Sept. 3, 2017 Calling All Vessels by Pastor Josh Sheldon

We will attend ourselves this morning to verses 19 to 29 in Romans chapter 9

There's the word of the Lord You will say to me then why does he find why does he still find fault for who can resist his will

But who are you old man to answer back to God? Well, what is molded say to its molder?

Why have you made me like this? Has the potter know right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?

What if God? Desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience the 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 not from the

Jews only but also from the Gentiles as Indeed he says in Hosea Those who are not my people.

I will call my people and her who was not beloved I will call beloved and in the very place where it was said to them.

You are not my people There they will be called sons of the Living God and Isaiah cries out concerning Israel Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea only a remnant of them will be saved for the

Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay and as I Isaiah predicted if the

Lord of hosts had not left us offspring we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah This is the word of the

Lord You know, there's sort of a boogeyman out there in Christendom He hides behind email names.

He lurks on discussion boards that are hosted on the web He's sort of like those prank calls you get where you're hearing recording, but it sounds like a voice

They're just trying to get you to say yes, so they can record your yes And then say that you have agreed to purchase something you didn't ever agree to purchase.

It's sort of like those calls This is IRS internal revenue servants telling you that we have much

Felony Complaint against you for tax fraud that you committed and all those sorts of things

I've never actually met this boogeyman I've been told his name

I'll take the word of men more traveled more knowledgeable than myself that he actually exists But he's out there

Apparently and his name is Mr. Hyper Calvinist There's a man out there called

Mr. Hyper Calvinist, and he seems to cause a lot of trouble Phil Johnson wrote a short article about him, and he's got a five -point definition, which is fairly common.

He put it in this article Here's Mr. Hyper Calvinist He is one of these five things any one or all of them denies that the gospel calls all

Of excuse me denies that the cost the gospel call applies to all who hear it

Or he denies that faith is the duty of every sinner or he denies that the gospel makes an offer offer in quotes of Christ and Salvation that he offers mercy to the non -elect

Or he denies that there's any such thing as common grace, or he denies that God has any sort of love for the non

Elect and according to Phil Johnson him quoting this long -held Idea if you are any one or more of these five things you are that lurking boogeyman

Mr. Hyper Calvinist I'm not sure. Mr. Hyper Calvinist actually exists.

I've never met him. I've read a couple of quotes We say see this was hyper Calvinism, and I didn't quite see it

I have good dear friends brothers whom I love quite strongly

Who would hold one or more of these positions, and I don't consider them hyper anything

But there's this idea that there's a hyper person out there someone who goes over the top and What the hyper person does what the hyper

Calvinist does apparently is so over emphasized God's sovereignty as to virtually deny man's responsibility

He would come to a passage like what I just read in Romans 9 19 to 29, and he would conclude something like this

Well God makes vessels as he will and once it is made it will end out of inevitably and inexorably

Proceed to its predetermined predestined fate. There's nothing to be done

Especially pleading with them to believe the gospel Hallelujah praise

God Let's do something Our passage would rail against this mr..

Hyper if he actually is He detracts from God's glory here by giving too little thought to the miracle of Rebirth to just what

God's Spirit actually does when he makes a sinner able to believe makes you want to believe

Well look at these 11 verses and with the Spirit's help with God's blessing. I want to see what they actually say

And what it is about these vessels these vessels predetermined by God for these two purposes these noble and these ignoble

Purposes that God determined in advance for them And does that necessarily give us a fatalistic view of salvation?

It doesn't decrease the energy with which we plead we beg we offer

We preach we proclaim We live out the gospel in order that those who do not believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ might come to him Do we have warrant for such a thing in these vessels

God has made? Verses 19 to 21 here first of all have a question and an answer

We'll take that first and we'll go through it fairly quickly and then verses 22 to 24 sort of Redirect the questioner's thought process and finally

Verses 25 to 29 bring the prophecies of Hosea and Isaiah to bear on the question

So look again up at verse 19 And the question we started with how does why does he still find fault for who can resist his will

The question is how is it then how is it that God holds us accountable? Given his sovereignty given his

Irresistible will that he is the sovereign God who made all things How does he hold us accountable if it is he who in his power in his design in his sovereignty made me thus

I mean Romans 1 18 to 25 famously lays sin at our door and says sort of here

It is you did it you did sin and God said Self -declaration in the very heavens showing forth his glory and his handiwork is

Enough to have convinced you that he is as real as you are and you are morally accountable to him

His eternal power his divine nature Against which your sin is exposed

Romans 5 12 to 21 it pegs sins intrusion to Adam and then attributes what he did by way of descent to us all

Romans 3 23 all sin and fall short of the glory of God No one can escape this and with all this

There's verse 116 at the beginning of this book the theme of the entire book of Romans For I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

Jew first and also to the Greek So the question the question itself is a good question

If that be true How do you explain my need to believe my need to have faith if God chose?

