Well, thank you. Again it’s such a joy and a delight to fellowship
with folks, kind of moving around a little bit and saying, “Hello,” to those who
we’ve known in the past and making new friends, just a very, very enjoyable and wonderful
time for me. Thank you again for letting me be here. This is a very, very important question. And I think I would be… I’d find it hard to get any argument on
this, that for folks who are new to the doctrines of grace as they are known, folks who are
new to Reformed theology, this is the big hurdle to get over. If God is sovereign, if God is in control
of absolutely everything, then what place does human responsibility play? Through the years as I have taught the Word
of God, this inevitably is the question that is asked me by people who are trying to come
to grips with the doctrine of divine sovereignty, gracious election. It is also, I think, the most pervasive, nagging
question in the minds of people who have already embraced Reformed theology, who still grapple
with the solution to how divine sovereignty and human responsibility work together. It is unquestionably a paradox, at least apparently. Certainly it is not contradictory to God,
nor is it contradictory in reality, but it appears to us to be contradictory. I know all of you have struggled with this
question. All of you have. I have. It’s not a question that goes away. You don’t get a short answer. In wanting to prepare my thoughts for this
occasion once I knew I was going to be given this assignment, I dug into the books that
I have available and had some guys get me some things on the Internet, and I began to
read everything I could find on how human responsibility comes together with divine
sovereignty. What I got was a lot of philosophy, a lot
of rational thinking, a lot of reasoning, a lot of adjectives qualifying absolutely
everything, but I really didn’t get any satisfaction. And so in thinking this through, what I decided
to do, and there’s a little bit of a risk in this I think, because I’m not really
going to preach a sermon to you. What I want to do is have a Bible study with
you. Can you imagine, we’re just kind of hanging
around together? Get your Bible. Put all the other stuff away. Just get your Bible. You don’t need to be taking notes unless
there’s divine intervention at some point, and you have an epiphany, and you must grab
your pen. I just want to do a Bible study with you,
okay, because I want you to see the way Scripture handles this issue. There is a reason why nobody yet has given
you a fully satisfactory answer. And I know no one has. You… You may… You may be a teacher of Reformed theology,
and you haven’t read or heard a really satisfactory answer to this difficult dilemma from the
standpoint of human reason. Where you have to go with this is to set all
that aside and just see what Scripture says. So I want to lead you on a Bible study. Okay? You’re going to have to move with me a little
bit quickly. I like to kind of go down deep into a smaller
passage, but we’re going to cover a lot of ground, and we’re going to do a lot of
reading of the Bible together. Okay? So get your Bible and your glasses, and let’s
start in Isaiah, chapter 10. Isaiah, chapter 10, and I actually am kind
of excited about this because I have no idea what I’m going to say either, so this for
me is… I’m in the same position you’re in. This is an adventure, but I tested it out
on Patricia a couple of nights ago, and she liked the idea, but then she’s pretty biased,
so who knows. In the 10th chapter of Isaiah, I want you
to drop down to verse 5, and I want you to look at the opening statement in that verse,
and ask yourself if that is not a strange statement. “Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger.” Is that not a strange statement? If Assyria is functioning as an instrument
of God, why is condemnation pronounced upon Assyria? Woe is an onomatopoeic transliteration of
a Hebrew expression, “Howy” [wa-hee], Howy! [hoh-ee].” It speaks of calamity, massive judgment. How can a people come under divine denunciation
and judgment while at the same time functioning as a rod of God’s anger, that is an instrument
of God? The rest of the verse says that Assyria will
be the staff in whose hands is my indignation. Assyria, this pagan, godless, idolatrous nation
is the instrument of divine judgment. And on whom? On godless Israel. In fact, verse 6 says, “I send it against
a godless nation,” namely Israel, actually Judah, the southern part of the kingdom, “and
commission it against the people of my fury.” The Jews are now designated as the people
of the fury of God. God is furious with Israel. He is livid with their unbelief. He holds them fully responsible for their
disbelief, fully responsible for their idolatry, fully responsible for their rebellion and
their rejection of Him and His Word, and His worship. And He commissions the Assyrians to come against
them. Notice verse 6, “to capture booty, and to
seize plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.” That’s pretty strong language. Now here you have a divine decree. Here you have divine sovereignty in action. God, as it were, grabs Assyria by the nap
of its national neck and says, “You will be My instrument of fury against the godless
people of Israel who have rejected against… rejected and rebelled against Me.” And then in verse 7, He says, and this turns
a corner, “Yet it,” meaning Assyria, “does not so intend, nor does it plan so in its
