What I want to study with you this morning is a very big subject that we can only take a little glimpse at. It is about the hand or the hands of God. Now our God has hands. I serve a God who has hands. It says in Genesis 1:26,27, that God said, "Let us make man in our image according to our likeness." (verse 26). In Verse 27 it says, "So God created man in His own image; male and female He created them."

He created us with hands because He has hands. The Bible has a great deal to say about the hands of God. There are many, many texts in the Old and New Testaments about this subject. Let us just look at a couple to start off with. First of all, a favorite promise in the Old Testament about the hand of God is Isaiah 41:10. This is God speaking. "Fear not, for lam with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

The name Benjamin means, "son of the right hand." That is one of the twelve tribes and one of the gates in the New Jerusalem has his name on it, "Son of the right hand."

And the Lord said, lam going to uphold you with my righteous right hand. Do you need Somebody to hold your hand? Do you need Somebody who has a strong hand? You know little children like to get hold of Daddys hand because they feel secure. They like to be embraced and held by the hands of their mother because they feel secure and happy and contented. Adults sometimes need somebody to hold their hands, too.

We will look at one text in the New Testament about this. This is John 10:24-30. "Then the Jews surrounded him and said to him, 'How long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.' Jesus answered them, 'I told you, and you did not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Fathers hands. I and my Father are one."

If you are in His hands, He says, Nobody can snatch you out of my hand. And so this becomes a very emotional subject. I find today that human beings are in trouble and they need the hand of Somebody that can get them out of their troubles. I can tell you several stories of people I have talked to, one just this morning, and somebody else the last part of this week, people that are in different kinds of serious trouble. The trouble is so bad that there is no human help. There is no way out of it.

I tell you, friends, I serve a God who has hands. His hand is not short so that it cannot help people that are in trouble. The paradox of the story is, of course, that there are so many people in trouble that will not go where the help is.

Notice what Isaiah said about this in Isaiah 59:1, 2. "Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear." The text says that Gods hand is not too short so he cannot reach down to where you are at and get hold of you and help you up. That is not the problem.

What is the problem? Oh, these are people that have chosen to live in sin. Notice what it says about them in verse 3: "For your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue had uttered perversity. No one calls for justice (that is verse 4), nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity."

So, is the problem that Gods hand cannot reach down to where you are? No, He says, that is not the problem. What is the problem? These people have chosen to live in sin. And because you have decided to live in sin, what does it say that has done to you? It has separated you from God so that He will not hear.

If there is anyone who is in trouble and you need Gods hand to reach down to where you are and get you out of your trouble, the first decision you have to make is that you are willing to be separated from your sins. You cannot live in sin and expect God to help you out.

Sin is the transgression of the law. 1 John 3:4. If I choose to deliberately break Gods law--it does not matter which commandment it is--I am placing myself in a condition where lam separating myself from God so I cannot get hold of His hand and I cannot get the help I need. So that is something to remember if you want Gods hand to reach down to where you are. My hand is not like Gods. I cannot reach clear down.

But Gods hand can reach every human being, whatever your situation. However sinful your past maybe. However many mistakes you have made. Often times, of course, the reason we are in so much trouble is because we ourselves have made mistakes. As a result of our mistakes, we have gotten ourselves in trouble. Whatever mistakes we have made, God can reach down to where you are and help you--if you are willing to forsake sin.

If you want to keep going on the way of sin, you put yourself ma situation where you are separated from God, where He cannot do for you what He wants to do.

I would like to invite you to turn to Jeremiah. Here is a passage here about the hands of God that I want to study with you from Jeremiah 18. Like I mentioned, this subject about the hands of God is such a big subject that you can never cover it, but this is a passage that talks about it that I believe will be very instructive for us to study for several minutes.

Open your Bibles to Jeremiah 18:1-6: "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying; 'Arise and go down to the potters house, and there I will cause you to hear My words. Then I went down to the potters house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying; '0 house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter, says the Lord? Look, as the clay is in the potters hand, so are you in my hand, 0 house of Israel."

