Overview of Romans 9 (Part 1)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Now it's together our Father and our God, we thank you for the opportunity to be in your house and to study your word and to be with your people We pray Oh God as we open up to the book of Romans yet again this great doctrinal textbook of the New Testament we pray that our hearts would be open to the truth and That you O Lord would keep me from error as I seek to give exposition of the text That in all things Lord you would glorify yourself and that we would seek to glorify you in our study And Lord, we know there are many things In which we have concerns with which we have concerns when we come To gather together and I'm sure that each and every person here could express something on their heart And Lord, you know what our concerns are.

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So now we just corporately lift them up to you We trust you with them.

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We trust that your will is being worked out in the world Even though sometimes we seem things seem chaotic to us We know Oh Lord that you are constantly Working all things together for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose And for that we praise you and we give you thanks as we examine the text tonight Oh Lord Again make us quick to listen slow to speak and always willing to be instructed by the truth of the Word in Jesus name we pray Amen now last week we began our exposition of Romans chapter 9 I think many of you were here for the opening that we began to look at Romans 9 we got to around verse 15 I believe it was But I do need to back up a little bit and give sort of a precursor for those who weren't here sort of given Context to where we are.

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So if you want to open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 9 Paul begins in verse 1 saying I am speaking the truth in Christ I'm not lying.

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My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit That I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart Now why again? I want to bring this out again.

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Why would Paul say I'm speaking the truth in Christ and I'm not lying Why is he making that point? The point is he is about to give an apologetic In accord with what he has just previously said in verses 28 through 39 of Romans chapter 8 He has said that as believers we have security in Christ There is neither height nor death nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor anything else and all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord that great proclamation of Security then he goes on to say I'm not lying Why? Why say I'm not lying Remember last week what we said because many people would say, but wait a minute, Paul There there are many people who are called God's people There are many people who would be called Jews who would call themselves God's people Who have rejected Jesus Christ and who are not being said and who are standing on the outside of Christ looking in but are refusing him How can you say that God is bringing security when all these people have rejected he says I'm speaking the truth in Christ I'm not lying.

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My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit That I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart For I could wish that I myself were cursed And cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers my kinsmen according to the flesh Paul makes a point He says I wish that I would go to hell If that meant the salvation of all Israel as a nation And remember last week we mentioned there's a lot of love in that statement There's a lot of self-sacrifice in that statement, and I believe it was a true Statement I do not believe Paul is here Exercising some form of false humility you ever you ever met somebody who exercised false humility You tell them hey, that was really great, and they'll say oh, no.

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Oh, no.

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I'm not wonderful But in your mind, you know they really think that they are That's false.

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Yeah, that's false humility and Yeah, you know It's it's the way we often take compliments.

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Oh start.

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You know we don't we don't want to stop.

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We want them to keep going Well here he says I Wish I could be accursed and cut off from Christ to the sake of my brothers my kinsmen according to the flesh He's talking about the Jews.

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He says I wish I could go to hell if that meant the salvation of the Jews that's a strong statement of his love for his kinsmen and If anyone's curious who are his kinsmen according to the flesh he goes ahead in verse 4 and tells us that he says they are Israelites and to them Belong the adoption the glory the covenants the giving of the law the worship and to and the promises to them belong the Patriarchs and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God of all blessed forever Amen, so right there.

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He says the Jews have all these wonderful blessings And if anybody ever asked well we're God Did God choose the Jews well God obviously choose the Jews to be the vessel through whom he would give his blessings to the world And that's basically what this passage tells us is that the the Jews were the chosen vessel to bring the Word of God to the world the Jews were the chosen vessel to bring about God's ordinances and God's plan and the and the Description of the holiness of God all of this that we get in the Old Testament comes to the Jews and the Jews are through whom Jesus Christ came into the world So, of course, they have received a massive blessing From God having been chosen to be that race of people through whom Jesus Christ would come However, does that mean that every Jew? Because he is a Jew Is going to be saved The answer is no if that were the case then Paul's statement would not only be superfluous It would be Ridiculous for him to say I wish I could go to hell if all that all Israel would be saved if Paul believed all Israel Or we're going to be saved.