heart.” Assyria is the instrument of God’s judgment
and is clueless about that. That is not Assyria’s purpose. That is not Assyria’s motive. That is not Assyria’s intention. They have no interest in the God of Israel. They do not believe in the God of Israel. They are sure that they have no connection
to the God of Israel. They have no intention, no plan to act as
Jehovah’s agent. What is their purpose? Rather it plans or purposes in its own heart
to cut off many nations. This is just another opportunity for the Assyrian
power to knock off another neighboring nation. They’ve already done it to Calno and Carchemish
and Hamath, and Arpad, and Samaria, and Damascus. “Their hands,” verse 10, “have already
reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem
and Samaria.” And all Assyria knows is, “Look, we knocked
off all the other nations,” who in their judgment had greater divine protection, greater
gods than the gods of Israel. They must be greater than the gods of Israel
because they had already conquered the northern kingdom. They had no intention of being agents of Jehovah. They were just going to do to everybody left
in the vicinity what they had done to all the rest. That was their only motive. They thought they were acting completely independently. They were certainly acting in a godless way. They were certainly acting in a vicious way,
in a wicked way, in an evil way, in a murderous way. But if in fact they are the instrument of
divine wrath, does that not somehow exonerate them from responsibility for what they’ve
done? If this is divine decree that brings them
in, if this is the divine power of God, which is irresistible, that grabs them and brings
them toward Jerusalem and Judah to bring destruction, if this is the work of God, then what culpability
do they have? Can they resist it? And yet in verse 12, and this is an amazing
turn here, “So it will be that when the Lord has completed all His work on Mount Zion,”
when He has finished using Assyria as an instrument of His fury, “He will say, ‘I will punish
the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness.’” As soon as I’m through using them, I’m
going to turn on them and punish them for their sins. The very act that they carried out under divine
decree was an act of evil that reached such a high level that God turned on them and brought
on them destruction. In a very strange way, perhaps a way you’ve
never thought of it before, they bear full culpability, full responsibility for every
evil intent, every evil motive, every evil action, every murderous act, every part of
that slaughter and that destruction, they will be guilty before God for every bit of
it, even though they are functioning within a divine decree. And not only did God pronounce judgment on
them for the deeds but for the motives behind the deeds. Look what it says there, “I will punish,”
verse 12, “the fruit of the arrogant heart.” I will punish them for the acts, which is
the fruit, but also for, “the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp his haughtiness. For he has said, ‘The power of my hand and
by my wisdom I did this.’” Wow, is that amazing? He will punish them for their acts. He will punish them for their motives. And He will double punish them for a failure
to recognize the glory of God, taking credit for what they had done. They think they’ve done it by the power
of their hands and the wisdom of their own design. They say, “For I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of the people and
plundered their treasures. And like a mighty man, I bought down their
inhabitance,” so proclaims the king of Assyria. “And my hand reached to the riches of the
people like a nest. As one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered
all the earth, and there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped.” I just went there and just raided the nests
without protest. God says, “I’m coming after them for that. I’m coming after them for that motive, for
that haughtiness, for that pride.” “Is the axe,” verse 15, “to boast itself
over the one who chops with it?” Is that not strange? It’s God who’s wielding Assyria like an
axe to chop down Judah and Jerusalem, and yet God holds the axe head responsible. “Is the saw to exalt itself over the one
who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who
lift it, or like a rod lifting him who is not wood. Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, will
send a wasting disease among his stout warriors; and under His glory a fire will be kindled
like a burning flame. And the light of Israel will become a fire
and His Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a
single day. And He will destroy the glory of his forest
and of his fruitful garden, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes
away.” It’s another way to look at the juxtapositioning
of divine sovereignty, divine decrees, and human responsibility, to see it in this negative
sense. It’s very important for us to understand
that though God controls by divine degree and… divine decree and divine sovereign
power every thing that goes on in the world to His own purposes and His own intents, that
does not remove one iota of culpability from those who do evil. They will be judged by God both for the act
and the motive and the failure to give Him glory and to worship Him. By the way, Scripture doesn’t say any more
in Isaiah about how we resolve that. It doesn’t say any more. Turn to John 3, John 3, very familiar, love
