FBC Daily Devotional – February 23, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. Here we are in the middle of the week already, and I trust your week's going well.

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Well, one of the really challenging passages to wrap our heads around in the book of Romans is chapters 9 through 11, because in that passage, and it actually begins back in chapter 8, but really applied in chapters 9 to 11, in that passage the

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Apostle Paul is talking about the doctrine of election and he brings out in chapter 9 the fact that, just a fact, of God in his grace and for his purposes electing those who he brings to himself.

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So, for example, he speaks of, in chapter 9, he talks about the choosing of Jacob over Esau.

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He says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. In other words, Jacob have I chosen for myself,

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Esau have I rejected. And he goes on to say, you know, are you gonna find fault with God for this?

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He says, how can you find fault? How can you find fault with him? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me this?

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Does not the potter have the power to do with the clay whatever he wants? And then he says, what if God wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction so that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called, not of the

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Jews only, but of the Gentiles also. Then he goes on to talk about how the

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Lord says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people and so forth. And so he goes on through chapters 9 and then into 10 and on into chapter 11 talking about this this marvelous, mysterious, deep and profound doctrine of election.

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In fact in chapter 11 verse 5, he says, even so then at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace, not an election based upon some knowledge of how good people might be, but an election of grace.

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And if by grace, he goes on to say, then it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace, but it is of works.

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It's no longer grace. Otherwise work is no longer work. So this whole matter has

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Paul's been spending a lot of time talking about, and especially in relationship to the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, this doctrine of election.

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It's a doctrine that has created all kinds of controversy in the church through the years.

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To some, it's absolutely abhorrent that God would choose some to be saved and so forth.

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They can't wrap their head around it. Well, I can't wrap my head around it either. I can't wrap my head around why

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God in his grace would choose to save a wretch like me. I don't understand why he would do that.

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But yet he has. And so I think the point we have to come to in this doctrine is the point that Paul comes to at the end of chapter 11.

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It is an admission that there's no way I can grasp this.

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There's no way I can wrap my head around this. This is how Paul expresses it at the end of chapter 11.

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Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

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How deep is the wisdom of God? How deep and rich is the knowledge of God?

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Its depths I cannot plumb. The value of it I cannot estimate.

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Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

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How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out?

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Just try to figure out. Just try to figure it out. Why did

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God choose this little nation of people, this little people group, descendants of Abraham who he preserved in Egypt.

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Why did he choose them? Why did he choose to bring them out of Egypt? Why did he choose to harden

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Pharaoh's heart? Why did he choose that they would be condemned and that these descendants of Abraham would be preserved and that there would be in that a remnant of true believers and he made sure that he had that remnant.

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Why? Why would God choose Jacob and not Esau? Why didn't he choose

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Esau? You know, why? You cannot figure it out.

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The depths of his wisdom is too great. The judgments that God has made are unsearchable.

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You cannot go back far enough. You cannot go deep enough. You cannot go wide enough to figure this all out.

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His judgments are unsearchable and his ways are past finding out.

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You know, there's this little theory called the butterfly effect. You heard that? The idea is that, the theory is that, you know, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Southeast Asia, the air movement of that butterfly's wings ripples throughout the entire world.

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You know, there's this butterfly effect. And that's how I look at the ways of God.

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That they're past finding out. You cannot, you can't figure out the ripple effects of all of God's ways.

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You can't even figure out the ripple effects of any of God's ways. This is what Paul is saying and think of this in terms of, in a relationship to this doctrine of election.

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So I can't figure out why God would choose this and not that and, you know, why there are these vessels unto wrath and vessels unto, you know,

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I can't figure that all out. No, you can't and neither can I. And we don't understand the ripple effects.

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We can't put them all together. We can't pull them all together and see them all.

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We can't do it. It's past finding out. And then he asks this question in verses 34 and 35, the rhetorical questions.

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Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who's fully figured it out? Who's got it from beginning to end?

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Rhetorical question, isn't it? No one. Or who has become his counselor?

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Would you and I be so arrogant and brazen as to say,

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God, you can't do things this way. You have to do things the way I think they need to be done.

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No. Or who has first given to him and it shall be repaid to him.

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In other words, to whom does God owe a thing? To whom is he a debtor?

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Rhetorical question, right? No one. No one. And so it all comes down to this, the last verse of Romans 11.

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For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever.

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Amen. Everything is of him. Everything is through him and everything is unto him.

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To him be glory forever. So let's approach passages like Romans 9 through 11.

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Let's approach doctrines like the doctrine of election and foreknowledge and predestination and all those things.

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Let's approach these doctrines that Scripture teaches. Let's approach them with humility and not with an arrogance that says,

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God just can't do things in this way because to me it doesn't seem like that's the right thing to do.

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Let's not go there. Let's just conclude that his ways are beyond my comprehension.

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His judgments are deeper than I'll ever plumb. It's all from him, through him, and to him that he in the end might be glorified in everything.

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Let's humble ourselves before him. So our Father and our God, we have to confess this morning there is so much in some of these doctrines that we cannot fully comprehend.

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But there they are. Your Word says it. And so we must bow before your

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Word and humble ourselves under its authority and under the teaching that you have given, this self -revelation that you have provided for us.

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Give us humility in our approach to Scripture, we pray. And these important doctrines in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday and I trust God will bless you in it.