Now that is an interesting illustration? The Lord told Jeremiah, Go down to the potters house and you are going to learn something down there. You are going to hear my word down there. And he went down there and he saw the potter and the potter was working with clay making a ceramic vessel. The vessel had defects in it. And so the potter looked at this vessel with the defects in it and he said, "Well, I am going to make this into another kind of a vessel. So he made it into another kind of a vessel so it would not have defects.

Then the Lord said to Jeremiah, Now you, my people, are like the clay in my hands. Now we do not like illustrations like that. We do not like to be likened to something so utterly helpless. Why did God give this illustration? What are you and I supposed to learn from the potters house where ceramic vessels are being made on the wheel? If you have decided to be a Christian, the Lord says to you and He says to me, Now look, you are to be like clay and I am the Potter and I am going to make something out of you.

Well, I started writing down things as I was thinking about this and I wrote down four things. Maybe we will get to two or three.

No.1. If you want to be in the hand of God, you have to let Him be God and you have to be like the clay. That means that you have to surrender yourself to the Lord and let Him work in your life. What would you think of clay that was not very pliable? What would happen if the clay could not be molded? The potter could not do anything with it. He would have to throw it away.

So, if I am to be like clay in the hand of God, I am to surrender myself completely into the hand of God and say, Lord, whatever You want to do with me, You can do it. Have you done that? There are so many people, even Christians, in the world today with the attitude of, Lord, I want to run my own life and do what I want to do. They are not in the hand of the potter. They are in their own hands.

Some people do something that in my own personal opinion is even more stupid than that. Not only do they take themselves out of the hand of God; they will put themselves into the hands of other men. They will let other men and women mold them or they want to mold themselves. I want to mold myself. I want to have myself in my own hands and I want to be in control.

Are you clay in the hand of the Potter? Or have you decided you want to make your own vessel with your own hands and do your own thing? Have you surrendered yourself completely into the hand of God? Have you said to the Lord, Lord, I am surrendering myself totally to You and You can make out of me whatever you want to make? For some reason, that is a hard decision for most human beings to make. It may sound easy, but think it over.

What does it mean? It means that you are surrendering the control of your life to Somebody else and we do not like to do that. We want to be in control ourselves! In Steps to Christ, Ellen White was writing about this and she said that this is the hardest baffle that is ever fought and it is fought in the human heart.

And what is the battle? Am I going to surrender my life into the hands of the Potter? Am I going to be like clay and say, Lord, You can be totally in charge? Anything You decide will be all right. I will submit. You see, if you surrender yourself and if you become like clay in the hand of the Potter, your will and your ways will be guided by Somebody Who does not make mistakes, Who is unerring in wisdom and also who is infinite in goodness.

But there are objections that come up when we think about this subject and I want to mention three of the common objections. One of the first reasons people will not totally surrender their lives and become clay in the hand of the Potter is because they are afraid. What are people afraid of? Now, you know what people are afraid of. They are afraid that God will do something with their life that they do not want to do. They are afraid that God will decide something different than they would have decided.

Ellen White wrote about this, too, in the book The Desire of Ages, 224,225. She made a very interesting comment. She is writing about the death of John the Baptist that we still in the present day cannot explain.

But in commenting on the death of John the Baptist she makes this very interesting comment. She says, "God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning, and discern the glory of the purpose which they are fulfilling as co-workers with Him." God never leads you otherwise than you would choose to have Him lead you if you could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose that He is working out in your life.

Why are we afraid? We do not trust God. One of the great necessities, if you are going to live the Christian life and if you are going to be saved, is that you have to learn to trust God and you have to learn to trust Him enough so that you will say, Lord, here I am. I will be like clay and You can do with me what you want. Because if you do not do that, then God cannot do with you what He wants to do.

