from God's Word. Romans chapter 9 beginning in verse 22 concludes in particular Paul's dealing with God's purposes with regards to his saving grace and the number of those whom he has called past, present, and indeed into the future to be members of his family. Romans chapter 9, beginning in verse 22. What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and 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 Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people. And her beloved who is not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, There they shall be called sons of the living God. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, that the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea. The remnant will be saved, for he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, unless the Lord of the Sabbath had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and we would have been made like Gomorrah. Thus far the reading of God's word, you may be seated. Let me pray now for the blessing of the preaching of God's holy word. Lord, our hope this morning is that we might lay all of our thoughts, our intentions, our grand and glorious designs that we have for ourselves and for the world in which we live, and that we would find ourselves aligned with your will, that is, your perfect will, the will that you have decreed and made known to us that we are called as a church to be salt and light, to proclaim the glorious news of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, to see the whole council of your word preached and taught, that your peculiar people, your holy and chosen nation might be called out of this world that is even now under your righteous and almighty hand, some to preservation in life, others to judgment and eternal condemnation. Make us a people who love to do your law, to love to hear your word, and to delight to do what is found in its pages. We pray these things in your name. Amen. Paul having expressed clearly in Romans chapter 9 a number of different theological issues or doctrines, one of which we call the doctrine of election. This is the sort of hallmark, highlight doctrine of Romans chapter 9. It has been well received by the church, though not often well understood. In it, Paul sets forth to us a very clear principle. that it is God who is Lord of men, that He is the author and instrument of not only the ends of man's saving grace or lack thereof, but He is also the one who arranges the means. He is Lord of it all. and Paul anticipating the objections to the reality that the God of the Bible is sovereign over every jot and tittle, that there is nothing on earth of which Christ cannot say, this is mine. deals with some of those objections. In the first part of Romans 9, Paul expresses that the Gentiles are the lesser sons as it relates to the unfolding of the covenant of grace. That is, we come later. We might say the younger sons. The older son, the first family was the family given in the Old Testament. And they had extraordinary blessing. Of those blessings, Paul mentions in verse 4, adoption, glory, covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, that is, the priesthood and the promises. You might even say they are the fathers, our fathers in the faith. Even as Gentiles, we can confess such a thing, for we are but one family. But despite this, Israel rejected God. And so the question is, were all of those things mentioned in chapter four as gifts of God to the Israelite people, powerless? And Paul says, no. As they are grounded upon the word of God, it is not that they are powerless, because the word of God is the very power that brought life from death. Not only in the creation of all things, but giving Sarai a child, a miracle son. and not only Sarah, but Rebecca, and then later Rachel, the same power that gave Hannah a son, and of course, the great mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, Mary, an even greater miracle, having never known a man. The word is powerful. The question then is, what of the intent of God? And so Paul makes it very clear that within the nation of Israel, as he says here in the latter part of this chapter, though it numbered beyond the sands of the shore, verse 27, it was but a remnant that God would call. A remnant is, if you're a seamstress of any kind or if you know anything about fabric whatsoever, if you were to make a garment from cloth, the remnant is what is left over. Here, remnant refers to that number within the number. What Paul says, not all of Israel, the larger garment, is Israel. This doctrine of remnant is woven throughout all of scripture. And not only is it untrue, not only can we not bring a charge against God as having a lack of power, but also his righteousness and justice. For how can we, man, the clay, say to the potter, this is unjust? It doesn't keep us from doing it, however. We are an ornery bunch of clay. And we seek to judge God by a standard that is in our minds more holy than God himself. And we say that's not fair. that God would call some and not others, that God would hold men responsible if he is the first mover, the sovereign creator and ruler over all things. And Paul says at the very end, yet that is the way it is. So what is our response? To subject ourselves cheerfully and worshipfully to the one who is the potter, the great artisan, the great ordainer, creator, sustainer, and king. And Paul continues in verses 22 through 29 to make the argument as to not only that God is powerful, that God is righteous, that God is just, but to show from scripture that