this passage. A man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus comes
to Jesus. He’s a ruler, literally in the Greek, the
ruler of the Jews, maybe the formidable teacher among the Pharisees at least in that area. He comes by night, doesn’t want exposure. He said to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know You have
come from God as a teacher. No one can do these signs that You do unless
God is with him.” He draws the obvious response to the miracles
of Jesus, that they are divine. Jesus ignores what he says and goes to the
question that’s on his heart. He reads his mind. We just found that out, didn’t we? At the end of chapter 2, the last verse, “He
didn’t need to… anybody to come and testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was
in man.” Here’s the illustration. He knew what people were thinking, and He
knew what Nicodemus was thinking. And what Nicodemus said had to do with miracles
and the fact that He was a teacher sent from God. What he was thinking was, “How do I get
into the kingdom of God?” And Jesus goes to his thoughts. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one
is born again he can’t see the kingdom of God.” Boy that is a straight shot. Unless you’re born again, you cannot see
the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be
born when he is old?” Now look, Nicodemus knew what it was to speak
in analogies. He knew what it was to speak in similes. He knew what it was to speak in metaphors. He knew what it was to speak in parables. They did it all the time. That was the normal way of discourse in that
time. He’s not a dumbbell. He’s not saying, “Oh, how can I be physically
born again?” He knows this is a spiritual conversation. He knows that. But he also knows that that’s not something
that you can do humanly. “How can a man be born when he is old?” How can you be born again? How can you start all over? How can you experience true new life? He can’t enter a second time into his mother’s
womb and be born, can he? In other words the analogy of birth precludes
any action on the part of the one that is born. You didn’t bring yourself into the world
the first time, and you’re not going to be able to do it the second time. And he understands that analogy. So I want to see the kingdom of God, but I
need to be born all over again. I need to start again at the very beginning
with new life. I can’t do that. How does it happen? Jesus answered and said, “Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he can’t enter the kingdom
of God.” And here He takes him back to Ezekiel’s
prophecy, right? – the prophecy of the new covenant where you’re washed with water,
sanctified with water, stony heart is taken out, you have a new heart, a heart of flesh. This is all part of new covenant regeneration
taken from Ezekiel. You must be washed, and you must be given
a new heart, and then Ezekiel talks about the Spirit being planted in you. So He talks to Nicodemus. First, He talks in analogical terms. Then He talks in Scriptural terms. You’re talking about the new covenant, aren’t
you? You’re talking about the time in the purposes
of God when by His own power He removes the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh,
when by His own power, He washes you and cleanses you, when by His own power He plants His Spirit
within you, aren’t you? Of course, that’s exactly what he’s talking
about, and unless that happens, you can’t enter into the kingdom of God, unless God
sovereignly comes in, and that’s what Ezekiel is saying, and takes out your old heart and
gives you a new one, and gives you His Spirit, and washes you from above, you can’t enter
the kingdom. Because verse 6, “That which is born of
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Flesh can only produce what? Flesh. So you’re dependent on a spiritual work
of God. You cannot enter the kingdom unless you are
born again, and people don’t birth themselves. That’s the analogy. You can’t enter the kingdom of God unless
God in divine, sovereign power comes into your life and totally transforms it. All you can produce is flesh, flesh, flesh,
flesh. So you shouldn’t be surprised that I say
to you, “You must be born again.” “Born from above” is the actual Greek,
anathon, “born from above, born from above.” Now, if somebody came to you and said, “How
do I do that? I want to be born again.” You’re there that day, and you’re hearing
Nicodemus, “What do I do to get into the kingdom?” Well, you must be born again. What do I do to be born again? Well, here’s three things. Pray these three things. Really? All you have to do is say this, say this,
say this, say it after me, “Blah, blah, blah.” “Blah, blah, blah.” “Blah, blah, blah.” “Blah, blah, blah.” Is that how it works? You just give them three principles, four
principles, six principles. Or there’s one book I read many years ago,
Forty Steps to Salvation. That may be a few more than necessary, but
look what Jesus says to him. Oh, how do you do it? Verse 8, “The wind (or the Spirit, pneuma),
the Spirit blows where He wills.” What? What kind of an answer is that? If a guy comes to you and says, “What do
I do to enter the kingdom of God?” You must be born again. You must be born from above because all you
can do is flesh. You have to have power from on high. God has to come down and give you a new heart
