Aug. 27, 2017 Our Sovereign And Merciful God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Romans 9 and the Question of Whether God's Word Has Failed

William just read says to you, it has been given, but not to them. And then from the prophet, Jesus said, you will indeed hear, but never understand. You will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull.

You can speak of the sovereignty of God this morning. That to you, it has been given. You're in the passive voice. You have to have something given to you that you cannot yourself exercise. And with those few opening thoughts, turn your Bibles, please, to Romans chapter nine.

Romans nine, our passage this morning will be verses 14 through 18 in Romans nine. Paul continues to defend God's honor, if you will, against this assumed accusation that God's word seems to have failed because Israel does not believe.

And we've been in this argument of his in Romans nine for a few weeks now. We're gonna stay there for a while because it's so important. It's so crucial. I tell you again, do not look at Romans nine through 11 as being primarily about Israel the nation.

They are in there as what we call a foil, a leaping off point, an example that Paul uses in order to show that this is all about God. God and his faithfulness. God and his word that comes to pass, that accomplishes all purposes for which he sent it.

It's about God. And he continues this argument in verse 14 of Romans nine with these words. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. There are few doctrines that generate such vastly different reactions as what is before us this morning in Romans chapter nine verses 14 through 18.

Some people hear these words, and their hearts swell with joy and comfort, while others recoil as though a rattlesnake suddenly appeared in front of them. This doctrine is one of the fundamentals that separate the Arminian from the Calvinist.

The Calvinist, on the basis of this attribute of God, his sovereignty, he rejoices in the confidence that it inspires. He gives us confidence that our salvation is secure, because it's all of God, and none of me.

Therefore, it's all of a reliable, and a true, and a just, and a holy God whose word never fails. That's what the Calvinist sees. I don't mean to pick on anybody, but the Arminian, from these same verses, rejoices in how God came alongside of him, or her, and somehow agreed with their decision to exercise the faith that they somehow latently had.

And they make this up through prevenient grace, and that God foresaw the faith that you would exercise, and all these things, and I just wanna scream. Stop thinking, just read the verses. Take yourself out of it.

Just look at what Paul is saying. He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Jesus said, to you, it has been given. People couldn't understand his parables, unless God opened their eyes, took the shutters off, for them to say, it's all of God.

I've just given away the whole message for you this morning. I really have. It's all of God, it's not of you, and therefore, we are secure. The idea of prevenient grace, and all these other things, doesn't come from this passage, though it's read into it.

And I have to tell you, it would remove from me my confidence that I was sure to go to heaven and be with Jesus Christ, because it would depend, even if ever so little, on me. And if so, then I am not secure.

If so, then God's word is something that somehow coordinates with me, or cooperates with me, and I cannot have it. I'm afraid I'm a little more against it, now that I'm looking upon you and preaching this message.

I have to tell you, it was a little gentler when I wrote it out and thought it through. I have no sympathy for someone who could read these verses and say, well, isn't it nice of God to have come alongside and agreed with what I've decided to do?

Have lost all patience for it. The sovereignty of God has unfettered, unmitigated, unrestrained freedom to do whatever He pleases. We speak this day of a God who consults with no one, whose will cannot be thwarted, whose actions are good simply because it came from Him, of a God of unfathomable power and breadth and depth, a God who is, in a single word, sovereign.

And the particular realm in which Paul is bringing forth this sovereignty is salvation. He chooses whom and as He will. While Paul has brought forward the nation of Israel, he is arguing for how God chooses to save individuals.

It's not about the nation. It's about you. It's about me. If you believe in Jesus Christ, it's about how and why God chose you. The answer, because He chose to choose you. And that's the end of it. If you don't know Jesus Christ, this is about how God chooses.

And you need to hear this message this morning. It's not a fatalistic message which says, well, if God didn't choose you and reveal to you His choice, therefore you have nothing to do except go through life and be nonchalant about all this.

The message then becomes, fall on your knees and plead with this sovereign God to open your eyes and show you the cross of Jesus Christ. And that's how we respond to a sovereign God who decided all things before all time.

The Charge That God's Word Has Failed in Israel

The question Paul's been dealing with since verse six is whether or not God's word has failed. He opens a chapter with, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, and he goes on to name the cause of his agony.

I could wish myself were accursed for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to flesh. They are the Israelites. And the issue he's dealing with here is something like this. He has this diatribe partner, this imaginary person in his dialogue who is asking these questions of him which he's answering.