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Anyway, why would he make such a statement? Well, he wouldn't as I said, it would be superfluous and ridiculous So in verse six, he goes on to say but it is not as though the Word of God has failed It's not as though God made a plan and then somehow his plan got thwarted and he had to make up a new plan It's not as though God made a promise and somehow that promise failed to come true.

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So God had to make a new promise It's not as if God has failed to do what God planned to do So many people see God that way so many people see God as a God who who just he makes plans But because man has this free will that somehow thwarts his will that we can come along and we can thwart God's will and he's got To make a new plan Well, that's not the way it is Yeah, it's a tiny God syndrome and many people have it Verse six says but it is not as though the Word of God has failed for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel And not all who are children of Abraham Excuse me.

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Not all our children of Abraham because they are his offspring Again, the point is simple.

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Not all people who are Jews are Of the spiritual seed of Abraham who are of the spiritual seed of Abraham according to Jesus Christ Those who have the faith of Abraham Didn't that isn't that what Jesus said to the Pharisees? We talked about this last week the Pharisees said we are the sons of Abraham and Jesus said no If you were Abraham's son, you would have believed in me, but you rather are of your father the devil Of course a very harsh statement to make to a group of Jewish religious people But that's the statement Jesus made says you're not of Abraham you're of the devil and there he was speaking specifically to Jewish people And he goes on to say in verse 7 not all the children of Abraham are his children Excuse me, and not all our children of Abraham because they are his offspring But through Isaac shall your offspring be named All right.

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So from Abraham We have how many children you have Ishmael and Isaac and you have before Ishmael you have Eliezer of Damascus Which was the one that Abraham said that he had adopted had Officially had been assigned to inherit memory told God he says he says I don't have a son All I have is Eliezer of Damascus.

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He's the one who's going to receive if I die.

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He would receive all my Inheritance, so he had taken an adopted son after Isaac Abraham has more children not with Sarah.

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I but with another wife a lot of people miss that part of Genesis as well.

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So there are more children over here Okay So out of these children, which one is the son of the promise? Which one was the promised son of God or son of Abraham that God had given him? Isaac right here.

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Okay, so right away God has exercised a type of what we call Election God has made a choice That's a key word because Paul is going to use it in a moment He has made a choice not to accept Eliezer not to accept Ishmael and not to accept any of the other children But instead he has chosen Isaac to be the son of the promise Is that because Isaac is better than Ishmael Eliezer or any of the other children? Some people might want to make that argument They may want to say, well, the reason why God chose Isaac was he was the son that God had promised He was the one that came through Sarai who would later be Sarah.

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That's why God chose him And then somehow he deserved it.

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I would disagree Based on the next ground, because the text goes on to say in verse eight or rather it says in verse seven Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring But through Isaac shall your offspring be named This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God But the children of the promise are counted as offspring For this is what the promise said about this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election might continue There's that word election, not because of works, but because of his call She was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I have loved and Esau I hated All right, that's what we got last week But just to break it down further, this is important from Isaac We have two sons All right An argument could be made that God's choosing of Isaac was because Isaac was the one that he had promised to Sarah That Ishmael was a son that was was through the works and Sarah was the one that was by grace There's all kinds of arguments as to why this son received the blessing and why this son didn't However, now we get to a more difficult situation because you're dealing now with twins Same father, same mother, same birthday In almost all respects, they have the same lot in life However, which one of these would God choose? God will choose Jacob, who he will later call what? Israel, right? What does Israel mean? Wrestles with God.