Jacob over Esau before they were even born and then raised up Pharaoh only to destroy him

It sounds like I haven't a chance that I'm just a pawn on God's chessboard

Except that the square that he has me on He won't move me off of and if he has me on a square for salvation

Hallelujah, I'm going to be saved if he has me on a square for perdition. There's nothing I can do about it

He made me this way So how preacher how?

Christian How believing friend believing parent believing child do you hold me the unbeliever accountable for my sin?

If God acts in this way That's the question and a lot of how we look at this

Depends on the way we take the very question How do we take the question? Martin Luther wrote here in sort of a typical way he says the apostle the apostle quotes this question in the sense of those who contend against God in a wicked and Arrogant way, so Martin Luther the great reformer.

He sees this question as somebody who's saying Why does he still find fault with me?

All right, who can resist his will Sort of a snide in -your -face sort of way sort of why would he dare find fault with me if you're saying he is the sovereign

God speaking to God with derisive and disrespectful tones

FF Bruce takes a different tack He says this Paul has been misunderstood and unfairly criticized

Through failure to recognize that it is the God -defying rebel and not the bewildered seeker after God whose mouth he so peremptorily shuts

Now I think FF Bruce got it right here Given all that has come before The question is a fair one.

It is posed by an interested and respectful listener And so the answer is sort of like this if you are here, and you do not believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ You do not have a personal faith in him as the only answer for your sins before God if you are here in that condition and You want to hear why

God holds you accountable? How the sovereign God who determines all things? Can hold you morally responsible for your sins?

God willing I will give you part of the answer not the full answer nobody can but from these few verses

If you are here saying who does God think he is charging me with sin

I Have less answer for you other than who are you old man to answer back to God?

but God willing We will take the Apostles answer to this question.

We will take the approach that the the question is being asked by a Sincere seeker someone who's been tracking along all these chapters of theology and Romans And is saying wait a second.

I have a question Proffered to you respectfully tell me

Paul. How is it that God this sovereign God who determines all things? Who makes me as I am

Who raised up Pharaoh as A display of his might and his glory and his power

Cast him down to display all that Tell me Paul How is it he holds me accountable?

I want to understand this So if we take it that way if we take it FF Bruce's way then

Paul's response is instructive It's not incendiary against him if we were asked cynically implying that God has no right

I think Paul would have gone in a different direction The question is not what right has he to do so but rather on what basis does he find fault

So but who are you old man to answer back to God? That's a necessary prelim to the answer even to the respectful questioner

Because we need to understand before we look to God's Word to get instruction for ourselves from God's Word that God is

Sovereign and God is not to be questioned in that way Will the what is molded say to its molder?

Why have you made me like this? Has the Potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?

Paul doesn't quote exactly an Old Testament scripture there but the metaphor of God as the

Potter as God is the one who in his sovereignty puts the lump on the

Potter's will and designs of it what he will is certainly a

Metaphor that has Old Testament Hinges throughout and I want to look at two of them with you this morning

I with most commentators believe that one or both of these is what Paul has in mind when he speaks in Romans 9 of the

Potter So turn first to Isaiah chapter 29 Isaiah 29 and verse 13

In the first verse here you will recognize from Matthew 15 Which is the one that Jesus quoted to the

Pharisees when they came to him and said why is it your disciples? Disobey the tradition of the elders by not washing their hands, and this is the first thing

Jesus quoted to them It applies also to Romans 9 19

So here's Isaiah 29 and the Lord said because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men

Therefore behold I will again do wonderful things with this people with wonder upon wonder and the wisdom of the wise of their wise

Men shall perish and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden Ah You who hide deep from the

Lord your counsel whose deeds are in the dark and who say who sees us who knows us? You turn things upside down Shall the

Potter be regarded as the clay that the thing made should say to his maker He did not make me or the thing form say of him who formed it.