So there's an assumed question that Paul is addressing for us. And something like this, okay, Paul, if God's word is as powerful as you say it is, if, as you would have me to believe, his promises are certain and they're worthy of me staking my eternal soul on them, my fate in all eternity depending upon this, and this God is sure and certain in all that he says, well, what about Israel?

What about Israel? He made a lot of promises to them, but hardly any of them seem to believe. It seems to me like God's word has some weaknesses in it. And this is what Paul is answering here for us. And not at all, Paul would reply, God chose Isaac over Ishmael, and in him, in Isaac, the promise continued.

He chose Jacob over Esau, and in him, in Jacob, birthed the nation that would bring forth the ultimate son of promise, the one in whom all the promises of nationhood, all the promises of universal blessing, all the promises of salvation for people, individuals, would be fulfilled.

And that, of course, is Jesus Christ and none other. Excuse me. So when did God choose the one over the other? Paul answers without hesitation. He says, though Esau and Jacob were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, that's when he chose.

And as if to prove he had no embarrassment over this, he adds from the prophet Malachi, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I hated. It is all of God, and all of this leads to another of Paul's questions where he assumes what someone else would ask.

He's learned this after years of preaching this message. He knows the objections. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part by no means? Was it not wrong of God to choose one over the other?

God knew they were twins in her womb, and before they were born, he says this one, not that one. Is that not unjust of God by no means? And some translations have, is it not unrighteous instead of unjust?

Is there not unrighteousness in God? The New Living Translation, which does a very poor job of translation, but in this one instance, it gets to the heart of the matter and has this. It says, are we saying then that God was unfair?

It's as if Paul's imaginary questioner said, okay, I get that they misconstrued God's promises, that God's promises were plainly stated, and it seems like he didn't fulfill them because they didn't understand them.

They misconstrued the plain language of them. Okay, I get that, Paul. God actually did what he said he would do. I get that Israel within Israel was demonstrated by his acts in history and should have been perceived, but Paul, is it not unjust for God to hate an unborn child?

Isn't it unfair, though, for God to have consigned someone he created to a fate which he determined all before the doomed child is born? After all, the subject leading into all this is the salvation of individuals, how God chooses one and not another, so it's a question of great eternal significance.

It's a hard question, and Paul doesn't duck or weave away from the question. He meets the challenge head on, and he gives us these two examples from the history of the Exodus to prove that he was justified in answering by no means.

How does he prove that God was not unjust in choosing Jacob over Esau, Ishmael over Isaac? Look to the Exodus. The Exodus history will allow you to say, by no means, in no way, may it never be that God was unjust, or as other translations have it from the same word, unrighteous, may it never be.

So he gives us these two examples from history, the first being from Exodus chapter 33, verse 19, where the Lord has agreed to show Moses something of himself and to hear God personally declare his name.

That's the first. The second example from history is what came just before that one, just before God declared his name, and actually all the way back to Exodus chapter nine and verse 16, which is God's word to Pharaoh before the plagues even began.

So they're sort of out of order chronologically, but we're gonna take them in the apostle's order. If you wanna turn there, we'll be there for a little bit. Exodus chapter 33, verse 19. The structure we have actually in Romans 14 through 18 is pretty straightforward.

Verse 15 and verse 17 is where he cites the passages that we're gonna talk about a bit, and then in verse 16 and 18, Paul gives us the point. He tells us how this proves that he's justified in saying by no means.

So I wanna go to this historical record, back to Exodus for a bit. I wanna be sure we understand what happened there, and then we'll spring back to Romans and see how his explanation applies to the question at hand.

I think we need to understand the history there a bit. Romans 9 .15, quoting from where you are in your Bibles right now, Exodus 33, verse 19. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

What we have here is this incredible exchange between the Lord and Moses. That's Exodus 33. What has happened is the golden calf has just been torn down. It's just been ground into powder and put into the water, and the people who had worshiped it have been forced to drink it.

The Levites have just sheathed their swords, having at Moses' command killed about 3 ,000 of their brothers and companions and neighbors for having worshiped that abominable calf. Their zeal, the Levites' zeal, is rewarded by being ordained to the service of the Lord.

But here Moses is, speaking to the Lord right after that. The stench of sin is still hanging over the whole nation. So recently redeemed from their slavery in Egypt by the mighty hand of God. And what I just gave you there, leading up to Exodus 33 .19, is really the previous chapter in a nutshell.

That's the chapter, chapter 32, with the golden calf and all the consequences of it. And we come then to 33, which is where the apostle Paul brings us. Moses has just returned to the tent of meeting, the place where he meets with God, and again he meets with God.