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Interesting, that name, because people want to talk about how good Jacob was and how bad Esau was And they say this, the reason why God chose Jacob and he did not choose Esau was because Jacob was good and Esau was bad But that is not so We spent a long time last week and I know if you were here last week, you're like, he's saying the same thing Beloved, hear it again, because these things are being taught to you because they are important Why did God choose Jacob over Israel? I'm sorry, why did God choose Jacob over Esau? The text tells us right here, go back into the text It says in verse 10, and not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad All right, so before we go any further, was the choice of Jacob and Esau based upon the goodness or badness of the individual? The text clearly says it wasn't, OK, so that's out But it goes on to say in order that God's purpose in election might continue or in some translation says might stand So that God's purpose in election might be displayed, not because of works, but because of his call God called Jacob with a special calling He was told the older shall serve the younger And we see that in Scripture, Jacob stole his brothers both right through manipulative tactics And as such, Esau became the secondary child Remember, Esau was the one who was owed the birthright, but he sold it for some food, some stew And he is now underneath Jacob in the line of family, in the blessing Then later, his dad was going to give Esau the blessing anyway, and he stole it again And we told that story last week If anybody in this story has strikes against their character, it's Jacob Which leads me to where we ended last week We ended last week on the statement in verse 13, as it is written, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated Very quickly, let's think about that statement Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated All right, who is speaking? In this case, the Lord God of heaven This is a statement that God has made He has made two bold declarations in this statement He said one, Jacob, I loved, and he says two, Esau, I hated The word love means love And the word hate, just in case there's a question Well, maybe the Greek says this or the Greek says that You know, I'm being, really, love means love, hated means less love You could say less love You could make that, as I said last week, some people have attempted to make it be a lesser form of love Because it is not within the theology of many people for God to hate anything And much less for God to hate anyone One of the things that I find interesting is in discussions with people I had a young man, he was a teenager I was teaching the youth at this point And I said, God hates sin And he stopped me And he says, wait a minute I've been told my entire life that God doesn't hate anything And I said, well, you've been told wrong I make no apologies and there's no reason to argue about it The Bible clearly says there are six things that God hates The S7 are an abomination to him And it goes on to describe many things that God hates The Bible says God hates divorce A lot of people don't know that The Bible says that God hates sin A haughty eye, hands that shed innocent blood These are things God hates, but it doesn't stop there The Bible also says that God's wrathful judgment is upon the wicked And those who do not flee to his mercy and grace for salvation will spend eternity in a lake of fire I don't care what Rob Bell says Eternity is an eternity They're not going to have a chance of parole after 10 years or five years or 50,000 years It's not that way And to teach such a thing, huh? I'm sorry to teach such a thing is to if the word eternity, when the Bible says that they will suffer eternally If that word eternity, because this is what I don't know if you know who you don't even know if you know who Rob Bell is But he's the newest He's the newest, you know, real night, you know, fancy glasses wearing, you know Real cool clothes wearing guy who's out there proclaiming that everybody's going to get to heaven eventually Because God loves everybody Everybody's going to get to heaven eventually That's his teaching This is Rob Bell's description of heaven and hell is that, well, hell's not eternal because the Bible uses the word ION And ION doesn't mean eternal Well, if ION doesn't mean eternal when it talks about hell, then ION also does not mean eternal when it talks about heaven Because it's the same word Huh? That's it And there's a lot of problems with that theology Most importantly, of course, that it's not biblical Yeah What is kind of promising about the whole situation is how much backlash we've gotten Oh, yeah Yeah, well, and it's not and it's it is sad, though, how many people they want that They want that teaching So they they they tend to lend to it Stuff like this is not popular That word right there is getting me kicked out of 90% of churches And what's funny is it used to be It used to be the other way around People don't want to even hear that, number one, that God would choose and, number two, that God would choose in accordance with his will They don't want to hear that And this this idea that you saw, I've hated it I want to propose to you a concept that maybe you've heard, maybe you haven't But I want to propose this to you because this is where I should have ended last week But I totally missed it, looked at my notes later and I said, I forgot to say it So I wanted to mention it tonight If you look at this statement here and you have a problem with Esau, I have hated I would I would submit to you.

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That your greater problem should be with Jacob, I've loved because there's nothing in the world that should make God love us, but everything in the world that should make him angry over our sin So if you've got a problem with this sentence, it should be with this part because we deserve this grace is what we don't deserve Could you use it as God chose Jacob and God rejected Esau? You could say it that way.

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But but but that is we're interpreting the text at that point and using it.