He has no understanding The point here is that the one who was made man from clay or as Genesis 2 7 has it man from the dust

He has turned things around by thinking that his maker that is God That is the

Potter thinking that his maker is just like he himself is that he

God Doesn't know or see his sin.

So why does he find fault? He finds fault because he is your maker and he is aware of all that you the pot

Does or has done or for that matter will do why does he find fault?

Because he's your maker and he's aware. So turn now, please to Jeremiah chapter 18

Jeremiah 18 if in Isaiah 29

God the Potter is simply a metaphor that Isaiah uses to make his point to Israel in Jeremiah 18 the prophet is sent to actually visit a

Potter an actual Potter and There he's going to hear the word of the Lord So Jeremiah 18,

I'm gonna read the first 11 verses of that chapter the word that came to Jeremiah from the

Lord arise and go down to the Potter's house and There I will let you hear my words

So I went down to the Potter's house and there he was working at his will and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the

Potter's hand and He reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the

Potter to do Then the word of the Lord came to me Oh house of Israel Can I not do with you as this

Potter has done declares the Lord? Behold like the clay in the Potter's hands.

So are you in my hand Oh house of Israel if at any time

I declare Concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it and if that nation concerning which

I've spoken Turns from its evil I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to do to it and if at any time

I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it and if it does evil in My sight not listening to my voice

Then I will relent of the good that I intend to do due to it Now therefore say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem Thus says the

Lord Behold I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you return

Everyone from his evil way and amend your ways and your deeds He has returned in Hebrew it's

Shubh Shubh which is to repent The way it's always explained exactly right means to turn 180 degrees go the other direction

Return Repent from eat your evil way and amend your ways and your deed

So, why does he still find fault? Because the Potter has full right and authority to judge sin and to bring

Judgment for sin as he sees fit The Potter here is

God What he is making is individuals The Potter here is

God and just as he makes individuals so he forms history itself He has rights over everything

Why does he find fault because of his rightful authority to judge sin and To then bring judgment upon sin as he sees fit

Now doesn't all this dovetail well with how the Lord chose one Isaac over Ishmael To be the bearer of the promise.

Is it not perfectly consistent with a God who determines which unborn twin? Which is Jacob that he chose he will favor over his brother

Esau now we see that the Potter is the one who fashioned Egypt and her

King Pharaoh and All for the sake of his people whom that King finally gave back to God God the

Potter fashioned Israel God the Potter fashioned Pharaoh God the Potter fashioned history

So that Pharaoh whom he fashioned Would let go Israel whom he fashioned

To follow the course to the promised land Which he fashioned Paul was answering throughout

Romans 9 how God saves Individuals how God saves the person how

God saves you if you will but repent of your sin That's the question that is really going through all this how

God saves one sinner Well Jeremiah joins

Paul both of them firm against mr. Hyper by saying thus says the Lord I'm shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you and Here mr.

Hyper if he actually exists is Exalting see God the Potter is sovereign and free and there's nothing you can do about it

Eat drink and be merry and wait for the maul of hell to engulf you but Jeremiah Would plead with us finish the verse

Read the rest of it Return I told you in a moment ago Shubh repent return

Everyone every individual you sinner you

Repent from your evil way amend your ways and your deeds Read the rest of it.

I'm shaping disaster. Nothing you can do about it. What is Jeremiah talking about? Well in his context in his day

He preached under King Zedekiah of Judah the last king of Judah Babylon is virtually at the door disaster is coming turn

For evil way amend what you have done to bring this disaster upon yourself

God as a Potter is only a metaphor and all metaphors could be stretched only so far

Even divinely inspired ones can only hold up to a few questions before they completely fall apart and lose all their meaning the metaphor of the

Potter in no way absolves mere humans of the Responsibility to repent to not sin

What is the lump it is the hole from which the individual is drawn if Paul? We're teaching anything close to the idea that we can only wait and see in the end what

God made us and then the whole the whole drive of the Christian life is Meaningless the

Apostle says Pursue peace and holiness

Pursue constantly go after with all your effort pursue peace with others and holiness without which no one will see

God What sense does that imperative make if there's?

Just pots that are going on to an end What sense does the call to repentance make

Much of what Jesus said in John chapter 6 was just which Dale just read to you if we're supposed to just cringe through life

And wonder what pot we are It makes no sense it's almost gobbledygook What is the call to believe the gospel the commandment?