and wash you and plant His Spirit in you. “Well, how do I do that?” The Spirit blows where it wills. You hear the sound of it. You don’t know where it comes from. You don’t know where it’s going. So is everyone born of the Spirit. “What? What do I do?” Nothing at this moment. If the desire of your heart is for the kingdom,
God will respond. But this is a divine miracle. This is a divine miracle. These are the words of Jesus. Jesus didn’t give him three things to pray,
three simple steps. He said, “This is a divine miracle.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things
be?” Jesus said, “Are you the teacher of Israel,
and you don’t get it?” We’ve got a lot of people today who don’t
get it. That is… That is divine sovereignty. Drop down to verse 27, “John answered and
said….” This verse may have escaped you. “A man can receive nothing unless,” he
prays these three things. Is that what it says? “A man can receive nothing unless it be
given him,” – what? – “from heaven.” All you can do is plead for God to give you
life. I walked into a hospital room. There was a guy dying of AIDS, raised in a
Christian family, attended Christian schools, went to a Christian college, became a leader
in the gay pride movement in LA, became one of the people involved in the gay pride parade
where a million people marched, and now he’s dying of AIDS. Somebody called me and said, “He wants to
see you. He knows about your ministry. He’s in a hospital not far away.” So I went to the hospital, and I walked in
and walked up to his bed. And when I walked in, the room was full of
homosexuals sitting there, and even some of the homosexuals who worked in the hospital
were there. And when I came in, I was like Round-Up. P-shhu, they were out of there. And I walked over… his name was David Chastain. I walked over to his bed, and I took his hand. And he said to me, he said, “I don’t want
to die, and I know if I do, I’m going to go to hell. I am going to go to hell. What can I do?” I said, “Robert [sic], you can’t do anything,
but you can pound on your chest like the publican in Luke 18, and say, ‘God, be merciful to
me a sinner.’” That’s all a sinner can do. He can’t pray a magic prayer. He can’t pray a magic formula. He can’t take these three steps. You plead for heaven’s divine grace. And so I stood there holding his hand, and
he just gushed the repentance of years and years of this sin that had destroyed him. And then I prayed, and I prayed the way I
always pray in a case like that, “Save him, Lord. Save him. Show him your grace. Put your glory on display in your saving grace. Humbly I ask. That’s all I can do. If it brings You glory.” The same thing I pray over somebody dying
of cancer, the same thing I pray over somebody with a terminal disease, all I can say is,
“Be merciful, Oh God. Be merciful if it’s for Your glory. If it pleases You to be merciful, be merciful.” And as he poured out his sins, and then pleaded
with God to be gracious and affirmed his confident faith in Christ as Savior, dying for sinners
and rising from the dead, tears coming down his eyes, and he finished his prayer. And I prayed a rather long, pleading prayer
with God to be merciful to him in spite of his rejection of the truth. You know, you never know in a case like that
whether someone is not an apostate, right? They’ve passed the point where they can
be redeemed. And it got real still and quiet. And he stared off at the wall, and I just
looked at him, and he kept staring there, and I said, “What are you looking at?” He said, “I’m looking at the time.” And I said, “Why are you looking at the
time?” He said, “I want to remember the moment
of my new birth.” I said, “Robert [sic], have you been born
again? Have you been born again?” He said, “I believe I have.” The time will tell. You don’t want to give false assurance. He lived another couple of weeks and proclaimed
the gospel to everybody who came in the room, and they stopped coming pretty quick. And he had me drop by and give him things
to feed his soul. It’s divine sovereignty. And yet John 3, it’s divine sovereignty. It comes down from heaven. And yet how about this? Go back to verse 15, “So… whoever believes
will in Him have eternal life.” What? He just said it’s divine sovereignty. What do you mean whoever believes? That’s what it says, isn’t it? Doesn’t your Bible read that way? How about this? “For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Verse 18, “He who believes in Him is not
judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God.” Whoever believes will be saved. Whoever believes will escape judgment. And people are judged because they love the
darkness rather than the light. There is a human responsibility for faith,
and human culpability for rejecting. They’re put side by side. Verse 36, “He who believes in the Son has
eternal life.” You know, you’d think that at least the
Lord would have separated that by a few chapters. And if you’re looking for a verse in there
that explains it, you won’t find one. Turn to John 6, and this is just introduction
by the way. And I knew I’d get in trouble with this
deal. John 6:37, who is going to be saved by divine
decree? Verse 37, “All that the Father gives Me
will come to Me.” Huh? Who is going to come to Christ? Who’s coming to Christ? All whom the Father gives to Him. Verse 44, “No one can come to Me unless
the Father who sent Me draws him.” Who comes to Christ? The people that the Father determines to give
to Christ, and those people are the ones He draws to Christ. We understand that. And then look at verse 40, right in the middle
of it. “This is the will of My Father, that everyone