this was in fact the plan. God never says in the creation, formulation, and implementation of his plan, oops, control Z, you know that? Undo, undo. He never makes a mistake. And so this morning, let's look then at the purposes of God opened up a bit more fully in verses 22 through 29, two points. walking men through the purposes of God. Walking men through the purposes of God. That is what Paul does. And then he speaks of second, a redeemed remnant. a redeemed remnant." Let's look at these two points. The first, walking men through the purposes of God. Paul gives us insight into those purposes. Now, this insight can only be gathered once Christ has been revealed. Because until the coming of the Messiah and the bringing in of the Gentiles, we don't know exactly how God will do it, but we do have contours. Because it is throughout the scripture, in fact it is given in the very beginning, when Adam and his wife sinned, God came to them and God looked at the serpent and he said to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and your seed and the woman and her seed. When God said that, what it reveals in this sort of blinking bright light is there is hope for the world. God has enmity. He has made the serpent and his people his enemies on behalf of the seed of the woman. And through that seed, all the nations shall be blessed. And as we move through scripture, there is this unfolding, as it were, the kind of pattern of the tapestry of God's redeeming work. Recently, we were out shopping, my wife and I, and it was time to get a new carpet for our living room. And the problem with buying carpets is in many stores they're rolled up, wrapped in cellophane, and there's a picture of the carpet, or the rug, rather, and you look at the picture and say, I think that will go well. But it's not until you get it home that you take the cellophane off and you begin to unroll it and you realize, yeah, that doesn't work at all. It's not until it is fully open that you can gauge its design in context with everything else. In the same way, as the plan of God is being unrolled, as it were, over time from Genesis to, let's say, the coming of Christ here in the writings of Paul prior to the book of Revelation, we have come to the conclusion now, having seen Christ, that God is doing something that he said he would do, but you only get the first four feet of it. You don't realize there's a massive emblem somewhere in the middle, or something is done on the other end of the carpet you could not really see. The metaphor always breaks down, right? If you hammer it too much. God's purpose has always been to reveal concerning his power and patience two things, wrath and mercy. What if, verse 22, wanting to show his wrath, that is, his wrath against rebellion and sin, and to make his power, those two things are equated to one another, God's wrath is shown through his power, endured with much patience or long suffering, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Who are the vessels of wrath? Here, specifically, the Jews, who are part of the visible nation Yet we're not members of the invisible church who are not elect but reprobate. So that for what reason, verse 23, he might make known what? The riches of the glory on the vessels of mercy. That God's revelation of wrath and mercy are connected to one another. In fact, they are woven throughout Scripture. For every Abel and Seth, there is a Cain. For Jacob, there was an Esau. Paul uses that example earlier in Romans chapter 9. For Isaac, there was an Ishmael. There are these two families One born of the promised seed who is the Messiah looking down towards the future from history, past, and the seed of a serpent whom we later hear in the scriptures is Satan himself. We know in the book of Zechariah that Satan in his fall brought down a third of the angels with him. They too devoted to destruction. This Lord the one whom Paul later calls Lord Sabaoth, which is Lord of hosts, which means Lord of men and angels, the Lord of the stars, the Lord of heaven and earth. It is a reflection of His sovereignty over all creation and all that has been created, man, angels, planets, and the like. God's purpose has always been to reveal His power through both wrath and mercy. And God is the one who does the determining of it. The glory of God is what is on display. His power through wrath and His glory through mercy. Of this glory that is on display for us, what is our right response? Worship and adoration. You've heard it said, if it were not for the grace of God, there go I. Do you mean it? Or is that just something you say when you feel, by comparison, a little better than your neighbor? If it were not for the grace of God, there go I. This is oftentimes what idioms and maxims become. A sort of self-deprecating way of paying a compliment to yourself. What we call a humble brag. In Psalm 130, If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. I read it this morning as our assurance of pardon. Do you fear God in light of His forgiveness? Now that reverence, fear, is not only in response to God's forgiveness, but it is also coupled with what could have been the alternative. Had God not shown you forgiveness, where would you be? In Jeremiah 33, beginning in verse 8, the prophet writes, on behalf of the Lord, I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. And I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against me. Then it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all nations of the earth, who shall hear all the good that I do to