"CLAY IN THE HANDS OF THE POTTER

Chronicle (Levin), 7 June 1947, Page 2

"CLAY IN THE HANDS OF THE POTTER

INTERESTING LECTURE Speaking to a large and interr ested audience last Sunday evening in the Gospel Hall, Otaki Railway, Dr. K. Rees-Thomas, F.R.C.S., took as his subject "The clav- in the hand of the Potter." His reading was from Jeremiah 18.4. "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." Dr. Rees-Thomas then showed conclusively how the human race in general and each individual in particular was pictured in the illustration of the marred clay vessel. It needed but a glance at world eonditions and into our own hearts, he said, to convince us that we were far from what God required us to be. We were, without doubt, vessels marred by sin, and as the speaker pictured the pile of broken clay at the foot of the potter's wheel, he pointed out that there were two things which the potter could do. One was to remake the clay into another vessel and the other was to discard it altogether. Directing the attention of his hearers to the effect of the sun's rays on the broken clay, Dr. ReesThomas explained that if the clay was left too long in the sun it became permanently hardened and burnt, and that nothing could soften it again. There was a limit of time beyond which it was impossible for the potter to be able to change the clay into something useful. The application made was that if we persisted in our wilful exposure to the hardening effect of sin, there would fsurely come a time when our 'hearts would be so hard that we would have no desire to respond to God's loving advances. "Many men," said Dr. ReesThomas, "leave all thought of preparing to meet God until their death beds, but the tragic fact is that in that hour of extreme weakness, men are usually either not able to give the question the consideration it deserves or discover that they have then lost all desire to find God, -and so die in their sins." The speaker then reminded his hearers that the clay was still in the hands of the potter, and that even the weakest prayer from a sin-burdened heart would find- a ready-hearer in the Saviour. Dr. Rees-Thomas will give another address in the- Gospel Hall, Otaki Railway tomorrow, at 7 p.m. .