The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1902-09-18
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
HELPFUL AND READABLE DISCOURSE
ENTITLED "A LIFE MADE OVER"

/ New York CITY-The Rev. DR.. j. Will
| bur Chapman, the popular pastor-evangel-
! list, who breaches to overhowing congrega-
| tions in this city, has furnished the follow
/ ing eloquent sermon to the press. 1t was
] preached from the text $50 he made it
! again" jeremiah Is: 4.
| TO any one familiar with the prophecy Of
1 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 beholds
| 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 it
into his hands he kneads it over and over
/ and finally makes it again as the text de-
| clares. 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? Saith the Lord, Behold as the clay
hand, 0 house of Israel" The trouble was
| not with the potter; he was evidently a
| good workman, nor with the wheel, for
| that seemed to do its work well, but en-
tireiy 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-
! moving the coarsar clements, and second
| he could make rude vessel of the material
| at hand This is a familiar figure in the
| Scriptures, for we read in Isaiah 81: s,
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
! then we read in the New Testament in
| PauPs Epistie to the Romans, the 9th
| chapter and the 2lst and 22d verses,
| Hath not the potter power over the clay,
| Of the same lump to make one vessel unto
+, honor and another unto dishonor? What
| 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 unattractive, but the art
| list looks upon it with interest because of
what he sees in it in the way of beauty af-
| ter his hands have touched it. This makes
the difference III two pieces of canvas, one
| If touched by the master hand and is a
masterpiece, the other is simply canvas in
its natural state and is not interesting.
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
| 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-
ton IS the coming into us Of the life of
| God. [ stood one day in Venice watching
the glassblowers, and while glass in it's
| natural state was most uninteresting, just
| as soon as the workman began to blow the
breath, of his own life into it it became a
! 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 Testament's story of that
| same inbreathing
| The day of our conversion we yielded
ourselves to God; that was the closing of
| ourselves in the hands of the potter. AS
| we came into the light with Him God saw
| lmpertectlons 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 marred. We
| have had a controversy with Him, and
wherever there is a controversy there is
| no peace. We are Christians, it is true,
but we are fruitless and joyless, and many
| OF us are shorn of power. The vessels were
marred in the making, but it is 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 will fashion us if we will but permit
! 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
i have committed unto Him." and in the
| eighth chapter of Romans he seems to ex-
haust language to soar into heaven and to
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 go on in our lives an
other kind of vessel will be made Ro-
mans 8: 81, Hath not the potter power
OFCI Uuc clay, VI Cuc same lump TO make
one vessel unto honor and another unto
dishonor" We might have been vessel
in 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 pan for every life jeremiah
| did not know what was in the mind of the
| potter, but he knew that he was working
according to plan, but we know what is
| in Gods mind Romans 8: 20, "For whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate
! to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the first born among
many brethren" Philippians 8: II, ssNot
as though I had already attained, either
| were already perfect, but follow after. if
that may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" God
J cannot be satisfied with anything less than
/ this. A workman in factory fashioning a
beautiful design saws an imperfection in
the plan. 70 carry it on meant ruin, and
SO he carried it back to the artist and
| found that it was an error of the copyist.
and that is the difficulty of an inconsistent
| life 1t misrepresents Jesus Christ. There
are people in this world who would scorn
L - IL L L. 4.