them. They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and the prosperity that I provide for it. One of the elements of our continual offering of worship to God is the element that we have been rescued and redeemed. As it relates then to God's purposes, as Paul's walking the Roman church through these things, God's purpose as it relates to judgment and salvation is to show his power and glory both in wrath and mercy. Because all of us with eyes in our head can say, that not all men, women, and children who have ever lived go to glory with God. That there are some who at the end of their lives die and spend eternity in perdition or hell. Who is the one who does the determining Well, Paul makes it very clear in Romans chapter 9 that it is God himself who is sovereign. More on that in just a moment. As it relates to his intentions and the direction of the course of God's providence, his purpose is not only with regards to the creature, something that is seen as judgment and salvation, but also to reveal himself. This is what I mean by power and glory. God is not only interested in the result as it relates to you and me, He is also very interested in the result as it relates to our understanding of Him. Who He is as God. Why ten plagues in Egypt? One could have done. Why not just the final plague? Because what was God doing for those ten plagues? He was showing to Pharaoh, who was of the seed of the serpent, and the nation that put their trust in the seed of the serpent, that they had no power and they had no object, real worthy object of trust, that they were cut off. And so for 10 plagues, what God does is he pokes holes in the system of Egyptian religion and their cultist practice by showing them that they have no power. Not in contrast to the power of Yahweh. So when Moses first arrived on the scene with his brother Aaron, And the magicians of Pharaoh's court challenged him on behalf of Pharaoh, and they threw down their staffs, and in the demonic power of that people, their staffs were turned to serpents. God said, that's all you got? It's nothing for God, isn't it? Aaron threw down his staff, it too was turned to a serpent, and it devoured the serpents of the Egyptian magicians. And God has not stopped to this day by his spirit and by his power, and through his word devoured the power of the great enemy of the people of God, that is himself, the serpent. His intention is, as Paul would say, over time, dealing in patience, those who deserve judgment immediately built up over time a record of wrongdoing so that when his power is poured out, it is very clear to them and others, they deserved every drop of wrath that was poured out upon them. Now this should cause us to tremble, that we would be slow in response to God's call to kiss the son lest he be angry with us. And so when you hear the gospel, do not say, I'm waiting for the fifth plague and then the 10th plague, right? What does the scripture say? Today, now is the hour of salvation. Do not delay. And yet, time and time again, Israel beheld the mighty power of God and they refused to worship God as they ought. And we'll look at that this evening. That the heart of all the problems of the nation of Israel was not that they did not have a king, but they had abandoned the one true king of Israel, the Messiah. They had abandoned the altar. They had abandoned the covenant And so God rejected them. God has made his existence clear. And not only that, but it is God who is the primary mover. He is the first mover in the acts and events, not only of human history, but of our own hearts. Look at verse 22 for a moment, and then we'll go to the end of verse 23. You notice that phrase, prepared for destruction, doesn't have a subject prior to it, someone doing the action. And yet when you come to verse 23, we read, which he had prepared beforehand for glory. Now what will happen is many people will take this and they will say, well, since there is no subject mentioned in verse 22 that is doing the preparation for destruction, that the act of preparation for destruction is not a personal act of God that belongs to men. Well, man, of course, is instrumental in their own by sinning reasons given to God to destroy us. But the question is, who is doing the preparing? Now this is a problem easily solved just by reading the rest of the chapter. I don't know if you have a problem with this. I do. As I'm reading a book, even watching a movie, and information is coming into my mind, rarely do I remember the names of characters in films. The guy. Unless their names are repeated over and over, or if it's someone like Frodo, I'm not gonna remember the name. In the same way we often read God's Word, and as soon as we have read a section, it sort of falls off the conveyor belt of short-term memory, and we go, see, see, see? God is not the one who does the preparation for destruction. This is how we acquit God of the very thing that we are very uncomfortable with, that God himself is instrumental in the preparation of the destruction that is descending to hell of men. And yet, verse 17 of Romans chapter nine, for the scripture says, to the very one who is being destroyed, Pharaoh, I added that parenthetical statement, for this very purpose, this is Yahweh, the Lord speaking, I have raised you up that I may show my power in you and that my name may be declared in all the earth. Raised up for what? Destruction. Destruction. Just go one verse back. Does not the potter, that is the Lord, have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? And so whatever our comfort level is, In relationship to God's