In his sermon 'Answering the Question, Why Does He Still Find Fault?', Scott Brown delves into Romans 9:19-26, exploring the profound question of why God finds fault when no one can resist His will. He uses the metaphor of the potter and clay to illustrate God's absolute sovereignty and the insignificance of man. Brown emphasizes that God, like a potter, has the authority to shape and mold His creations according to His will. The sermon highlights three primary responses to the question of divine fault-finding: acknowledging human insignificance, establishing God's authority, and revealing God's plan, which includes showing His wrath, demonstrating His power, and displaying His glory through vessels of mercy. This message challenges believers to embrace the majesty of God's sovereignty, encouraging trust in His divine plan amid life's trials and sufferings, and calls for the rejection of idolatrous perceptions of God shaped by human sensibilities.

We'll be reading in chapter 9 verses 19 through 26. He will say to me then, Why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will? But Indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me like this?

Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lumped to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering 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 were not my people, and her beloved who was 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.

Father, we are so thankful for you to make a way for us to know you, that the blood of the Lamb has redeemed us, that you walking out of that grave have justified us. And I thank you that we may be called sons of the living God. Father, we pray for the preaching of the word for our good brother as he comes that you would give him your anointing and your filling that He would rightly divide the Word of Truth to us, the sons of the living God. And we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Romans 9, we continue to do its work to shatter the God that we've made in our own image to find that that preferable God to our own sensibilities and to make him into who he really is.

And in a way, Romans nine would sort of cause a kind of a Copernican revolution. Copernicus proposed the idea that it was not the earth, but it was the sun that was the center of the universe. And that's what Romans 9 does. It places Almighty God at the center of everything, not you and me. I am not the center of the universe.

And God is doing his own work for his own will. And Romans 9 makes that so clear. And now we come to this question that follows all of the arguments that have come before that really state that God is almighty. It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. And he says all this and then this question, you will say to me then why does he still find fault?

That is the great question of these next verses that we're considering. Why does he still find fault? And It's a question that we need to answer clearly in our own hearts as we go through this life. It's also a question that we need to answer in order to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is not delivered until God is explained.

And God is explained clearly by answering this question. We are also in the midst of suffering. We have friends who are suffering and they ask this question, why? Why? Why is it this way?

And there are three crystal clear answers to this question in these six verses. And you have an outline before you. You'll see the answers that are there. And we must answer these questions to ourselves and also to those who would ask them. We do have an answer.

We can't say, well, oh no, it's so far beyond me. No. No. God has given us answers to the question. The first answer, the first thing we must do is declare the insignificance of man, that's in verse 20.

The second we must establish the authority of Almighty God as the potter. And thirdly, we must reveal the plan of God which is delineated in verses 22 to 33. So we're not here in Romans 9 to play academic games with the Bible. This should especially be true of us when we're handling the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and particularly the work of the potter over the clay. It would be silly to play theological games with the Bible and keep the Bible in this theoretical box for discussion and debate about the sovereignty of God and not make it have bearing on all the different situations of our lives.

It would be wrong to lead people to think that it's adequate to spend our time wrangling about the speculative nuances and the implications while we miss, we miss the crystal clear, we miss the gigantic elephant in the room and that is that God is almighty. And it would be right though, it would be right for us to read this and to sing with all our hearts, have thine own way Lord, have thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will. While I am waiting, yielded and still." What a contrast that is to having a vain approach to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in a cool and academic spirit.

Instead, this doctrine should warm us to the inmost parts of our souls and set us free from the idol of our own personal sovereignty. And so this has bearing on everything. What about our church? What does this have to do with us here at Hope Baptist Church? If you just apply the potter's wheel to this little church called Hope Baptist Church.

You'd have to admit that it's very, it's relevant. We're people facing a number of real problems as we find ourselves vessels on the potter's wheel as it spins. We face financial problems over here. We have sickness in our homes. We experienced the death of children.

We know suffering. We know suffering from our past sins, don't we? We know we're aware of the inadequacies of our own thinking processes and how that's affected us today. We're aware of life on the potter's wheel as he's shaping us and molding us. Yes, that wheel just keeps on spinning and we're on that wheel and we sometimes find ourselves tempted to be immobilized by considering how hard life might seem to be to us right now, but we're still on that wheel that Almighty God has placed us on.

He is the potter, and we are the clay. By the way, also, we have many children here, don't we? How many of you are children? Would you raise your hands? How many of you are children?

Yes, most of you. We have many children here who are on the potter's wheel in their fathers and mothers' households. And God is shaping them and molding them. And that wheel is spinning time, time and speed and pressure and input and pulling and pushing. They're all upon you on the potter's wheel.

I hope you know what a potter's wheel is. If you don't, maybe after this we'll have a better idea. But we are here in a passage of Scripture that would put us all, all of us, on the potter's wheel and help us to understand what, how we should think about it. And we cannot afford to be coldly academic about this doctrine and keep it in these categories for discussion only, but what does it do? What does it do for us as sinners and fathers and mothers and children?

