RELAX – GOD KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING (2 of 2)

God’s Invitation to Grace ❧ Part 46

Romans 9:19-33 ❧ Pastor, Dr. John Denney

This morning we’re going to return to Romans 9.  I mentioned a few weeks ago, this chapter and the two that follow are three of the most difficult chapters in the Bible.  One person quipped; Romans 9-11 is as full of problems as a hedgehog is full of prickles (T. Wright).  The Apostle Paul tackles the difficult and unfortunately controversial doctrines such as God’s sovereignty, predestination, and election.  Woven together they have to do with God’s choice of those who will be saved and become a part of the Body of Christ. Some have gone so far as to completely avoid Romans 9-11 altogether.   

These are deeply debated chapters because they teach us that God is in complete control and yet man is still fully responsible before God for his own choices. For years Biblical scholars have debated and wrestled with these passages and still don’t have their questions answered.  I am reminded of a story about a group of theologians who were discussing the tension between predestination and free will. Things became so heated that the group broke up into two opposing factions. But one man, not knowing which to join, stood for a moment trying to decide. At last he joined the predestination group. “Who sent you here?” they asked. “No one sent me,” he replied. “I came of my own free will.” “Free will!” they exclaimed. “You can’t join us! You belong with the other group!”  So he followed their orders and went to the other clique. There someone asked, “When did you decide to join us?” The young man replied, “Well, I didn’t really decide–I was sent here.” “Sent here!” they shouted. “You can’t join us unless you have decided by your own free will!” 

But, as we saw a few weeks ago, God didn’t give us this passage to ask questions, but to answer them. The most important question – Who is God?  If God is in complete control, what kind of God is He? Can I trust Him?  Paul answers these questions using God’s plan for the Jews to demonstrate His character. He is going to use God’s relationship with the nation of Israel to explain what God’s sovereignty means.  Chapter 9 shows us the sovereignty of God, chapter 10 shows us the justice of God, and chapter 11 shows us the faithfulness of God.  God is saying in these three chapters: “Relax, I really do know what I am doing.”  Topics like predestination and election may pose a problem for us, but they don’t for God.  He is neither anxious nor uncertain in the least.  The difficulty of God’s sovereignty and election does not lie with God, but with us.  Why? Simply because we’re not God!  We are mere mortals; a brief vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes (James 4:14). We think if we cannot understand God we cannot trust Him.  We’re demanding something we’re incapable of doing. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). The gist of what Paul wants us to walk away knowing is simply that we may not fully understand God, but we can fully trust Him.    

Read Romans 9:18-33. These verses answer two vital truths about God: 1) We can trust God in His sovereign mercy.  2) We can trust God in His fairness. 

1. We can trust God in His sovereign mercy. Paul has just reminded us God had mercy on Moses but hardened Pharoah. God will be merciful to whomever He wants, and He will harden whomever He wants (v.18).  This naturally leads to the question: Why does God judge us? How can God hold us responsible for our sin and unbelief if the choice is up to God and not man? Paul’s stinging answer…
   1. God is not answerable to us! You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault?
2. For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Romans 9:19-21).  Paul gleans from the visual words of the OT prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah (Jer. 18:1-10; Isa. 45:9).  Have you ever heard of a pot being molded by a potter talk back to the potter, “Why are you making my like this?”  Does the clay have the right to argue with the one shaping it? Of course not! God no more needs to give an answer to humanity than He needs to give an answer to a mosquito. To bring this truth even closer to home, has it ever dawned on you that the clay of all mankind is sinful from head to toe, from inside out? (Rom.3:23).  In other words, we who are in need of God’s sovereign mercy and forgiveness really have not rights. God would be perfectly in His rights not to save anyone. We cannot imagine the power of the Almighty; but even though he is just and righteous, he does not destroy us (Job 37:23, NLT).  But He has graciously chosen to not treat us as our sin deserves. God gave Pharoah no less than ten opportunities to repent from his sin and turn to God.  The truth is, Pharoah didn’t deserve even one!  