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We're paraphrasing what it's saying.

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It's hard to think about God's hatred.

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It really is.

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It's hard to come to that to that point.

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And I've had some people make the in fact, I think somebody in here last week asked me afterwards.

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They said, wait a minute.

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This text says, as it is written, Jacob, I've loved and Esau I've hated.

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So where is it written at? And it's actually written back in the book of Malachi.

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Somebody says, now, wait a minute.

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Now that is talking about the nation of Jacob and the nation of Esau.

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And I said, well, take a step back then.

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Now it's not just God loved an individual and hated an individual.

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Now it's God loved an entire nation, but also hated an entire nation.

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So you just step you just step from one to the whole.

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But I would make this point.

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Paul does not use this in a national sense.

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Paul uses this in an individual sense because he's been talking this whole time.

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They were two in the same womb.

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They were born of our father, Isaac and Rebecca.

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These two God chose one and didn't choose the other.

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Why? Because one was inherently better than the other.

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It's tough, it's difficult, but it's obvious that God did.

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Now, remember what we said last week? Because we got to verse 15 or verse 14.

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We said verse 14 says, what shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? That's the first thing people ask when they see this, Jacob, I've loved, but Esau, I hated.

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They first say, well, does that make God unfair? Verse 13, 14 rather answers that question.

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He says, what shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? What's another way of saying is there injustice with God? Is God unfair? Is God unfair? And he says, Megan, I can't make it.

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I disagree for by no means.

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Sometimes in some translations it says God forbid other translations.

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It says what? May it never be made.

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You know, it's a good idea means being made being the opposite.

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Meaning it's the opposite of being.

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May it never exist that God do anything unjust.

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And anyone who looks at the doctrine of election and ascribes injustice to God, number one, does not at all understand that we are all deserving of only one thing from God, and that is punishment.

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Sin garners punishment.

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Every one of you know this verse for the wages of sin is and what is death? Is death simply physical death or is death death and hell? And that passage is death and hell for the wages of sin is death separation from God.

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That is what sin is owed.

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Sin is owed.

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That's tough to hear because why we're all sinners.

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But I tell you what, it makes you hold that much tighter to grace when you receive it because you understand that you don't deserve that grace.

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The moment you think you deserve heaven is the moment you have gone from Orthodox Christianity to a form of works righteousness.

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The minute you think you deserve it is the moment you've gone from salvation by Christ alone to salvation, to my to my works, plus what Christ did.

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Same mistake.

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He says in verse 13 or 14, is there injustice with God by no means? Verse 15, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

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Difficult words, right? God says right there, I do not need approval to show my mercy.

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I do not have to do anything but make a choice.

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We make a big deal about man's choices.

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We choose this.

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We choose that.

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We have free will.

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We can do this.

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We can do that.

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Rarely have I ever, ever heard anybody talk about the free will of God.

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I've never heard anybody preach on it.

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We talk about our free will all the time and how man has the ability to make choices and those choices determine his destiny and blah, blah, blah.

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When's the last time you heard a pastor say God's will is more free than yours and God is free to choose? And he says here in this text, he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will show compassion to whom I will show compassion.

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That's an express statement of the free will of God.

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That God is not bound by some ethical code that is higher than himself.

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I think that's a picture people have of God.

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People have a picture of God as if God is trying to reach some standard.

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That's right.

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But this is what they'll say.

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If God does that, that's not good.

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Well, who are you to say what you're saying is there's a standard of good that God has failed to reach.

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You're saying there's a standard above God when what you should understand is that God himself is the standard.

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God himself is the measuring rod.

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God himself is the rule.

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So if God chooses something, it is right, whether or not I like it or not, whether or not I think it's fair or not, whether or not it fits into my moral code or not, because if my moral code doesn't agree with God's moral code, guess who's wrong? Well, it's not God, and thus they are just.

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That's amazing thought.

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It is God who does things and when he does them, they are right because he does.

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Rather than the other way around now looking at verse 16, he goes on to say, so then it depends not on human will or exertion.

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But on God who has mercy.

