Christian Biblical Church of God

Biblical Truth Ministries:  “the truth shall set you free”

Order Books Online | Sermon Text Index | Sermon Audio Index | Afrikaans Nuwe

The Holy Bible In Its Original Order  -  Available Now New

Beginner’s Care Package

Good Works, Evil Works #3

Fred R. Coulter

Before we get into the sermon I want to cover a few basic things, a few main things that are very important for us to understand. Let’s first of all go to John 14, because here is a promise that Jesus Christ gave to us. And we will have to see, how is this done? How does it work in our lives? Now this is really quite an all-powerful, all encompassing statement. Now first of all, before you can get to the condition to where this thing will take place…here in John 14, I just want to summarize some basic things. Verse15, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." Now that is a very basic, important thing. And I want to emphasize that, though I may say - which is true - there is nothing that we as individuals can do to compel God to give us eternal life. I’m not saying by any means that we are not to keep the commandments of God. Keeping the commandments of God show that you love Him, show that you are loyal to Him, show that everything your response to God.

Now let’s drop down to verse 23. "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words:..." So it goes more than just commandments. And as we will see, as we’ve already seen, that commandment-keeping without the right heart is as worthless as sinning with an ignorant heart. It really is. It accomplishes nothing. That’s why when you get to Isaiah 1, He says, "The sabbaths, the new moons, away with it, I can’t…" because their hearts aren’t right with God. So here is the key of having our hearts right with God. And all too many times we let other people come in-between us and God. And this is the thing that cuts people off from God. So if you personally do this, "…If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent Me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy [Spirit] Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name,..." (vs. 23-26).

Now notice, "…he [or that is, it], shall teach you all things,..." But what is the condition before that will take place? That you love God, that you keep His commandments, and that you realize that this comes from God the Father. But notice, it says, "…and he shalt teach you all things…" So this is why we want to get into God’s Word so that it will teach us. Remember what it says about the Words of Jesus? These are Spirit and these are truth, and these are spiritually discerned.

Now let’s see how, then, we can let the Holy Spirit teach us all things. And I think we’ve been experiencing in some degree some of what this says. It’s a promise. God says that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. Now how is this accomplished? It’s accomplished in two very basic ways; actually, three. I can just mention 2 Timothy 2:15 (paraphrased), which says, "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman rightly dividing the word of truth." Now that is a very basic thing. Then the other thing is that God is able to use so that we can understand God’s word and so God’s Spirit can teach us all things, we find back here in Psalm 1. It has to do with the way that we are living, and it has to do with the way the way that we are thinking. Because if the Holy Spirit is in our minds - which it is - and if the Holy Spirit is to teach us all things - which is a promise that it will - what are the ingredients that we need to put into that formula? First of all, we saw that we have to love God. Next, we saw that we have to study. Next we have here in Psalm 1 how we should walk, and also what we need to put into our minds. In other words, what can we meditate on unless there’s something there to meditate on? How can we think on God’s Word or think on God unless we’ve studied God’s Word?

Psalm 1:1, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,..." And so that is part of the blessing that God gives. Sometimes it’s not easy. Sometimes we may think it is not a blessing to walk in God’s ways just because of circumstances that take place. But there is a blessing. And that’s where faith comes in. That’s where faith comes in, that we walk by faith in every circumstance. And I was explaining to this person I was talking to on the phone, that that’s what we are really learning, that we are: a) saved by grace; b) we have to walk in faith. And the more that you really study the Word of God, the more you have to realize that you have to walk in faith, and that God’s Word is true, and God’s Word is right; and God is there to back it up, to enforce it, to carry it out; He is there to love us, He is there to watch over us; He is merciful, He is gracious, He is longsuffering, as we will see today. So there is a blessing that you don’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

"...Nor standeth in the way of sinners,..." So there is the way of sinners. But there is what that we are to follow? Who is the way? Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Here is the way of sinners. "...Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD;..." Now I’ll tell you one thing about the Law of the Lord. When you see the goodness of it, the blessings of it, and the reason for it, then you are also going to understand why God has to enforce the penalty of the breaking of the Law, as well as give the blessing for the keeping of the Law. Meditates in the Law of the Lord, "…and in His law doth he meditate day and night" (Psa. 1:1-2). Now here’s the key: if you are loving God, studying His Word, meditating in His laws and word, then the Holy Spirit can reveal whatever the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to you. That’s why a skeptic out here can never understand God’s Word. Because there’s a certain way to do it, and there’s a certain way that must be done with God’s Spirit so it will activate in our minds.