Well, the context here that we pick up this beautiful image, one of the most beautiful images of the Bible about our lives in the hands of Almighty God is the image of the potter in the clay. We've seen many images played before us in Romans 9 and now we are here in this one. And Paul is continuing to proclaim the message that unsettles us, it unglues our own sovereignty, it messes with our own free will and makes us feel very uncomfortable. And yet on the other hand it sets us free from being subjugated all our lives from thinking that our own wisdom is what should rule the day when it isn't really at all. That God is the great architect.

And Paul is proclaiming that nothing can subvert God's plan to save sinners and bring them to glory. And God is not only faithful, but he's all-powerful in executing his faithfulness toward all of us, according to what the Apostle said in Ephesians, according to the kind intention of his will. And So we can have a double rejoicing that God is able to save all sinners and He is also able to bring those sinners to glory. And He's treating us like sons. We've seen the theme of sonship here in chapter 8 and even in 9.

He brings us to salvation so that our salvation does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. That should be the most encouraging thing we ever could hear. If it was dependent on our righteousness, could it be possible? Absolutely not. It must depend on God who wills and God who runs.

It must depend not on flesh and blood or the will of man. If it did, we would be hopelessly lost, for we are people not with the right lineage. We're not a people with the right parents or the right upbringing or anything like that. And so, Paul is responding to the charge that the Word of God is not true as evidenced by the rejection of Israel to the Gospel. And the logic goes like this.

If the Bible is true, Israel would have accepted the Gospel, but they didn't. And so it must not be true. That's the charge that Paul is dealing with. And it's a very practical matter because we carry the same logic in our own minds. We say if the Bible is true, then God would do what I would want him to do and he'll take away all my pain.

Has the Word of God failed? Has the Word of God failed because of my pain? And we say like those Jews, If God has failed with Israel, will it fail with me? And it's the same question. So his statements prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is sovereign in salvation.

You can't miss that in Romans 9. If you interpret Romans 9 anywhere else, you're just ignoring words, that's all it is. And he just keeps piling up words and illustrations to make that clear. And one of our greatest needs in the Church today is to recover a sense of the glory of God and the doctrine of the mighty power of God and the sovereignty of God. And everything flows from it.

So now in these chapters 9 through 11, we see a God who is able to accomplish our perseverance in the faith. And it comes from the hand of God. But we object, we object in our hearts that it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. We object. It throws a damper on the thinking that we've had all of our lives, and it messes with our own personal sovereignty.

And so then we say the same thing that is said here in this objection in verse 19. What will you say to me then? Why does he still find fault? For who has resisted his will? So here's the objection, here's the question.

And it's the question on everyone's mind. It's the undeniable human question. We're just, because of our sinful nature we have to ask this question and we do. And so it needs to be asked and we should not be afraid of asking the question. But we should also have a godly answer for it.

And so the math, here's how the math goes. If God loves Jacob and hates Esau, if God hardens Pharaoh's heart and he hardens and he softens any heart that he desires, then we're all robots. We have no choice. And why does he judge us if we can't resist his will? And so the objection, you know, is one that we've heard and thought of many times.

If God is all-powerful, why does He send people to hell? Why would He blame anyone? Why doesn't He save everyone? And why does God, why does, why does, why does it, Why does it happen that God would send people to hell? And it's the accusation of fatalism.

And perhaps This question is even in our hearts today. I'm just not confident that we can escape this question all of our lives. And so we need to have the right answer for it. But we need to know something here. There's a falsehood in the objection.

Do you see it? Can you see the falsehood in the sentence itself? It says that if God is so sovereign, then if God is so sovereign, then it nullifies human responsibility. Then if God is so sovereign, we are all robots. There's a false assumption in the phrase itself.

There's a half truth in the phrase. And it has in it a poison that would begin to pollute our thinking and take us in directions scripture doesn't necessarily take us in and so it's a false assumption because the Bible speaks both of God's sovereignty and Nannerth's responsibility. We can't deny that. You see both there. And so even in the question is a subtle falsehood that we're tempted to accept.

And they are both presented sometimes in the same sentence. You see it in Acts chapter 2 in Peter's great sermon regarding who is responsible for the crucifixion of Christ. In one sentence you see both the sovereignty of God and the and the the choices of man put right together you see it in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in Exodus chapters 8 through 14 at one point it's a God that's hardening Pharaoh's heart and another point it's Pharaoh hardening his own heart. How do you make sense of that? And so the falsehood is this that there is some way to remove the mystery, there's some way to make this perfectly understandable to human mind.

I don't think you can make it understandable to human mind. And if you move, if you have to remove all mystery and are able to explain this Rubik's Cube of God's mind, then you have no other alternative than to go and get a God that you can manage, one that you can put in this theological category in that and understand every part of it if you could understand every part of God he would not be God you would be and this is the problem with this it's a it's a half truth it the statement itself contains a poison That if we let it run in our minds, it takes us in the wrong direction to misunderstand some things that are clear in Scripture. And so we cannot understand infinite mind and we won't ever know how it all fits together. We'll never solve the issue of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in our own minds. God has solved the problem, but He hasn't given us minds big enough to get it.