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What is it? What is it? It's yeah, it could you could go back to the antecedent of it and say it is the compassion.

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You can say it is the mercy.

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You could go back and even as far as say it is the election.

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I would I would go back and say that in the context it says so then it and I believe it's the election because the election is based on God's choosing whom he will mercy and choosing whom he will compassion.

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The choice here, it might not again looking at the word election, you might not see election in the Senate, but the choice to have mercy and the choice to have compassion.

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That is God's elective choice.

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It's the choice to make the decision.

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So then that decision then depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy, meaning I cannot will God's mercy.

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I cannot compel God's mercy.

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I cannot confront or force God's mercy.

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I cannot manipulate God's mercy.

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It is up to God to be merciful.

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And then it goes on to verse 17 and 18 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.

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So then he mercies or rather, he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills.

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Let's just look at verse 17 and 18 very quickly.

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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.

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Beloved, do we even know the story that's being referenced here? The story is being referenced back in the book of Exodus.

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When God spoke to Moses through the burning bush, he told Moses, he says, go to Pharaoh and say to him, let my people go.

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He says, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart so that he will not let the people go.

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Why? Because through the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and through the consistent back and forth of the 10 plagues, God's name is declared throughout the earth as being.

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You see, when Moses first came and there was the 10 plagues, don't ask me to name all 10 because right off the top of my head, I can't do it.

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But when he began the plagues, if you look at the plagues and you compare those plagues, and I don't remember what theologian did it, but there was a theologian years ago who compared the 10 plagues to the 10 major gods of the Egyptian people.

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There was the god of the sea and thus the sea became as blood.

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And there was the god of the frogs.

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And that was one of the gods that they worshiped.

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Every one of the plagues was a shot at the false gods of Egypt.

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Finally, to one who was the last one, Pharaoh himself, who was considered to be God on earth.

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He was considered to be the lord of the world, the lord of all things.

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He was considered himself to be deity.

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And so the god of heaven took his first born to demonstrate you are not God.

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But you see, it was through the hardening of Pharaoh's heart that he continually said, you can go away now.

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You can't you can go away now.

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You can't.

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And through that action of hardening Pharaoh's heart, God's name was displayed as great throughout the world.

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Oh, well, that means Pharaoh was an innocent person that God just came along and ran over hogwash.

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Pharaoh was a sinner.

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Nothing that a sinner ever receives from God is unjust.

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We must get that through our heads.

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And nothing that Pharaoh ever received from God, even the hardening of his already hard heart, was unjust.

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It's not as if Pharaoh was there going, God, I love you and I want to follow you and I want to be like you and I want to do everything for you.

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And then God said, no, I'm going to make your heart horrible.

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That would be a silly thing to even consider.

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But when you take a person who is already a sinful person and remove your restraining hand of grace from them, as God did with Pharaoh, thus hardening their heart as stone.

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It's still an action on God's part.

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He's still chosen to do it, but he has not introduced evil into the man's heart.

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But by removing the restraining of grace, God displays to the world who Pharaoh really is.

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I wonder this, who would we really be if God's hand of restraint was lifted from us? How hard would our hearts become? And how evil could we be? If God's loving, gracious mercy was taken away from us now.

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It says he will have mercy on whom he wills, he will harden whom he wills.

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This is not my this is not something I wrote.

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I'm proposing it to you as like a term paper.

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All I'm doing is reading the text and interpreting the text, and I'm not doing a whole lot of interpretation.

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I'm not making some fanciful use of language here.

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I'm just saying this is what it says.

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I will say this, though, those who do not agree with what it says do often use fanciful uses of language to try to get around.

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Well, it doesn't mean harden.

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What it means is, well, no, what happened was Pharaoh hardened his heart first and God came along later and hardened his heart.

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And if you read the text of Scripture, the Bible does say Pharaoh hardened his heart.

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But it also says prior to that, God told Moses, I will harden the part of the heart of Pharaoh.

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Verse 19.

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You will say to me, then.

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Why did he still find fault for whom? Not whom, who? Why does he still find fault? Who can resist his will? Beloved, if you take nothing else away from tonight, take verse 20 and put it in the memory bank of your mind, because verse 20 is the answer to the question.