And this time though, Moses is there not to receive revelation, but to plead for forgiveness. Previously he'd gone there and received the precepts and the commandments and the statutes of the Lord. If you look back a few chapters after we're done, you'll see that there's several chapters on the construction of the temple, the tabernacle, excuse me, the priestly garments and all these things, getting it ready, interrupted by the golden calf.

So now he goes back to meet with God and pleads. He intercedes for these people as Moses becomes one of the early great pictures of Jesus Christ and his intercession with God for us. Now look at verse 12 there in Exodus 33.

"'Moses said to the Lord, "'See, you say to me, bring up this people, "'but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. "'Yet you have said, I know you by name, "'and you have found favor in my sight.

"'Now therefore, if I found favor in your sight, "'please show me, excuse me, "'please show me now your ways, "'that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. "'Consider too that this nation is your people.'.

"'And God said, my presence will go with you, "'and I will give you rest. "'And he said to him, if your presence will not go with me, "'do not bring us up from here. "'For how shall it be known "'that I found favor in your sight, I and your people?

"'Is it not in your going with us, "'so that we are distinct, I and your people, "'from every other people on the face of the earth?'. "'And the Lord said to Moses, "'This very thing that you have spoken I will do, "'for you have found favor in my sight, "'and I know you by name.'.

"'Moses said, please show me your glory.'". Amazing exchange between Moses and the Lord. When he asked God to know his ways, he meant a final and complete knowledge that would bind God to Moses and to Israel.

What he's asking for, essentially, is a relationship to God that was bound by the same two-way knowledge and intimacy and full revelation that Jesus, God the Son, has with God the Father. That's what he's really asking for, something reserved only for Jesus Christ.

You can notice there in that reading from Exodus 33 that the Lord doesn't actually respond to that. He lets it die of its own accord. As when Moses asked for God's name earlier, he was not so much given God's actual name, if there be such a thing, but he's given the name that was to be used.

Tell them that Yahweh, that the I Am, the self-existent One, has sent you. The One who is free from any obligation or need, self-existent and self-satisfied. Tell them that I Am has sent you. Moses wants full knowledge of God's ways.

That's only something for Jesus. God instead commits his presence, literally his face, as the divine accompaniment on the way to the promised land. And then Moses famously asks to see God's glory. Please, show me your glory.

He asked for God's name and he got a name. He asked for God's ways and he got God's presence. Now he asks for God's glory and mercifully, he's actually denied by the Lord. Mercifully, God denies that.

Not entirely, but as we might say today, he redirected it. The petition was changed to something that was allowable, to something Moses could actually see and live through. What'd the Lord say? For no one shall see my face and live.

You cannot see my glory without some filter between me and you. Isaiah saw it and said, I am ruined. Habakkuk saw God's glory and he said, rottenness entered my bones. Not because there's anything wrong with God's glory, because of what it reveals in us.

No one could see God's glory fully and live. I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to him who I be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

And this he did. This he did in the next chapter, chapter 34, verses five through nine. And that's where again, famously, Moses is put in the cleft of the rock and he's got his face covered by the hand of God as God walks up to him, declaring his name.

And then as he goes past, he removes his hand and Moses sees God's back as he passes by him. Now we've covered a lot of history here and we've covered a lot of history very, very quickly. And we've done that because of the importance of the point.

One commentator says here, the Lord refuses to compromise his freedom. Now remember, freedom is part and parcel with sovereignty. What I said at the beginning, that God is free to do as he will, when he will, in the way he will.

He's sovereign, so he is free from any requirements. Nobody can look at him and say, what is this you have done? Nobody can look and say, why have you done this? Nobody can look at him and say, you know, Lord, it seems pretty good, but I've got a different set of principles I want.

No, he's sovereign, 100 sovereign and free. So the Lord refuses to compromise his freedom. Back to this commentator. He yields no vision that defines him of his ways. We could ask, as I think Paul has in mind, nor does he obligate, we could add, excuse me, as I think Paul does, nor does he obligate himself to do anything outside of his own sovereign good pleasure.

The question before us, remember, is the salvation of individuals. How the sovereign God picks single, discrete persons out of all humanity in all history. That's what's before us. Notice that he doesn't say he'll show grace or have mercy on any particular person or people.

He doesn't name them. He says, without any particular referent, that if he shows grace, it's why? Because he chooses to. If he bestows mercy, it is not drawn out of him. It is because why? Because he chooses to.

Now, to the apostle's point in chapter nine of Romans, he referred us back to the exodus event, and God and Moses having this discourse right after the golden calf, the apostle's point in Romans nine.