Just like electricity. In order for these lights to work you must have electricity. So in order for God’s Spirit to work in us we must also have the components. So if we could say the electricity is likened to God Spirit, and you cannot have the fan working, an electrical fan working without electricity; likewise you cannot have the fan working without the components for the fan. You can have the electricity, which is God’s Spirit, but unless you have the components it isn’t going to work. So if we have God’s Spirit but we don’t study and we don’t meditate and we don’t pray, then the components to be lead to all things are not there. It doesn’t mean that God is rejecting us, God is putting us aside. But it just means that we cannot grow in grace and knowledge as God would have us grow in grace and knowledge unless we put these components together. And if we do, then it’s no great thing, because we’re following what God has said. And so we can’t go along and say, "Oh, how great scholar…" great this, great that, great anything else. No, it just won’t be.

So I wanted to be sure and cover that. Now let’s read the rest of this first Psalm here. "...In His law doth he meditate day and night." So there are a lot of people who like to meditate. Unless you have something to meditate with, what good is your meditation? Isn’t the whole object to have God’s Word written in our heart and mind, our inward parts? Then we have the tools whereby God’s Spirit can work with us, and work with anybody. Because you see, God’s Spirit is not limited. We’ve heard it said in past time that only the ministers would be the ones revealing knowledge. That is not true. Absolutely...God is the one Who reveals knowledge. Can He reveal knowledge to anyone? Yes. Does that mean that there need not be any teachers? No, because God’s Word says in Romans 10, "How shall they hear unless a preacher be sent" (Rom. 10:14, paraphrased), and teach the Word of God? So everything again, as we see, fits into a tremendous picture that God is presenting for us.

And if we put it all together and rather than, as so many scholars do, they take part of God’s Word and fight it with the other part of God’s Word. And they never come to an understanding because they’re fighting God’s Word. That isn’t what God wants us to do. He wants us to take all of it and to understand it in the whole context. Then we can be led more and more of God’s Spirit into all things. It says that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. And I think it’s really tremendous that most of the opening prayers that we have for our Sabbath services, we ask God’s Spirit to be here, to what? So that Christ will teach us. It isn’t going to do any good if I teach you my thoughts, unless those thoughts are anything but the thoughts of God, or the thoughts in God’s Word. So this is how, then, this is able to happen. And it’s really a tremendous thing. And I hope this week you can think on that and meditate on it and just…I don’t know about you, I do a lot of driving, so it gives me a lot of time to think and to just mull things over. And hopefully that with God’s Spirit we can come to something to understand here.

Now, with that preface - and I know that’s an awful large preface to a sermon - I want to present just a couple things here so that we can understand more about God. Because there are certain things in the Bible which, to our own minds, without God’s Spirit, are completely contradictory things because of a limited knowledge of God. Now let’s go to 1 John 4. And I know this is a scripture we all know of. But we need to reconcile this with Isaiah 45. So today we are going to see how that God, Who is love, can also be God Who creates good and evil. Because the logical conclusion would be - in the way that most people understand God - is that if God is love, which it says so here in 1 John 4; and we have it in two places. Verse 8, "He that loveth not knoweth not God;…" Isn’t that an interesting statement? We just covered that. How do you understand first? First you love God and keep His Word. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

If God is love, how then can He create good and evil, if love is the opposite of evil? Now we’re getting into...we’re really, brethren, getting into areas that philosophers - and of course, they’re mostly Greeks - the Greek philosophers…which Paul said the wisdom of man is the foolishness of God, and the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man. So even the Greek philosophers were not able to understand what we’re going to understand today. And it’s like everything else. The key is very simple. Very simple. You’ve heard of the simplicity of Christ? That’s part of it. The key is very simple. So God is love. We know that.

Now let’s go to James 1, and here is something to also give us a little understanding, give us something to think on. Because this tells us how then God uses what He calls the creation of evil. God is not evil. But He has created good, and He has created evil. Did He not in the Garden of Eden create the two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Yes He did. Actually, you know what this will help us do when we come to a full understanding of what we’re going through? This will help us to trust God more and to put everything in His hands. Many times we get all upset because things don’t work out the way we think that God should work them out. Now that’s, as you know right now, a contradictory statement with the knowledge you have. Things may not work out the way we think God should have them worked out. And we’re going to see, then, how God will actually use what is an evil circumstance and turn it for good.