who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life.” Huh. You see the picture here. The Scripture never equivocates on presenting
these two great side by side realities in the very same place. “Everyone who beholds the Son and believes
in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” And you might say, “Well, either you’re
going to raise up the ones the Father gives you, or you’re going to raise up anybody
who comes. But how can both be true?” So verse 36 says, “I said to you that you
have seen Me, and yet you don’t believe.” The problem is you don’t believe. The problem is not divine sovereignty. The problem is you don’t believe. Human responsibility both for faith and culpability
for unbelief is crystal clear, and it is put in the passages where sovereignty is emphasized
strongly. In verse 47, “Truly, truly,” let’s get
the emphasis right. “Truly, truly, I say to you.” All of that is just to pile on the strength
of this statement. “He who,” – what? – “believes has
eternal life,” he who believes. You’re all familiar with Acts, chapter 2
and verse 22, Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost, “Men of Israel, listen to
these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and
signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.” And then this, “This Man,” here’s the
indictment of Israel for the crucifixion. “This Man,… you nailed to a cross by the
hands of godless men and put Him to death.” Is that true? Absolutely true. Were they guilty of that? You better believe they were guilty of that. And judgment came, and it came not too many
decades later in the devastation of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were massacred,
and women and children alike. The temple was crushed to the ground never
to be rebuilt. And yet in the middle of the verse it says,
oh by the way, “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge
of God.” You see, the Bible doesn’t tell… tell
you one side of this in this book and then four books later sneak in the other side. It’s in the same place over and over and
over again. So folks, what I’m getting to say is simply
this. I can’t resolve this. You just need to enjoy the pain because nobody
is going to go anywhere other than where the Scripture goes. And you certainly don’t want to come up
with a hybrid in the middle, which denies the reality of both. They are what they are. And if you’re under the illusion that you
can figure it out, you’re on the level of a man who thinks he’s a poached egg. In the fourth chapter of Acts, in verse 27,
there’s another indictment, “For in this city truly there were gathered together against
Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with
the Gentiles (the Romans) and the peoples of Israel,” – I love this – “to do
whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” What a statement. You did it, and you are fully guilty, fully
culpable, and it fulfilled the divine decree to the very smallest detail. You could use the illustration of Judas. Judas, Acts 1, verse 15, prophesied to do
what he did in the divine decree, yet in the same chapter, it says, this man who went out
and hanged himself, the rope broke, and his bowels smashed and gushed out on the rocks
below where he tried to hang himself. This man went to his own place. Now, that’s my introduction. For the message, turn to Romans 9. I’m having trouble seeing the hands on my
watch here. How much more time do we have? Are we going somewhere? Okay. Now are you enjoying the pain of the dilemma
a little more? Are you starting to be comforted in the fact
that it’s okay? It’s where everybody is. It’s where God expects you to be. Well, let me give you… this is the… the… I think the locus crusis on this is Romans
9. And I would like… I preached from Romans 9, 10, and 11 for a
year at Grace Church. Can you imagine that? My people were screaming for mercy. “We get it. We get it. We get it.” Chapter 12 was like… was like euphoria when
we finally got there. When the words came out of my mouth, “Present
yourself to God a living sacrifice,” hallelujah, we’re out of 9 to 11. So what I want to try to do tonight is impossible. But I want you to see something. Let’s look at Paul as the evangelist. Okay, let’s look at him as the evangelist. And what he wants to let us know is he has
a passion for sinners and their salvation, and it is particularly strong among the Jews
as we would understand because they were his people. So in chapter 9, he starts by saying this,
“I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me
in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.” What are you so sorrowful about, Paul? Aren’t you supposed to be rejoicing and
again I say, “rejoice,” rejoice always? What’s the sorrow? Well, along with perfect joy in his heart
was a perfect sorrow. What’s the thing that makes you so sorrowful? “I could wish that I myself were accursed.” That, my friends, is a zeal that I don’t
know anything about. I will admit to you that my salvation is so
precious I can’t hear those words coming out of my lips. What are you so worked up about? “I could wish myself accursed, separated
from Christ forever, for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” You say, “Well, he certainly wasn’t Reformed? Huh. No self-respecting Reformed person would get
that riled up. Everybody is going to show up anyway. What are you worrying about? Relax.” You identify with that, I know. Paul didn’t relax. It fired up his heart. Look what they’ve had. They’re Israelites. They’ve been given the adoption as sons,