That all men are commanded all men everywhere God Almighty the Potter commands you

To believe the gospel to repent and come to Christ Paul's point is that the pot

Whichever pot you may think you are And there's nothing in the Bible that actually reveals it to you so we can look at ourselves in the mirror say well

I'm this or that pot. We don't get that nothing Paul says takes away your responsibility to repent

That's what this is all about God saving the individual you sinner coming to Christ repenting of your sins

No, we can't Just say well, I'm this Potter that pot There's nothing I can do about it

Romans 2 1 would thunder against you therefore you have no excuse Oh, man

The Potter has every right to do what he wants and you have every duty to hear to believe to repent you have

The commandment of God to believe this gospel Don't hide behind Romans 9 19 to 29 say well,

I'm this or that pot because brother sister friend visitor Unbeliever You don't know there is nothing in the scripture that says

I John Jones Whatever and this or that pot

You're commanded to repent Not to wonder which one of these vessels you are you are commanded to repent

So we can move to verses 22 and 23 What if God I'm in Romans 9 again,

I know we've been skipping around a bit this morning What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power 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's prepared beforehand for glory Now, you know what we would call this today we would call this redirecting

We're rephrasing the question. He says why does God still find fault? It's sort of like Thanks for your question.

It's a good one. Have you considered the possibility? Have you even thought that maybe this is what

God is doing? Which of course he is but have you thought about it this way? We're still talking to a respectful questioner not thumbing your nose.

Why does God so Paul? How does God hold me accountable?

Have you thought about this? God's whole purpose in his molding of men in history is so that his mercy might be made known

Keep in mind that he has made vessels for just that purpose to be recipients of his mercy all the while rightly holding the other pots

Responsible which all the more magnifies his mercy And last week

When we had that business with Pharaoh and God's declaration of his name to Moses Well in Exodus in Chapters 33 and 34 when he declares his name to Moses.

He says the Lord the Lord God merciful and compassionate Forgiving iniquity

Clearing and then he goes on says he knew it by no means clears the guilty

But visits the sin upon this to the third and the fourth generation, but which part of it did

Paul quote? his mercy and his compassion Have you considered in your question

That God is doing all this in order to be a showcase of his mercy

He's a wrathful God God is wrathful against sin every day says the psalmist we don't deny that God hates sin and God's hate sinners.

It's not love the sinner hate the sin. That's silliness compared to what the Bible says God's wrath against sin is something that we can barely imagine because we can't imagine how holy he is and yet What is it?

He wants to reveal here? mercy Compassion repent

You must repent Have you considered? That God's whole movement in history this whole idea of the

Potter is to showcase his mercy Have you even thought about it?

You know this novel? I read as a kid, and I can't remember the name of it It wasn't a great novel

But it was okay, and it had to do with this Wagon train and along the way this man's wife dies of a disease and this other woman loses her old family to other things

That happened and so they team up and they're going through and they get stuck In a winter storm, and they can't go on any further and they're running out of food, and they're starving

So the man takes his rifle. He says I'll go see if I can find something You watch the kids, and they're not her kids of course well make a long story short

She finds some mushrooms brings them back Slices them up puts them in the frying pan with some lard seasons them up the savor is driving the kids crazy

They're so hungry. They're actually starving and what does she do with the mushrooms? Well, she ate them all

She ate all the mushrooms. We showed the kids you stop staring at me with those mean eyes.

Just go to sleep I Just want you to go get some rest here in this freezing cold Of course they hated her for it

What was she doing? Have you considered?

Have you considered that they might have been poison and because of my love for you?

I ate them first and now that I'm alive in the morning We'll all have some we need to think

In that kind of terms here what Paul's saying have you considered? Have you thought what if God desiring to show his wrath and make known his power has endured with patience vessels of wrath?

prepared for destruction We don't always know what people who love us are up to how much less

God There's actually some evidence that the vessels prepared for wrath prepared themselves

They compared prepared themselves for wrath by their sin so mr. Hyper aside if this is correct and the manuscript the

Exegetical basis is not terribly terribly strong, so I'm just tossing it out for something to think about But if that is a right understanding

Then God still remains totally sovereign and free and our responsibility is magnified