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Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Notice Paul didn't try to explain himself.

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Notice Paul didn't go into some long theological explanation.

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All he said was.

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God has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whom he wills, and if you have a problem with that, who do you think you are? Who are you, O man? Actually, in the Greek, I will throw the linguistic in the Greek, the old man comes first because that's the focal point of the sentence.

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Oh, man, who do you think you are? The focus here is on your and here's a weird word for you.

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It's on your creatureliness.

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Yeah, that's a weird word, but it's a it's a good one because the focal point here is how does the creature look to the creator and say you're wrong? Well, he goes on to say that.

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He goes on to say, but who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Well, that which is molded, say to the molder, why have you made me like this? Well, the pot say to the potter, you messed up.

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He goes on in verse 21.

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He says, has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? And some texts use the word refuse.

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Potter's got one piece of clay.

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I don't know if you've ever done pottery work, but when I used to do pottery work, we took two sticks and there was a wire that we'd run between the two sticks and you take that wire and you shove that wire into the clay and you pull off a piece and that piece you take and you slap it down on the spinning wheel.

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You did this in my 10th grade year of school.

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We had a spinning wheel and it was neat.

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You pour water on it, you mold it, and then another kid would come along and they take that same piece of clay, all these things.

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And there were some kids who were tremendously talented.

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I was not one of them in regard to the clay, particularly all my stuff looked sort of the same, sort of like an ashtray that was about 400 years old.

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That's what everything I tried to make looked like.

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It didn't have much of a curve.

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There was always dips in the side, looked like you could put a big cigar right there.

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But some of these girls and guys would come and they'd make these beautiful things.

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But it was all coming from the same piece.

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The teacher would buy this big lump of clay and we'd just take our sticks with our wire and we'd go up there and we'd take a piece off and we'd come back and we would make our beautiful piece of clay pottery or whatever it was.

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The funny thing was, is that it was all from the same piece of clay, the most beautiful piece of artwork, glazed and painted and beautiful vase that the teacher would always make something gorgeous.

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And then my little ashtray, it was made out of the same piece of clay.

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Now, that might not be an exact analogy because it was different potter.

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The point, though, is it's the same clay and it says in verse 21, has the potter no right over the clay? The question is simple.

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Is God, is God, is God not right to do what he wants? Is God not right to have a free will? We want a free will, but we don't want God to be free.

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He has to be this way.

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God has to do this because this is what I think he should do.

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And then in verse 22 through 24, it's the most difficult passage in the Bible.

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I would honestly say, I think, verses 23 through 24 in regard to how man sees his own condition.

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To read verse 21 or 22 through 24 is the most difficult thing to do.

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What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make his power known, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory? Even us, whom he has called from the Jews, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.

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Here we have the truth of this passage wrapped up with two humanities.

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One humanity has been prepared for wrath, the other has been prepared for glory.

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Now, some make the linguistic argument that it doesn't say who prepared vessels for destruction.

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And I've actually even heard some people try to interpret this and say, well, Satan is the potter who makes the vessels for destruction.

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That is clearly a misuse of the language of the passage, because in the passage, one potter, one lump of clay and two vessels.

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But the issue of the of whether or not they prepared themselves or whether God prepared them.

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We do have to understand this point that when it talks about being prepared for destruction, ultimately what causes our just punishment is our sin.

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We are justly punished because of our sin, we're not punished because because of any other reason, we are punished because of our sin.

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However, the analogy Paul is making here is that if God chooses to do one thing with one person, show them mercy and grace in election and God chooses to reject someone else according to his will in election, we cannot say to God, you've done something wrong.

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We cannot say you are unfair.

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We cannot say you are unjust.

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We cannot say, God, you were you were gracious to Moses, but you were ungracious to Pharaoh.

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So you're wrong.

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We cannot say to God, you were gracious to Paul, but you were not gracious to Gamaliel.

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Gamaliel, who was Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, did Gamaliel ever fall off of a horse on his way to Damascus and have a that's the one thing about election.