Is it possible that God has better plans for your life than you have for yourself? It is not just possible, it is certain that God has better plans for your life than you have for yourself, both now and in the future. If you are going to be a Christian and if you are going to follow the Lord, you are going to have to learn to trust Him enough so that you will be able to say, Lord, I am willing to be like clay. You are the Potter and You can do with me what you want to do.

Job has something to say about this in his book. Look at Job 22. Job said he wished his words were written down in a book. So the Lord had them written down. It is one of the most wonderful books in the Bible, actually. Job 22:2 1. "Now acquaint yourself with him, (the Lord) and be at peace, thereby good will come to you."

Oh, friend, let me tell you what one of the big temptations of the devil is for people that have decided to become Christians, especially people that are new in the Christian faith. The devil comes to them and tries to convince them that God is going to someway hurt you by some of His providence. And that is a lie! That is what the devil tells people. God is going to hurt you if you follow Him. If you decide to go all the way and keep all the commandments; if you decide to keep the Sabbath, you are going to lose your job or your wife or your husband is going to oppose you. Your family or your Mends are going to oppose you and you are going to get hurt if you obey God.

That is what the devil tells people. You are going to get hurt if you obey God. If you want to study that subject, if you are wondering about the devils lie, study Psalm 37. We do not have time to study the whole chapter this morning, but it talks a lot about this subject. For people that think God is going to hurt them and they are going to get hurt if they follow the Lord all the way, notice a couple of verses here.

Psalm 37:31 it says, "The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide. Verses 37- 40: "Mark the blameless man, and observe the upright; for the future of that man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together; the future of the wicked shall be cut off. But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them;" See His hand is not short. He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them, "because they trust in Him." If you are a righteous person and if you have chosen to follow Him, He is going to deliver you. He is going to help you.

That whole chapter talks about that subject for people that are afraid that if they follow the Lord someway they are going to get hurt. The Psalmist says, It may look like you are going to get hurt for a while, but you are going to end up getting blessed and you are going to end up receiving the mercy and the grace and the salvation of the Lord. Whatever troubles you face because of what is going on in this world, if you follow the Lord, the Lord is going to see you through.

Somebody says, Well, I am going to lose my job if I follow the Lord. Notice what he says here about that in verse 25. "I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread." Interesting thing. A few years ago I met a man who had returned from Bangladesh. At that time Bangladesh was in a terrible famine. It is a heathen country. Most of the people in that country are idolaters, Buddhists, Hindus or other types of idolatry. There are people all over the country begging for food. This man told me, he said, It is an interesting thing, there are not any Christians out begging. Is that not interesting?

There are people begging for food all over Bangladesh, but there are no Christians begging for food. Why? God is taking care of them. God can take care of you whether there is a famine or not. Do not be afraid. The devil is the one that is trying to make you afraid that if you surrender all to the Lord and follow Him that something bad is going to happen to you. The Bible says that is a lie! Something good is going to happen to you. Gods hand is not shortened that He cannot save you. His hand is not short or weak that He cannot help you.

There is another objection. This one is just as serious as fear or being afraid. This is like a person says, "I want to do it my way." When I lived in Tens I had a neighbor, a very congenial man. He would say, I am four feet, thirty-two inches tall--and he was. Just figure it out. He was way up there. This man was a very talented man, talented with all kinds of tools and machinery, fixing all kinds of machinery. He bought something once. You know how it is. You buy something at the store that is in a box and you have to put it together. He told me, They gave me all these instructions how to put it together and I looked at that and said, I am going to put it together my way.

You know, that is a human tendency. We even do this with the Lord. We say to the Lord, Lord, I want to do it my way. It is one or our biggest problems. What would you do if there was clay in the hand of the potter, the potter was trying to mold it and the clay said, No, I do not want to go in that shape. I do not want to be like that.

The Lord has something to say about this. Look in Psalm 32:8-10. "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which has no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; but he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him."