Finally I'll go to verses 24 to 29 even us whom he called not from the

Jews only but also from the Gentiles as Indeed he says in Hosea those who are not my people

I will call my people and her who is not beloved I will call beloved and every place where it was said to them you are not my people

There they will be called sons of the Living God and Isaiah cries out concerning Israel Though the number of the sons of Israel be that as a sand of the sea

Only a remnant of them will be saved for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay

And as Isaiah also predicted if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring We would have become like Sodom and become like Gomorrah Even he who calls just that first part of what

Paul says is proof enough that God intended some to know the gospel and believe in his son

Jesus as he had done with Abraham and in chapter 4 and then

In chapter 9 with Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Pharaoh and Moses Jacob and Esau Moses and Pharaoh He grounds

Paul grounds what he says in prophetic history citing twice each from Hosea and Isaiah And these two prophets actually were contemporaries of each other

If you read the prologue to both of these prophecies their ministries were under the same

Kings Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah with Hosea adding the detail that it was during the reign of Jeroboam the second of Israel There's other similarities between these prophets

Both prophets warned of impending judgment of Syria in the north against Israel Babylon to the south against Judah Both men were living parables of the word that they spoke

Isaiah had to walk naked for three years to show how unrepentant Judah would be stripped and humiliated

If repentance was ignored and Hosea married and loved a prostitute as a sign of God's patient love

His joy over repentance and his readiness to restore and to love once again

So as we did before with the Potter I Want to turn to where Paul did

So go first to Hosea chapter 2 and start at verse 14 Hosea 2 verse 14 to a backslidden people

God says this Therefore behold, I will allure her band her

Excuse me I will lure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her and There I will give her vineyards and make the valley of the core a door of hope and there shall she and there

She shall answer as in the days of her youth and as at the time when I called her out of the land of Egypt And in that day declares the

Lord you will call me my husband and no longer. Will you call me my bail? For I will remove the names of the bells from her mouth and they shall be remembered by name no more and I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field the birds of the heaven and the creeping things

Of the ground and I will abolish the bow the sword and war from the land I don't make you lie down in safety and I will betroth you to me forever

I'll betroth you to me in righteousness and injustice in steadfast mercy and in steadfast love and in mercy

I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord and in that day

I will answer declares the Lord and I will answer the heavens and they shall Answer the earth and the earth shall answer the grain the wine and the oil and they shall answer

Jezreel and I will sow her for myself in the land and Here finally is the part quoted in Romans and I'll have mercy on no mercy and I'll say to not my people

You are my people and he shall say you are my God Paul of course changes the last part to beloved not my people.

He uses beloved. That's a whole lecture in itself But the meaning is the same Those whom

God rejected I will not have mercy Hosea had to name his son that low room.

Ah, no mercy no, I mean not my people for the other son and Here the

Prophet speaking of a place where God will reverse that You are my people

You are my son. You're the beloved and you'll become called sons of the

Living God Excuse me In the exact exact context of vessels made by Potter made by the

Potter for certain predetermined purposes Here is the promise of God to call them my people after having punished their sins

If you read the book of Hosea and you miss the impassioned emotions, you need to read it again because it's unmistakable

What is Paul saying here? That the pot that is made for ignoble purpose

Even though as I've said, you can't know if you are that one you are commanded to repent Has no more responsibility

Why does God still find fault? Why does he find fault because he shows mercy?

Why does he find fault because he offers repentance and restoration?

constantly in 2nd Chronicles 36 When the author is explaining how the final disaster the one that Jeremiah was warning

Judah against how it came He speaks of how God woke up early every day. God doesn't wake up We know that he go rose early every day and sent his prophets to warn

Why would he do that? against a fatalistic understanding of the scripture

Because they warned they pleaded they offered They were ambassadors of Christ in the way we should be

Thank God will forgive if you will but repent over and over and over again here

With this famous passage in Romans 9 about the potter's freedom, which he is absolutely free the very prophet that he quotes to prove his point is

Pleading with Israel to repent and be restored and even then saying I don't know if you or you or you will in fact

Repent, but there's a day coming when God will take this not my people say you are my people not beloved say you are beloved

No mercy, and I will show mercy upon you ambassadors for Christ indeed

Stay in Hosea Hosea flip back one chapter to chapter 10 or chapter 1

Even the little I said a moment ago is enough to season this one verse I'll read without a lot of comment chapter 1 verse 10 yet The number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered

