it
with disappointment, and then crushing 1t
into his hands be kneads it over and over
and finally makes it again az the text de-
olares. Jeremiah is interested, and then he
saw the spiritual significance of it all as
we read in the fifth and sixth verses of
this 18th chapter, "Then the word of the
Lord came to me, saying, o. house of
Israel, cannot / do with you as this pot.
ter? 2hth the Lord, Behold as the clay
IS in the potter's hands, so are We in Mine
/ hand, o house of Israel" The trouble was
not with the potter; he was evidently q
good workman, nor with the wheel, for
that seemed TO do its work well, but en-.
tirely with the clay Sometimes the clay
was coarse and difficult to mold, other
times it was full of grits, but there were
two courses that were opened to the pot
ter. First he could purify the clay by re-
h-sving the eoarser elements, and second,
/ ne could make a rude vessel of the material
at hand This is familiar figure in the
I Scriptures, for we read in Isaiah 81: 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" and
T then we read in the New Testament in
PauPs Epistl7 to the Romans, the 9th
chapter am he Dist and 22d verses,
! Hath not thu potter power over the clay,
Of the same lump to make one vessel unto
honor and another unto dshonor? What
T If God willing to show His wrath, and to
make His power known, endured with
much long suffering the vessels of wrath
Fitted to destruction"
We are the clay, God is the potter. Clay
IN itself is most unattractlve, but the art
ist looks upon it with interest because oil
what he sees in it in the way Of beauty af-
ter his hands have touched it. This makes
the difference in two pieces of canvas, one
If touched by the master hand and is a
masterpiece, the other is simply canvas in
a traveller stood watching a potter work
In the factory one day and said to him,
why is it In these days when such won.
derful mechanical tools are constructed
this work is not done by machinery rather
! than by hand" and the potter said,
There are some pieces of work which can
Honly be brought to perfection by the
touch of a human hand, and so it is in
the formation of character. Whatever
may be ones social position or his financial
wealth he will not be able to please God
nor to be prepared for heaven until the
hand Of God has touched him. This is a
picture of our regeneration, for regenera.
hon is the coming into us of the life OF
God. / stood one day in Venice watching
the glassblowers, and while glass in its
natural state was most uninteresting, Just
as soon as the workman began to blow the
breath of his own life into it it became
thing Of beauty. Adam, back in the Old
Testament becoming living soul is the
Old Testament story of Gods inbreathing,
while the child of God in the New Tesla
ment is the New Testaments story Of that
same inbreathing.
The day of our conversion we yielded
Yourselves to God; that was the closing of
Yourselves in the hands of the potter AS
we came into the light with Him God saw
imperfeetions in our makeup, things that
were not pleasing to Him, and so He put
His finger upon this or that; some Of these
things we have not been willing to give up,
and SO our lives have been married. We
have had controversy with Him, and
wherever there is controversy there is
no peace. We are Christians, it is true,
sbut we are fruitless and joyiess, and many
@.of us are shorn of power. The vessels were
marred IN the making but it is a comfort
ing thing TO know that we are in the hands
of the potter STILL and although we failed
yesterday we need not fail tomorrow, for
He win fashion us if we will but permit
Him to do 50 in the likeness of His own
dear Son. We are to be holy, we are to
be pure Of heart, we certainly are to have
fellowship with Christ, we have been in
bondage long enough, now the question is
shall we yield or not. Suppose we do not
yield, are we then lost? Certainly not
= Paul says "He is able to keep that which
j baye cswaaitted unto Him." and in the
9ighth chapter of Romans he seems to ex-
haust language to soar into heaven and to
make his way to the very depths of the
earth and then to cry aloud, Nothing
shall be able to separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord" but we shall be shorn OF peace and
Of power and OF blessing and while certain
kinds of work will 60 on in our lives an
gother kind Of vessel will be made. Ro-
4mana 9: q, "Hath not the potter power
over the clay Of the same lump to make
one vessel unto honor and another unto
dishonor." We might have been vessel
ia the kings palace, we might have been
in the throne room of the king, we might
have been used to carry life to the dying
and God would and you would not is a
sad story of many life.
III
God has a plan for every life. Jeremiah
did not know what was in the mind of the
potter, but he knew that he was working
according to a plan, but we know what is
Ia Gods mind Romans s: 20, For whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate
10 be conformed to the image of His Son
that He might be the first born among