Is God unjust? Who's the foil for these questions? His individuals, Esau, Jacob. He chose one, not the other. He didn't take his hand off one and put his hand on the other. He actively chose one. He actively chose the other for what he would have their fate to be.

Is God unjust? Is it wrong of him to choose one and not the other? Should not Esau and before him, Ishmael, at least have had a chance? I mean, maybe they would have proven themselves more worthy than their brothers.

Well, the answer from Exodus 33 is that God is the one who decides when, where, upon whom, and for what cause he does anything, much less make his elective choice of individuals for salvation. I don't know what you think of the way I put that theoretical question.

Couldn't Esau have proved himself to be a better man than Isaac? Maybe Esau would have been a finer leader than Jacob was. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten tricked by Laban as Jacob was. It all could be true, but it's not the point.

God chooses whom he chooses. He chooses the weak. He chooses the rejected. He chooses the flotsam of the population to be glorified in the Lord Jesus Christ. So look again at verse 16 in Romans 9. It's Paul's conclusion.

I've said it over and over again. I'm gonna keep saying it. One problem with the hermeneutic of the dispensational view is that to get that potential to be a better man, in that particular viewpoint, you have to have the Old Testament standing over the New Testament, which is the opposite of what Jesus and the apostles do.

Because if the Old Testament is over the New, I don't know how you make sense of Romans 9 .16, because the apostle Paul takes that and he tells us from the New Testament back to the Old what it meant.

And it proves that God is not unjust, or unrighteous, or unfair, or any of these other things we could put in there, which are good translations of the word. God did no wrong. It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

That's the point of Exodus 33 .19. That's the point of God's declaration of his name to Moses. That's the point of the whole Exodus event. That's the point of why he chose Jacob, not Esau. Because it depends not on human will or exertion, not on what you want, not on what anybody wants, but on God wants.

Not on your exertion, not on your trying, not on making yourself righteous, not on becoming fit before you come to Christ, as the hymn tells us, you'll never get there. It depends not on that, but on God, on God alone who shows mercy.

Now what is dependent here? It depends, it says. It is election. It is salvation. It is the Ephesians 1 .4 predestining determination of who will be considered as having been in Christ when he suffered, and so they will be reckoned as having their sins paid.

It, it is the knowledge of God that Moses longed for, but God declined, lowering the bar and sending his presence instead of his unfettered glory. It was denied Moses because it belongs only to Christ and those whose faith is in him.

John 1 .16 tells us that grace and truth came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. John 1 .14 says, and we have seen his glory, glorious of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Moses was put in the cleft of the rock when God actually passed by him and declared that name that Paul refers to in Romans 9 .15.

You believe in Jesus Christ? Do you know that God chose you from before all time? By grace you've been saved, and not of works. It is the gift of God. Are you one of those? You then see what Moses could only plead for and God said, no, not my glory.

You can see my goodness. But if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've repented of your sins and fled to his cross as the only place where your sins are forgiven you, the hand of God is taken away, and you can see his glory full and unfiltered in the Lord Jesus Christ, in that one in whom you have your faith because he gave you faith to believe.

To you it has been given, said the Lord Jesus Christ, to understand the parables more than the parables, to understand the cross, and at the cross the glory of God poured out as we see his mercy and his justice and everything else.

The hand of God that protected Moses from seeing his glory, which no man can see and live, is taken away in Christ. If you believe in him, you can see that glory. Do you know this glory? Do you believe what the apostle John wrote in chapter one, or chapter three of his first letter?

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears as Jesus, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is, and everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Do you believe that message? Why do you believe it? Because by grace you've been saved, because God in his mercy sent his spirit whom Jesus told Nicodemus, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who's born of the spirit. Do you believe this? If you do, you have no idea how the spirit came upon you, except that God chose to set his spirit upon you, give you a new heart, a rebirth, and remake you into the image of his son, so that you might believe.

Jesus said it to Nicodemus, you don't know where the wind goes, how much less the spirit of God who can bring this rebirth. On what does all this depend? On human will? No, Paul took that away. On human trying?

No, Paul took that away too. It depends on God who shows mercy, on the sovereign God who freely conducts his purposes and effectuates his will, all for no cause but this. And the class said, because he chose to.

We've got to get this. We've got to understand what a great and glorious God we serve. We need to understand that there's none of you, none of me, in the transaction of salvation. It's all of God, and that's all Paul's saying here.

God's not unjust, he's sovereign. If we don't get this, we dare not go to the pots, one made for noble and one made for ignoble purposes, we'll never get it. If we stumble here, we cover this back in Romans 8, but I want to repeat it just a bit.