sovereignty over destruction and salvation, it is very clear in scripture that God is the one who prepares for destruction in the same way that he is the one who prepares for glory and mercy. And you know what? It is testimony to the fallen nature of our minds and our hearts that we are a little bit uncomfortable with that, at least in the beginning, unless we've grown comfortable to it. And it is primarily for this reason. It is not because people who have a deficient doctrine as it relates to the doctrine of election have a hard time with this particular chapter. Those people still have a very aware and intact sense of justice. And that is good. The problem with men is not that we don't have a reflex of justice, is that our justice motor, our justice reflex is hampered by, it is affected and afflicted by sin. And we endeavor to judge God by a standard that he himself has not established in his word. And the way that the Christian defends that standard is they say this, it just doesn't feel like something God would do. That doesn't feel godly to me. And as you say that out of one side of your mouth, and you take in Romans 9, you say, maybe my understanding of the holiness of God needs to be corrected by the very nature of God revealed to us in Scripture. This is why Paul says, Don't you, Clay, think for a moment that you can say to the potter, are you sure? That's how you want this to go? You sure that's holy? The question you get oftentimes, not only by Christians, but un-Christians alike and non-believers alike is, how can a good God do fill in the blank? And for many Christians we go, we endeavor to defend the goodness of God by answering the questions of unbelievers and doubting believers, not with the answers of scripture, but by sort of backpedaling, seeking to defend God's righteousness to a people that have no natural sense of righteousness. Shall the Potter? Or shall the clay say to the potter, how can a good God do X? Instead, what God has done through His Word by His Son has revealed His purposes. And those purposes, have I already said, is to reveal His power and glory both in wrath and mercy. Wrath and mercy. They're both part of God's plan. And here is historically how they've been revealed. So my second point. Let's go quick. A redeemed remnant. A redeemed remnant. And he begins in verse 25 with the Gentiles. As he also says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people, and her beloved who is not my beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they shall be called sons of the living God. What place? in the place of Christ's redeeming work, in the place that we call the cross, where Christ has, in his death, burial, and resurrection, torn down the dividing wall that separated Old Covenant people, the Jews, from the New Covenant people, the Gentiles, or those who had not yet been revealed, though they were in the Old Covenant, welcome. They had to become Jews first. But in the New Covenant, revealed in the New Testament, what must they do? Believe and you shall be saved. And so Paul speaks from Hosea. Hundreds of years before the coming of Christ, God spoke through his prophet who was married himself to a woman of ill repute that was a metaphor, as it were, of Israel herself, a wayward wife who plagued the harlot. And not only that, but through the ministry of Hosea, he was showing that it was not merely Israel, but it was the true Israel, and included in that are the nations of the earth, whom God had not yet visibly made covenant with, the Gentiles. He will make a people who were not his people. And he will call beloved those who were once not called his beloved. This is, of course, the Gentiles. This was the plan. And it wasn't just the plan according to Hosea, but go to the Gospel of Luke. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 13. Have you ever heard the text, broad is the way and narrow is the gate? This is the text that Pessimillennialists will use when you say there will be more people in heaven than in hell. They'll say, well, don't you remember narrow is the gate and broad is the way? Narrow is the gate that leads to heaven. Who is Jesus talking about in Matthew? Well, there is the corresponding text in Luke chapter 13. I don't think I need to actually do much explaining once it is read. Remember, Jesus is in Israel, he is in Jerusalem, or he's in the cities and villages surrounding Jerusalem, and he went through the cities, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem, the way. Then one said to him, Lord, are there few who are saved? And he said to them, Strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. For once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open for us. And he will answer and say to you, I don't know you. Where are you from? Then you will begin to say, We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. Which streets? The streets that lead to Jerusalem. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you or where you are from. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out. They will come from the east and from the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God, and indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last." What is he talking about? I think you know. He is talking about the closing off of the way to the temple into the city of God in the destruction of the temple in AD 70 when God puts an exclamation point, well a very dark period on the end of the sentence that is the old covenant No more shall you go to this hill and to this place, the gospel of John chapter four, as he talks to the woman at the well, but you shall gather wherever there word and spirit, what Jesus is talking about in Luke and also in the gospel of Matthew, is the narrow way in which few Jews will enter. But because of this, and in connection to this, the gate will be closed But then, in verse 29, what will happen? The floodgates will open. And from the north and the south and the east and the west, what will God do? He will fill the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, Zion itself, with every tribe, tongue, and nation. And so concerning mercy to the Gentiles, Christ's blood is effectual unto the bringing in of millions upon millions, maybe even into the billions, of course into the billions. And what God has prepared for the church, no eye has seen nor ear heard. I'm talking about a more glorious future than the past that we have already lived. But for the Jews, How do we explain it? Why did so few embrace Jesus as the Messiah, and so many cry out, crucify him, give us Barabbas instead? Because their hearts were exceedingly wicked, because they were not, though members of the visible church, verses 27 and 28, members of the remnant. We see this in First Kings 19, where the Lord says to his prophet, yet I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. The prophet in crisis, is there anyone? Yes, the remnant is not then just testimony of God's wrath, but it is testimony of his grace. Lord, that any should be saved. Why are you a member of the remnant? What do you bring to the table? What do you bring? We know why coaches recruit, right? There are no blue chip recruits in the kingdom of God. There are no walk-ons. His team, as it were, are made up only of those who were once slaves to sins and now adopted sons and daughters of the true and living God. And all of this by God's grace. In fact, it was my intention this week to preach all the way to verse 33, and even now I see that I may not even make it well to verse 29. But the Gentiles are being brought in, and those who are of the remnant of Israel are always, and all of these people have always been part of the family of God. We're talking about the revelation of God's purposes in ways we understand and can interpret. And that God has in His forbearance not cast off all of Israel. In fact, we know of the disciples that every one of them was, ethnically speaking, Jewish. They were members of the visible church. But what has happened with that visible church? It has come now to be described as that people who are not by blood sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but by faith reconciled and united to Christ who is the head. God's purpose was always to bring in the Gentiles and to redeem but a handful of the Jews. And then Paul wraps it well here in verse 29. And as Isaiah said before, Unless the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah. This is where Paul, again, makes a similar argument to the clay and the potter argument. You will say, I don't like this. It's unjust. It's unrighteous. And Paul would say, if that is the argument that you endeavor to make, it is though you are clay, saying to the potter, I don't like the way you made me. Right? I don't like this. I have a problem with your artistry. Paul then speaks of the artistry in verses 22 through 28, and then he makes an even, well, a finer, puts a finer point on the clay and potter argument, and that is this. You all deserve the trash bin. There's not a single one of you that, as clay, warrants God's redeeming hands placed upon you to make you something other than that which is fit for wrath. You all deserve to be tossed aside. But instead, throughout the centuries and millennia. For 4,000 years, God endured with patience. When at any moment God could have said, I'm done with you people. I'm done. And God would have been just and righteous and good to just toss us all aside. Instead what? He has not left us to be like Sodom and like Gomorrah, and not only his patience with the Jews, but he reconciled out of the trash bin the Gentiles. If for one moment you think that you deserved any of it, either by right of your ethnicity, or your ingenuity or your intellect or your breeding, just know this, we all belong in the trash bin of human history. Think about what your ancestors were doing. I'm English-German. We were sacrificing people to the forest gods at the time of Christ walking the earth 2,000 years ago, eating the hearts out of freshly dead men. Think of what the gospel has done even in this land. And what the gospel and the word of God does to those who are only fit for destruction. because the seed is the ultimate expression not only of mercy and judgment, but of God's purposes to bring both and to glorify himself among us. And so, dear saints, as we move for this glorious epistle, remember that we are here not because we deserve it, but because God is gracious. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, Would you move our hearts then to believe and to know and to sense that as recipients of your extraordinary mercy we are most unworthy. Crucify then along with Christ our pride, our unbelief, our doubt, our vanity. And may we find in light of your word, that there is one way that all men might be saved. There is one way to escape the wrath of God. There is one way to avoid becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah, burned with fire. And that is the altar where Christ himself was laid on our behalf. May we put our hope in that altar. In his sacrifice for us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.