The Lord says, I want to guide you. I want to direct you. With my eye I will guide you which way to go. I will guide you the right way. But the Lord says, Do not be like the mule. The mule says, I want to go my way. Have you ever ridden a horse and when you pulled on the bridle, it would not turn or stop?

When I was a young man I visited in a physicians home one time and he had some horses. He asked me if I wanted to go out horseback riding with him. I said, All right. So we went out and we got on some horses. I do not know what happened to the horse I was on, but something spooked it. I started to pull on the bridle but it would not stop. The only thing that stopped it was the fence. It finally ran into the fence, cut us all up, then it stopped.

The Lord said, Do not be like that. Do not be like a mule. You have to put a bit and bridle on it otherwise you cannot control it. There are people who say to the Lord, Lord, I want to go to church. I want to be religious. But I want to do it my way. I want to do it on the day I want to go. I do not want to go to church on the day everybody else is going. I want to decide how I am going to spend my money and what I am going to do with my lime.

So what happens? The text in Jeremiah 18 asks, what happened to the vessel in the hand of the potter? It was marred. It had defects in it. It was not totally pliable. And the Lord bends over His clay (we are the clay) and the vessel is marred. It has defects in it. Jesus bends over it. Do you know what He says? We have the words right in the Bible. John 5:6. "Do you want to be made well?"

Here is a vessel that is all marred. It is all defective. Jesus says, "Do you want to be made whole? You can be if you are willing to be clay in My hands. I can make you over." But I must be humble enough to allow God to change me. There are some people that do not want to be changed. They say in effect, Lord, if you want to take me to heaven, You will have to take me just the way lam. They are not going, by the way.

Look at what it says here is 1 Peter 5:5, 6. "Likewise ye younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time." I must humble myself under the hand of God and say, Lord, here I am. I am willing to be clay. I am willing for You to mold me the way you want to mold me. lam not going to try to direct my own course or take myself out of your hand or control my own life.

The first objection is that people are afraid to just be clay in the hands of God. They are afraid what will happen to them. The second one is, I want to go my own way. I want to control my own life. I want to be in charge myself. But there is a third common objection that people have to surrendering themselves to be like clay in the Lords hands.

Now this third one is not one that everybody in the world has trouble with, but I have been a pastor long enough to know that it is pretty common, even though it does not happen to everybody. The third objection is this: I am a hopeless case and therefore, why surrender to the Lord? There is nothing here anybody can do with me. I cannot be saved. I have gone too far in sin and I am too hopeless a character and there is just no hope for me.

This one is very serious. It happens to a lot of people who get into very serious trouble and when they look at the situation, it looks so hopeless that finally they even give up on the fact that God can do anything about their situation. And they say to me something like, Well, Pastor John, you just do not understand. And I cannot contradict that. If somebody tells me I do not understand his or her situation, I just have to accept that.

But let me tell you something. There is Somebody that does understand exactly your situation. His hand is not short. His ear is not heavy. If you will surrender yourself to Him, just put yourself in His hand, He will get it straightened out. He can straighten out your life and make it over. This is very difficult for people to accept whose hearts are broken.

In effect what they tell me is, if your heart is broken, it is never going to be the same again. Have you ever had somebody tell you that? Or if somebodys spirit is crushed. Have you ever tried to help somebody whose spirit is crushed? There has been so many terrible things happen that they do not have any hope, they do not have any future and it is just hopeless.

You know, friend, Jesus came into the world to save people that are in hopeless situations. Did you know that any sinner is in a hopeless situation? In fact, the worst sinner you are and the worst trouble you are in means that you need Jesus more. That is all that means.

Look what Paul said about that in I Timothy 1:15. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance; that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Paul said he was the chief of sinners. By the way, he was a pretty bad guy. He was guilty of murdering the saints of God. That is very clear in the book of Acts. He said himself, "I ravaged the saints of God and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them."

