Emphasis Preaching Journal

The lesson refers to the precariousness of life and the fact that no one calls on God's name. The growing secularism is well documented by American polls. A 2012 Pew Research poll revealed that one fifth of Americans and one third of those under thirty label themselves as religiously unaffiliated. But the lesson delivers the word of hope, the promise that God forgets all our sin, secularism, and waywardness. The old adage, "forgive and forget," does not come easy to us, but it does to God. Martin Luther comments on the lesson's word that in this fresh start God gives he forms us anew, like clay in the expert potter's hands. Clay is not like dirt. God has made us a special kind of clay (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 372).