But right here it says in James 1:13... now, let’s go back to verse 12 to give us just a little greater understanding here. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation:..." Now there is a blessing for enduring temptation and resisting evil. And this will lead automatically to the next sermon on choice. You see how all these things fit together. We do have choices. People in the world have choices. And I’m not so inclined to say that this world is totally Satan’s world. It’s not totally Satan’s world. It is not totally God’s world yet. But God is more involved in the world than perhaps we have thought of in the past.

Just give you an example, during this recent hostage thing, what was it that most people did, or said? What was it that was said to have been the greatest comfort for the pilot? His faith in God; and what did he say carried him through? Reading God’s Word. Did He pray? Yes. Did all of the hostages pray? Yes. Did people pray and look to God who had not prayed and looked to God before, maybe in a long, long time, if ever? Yes. Did God hear and answer their prayers? Yes. Are they going to be in the kingdom of God? Has God called them for salvation? Probably not at this point. But it falls into that category that we discussed earlier, "He who is not against Me is with Me. And he who honors Me I will honor." And so there are a lot of people out there who, though they have not been called for salvation any more than ancient Israel was, but if they, like ancient Israel, as we’ll see in a minute, have a certain amount of faith in God, have a certain amount of trust in God, God will honor that. Now in the confines of a very narrow interpretation of how God works with people, that might seem somewhat unrealistic. But I think it is true. I think that that is true.

Now let’s continue on here in verse 12. It says, "...for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life,..." That means we’re all going to go through trials. Now, are trials easy? No. Are trials in some cases evil to endure? Yes. But what does it help us do? Draw close to God. How does God try us? He gives us choices to choose good or to choose evil. He does not try us with evil alone. God does not tempt any man with evil, as it says here. But He gives us the choice to follow Him or not. That’s how the trial comes. And if you endure then you shall receive the crown of life. As a matter fact, since Abraham endured - you can go back and read Genesis 22 - the blessing of God to the descendants of Abraham became irrevocable. God bound himself irrevocably from that point. He could not change it, because of what Abraham did. Now it says, "...the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him." Now notice again how that love for God has got to be there. And in almost every circumstance, even with the fires that we have here, what did it do for all those people living up in the mountains? They prayed. And they helped one another. So out of that catastrophe good came. Now that’s a key that we’re going to see all the way through.

Verse 13, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed" (vs. 13-14). Now this shows the operation of sin. It begins with lust, which is in the mind. And who is the one who tries to accentuate and thrust lust into your mind even more and more? Satan the devil, through the operation of the spirit of the power of the air, through the operation of all the visual things that we have in today’s society, along with all radio and television and everything all combined. So we’re living in a tremendously intense time to live. Very intense, intense mentally. There’s nowhere you can go without some kind of sound, or a sight, or book, or record, or tape, or radio, or television, or movie, or a newspaper. It’s very intense. I mean, you go back to the time of Jonah, his was not too intense. He even sat down and let God create a gourd behind him, and then had a worm chew it down just to teach him a lesson. Today God might do that on television. It’d be entirely different. So it’s a very intense time.

So God does not tempt with evil, He tempts with choices. And the choice is to obey God or not. But if your lusts get involved - and this is where people begin falling, drawn away of his own lusts, begin thinking of his own way rather than God’s way, and is enticed. So there is an ensnarement. There is an entrapment that comes along. "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (vs. 15). The wages of sin is death.

Now let’s go back to Isaiah 45... no, let’s not go there yet. We’re going to go to Ezekiel...not Ezekiel, Exodus 34, and then Numbers 14. Now again, you’re going to notice that we are going over scriptures that we’ve gone over in the past. But I don’t know about you, there’s a lot more meaning in every one of these scriptures, though we’ve gone over them in the past. It’s like that precept upon precept, or concept, or line upon line, all that together here. Exodus 34:5, "And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God [now notice], merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty;..." And we will see, without repentance. So it must be repentance. Without repentance, then, "...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation" (Ex. 34:5-7).