He was a pretty bad guy, but the Lord saved him. Turn over here to Hebrews 7, it talks about this subject. This is for the people that are in a hopeless situation. Their heart is broken, their spirit is crushed and it seems that there is no way out. Remember. God can put His spirit within you and He can give you a new heart. He can recreate your life.

Notice what it says in He-. brews 7:25. "Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." What does it mean to save somebody to the uttermost? That means to save somebody who is at the bottom. Incidentally the Greek word there is a very interesting word. It not only means to save to the uttermost, it means to save them perfectly.

He can save you perfectly. You may have a hopeless case. There may be no hope for you from a human point of view. Actually, from a human point of view there is no hope for any of us, if you ever thought about it. But Jesus Christ came into the world to save people that were in a hopeless situation. All He needs is for you to surrender yourself into His hands.

Just say, Lord, I am willing to be clay and You can do with my life what you want to do and I will surrender to You. If you can do that, He can save you.

Why did God say His people were to be clay in His hands? Because He wanted to mold them. What does a potter do with clay? He molds it, he fashions it, and he fits it. He makes it fit to be a vessel. Let me ask you this question. Are you willing for God to change your life?

As I have studied this subject and meditated on it and prayed about it, I have realized that God wants to make lots of changes in my life yet. And I have decided that I want God to make any changes in my life that He wants to make. I want to be just clay and allow Him to change my life.

I said, "Lord, I am willing for You to change my thoughts, the way I think. I am willing for you to change the way I feel. I am willing for You to change the way I speak. I am willing for You to work changes in the way I act. I want every change that You want to make in my life. I want it to be made.

You see, the reason we are clay is because God wants to change us. The vessel is marred. Thank the Lord that it does not say that He took the marred vessel and threw it in the garbage! It says that He took the marred vessel and He made it over. Oh, friend, I want God to change my life. Do you want God to change your life? Do you want to say to Him, Lord, I am surrendering my life to you just like clay and I want you to change me. I am willing to just be clay in Your hands.

Now, you are going to think that I am tricky because after I got you to say, Yes, to that question, now I am going to show you how God changes our lives. You are not going to like this so well. When people find out how God changes their lives, then they are not so sure they want to be changed. What does it mean to be clay in the hands of God and to allow Him to change your life?

Well, three points: first of all, if you want God to change your life, you have to leave yourself in His hand. Some people are not willing to leave themselves in the hand of God. They surrender once, but then later on they say, No, Lord, I want to take back charge of my life. And so they take themselves out of the hand of God. I will explain to you how that very frequently happens that people take themselves out of the hand of God.

They were clay in His hands, but they decided, No, it is too dangerous a place to be. I have to get out of here. I have to take charge myself. Here is point No. two. How does God change my life? How does He mold me like clay?

Well, let us look in 2 Timothy 3:16, l7 and see what it says. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." What is the purpose of Scripture? Well, it says here that it is profitable for doctrine (that is teaching). That is not so bad.

But the next one is, it is profitable for reproof. What is reproof? That is what we do not like. So I will be real blunt. Reproof is when somebody comes to me and tells me in effect (now usually we are not quite this blunt with each other, just about but not quite), John, you are wrong. What you think is this way but this is the way it is. That is reproof.

Incidentally, that is tough for human beings to take! Reproof is when somebody says, You are wrong. By the way, have you ever been reading your Bible and just like the voice of God speaking to you and said, You are wrong. That has happened to me over and over again. I have been reading my Bible and it is just as though the voice of God spoke to me and said, What you are thinking, what you are doing is not right. This is what the truth is?

Can you take that? That is how God molds the clay. He sends some reproof. And then it says, Correction. What is correction? Correction is when I am going in this direction and I am reading the Bible and the Lord says, No, that is not the way you are supposed to live. You are supposed to live this way. I say, Lord, I have been doing it this other way for so many years, I have a habit.

