Brother Jim Sunday School 6/28/15

Brother Jim Sunday School 6/28/15

I was reading a book on lessons that the person had learned from their dog.  The thought was how honest a dog is.  They forgive when they are mistreated.  His wife went through cancer and the dog seemed to help in the situation. 

His wife liked pottery.  To spend some time with her, he went to a pottery place with her.

At one time I had a real problem with questioning God with how things had happened.  You think of a servant working so hard and diligently for Him and they be snatched away.  I woke crying in the night and Sue told me, “You have to get a hold of yourself.” 

The scripture came to me, “Why criest thou against thy maker?”  He is the potter and we are the clay. 

We see many youth today that are letting the devil destroy them.  We have some talented young people coming up.  If they will be that pliable clay in God’s hand He can really use them.

I am so grieved at what children go through.  Our pews should be filled with our young people.  We turn and look around us; we don’t have our head in the sand.  We see what is going on with the children and young people. 

In clay, it is so deep how it is formed.  Uses and sources of clay:  The most significant surrounding materials is clay.  A ceramic product is made from a nonmetallic material by use of heat.  Plumbing, roofing, things that need to be heat-resistant, electric insulators, rocket nose cones…

The studio potter is far down the list of clay users.  The studio potter, the individual potter, was the beginning.  Pottery is a product, by people, for people.  It is through pottery that much history has been learned. 

Pottery brings us back to the concept that all of us are really the same.  Some people think they are really something, but they, as we, are just a lump of clay.  Clay is the most universal material on earth.  75% of the earth is clay or will be clay. 

Clay can contain too much rock, sand or branches.  These must all be sifted out until the clay can be used.  After cleaning the clay, the water is added and the clay is molded into a usable lump.  Clay mines use heavy machinery to clear away the dirt and uncover the deposits.  Sometimes a shaft is used to find and mine the clay. 

Over 100,000,000 tons of clay are mined in the US each year. 

The properties that make clay different from dirt, plasticity, porosity, ability to vitrify. 

Plasticity has to be our first consideration.  You cannot begin to make pottery without it.  It must be able to hold its form while at the same time be able to be molded by the potter’s hand.  There must be platelets that can slip and slide to be shaped. 

There is smaller and smaller and smoother and smoother platelets.  Bentonite is the kind of clay that has platelets that are so small and smooth that you cannot use it to form pottery.  They use it to force oil out of a well that is going dry.

Something has to be added to make clay slippery and sticky.  Water is this substance.  Too much and it is goo; too little and it is powder.

Organic matter: decayed leaves, roots and grasses can be ground and mixed with the clay.  Acids break down the organic matter.  If you can wind a cord about an inch thick around your finger and it not crack then it is plastic enough.

Porosity is the second most important thing about clay.  It must be porous or course enough to let the water escape easily so that it can dry uniformly.  You can add silica sand to help with this.

Vitrified: Clay must become hard at a certain temperature.  Most materials become soft or sag when they get hot.  If it is fired too high clay will melt like a pancake.  Knowing the temperature to heat the clay to is important. 

Types of clay is based mostly on their ability to vitrify.  But also can be divided into groups according to porosity or plasticity.

Earthenware is a low-firing clay.  It only partly vitrifies when it gets hot.  A red pottery pot will get wet clear through. 

Stoneware clay can be red or grey but never pure white.  It can be partially vitreous.  It will absorb a little water but not so people will notice.  At 2310 the clay becomes vitreous.  It is white or off-white.  They are harder than steel but more brittle. 

Earthenware, stoneware, or porcelain are the subgroups.  There are 100’s of subdivisions in each of these areas. 

Jer 18:1  The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Jer 18:2  Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

Jer 18:3  Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

Jer 18:4  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.

Jer 18:5  Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Jer 18:6  O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

We are His creation. 

The period between the New and Old Testament, there were various activities of the potter.  They had stone wheels, as they revolved the pottery: “with his hands he molded it and with his feet he softened it.”  You have to get it so that it is soft enough to be able to form it. 

God sent Jeremiah to the potter’s workshop to give him an object lesson.  The vessel made was marred in the hand of the potter and he made it again another vessel. 

Pottery workshops were usually outside the town so that the smoke from the kiln did not irritate the people of the city.  The potsherd gate was probably where the pots were made.  There was an illusion of the towers of furnaces was made in the Hennom valley.  It is also there at the valley of Topheth where sacrifices of children were made to a false God. 

It is referred to in some places as a type of hell.  There was pottery parts and smoke and piles of rubbish.  It was not pleasant to walk through. 

The earliest potter’s wheels were probably two flat stones one rotating on another. 

God demonstrated His sovereignty as being able to remake Jerusalem.  The Lord God formed man from the dust off the earth and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and man became a living soul. 

God created man from the native clay of the earth.  In the midst of his tribulation Job cried out to God.  “Thou made me as the clay and wilt thou bring me unto dust again?”

We sing the old songs of reformation glory.  God gathering His people again.  There are different vessels in the tabernacle that were designed for God’s use.  That is what we are supposed to be.

2Ch 36:18  And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.

2Ch 36:19  And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.

2Ch 36:20  And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

These vessels were rescued and carried to Babylon.  We know that there are people in Babylon that are God’s vessels and to be reclaimed.  We want to be a help.  The church is God’s and on His shoulders.  We want to be there and be a help to each one that we can, and also not be a hindrance to a child that wants to serve God. 

We want to encourage each one and see them rescued.