And this was right at the time when God said to Moses, "Because these people have sinned, let Me destroy them and I will continue My plan with you." And Moses prevailed upon God so that He would change His mind. Now let’s go to Numbers 14. God is merciful and kind and ready to forgive. Before we go to Numbers 14, let’s go to Psalm 86. And whenever you feel down and kind of bad, and you’ve sinned, and just wonder, "Well, am I worth it?" Or, "Is God even interested in me anymore?" whatever, as long as you are not turning your back on God, as long as you are seeking God, well then, go to Him. He’ll forgive. We can look get examples - one of the best examples in the Bible is Manasseh. And you read the indictment against Manasseh. What an evil, evil, evil person he was. And for how long? Fifty-five years. Now most of us here aren’t anywhere near that age. Well, maybe one is, two are. Three? I’m not. I was 51 this past week.

Anyway, remember this: listen to this prayer beginning in Psalm 86:1 "Bow down Thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy." And part of the understanding of God and how great God is, is that you realize how weak and puny and infinitesimal and needy that we are of God. "Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O Thou my God, save Thy servant that trusteth in Thee." There’s got to be that trust. And you can’t have faith without trust. "Be merciful unto me,..." And isn’t that what we just read, that God said that His name is gracious, and merciful, and longsuffering? Has all those meanings. "Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto Thee daily. Rejoice the soul of Thy servant: for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive;..." (Psa. 89:1-5). Ready to forgive. And you can tie that in with what Jesus said about forgiving your brother: seven times seven? No, seven times seventy. You can tie that in with what Jesus said, that to whom sins you forgive they are forgiven. God is interested in forgiveness. And this is the key to understanding how God can be good, how God can be holy and loving and merciful and kind, and yet at the same time execute vengeance, bring about wrath, and create evil against the wicked.

Now we can understand both concepts. You are good and ready to forgive, "…and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee. Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications" (vs. 5-6). Now he was weeping, crying unto God. That’s why God puts us in circumstances, that sometimes the only thing we can do is just go to God and weep and cry and say, "God, I’m here," and maybe open the Bible to Psalm 86 and read and study and pray about that as you go along. God will answer. I absolutely guarantee. Not because I can guarantee it, but because God has already guaranteed it. So my guarantee is not on me, but on the Word of God, that He will hear and that He will forgive. "In the day of my trouble..." And how many of those hostages said, "We prayed. We sat there and prayed." And I imagine after they saw that guy beaten up and kicked and killed, everyone was praying, "Oh God, save me. Oh God, that is terrible. We are in their hands. Deliver us from their hands." And that’s one of those episodes that one of those times we can ask God, "Well how involved were the angels in working this thing out? What happened?" Because even changed old Assad’s mind. You know, president Assad of Syria? He’s the most blockheaded, hard-headed, stubborn, unresilient person in the world. Even He was changed.

"In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee: for Thou wilt answer me" (vs. 7). Now we could, for the sake of the sermon…I don’t want to go through the whole Psalm. It is an absolute tremendous Psalm. Let’s just drop down to verse 15. "But Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and save the son of Thine handmaid" (vs. 15-16). Quite a tremendous and moving, moving, moving Psalm.

Now let’s go back to Numbers 14. Let’s just keep in mind what the children of Israel had done, what they had gone through, what they had done to God. And remember that the cloud was there every day, the pillar of fire every night. They didn’t need streetlights, depend on PG&E, and all that sort of stuff. Here in numbers 14, let’s just do a little review here. Verse 1, "And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept all that night." That was after they sent the spies into the land. This was after a year and a half in the wilderness. Now you think a year and a half in the wilderness would have been enough for anybody. They were ready at the second fall during the Feast of Tabernacles time, I’m sure, to go into the land. Because they came out at Passover time. The second Passover they finished the tabernacle of the congregation, everything was ready to go. Then here at this time, now, they were ready to go into the Promised Land. So he sent in the spies, they brought back the grapes. They told…Joshua and Caleb told how great God would be, what a fine land it is. And the other ones came back and said, "Oh, no, they’re giants!" So all the people wept and cried all night. See, they didn’t have faith in God. They did not have faith in God that He would deliver them.

"And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword,..." Now, accusing God, then, when God has given all this mercy, and all this graciousness; and see sometimes God will judge us back with the judgment we judge God. This is not what God said. He said, "I’ve done it for your good. I’ve done it so that you can have a land flowing in milk and honey, for blessing, for everything that you want." So they turned that all around backwards. "...That our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel" (vs. 2-5). I guess so. Bow down, put your face right to the ground. "Oh God, what a terrible situation this is."