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People say, oh, well, election is Old Testament.

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It's not New Testament.

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The apostle Paul of all the people in Israel did not deserve the grace of God, but God knocked him off his horse and he gave him grace.

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Jesus Christ showed himself to him alone, not to any of the other Pharisees, but to him alone, not to Gamaliel or any of the others.

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We see election all throughout scripture.

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And who are you? Oh, man.

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To answer back to God.

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All right.

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This passage, as I pull to a conclusion here and I am going to finish on time is an amazing thing I never do.

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I see smiles.

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That's the way it is.

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That's good.

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This passage, Romans chapter nine, verses one to twenty four, has long been a point of debate and contention and a problem for many people as this teaching destroys their ego.

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The very essence of human religion has always been and always will be the creature, the creation of structures whereby man can control the power of God.

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I say that again, the essence of human religion has always been and always will be the creation of structures whereby man can control the power of God.

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It is only in consistent biblical Christian faith that you find the freedom of God and the total dependence of man upon that free God and his mercy and grace consistently proclaimed.

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Anytime a proclamation of this lesser biblical view is made, it will always be at this point that these lesser proclamations will depart because they cannot allow God to be God.

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They cannot allow God to be free.

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The very essence of human religion is the assertion of the autonomy of the human creature and the subservience of God to that autonomous will.

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God follows what we want and God responds to us.

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Another problem is this teaching goes against many people's traditional understanding of God and anything, anytime this issue arises, people share their traditional biases by what they use to contend against the text.

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One such instance happened to Dr.

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James White, he was in a church one time and he was teaching through Roman.

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Let me tell you about the church.

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They they had told the Sunday school teachers what they were allowed to teach.

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That was they gave them and a lot of churches do that.

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They have an outline for what all the Sunday school classes are going to do the same thing.

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They gave him one Sunday to teach the Romans nine to eleven, not Romans nine, nine to eleven, Romans chapter nine, the Romans chapter 11, one Sunday to teach three chapters of biblical text.

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He read it and explain it.

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He just read the portion of Romans chapter nine that we just read.

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He didn't give explanation, but in the midst of reading it, this is a large church.

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In the midst of reading the text, people were so offended that they got up and left.

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And after he did read it and after he did give explanation of it, he had a member approach him and said this.

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He said, I've read Romans nine and thought, you know what, I thought that sounded like election predestination, but I knew we didn't believe that.

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So I just didn't believe it.

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That is how so many people approach the text of Scripture.

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I know what I believe and I'll go to the passages of the Bible that agree with me.

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And I'll proclaim them and I'll go to the passages that I don't and I'll put them aside.

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Beloved, we have the responsibility.

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Never in history has the word of God been so open to so many people in so many languages, but with that great amount of text and ability to study comes the responsibility to study correctly, to read not just what the text says, but to seek its meaning.

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Its grammatical, historical meaning, what did Paul mean when he wrote this? What did John mean, what did Mark mean? Not what I think it meant or not.

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How does it apply to my day to day? What does it mean? And then, oh, yeah, and it commands and it gives commands and we are to follow those.

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All right, well, I could go another hour, but I don't know if you guys could.

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Yeah, let's have a word of prayer.

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Father, thank you for this time to be in your house and to be about your word.

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We pray, oh, God, for.

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All that has been going on in our congregation, our churches, we have been moving forward and studying your word and being a seeking to be Lord, an expository lighthouse here in our community, just teaching the word of God through our Sunday school programs, through our Wednesday night programs, through our Sunday morning programs, Lord.

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Seeking to reach out and teach the word of God, not be afraid of its proclamation, I just pray that you'll continue to bless what we're doing.

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I pray that you'll move Sovereign Grace Family Church in a strong direction forward.

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To bring people to us who need to hear the word.

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And that they will be nourished by.

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And all these things, Lord, we give you praise and glory because we know that you are building your church, you are constantly building your church.

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And the gates of hell will not prevail against.

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For that, we give you thanks.

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You are our sovereign God and we trust you in all things.

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In Jesus name, we pray.

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Amen.