He did not foresee your faith, he granted it. He didn't create you and then look and say, you know, I think this one's got, I forgot, I built faith into this one. I'm gonna come alongside the faith and help them out again.

No, he did not see that you would choose, you could not. He did not cooperate with your will because absent the working of his, blows where he wishes, Holy Spirit, your will would never come anywhere near to seeking after God.

Jeremiah says, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with your whole heart. What's the key to that? It's the whole heart. Your heart, unless God remakes it, can, unless he rebuilds it, or, I'm sorry, unless he remakes it, not rebuilds it, not refurbishes it.

You don't need a little tune-up or a small repair here and there. You need a complete remake, a recreation, not a fix for a pretty good heart, but a new one, and except for that, you will, you cannot seek after God.

He says, with your whole heart. Except God's Spirit comes to you because you fall down before him and plead with him to make you able to believe this great message, this message of salvation of you, the individual, not the nations.

It's you. Your heart will never be in it. It has to be your whole heart. We think of salvation, I've said before, I chose to believe in Jesus Christ. Did you know that? I believe I'm saved, and I believe many of you are saved, and I would say to you, you chose to believe.

Well, there's something that came before that choosing, isn't there? There's a complete new heart. I chose to follow Jesus Christ. Why? Because God made me able to choose to follow Jesus Christ. I chose to follow Jesus Christ, to be his disciple, because God took everything I was, tossed it out, as it were, put in something different from him, the new heart of Ezekiel chapter 36, I'll put a new heart, I'll take out that heart of stone, give you a heart of flesh, and with that heart of flesh from God, by grace, you've been saved through faith and not of works.

Well, all of a sudden, I chose to believe. I chose to exercise my faith towards God. Hallelujah, God is sovereign, because I did what he predestined me to do. I did what he made me able to do. All of him, none of me, and if I have any faith to follow after Jesus Christ with, it's all from him, and he gets all the glory.

Where was I? Not on human will, your will is opposed to him. Not on exertion, you will never exert yourself except against him. It depends on God, who shows mercy. Titus 2 .5, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

I can say it no better. All that is Exodus 33, quoted by the apostle in Romans chapter nine, to prove that God is not unjust. He's sovereign. He appeals next to something that came before what happened in Exodus 33.

Like I said, it's chronologically out of order. So Exodus 33, but long before that, Exodus chapter nine, and I want you to turn there. Flip back to Exodus chapter nine, and we come here to Egypt in the middle of the plagues.

Pharaoh has hardened his heart after some of the plagues. God has hardened his heart after others of the plagues, and for me, honestly, it makes very little difference between the two. The difference is minor at best.

Before the plagues began, before Moses even went before Pharaoh, God had said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, now you're in chapter nine. I'm a little before that. Don't worry about it. Stay in chapter nine.

We'll get there. In chapter four, he said, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

God takes responsibility right up front, unapologetically, unabashedly, plainly before Moses. Why? So Moses will know that when Pharaoh says, well, I've hardened my heart, when Moses looks and says, I think Pharaoh hardened his heart, God says, sure, think of it that way, but I told you up front, I, the sovereign God, will harden his heart.

Chapter seven, verse three, he says again, I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. So as you go through and you see Pharaoh harden his heart, God harden his heart, those are hugely important, and ponder those and meditate those.

I'm not deriding it at all. I'm just saying the difference is pretty small when you consider that before any of it happened, God said, I will harden. I think that overarches the whole thing. So in chapter nine of Exodus, verse 15, God says this to Pharaoh, for by now I could have put out of my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth, but for this purpose, here's Paul's quote, but for this purpose I've raised you up to show my power so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. A beautiful juxtaposition of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, they are both absolutely true. God is sovereign, God chooses whom he will, when he will, because he will, in the way he will, in the timing he will, it's all of God.

You, sinner, must repent and believe this gospel. God commands all men everywhere to repent and believe. You are responsible before the sovereign God to believe this message. In verse 15, what is he saying there in chapter nine of Exodus, verse 15?

Had he chosen to, they'd be gone already. They'd be snuffed out like a candle on a child's birthday cake. Verse 17, after all you've seen, he says to Pharaoh, after all you've seen, you still think you're something.

One verse up, verse 16, why did the Lord deal with them this way? Why 10 plagues rather than just frowning towards them and removing them from the face of the earth forever? What is Pharaoh there for in the first place?

He's there because God raised him up. Why did he resist God? The Proverbs says the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. And more to the point, that Egypt's collapse might be a banner to all people of God's power so that when Egypt is mentioned, men might say yes, that superpower that was brought down by the God of the sheep herders, that's why he was raised up.