Right after if you're reading Hosea This is right after the prophets prostitute wife gave birth to a son named not my people

What does the prophet say immediately after the son's name not my people the children of Israel will be like the sand of the sea

Isaiah chapter 10 verse 20 is next In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck him but will lean on the

Lord the Holy One of Israel in truth a Remnant will return the remnant of Jacob to the mighty

God and here's Paul's quote for though your people The for though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea only a remnant of them will return

Destruction is decreed overflowing with righteousness Like you can see the similarity with Hosea Isaiah chapter 1 verse 9

Dale read this to you a few moments ago if the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors We should have become like Sodom and become like Gomorrah in a word destroyed

Abraham had elicited back there in Exodus 19 God's promise to save anyone righteous that he found in Sodom and as the psalmist

Says there was none. No not one So they're destroyed We're not clay

We are sentient beings made in the image of God We're not pots we are morally responsible people who choose to sin

We choose not to believe and God is right to judge men to judge those pots

For that he is right to judge you for that the metaphor of the

Potter in no way absolves mere humans of the responsibility to repent to stop sinning

To turn from their wicked ways to turn from the evil practices To follow

God's ways We are not absolved of it at all

People are not pots. It's only a metaphor And every metaphor as I said

Can lose all this meaning if we stretch it too far Jesus preached the good news to vessels destined for destruction and for glory didn't he?

Both In Mark chapter 10 verse 21 the rich young ruler Jesus loved him and said what you lack you'll never have

You're a vessel made for profane use you are by God's design and decree a chamber pot to be used as a toilet and Then disposed of is that what he said to him?

No He told him this is the Lord God Jesus Christ himself He told him the gospel in relation to the law that he knew and understood and then told him what he lacked

What he himself was responsible to do by faith in the gospel he was to sell everything and Follow him to follow

Christ You know if there is a

Bogeyman out there a mr. Hyper Calvinist. I'm not quite sure I believe in it But if he's out there

We can say compare yourself to Jesus because Jesus was not that Jesus just in that one example

Thinking of all that. We just went through with the pots and this the Potter's freedom and the responsibility to repent

Was that rich young ruler saved? You and I don't know we don't get a clue from the scripture

He left sad did he think about it the next day and then repent of his sins and run and find Jesus?

We don't know They stain his sins We do know

That whichever pot God Jesus father made him that Christ Called him to repent

Christ called him to the gospel In Matthew chapter 11 verse 4 there's

John's inquiry are you the one who was to come or should we look for another? He says go and tell

John what you hear and see the blind receive their sight in the lame walk lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them and Blessed is the one who is not offended by me our

Lord Jesus Christ himself calls all vessels his father has made to himself

I Fear that too often

Romans 9 19 to 29 this beautiful exposition of God's sovereignty in the metaphor of him as the potter and We as the pots that he'd be determined beforehand.

He was full right to do whatever he will I Fear that too often.

It's used as cover For your absolute responsibility as a moral sentient being you made in the image of God to not repent

When the very Old Testament hinges that Paul uses to found his argument

The the prophets Isaiah the prophets especially Hosea Hosea But both these prophets

Calling Israel to repent and God saying if I have to creed evil for this nation

And they turn to me they come back to me. They repent of their sins. Oh forgive them

That's the point of the pots and the vessels That's what Paul's saying throughout.

So don't look at it and run for cover You who do not believe in Jesus Christ? You who have heard these things and failed to repent?

God commands all men everywhere to believe this gospel to repent and believe this gospel.

You are commanded by God And You don't get to answer back to God and say something and I'm going to paraphrase now like well,

I happen to know Which pot I was made? You don't

But you must repent You must repent of your sins flee to Jesus Christ and there find forgiveness and that's what

Romans 9 19 to 29 and I would argue the whole book of Romans is about Amen Heavenly Father, we thank you again for bringing us together for the day that you've given us and for this word

I pray father that those who hear heard what I've said as It is your truth father as I've reflected your gospel in your son

Jesus Christ The you by your spirit would bring true faith and repentance that you would do the work which only you can do

And father, let's pray that you strengthen us by this word That you show us more of your glory

That we reflect you better and better as we live out the gospel that you've given us Thank you

Lord for the repentance that you've granted And for your spirit which attends with us in Christ's name.