The Lord says, That habit needs to be changed. You need some correction. You know, when my grandmother first learned about the seventh day Sabbath, she had been keeping Sunday for a long time, ever since she could remember. She was a member of the Lutheran Church. When she found out that the Bible taught the seventh-day Sabbath, let me tell you, that was a big change.

It was such a big change that my grandfather said, We cannot do this; because my grandfather was farming three hundred twenty acres of land with horses. My father told me that they used to work eight days a week. My grandfather said, We cannot do that because we have to make a living. He was not willing to take the correction for a long time.

The children thought that it was a great idea, though, when they went from working eight days a week to six days a week! It was wonderful. And we do not like the correction either because we are used to going this way and the Lord says, "No, you are supposed to go that way." We do not like that but that is part of the way that God molds the clay.

And for instruction in righteousness. How shall I live? Well, everything that I need to know about how to live is in the Bible. But that is not the only way that God molds the clay. There is one other way and this is even worse. This is really one that we do not like. God molds the clay by putting it to the wheel and starting to grind off things. Just like the potter does. That hurts. That is what we call trials.

If you are a beginning Christian this is hard for you to take what we are talking about now. The Bible says very clearly in Lamentations 3 that God does not willingly afflict the children of men. God does not like to see you suffer at all. But He wants to make something beautiful out of your life and your character.

And if there is something ugly in your life or your character that has to come out, somehow that is the only way (I say this reverently) that even God can take it out, by allowing you to go through some trials. Look what the Bible says about this. Sometimes after you have had the potter using the wheel, you put it in the oven and heat it up.

Isaiah 48:10, it says: "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction (Trials)." I have a lot to say about this subject, there is much on my mind since I have been studying it. Let me mention several things to you quickly: No.1 Did you know that sometimes God sends you lithe trials to save you from bigger trials? That happens very often and we are so shortsighted that when the lithe trials come, we say, Lord! Why did You allow this to happen to me? He allowed that to happen so you would not get into a big one. That is the reason.

Oh, friend, you draw near to God and put yourself into His hands. God will never allow any trial to come to you except something that is going to work out good in your life. "All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28. We cannot always understand that.

I have people come to me, Well, if that is so, why is my loved one dying of cancer? I cannot explain all those things. lam a human being. I am not God. But I know that His word has never proved false. "All things work together for good to those who love God and those that are called according to his purpose."

Ellen White wrote this about trials one time. I have studied this statement many times. "In the providence of God, every good and great enterprise is subjected to trials, to test the purity and strength of the principles of those who are standing in positions of responsibility, and to mold and substantiate the individual human character after Gods model. This is the highest order of education.

"Perfection of character is attained through exercise of the faculties of the mind, in times of supreme test, by obedience to every requirement of Gods law." Selected Messages, vol.2, 161.

Are you being tested? People in your family or people in the church or people that you work with or somebody has let you down and you cannot explain all the trouble you are in. It is so complicated that you say, Lord, why are You allowing these trials to come to me? God is trying to work out something beautiful in your character.

Oh, friend, if you are a Christian, your life is in His hands. He sees the dangers that are threatening your life that you cannot see. Sometimes He allows you to get into some troubles to save you from some bigger trouble. Oh, friend, He is the giver of all your blessings. He is the provider of all your mercies. He is in order of all your experiences.

He sees the perils you cannot see. If you will allow yourself to be clay in His hands, He will work it out and He will work it out the best way there is to work it out--better than you and I can work it out.

The third point is this, it is a real simple one. I will state it in the form of a question. Who is the Potter? Jesus is the Potter. He and His Father are one. God is the Potter. Well, you say, Pastor John, that was easy, I was expecting something harder than that. Well, let me tell you, that is harder than you think, because one of the greatest human temptations is to play God and act in ways that only God has a right to act.