the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the temple service, the promises. They come from the fathers, from whom – that
is from that very line of people – is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all. God blessed forever. Amen. And he has a small doxology. It’s like a… a doxology is like a release
valve for Paul. He just wants people saved. Chapter 10 sounds almost like an echo, “Brethren,
my heart’s desire and my prayer to God,” deesis, “to beg.” I talked about begging with sinners earlier
today. This is begging God for sinners. “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer
to God for them is for their salvation.” This is a man who is consumed with the salvation
of sinners. It is a passion that drives him all the way
to the point where one day he lays his head on a block in the city of Rome, an axe head
flashes in the sun, and severs it from his dedicated and devoted and battered body. This is a passion for sinners to be saved. Now Paul knew what was essential if sinners
were to be saved, and that’s what I want you to see here. Okay? First of all, he understood divine sovereignty. One must recognize that this is a supernatural,
spiritual, heavenly, divine work. And that’s his theme in chapter 9. And we don’t have time to go through the
whole thing, only to touch the high points of this. Verse 6, he says, what, do you think the plan
of God has failed? You think God somehow lost control of what
He was trying to pull off. No. Israel doesn’t believe. My heart is broken over Israel’s unbelief,
but the Word of God has not failed, and here’s why. “For they are not all Israel who are descended
from Israel.” God never intended to save all Jews. Right? No, God has always been selective. The blessing came through Isaac. Then the blessing came through Jacob. Verse 13, “Jacob I loved; Esau I hated.” You say, “Wow, you mean God is that discriminating.” Verse 14 then says (and this is what their
responder would say), “What shall we say then?” There is… is this unjust? “There is no injustice with God, is there?” Me genoito, the strongest negative in the
Greek language, “No, no, no, no.” This isn’t out of character for God to be
selective. God never intended every Jew to be in the
kingdom. “For He says to Moses,” and He goes all
the way back to Moses, all the way back, and He says even to Moses, verse 15, God says,
“I’ll have mercy on whom I’ll have mercy. I’ll have compassion on whom I’ll have
compassion.” And it doesn’t depend on the man who wills
or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. And then he goes to Pharaoh, “For this very
purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed
throughout the whole earth.” “So then He has mercy on whom He desires,
and He hardens whom He desires.” Wow. “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He
still find fault?’” How can God then find fault with us if He’s
the one who makes the decision. “For who can resist His will?” And the next verse says, “Shut up.” That’s what it says in the vernacular. “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who
answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder,
‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?” Pots don’t talk back. The potter has the right over the clay. “What if God,” verse 22, “willing to
demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath
prepared for destruction?” Do you understand that God has a right to
put His wrath and His judgment and His justice and His fury on display to His glory as much
as He has a right to put His mercy and His grace on display to His own glory? Do you understand that God gets as much glory
out of His wrath as He gets out of His grace? This is really the strongest statement of
divine sovereignty in the New Testament, really strong, very strong. Paul understands that, that this a sovereign
work, and that God is not unjust. Psalm 119 says, “Your righteousness is an
everlasting righteousness.” Psalm 7:9, “You are the righteous One.” God will do what God will do. Paul understands that this work of salvation
is a sovereign work done by God. But then come to verse 30. “What shall we say then? Gentiles, who didn’t pursue righteousness,
attained righteousness.” Huh. Isn’t that something? He’s talking about the church, the Gentile
church. They weren’t even pursuing it, but they
received it, “even the righteousness which is by…,” – what? – “faith.” “But Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness,”
– that is righteousness by law – “did not arrive at that law.” Why? “Because they didn’t pursue it by faith.” Yeah, they didn’t pursue it by faith because
the One in whom you must place your faith was to them a stumbling stone and a rock of
offence. So he says it’s all the sovereignty of God. He hardens whom He hardens. He has mercy on whom He decides to have mercy. He loves who He loves. He hates who He hates. But Israel didn’t receive the imputed righteousness
of God because they sought it by law and not by faith in Christ. They are fully responsible for pursuing righteousness
in a false way and denying righteousness in the only way that it can ever come to the
sinner through faith in Christ. That’s an unambiguous statement. The Gentiles attained righteousness by faith. The Jews forfeited righteousness by pursuing
it through works. There again, you have the same juxtaposing
of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. John 8:24, Jesus said to the Jewish leaders,
“Unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins.” The second thing then you have to understand
if you’re going to do evangelism Biblically, one the sovereignty of God that salvation
is a work of God, but secondly salvation also requires faith. So the second point is human responsibility. Let’s go to chapter 10 just briefly. What’s wrong with Israel? Well for one, they rejected Christ. He was a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offence. But Paul said here was their problem. “They had a zeal for God,” verse 2, “but
not in accordance with knowledge,” very zealous for Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, but not according to knowledge. They actually had made a God who was not the
true God. They had fabricated a Jehovah of their own
making, just like they in the wilderness made the golden calf to represent Yahweh. They had a zeal for God but not in accordance
to knowledge. And then he goes on to say, he kind of breaks
down some of their other grave errors, they didn’t know about God’s righteousness. In other words, to put it simply, they didn’t
know how righteous God was. They didn’t know God was as righteous as
He is. They should have known if they read Leviticus,
don’t you think? “Holy, holy, holy, be ye holy for I am holy.” But they thought God was less holy than He
is. They thought they were more holy than they
are, and therefore they could please God. They thought their standards were higher than
they were, and God’s standards were lower than they are, and therefore they could attain
unto righteousness by their own moral and religious achievements. That was the first of their problems. They were ignorant about how righteous God
really is. They were also ignorant about how unrighteous
they really are. The gulf is infinite, impassible. They were also ignorant in verse 3 about the
need to not try to establish their own righteousness but to submit themselves to the righteousness
of God. They were ignorant of the fact that they needed
an alien righteousness. Like the Apostle Paul, who was a Pharisee,
who thought he could go about and establish his own righteousness until he met Christ,
and then he said he was given a righteousness not of my own, Philippians 3, but the righteousness
of God imputed to me. They didn’t know God. They didn’t know themselves. They didn’t know how holy God was, how unholy
they were. They did not understand, and therefore they
did not subject themselves to the only one way that righteousness would ever come to
them, and that was as a gift of grace imputed to them. They also didn’t understand Christ was the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. They didn’t understand that Christ frees
the penitent believing sinner from the condemnation of the law. They lacked knowledge about God. They lacked knowledge about sin. They lacked knowledge about Christ. And of course, they lacked knowledge about
salvation by faith. They were still doing the practicing righteousness,
verse 5 says based on law. And if you’re going to do that, you’re
stuck with it, right? Like Galatians 3 says, if you’re going to
try to get there by the law, you’ll end up being damned. What they didn’t understand is in verse
6 that righteousness is based on what? Faith, faith, faith. So don’t say in your heart, “We’ll ascend
to heaven.” Don’t say, “We’ll go down into the abyss.” What is that talking about? Spiritually transcendent works, legalistic
efforts at superspirituality, going up to heaven, or down to the abussos, the abode
of the dead. This is language of self-righteousness. This is language of mystical legalism. They didn’t get it. And all the time the Word is near, verse 8,
“in your mouth, in your heart, the word of faith, which we are preaching.” That’s what we preach: faith, faith, faith,
faith. So they didn’t know God. They didn’t know themselves. They didn’t submit to the only righteousness
available. They didn’t understand that Christ was the
one who brought them out from under the bondage of the law. They didn’t understand any of it. And they had heard it, verse 8. It had been preached. They had heard, “If you confess with your
mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’d
be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting
in righteousness, with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” You want salvation. You want righteousness. Believe. Believe. Is it shocking to you that this chapter on
the necessity of faith is plastered against chapter 9? “I’ll have mercy on whom I’ll have mercy,
and compassion on whom I’ll have compassion.” I’ll love who I choose to love and hate
whom I choose to hate. Amazing. The Scripture in verse 11, what does it say? Read verse 11, “Whoever,” – what? – “believes.” “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed,
for there’s no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord is Lord of all abounding
in riches for all who call upon Him. Whoever will call on the name of the Lord
will be saved.” Wow. So dear friend, can I just encourage you? If you’ve been struggling with this, of
course you’ve been struggling with this. You got it. You understand it as perfectly as it can be
understood. You understand it as perfectly as Scripture
has revealed it. These two things go together, and there is
