July 9, 2023 - Jeremiah 18-19

I don’t believe this has ever happened. Today’s Scripture text is the same as that for my sermon, this morning: the potter and the clay, the hardened pot. In the sermon, I paraphrase a conversation between the people and God:

THE LORD: “Return.”

THE PEOPLE: “We will not.”

THE LORD: “Who has ever heard of such, even among the nations! I will scatter them. I will turn my back to them.”

THE PEOPLE: “Let’s attack the messenger, Jeremiah.”

There’s that response by Ulysses Everett McGill in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? – “That don’t make no sense!” How graciously and mercifully the Lord reaches out to us! The prophet Ezekiel reminded, “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die?” (33:11) It just makes no sense to turn away from a gracious and loving God and to die in sin.

Sinners, turn: why will ye die?

God, your Savior, asks you why;

Will ye not in Him believe?

He has died that ye might live.

Will ye not His grace receive?

Will ye still refuse to live?

O ye dying sinners, why,

Why will you forever die? -- Charles Wesley (1742)