That is what the devil tempted Eve to do in the Garden of Eden. He said, If you eat this fruit, you will become like God. She fell for it. He came to the angels and said, If you follow me you will become like God. They fell for it. In ancient times the devil came to the people of the world and said, You need to have a king. So they quit God as a king in heaven.

So they created kings, they created priests, and these people were gods to the nations. It is one of our greatest human temptations to play God, to depend upon ourselves. But God is supposed to be the Potter, I am not the Potter. Let us get real practical quickly. I cannot say, Well, I am a clergyman, I am a pastor so I am going to try to mold these people in the church.

Oh, no, that is playing God. I do not have the right to try to mold anybodys life. I do not have the right to try to control and mold my wifes life, my childrens lives, my parents lives, people that I work with--l am not the Potter! Could I state it a harder way? You are not the Potter, either. God is the Potter. And we are not to try to mold our brother.

People say, But they are making these terrible mistakes. They probably are. I am not to mold them and get everything straightened out. Is your life in a tangle? Let me read you what the wise man said about this in Ecclesiastes 1:15. He says, "What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered." Interesting text. What is crooked I cannot straighten it out because I am not the Potter. And what is lacking cannot be numbered.

Is your life in a tangle? Is it so complicated that you do not know what to do? Then what you have to do is just say, Lord, I am choosing to follow You, and I am going to choose to do what is right and I am going to submit this whole tangle and this whole complicated mess into your hands. You are the Potter and I am going to leave it up to you. I am going to pray about it, but I am just going to leave it up to you. I cannot straighten it out. I cannot change the people around me. I cannot change their heart. I cannot change the way they think. I cannot mold them, that is Your business. Here is the tangle lam in. Here is the complicated situation I am in. I cannot do anything about it, so I am just going to leave it in Your hands.

Friends, if you can do that in the midst of all the complicated situations that we get into in life, you will have peace of mind. The Lord will give it to you. Choose to do everything that you know is right and then leave the tangle, the complication that no human being can figure out, in the hand of God. With some people the tangle in their life is finance. Do the best you can then say, Lord, here is my situation. I am going to leave this in Your hands.

With some people it is a health problem. We need to do the best we can to save or recover our health if we have lost it. But after we have done the best we can, we just have to leave it in the hands of the Lord. With some people it is a family problem. I have people tell me all the time; Please, I have this problem with my parents or my children or my brother, my sister, my aunt, my uncle, somebody. Try to do what is right and submit it to the hands of God and He will give you peace.

David was one of the great men of the Old Testament that did this. David had family trouble. His relatives were the leaders of the nation. David had a nephew, his sisters son. Davids sisters name was Zeruiah and Davids nephews name was Joab. Joab was the leader of the army and they got into some real troubles. David appointed somebody else later to be the head of the army, and Joab did not like it so he went and killed the other guy so he could stay as the head of the army. That is trouble, right?

Notice what David said about this in 2 Samuel 3:39, he said, "And I am weak today though anointed king; and these men, the sons of Zeruiah, (that is his nephews) are too harsh for me. (The Old King James says "too hard for me.) The Lord shall repay the evildoer according to his wickedness." What did he do? He said, I am in a situation that is so complicated and such a tangle I cannot straighten it out. I am the king, but I cannot straighten it out. So I am just going to turn this over to the Lord."

If we had time, I could read you another story where the people got angry with David and were going to stone him. He just submitted that to the Lord, too. He just took courage in the Lord and prayed and asked the Lord to show him what to do.

Oh, friend, you and I are not the Potter. I am not to mold my own life. I am not to mold your life or anybody elses life. We are to put ourselves in the hands of God. The tangle in your life, the thing that is so complicated that no human being can solve. Put it in the hands of God. He is the Potter. Submit it all to Him and then you will have peace. He will give you peace.

I hope this has stimulated your thinking and stimulated you with the desire to surrender yourself into the hands of God and say, Lord, lam just clay, but I am surrendering myself into Your hands.