no explanation beyond that. You’re there. You’re there. You don’t need to buy another book. You don’t need to get another CD. You don’t need another download. You’ve got it. You’ve got it. There’s a third thing Paul understood. He understood divine sovereignty. He understood human responsibility. And thirdly, he understood evangelical duty,
evangelical duty. He understood the role that God plays in divine
sovereignty, the role the sinner must play in faith, and he also understands the role
of the saints, verse 14. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord,”
verse 13, “will be saved. But how will they call on Him of whom they
have not believed, and how will they believe in [Him] whom they have not heard, and how
will they hear without a preacher.” Here’s evangelical duty. If you want to understand the marvelous work
of salvation, you understand divine sovereignty, human responsibility, and evangelical duty
or gospel duty if you will, or the duty of the saints. “How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?” No wonder it’s written, “How beautiful
are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.” Verse 17, faith comes from? Hearing, hearing the word of Christ, the message
concerning Christ. Paul got it. He understood it. He understood that salvation was a work of
divine sovereignty. Salvation required faith, and the sinner himself
was culpable for rejection and accountable for faith. And he understood that an essential means
by which divine sovereignty and human responsibility come together is gospel duty as we proclaim
the truth. Our time is gone. So let’s go to the end of chapter 11. I was going to take you through 11, but I
won’t do that. Let’s go to the end of chapter 11. You say, “Look, I’m struggling a little
bit with this.” Good. It means you’re human. I love this. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God!” Are you surprised that you’re struggling
with this? Get over it. Who do you think you are? Ninety-eight percent water. Are you kidding me? Why should you expect to understand this? “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God!” That’s where we all end up. Folks, this is way beyond us. But we love these truths, don’t we? We love the truth of divine sovereignty. We embrace the truth of human responsibility. And we cherish gospel duty. Psalm 39 says, “The ways of God are too
high.” Psalm 92 says, “The ways of God are too
low.” These mysteries for us are inconceivable,
incomprehensible, unfathomable, unsearchable. You don’t need more information. Okay? You got it. And then verse 34, I love this. “For who has known the mind of the Lord?” That ought to stop all further concerns. What’s the answer to the question? Who has known the mind of the Lord? What’s the answer? Nobody. No one. No one. That’s taken out of Isaiah 40, verse 13. The Septuagint version, “Who has known the
mind of the Lord?” Listen folks, not your individual intellect
or our collective intellects are going to be able to comprehend the incomprehensible,
inscrutable mind of God. And I like it that way, right? If the Bible didn’t have things that were
vastly beyond me, I would know it was a human book, written by a committee. And you say to yourself, “Well, this doesn’t
quite seem right. I’d like to talk to God about it.” Oh, really? Who became His counselor? Did you make an appointment to give Him counsel? You have some suggestions. Do you understand God is perfectly independent? He’s gotten along very well to this point
without you, without your suggestions. And then he quotes from Job 41:1 in verse
35, “Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” Do you think God owes you something? Do you think you’ve got leverage with God? “Hey, God, I want an answer on this one. You know what I did for you.” Really? Do you think God’s in your debt? Do you think He owes you an explanation of
everything that you’d like to have an explanation for? Even though an explanation wouldn’t satisfy
you because you couldn’t comprehend it if you got it, and that’s why He doesn’t
give it. I mean, don’t you really want some things
to become everlastingly clear only when you get to heaven. I mean, doesn’t that add an attraction to
heaven. I don’t know about you, but heaven doesn’t
appeal to me because I’m going to be sitting on a cloud playing a harp. And I know there won’t be any golf in heaven
because everything would be a hole in one, and that’s no fun. I don’t need the perfections of it. I… I’m not looking… I guess I can be happy with transparent gold
cubed cities and all of that. I can handle that. But what makes life exciting to me is discovery. God owes you no explanation of anything, doesn’t
need your suggestions, and you are incapable of comprehending His mind. At this point, Paul can’t contain himself,
and so in verse 36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” Let’s say that last line together. “To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” Let’s pray. What a glorious trek though these profound
portions of Scripture. We love You. We adore You. We are content to understand You to the degree
that You’ve permitted us to. We ask nothing more, nothing more. We have enough. We have enough to worship You, to love You
with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to be lost in wonder, love, and praise. Save us from foolishly thinking we deserve
more, we need more, or even contemplating making suggestions to you. We give you all the glory and will forever
and ever, and offer our deepest thanks that You redeemed us with Your sovereign love. We love You, O God. We love You, Christ. We love You, blessed Holy Spirit. Amen.