Now let’s go to verse 15. Moses prayed to God and he said, "Now, you know God, what if the Egyptians hear this? And they’ll say that You’re really not a God, You couldn’t really bring them out of the land. They got stuck in the desert and You couldn’t do it." And so verse 15, "Now if Thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of Thee will speak, saying, Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which He sware unto them, therefore He hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech Thee, let the power of my LORD be great, according as Thou hast spoken, saying,..." So he referred back to this time when he heard God say, "...The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity..." (vs. 15-18), and so forth.

He says, verse 19, "Pardon, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy mercy, and as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word: [So He forgave] But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. Because all those men which have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt..." That must have been awesome, to see all that going on. "...And in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times,..." You know, God really endured a lot with those people. "...These ten times, and have not hearken to My voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it: but my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him,..." Very interesting, isn’t it? Another spirit, another attitude. "...And hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land..." (vs. 19-24), and so forth; and then we know that Joshua…and then God gave their own judgment. He said, "Because you said I would kill your children, [He said] therefore your children are going into the land." And He said, "For the number of days that the land was being spied out will be a year for a day for your rebellion against God." So here again, we have the execution of judgment. Now, if you’re going to execute judgment it isn’t going to appear nice.

Ok, let’s go back to Isaiah 45 now. And let’s once again just review this scripture. Isaiah 45:7, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil:..." And it means it is created. Why does God create evil? And for what purpose? And in doing so, why is God still holy and righteous and good and true, and why is He not in the same category as Satan the devil? Now I don’t think you’ve ever heard anyone ask the question straight that way. Because we know that Satan is evil. We know that he is wicked, and he brings evil upon people, isn’t that correct? But he also appears as an angel of light, and isn’t that correct? All right, we will see an example here as to why God brings the evil.

Let’s go to Exodus - not Exodus, Ezekiel. Sorry, I’m getting Ezekiel and Exodus all mixed up today. Let’s go to Ezekiel 14, let’s begin right here in verse 1. "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?" (Ezek. 14:1-3). Now here again, God looks to the heart. I want to emphasize that over, and over again, that here they are coming, trying to be religious, trying to be nice, but their heart is evil. That’s why those in the New Testament worship God in what? In spirit and in truth. Didn’t it say of Caleb He was what? He was of another spirit. He had the right attitude, the right spirit to God. So here they all come.

"Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;..." So God has to answer back, kind in kind. Because why? If you don’t answer back kind in kind, then who is greater, God or man? Righteousness or sin? So God has to answer kind in kind. "…That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from Me through their idols. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent,..." (vs. 4-6). That’s why God brings evil, so there can be repentance. The key: REPENT.

The difference between the evil that God creates and brings and what Satan does is this: one, God sends the evil as a correction for their sins. And if they will not repent, the wages of sin is what? Death. So God carries out His word. If God doesn’t carry out His word, God is no longer God. Isn’t that true? So therefore, He will execute the wicked. And to the wicked that is an evil thing. To God, He is giving them a chance to repent, which is a good thing, and to eliminate the wicked if they won’t repent. Now I’m very thankful that is true. I’m very thankful that people like Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung - and we could probably go on down the line of all human, great, whatever - that they died so that evil can stop.

Now they have also found that this law works. When there is a recession (happens every time - they can prove it by statistics), and if you are out of work, to you that is evil. And it’s hard. And it’s tough. And it’s difficult - on the nation, on the people. But you know what happens? Stealings goes way down. You think you would be the other way around. Adultery goes way down. Why? Because people in their hardship stop the sinning. Keep that in mind. So here it is, "...Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations" (vs. 6). And there’s another sermon that we need to get into some time, and that is, what are all the abominations to God? That which is a blessing to man may be an abomination to God.

Now let’s go to verse 12, and let’s see what it says that God is going to do. But notice why He brings it. Notice why He brings the evil. "The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against Me..." Just hold your place right there, because we’re going to look at another scripture to show you how actively God is involved in the world. It will be in the book of Jeremiah. We’ll find it in it in Jeremiah 18. Let’s just begin in verse 1. "The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words." Now lots of times God likes to have sort of a graphic, on the spot lesson. "Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel,..." (Jer. 18:1-4). He just took that, you know, if you seen that, you can just take a wad of clay and if it’s no good, then you just mash it all up and you put it on the wheel and you make a new one.