A true understanding of who we are and what God’s grace is should turn our pride and indignation to humility and praise! The point is – God is not answerable to anyone. One of the stubborn propensities of sin-fallen mankind is to make much of man and little of God. In 1715 King Louis XIV of France died after a reign of 72 years and 110 days: the longest reigning monarch in history.  He dubbed himself King Louis “the Great,” and was the ruler who made the famous statement, “I am the state!”  It is said his royal court was the most magnificent in Europe, and his funeral was equally spectacular. As his body lay in state in a golden coffin, orders were given that the cathedral should be very dimly lit with only a special candle set above his coffin, to dramatize his kingly greatness. At the memorial, thousands waited in hushed silence. Then the famous Bishop Massilon began to speak; slowly reaching down, he snuffed out the candle and said, “Only God is great.” But Paul is hardly finished.  Still, there is another troubling question we need to deal with (v.22).    

1. God does not prepare anyone for destruction. What if God, although willing to

demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? (Romans 9:22).  This verse seems to be saying God prepares or chooses people for Heaven or for Hell.  If this is saying God prepares people for hell, then two things need to be said.  One, this is the only place in all of the Bible it says this, and two, it is completely contrary to the nature of God which cannot and does not change (Numbers 23:19; James 1:17). The point is, God is not the One doing the preparing here.  The preparing is done by the one who rejects God.  In other words, God did not prepare Pharoah for destruction, Pharoah prepared himself for destruction by continually rejecting God’s offer to repent.  Pharoah shaped his own heart to reject God from the start and God merely left him in the shape He found him. Pharoah is a good reminder that God doesn’t send anyone to hell.  They chose to go there by rejecting God. This leads to the second truth we need to know about God.

1. We can trust God in His fairness.  There is no shortage of reasons people have to accuse God of being unfair.  And to say that God is unfair is actually right, but not in the way people like to think.  God is not fair, He is gracious.  Were God fair, there would be no forgiveness of our sin whatsoever. Were God fair, we would not be alive right now.  It is because God is gracious that He does not treat us as our sin deserves.  

But the bigger question Paul is bringing up is why has God been so gracious for so long? Why does God withhold His judgement of the ungodly? It is because God has a plan.  He talks about it in the OT, and it explains why the Jews rejected their Messiah – it was so that the Gospel of His forgiving grace would spread to the Gentiles as well.  

1. God’s plan from the beginning was to include Gentiles. And He did so to make

known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles (Romans 9:23-24). In fact, Paul quotes two OT prophets, Hosea and Isaiah, to point this out (Vv. 25-29). In Hosea God said, I will call those who were not My people, My people(Hosea 1:10).  And in Isaiah God said, Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the like the sand of the sea, it is the remanent that will be saved(Isa. 10:22).   God knew from the beginning the Jews would reject their Messiah and it would open the door for the Gospel to go to the Gentiles. Jesus foretold the same thing:I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:11-12). God said this would happen in advance.  All of this means, we can relax. He really does know what He is doing.  

Someone who appears to us to be beyond hope, may in fact be a vessel of God’s mercy He will save.  In other words, there are those we may write off as hopeless, but God hasn’t.  How many of us can look back in our lives at a time we were not living for God, at a time that we came close to death and say, “Thank You God that you allowed me to live to know Your forgiveness!”   

1. God’s salvation has always been by faith. What shall we say then? That Gentiles,

who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed” (Romans 9:31-33).  Paul paints a mental picture a road in which all of humanity is on and right in the middle of the road is a large rock, which is Jesus.  Those pursuing righteousness by works refuse to see it and stumble over it to their own destruction.  But those understand Who the Rock is, put their faith in Him and are saved.  

Paul is saying something we need to hear.  We can get lost in the jungle of trying to understand predestination and election. We can become so consumed in one argument over the other – that is, is salvation all about God’s choice or all about man’s choice? The argument itself can become a stumbling point and we miss what is really important: Are you going to trust Christ or not?  The very fact that there are billions of people alive today is because of God’s sustaining and patient grace.  He knows those who are going to turn to Him.  

In his Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis captures both the justness and graciousness of God. Two girls, Susan and Lucy, getting ready to meet Aslan the lion, who represents Christ. Two talking animals, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, prepare the children for the encounter. “Ooh,” said Susan, “I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie,” said Mrs. Beaver. “And make no mistake, if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then isn’t he safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you!”