And that's why you have people like Charles Spurgeon who say, explain it like this. Paul believed the doctrine of human responsibility, yet he felt the doctrine of human inability. I have heard people say sometimes, you tell the sinner that he cannot believe and repent without the help of the Holy Spirit, and then you tell him that it's his duty to believe and repent. How are these two reconciled? We must reply that they do not need any reconciliation.

These are two truths of Holy Scripture, and we leave them to reconcile themselves. They are friends, and friends do not need any reconciliation. So if you need to have a silver bullet to answer this question, you will not be happy with this message today because I don't have it. I know that God's will is final and that He's told us all we need to know at this point in this life. And if God would cause one so brilliant to be born into this world who could understand his infinite sovereignty and the nuances of human ability, then let him speak.

But I don't know him yet. Maybe someday He'll come on this earth. The sovereignty of God is absolute. He has the independent right of disposing all creatures according to His own pleasure, said Jonathan Edwards about the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. All over scripture this doctrine is spoken of.

Remember Nebuchadnezzar? Nebuchadnezzar was turned into a beast. He was like a cow out in the rain, rained on. His fingernails grew like claws. His hair was matted.

And he was out there for years and years. And then finally, he realized how foolish he was, and he lifted up his eyes to heaven and his understanding returned and he blessed the Most High and he praised and he honored him who lives forever and he said for his dominion is an everlasting dominion and His kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to His will among the inhabitants of the earth and the army of heaven. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done?

And that's exactly the question that's being asked here. What have you done, O Lord? And the answer is given here. The inappropriateness of anger against God in questioning His ways is shown to us by the confrontation to the question that we find in the next verse here. And so when this question is asked, why does he still find fault?

There are three things that we must say. And the first thing we must declare is the insignificance of man, verse 20. The insignificance of man. But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me thus?

So the insignificance of man's opinion is declared by a very stern confrontation in verse 20. The question is not just left to anybody's thought, but there's a mighty resistance to the very question. And it's a clear rebuke. And he rebukes the spirit of the question. It's an anti-God question.

It says he's replying against God. It's an anti-God, anti-Christ kind of response. And it's a slight against the character of God and would remove reverence toward him. He says, oh man. So Instead of replying to the question, instead of replying to the question by saying what Mr.

Rogers would say, with this question, Mr. Rogers would say, you're special. But God says, oh man, who are you, oh man? No, you're not special at all. God is almighty.

He says, he calls us, oh man, and then he states that we are the thing formed. That's what he does. No, you're not special. You are the thing formed. And we have to get right.

What is the center of the universe? A Copernican revolution of the heart needs to happen. That God is the center and not ourselves. And So it's the spirit of the question that's being rejected. There's a wrong spirit about the question.

It's not a humble spirit of a creature crying out to his Creator. I read this last week, someone who said that anger towards God, instead of being a sign of disbelief and disrespect is one of the first signs toward a more fulfilling and trusting relationship with God. It's a sign that we're ready to involve God more actively in our daily activities. Absolutely not. Anger against God is a terrible sin of the heart of man.

There are people who would like to say that it's okay for you to be angry with God. Absolutely not. And that's the spirit of this question here. There are a number of places in the Bible where people became angry with God? Jonah was angry with God?

And twice the Lord questioned him and said, have you any right to be angry? Job became angry with God and God confronted him and he said, Where were you? Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Finally toward the end, Job repents and he says, I know that you can do everything and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, Who is it who hides counsel without knowledge?

I abhor myself. I repent in dust and ashes. These things are too wonderful for me, which I cannot know." That's what Job said when he finally woke up to the wrongness of his anger. He placed himself back under the authority of God. Disapproval.

Anger with God is disapproval toward God. If anyone would find anger in their heart, disapproval, disapproval for what Almighty God has brought about, it should be cause for swift repentance. If that has crept into us, if there is disappointment with God, let's return to the Lord here. Let's go where Job went back and say, Oh Lord, oh Lord, help me. I repent in dust and ashes for my questioning, your almighty hand in my life." We may cry out to God as Christ did.

We might say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We might say that like the Lord Jesus Christ. That's completely different than what we find here in this this questioner that Paul brings to the fore. It's completely different. We can say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

But we must say, into your hands I commit my spirit. That's the godly way to go through suffering. So Paul responds with this very truest statement, oh man. We must be very careful what we say. We are clay.

We are a bit of pliable plastic clay before Almighty God. We cannot discuss this the way we discuss everything else. We may have our right to our opinions on every other matter, but when we discuss the will of Almighty God, we are not free to say whatever we want to say. It would be sinful for us to say certain things in the face of God. And when we are tempted to do so, we need to do what Job did and say, Oh Lord, I'm at dust and ashes.

I repent. I repent, oh Lord. There are not two equal parties speaking here. In the rebuke, we find resistance against the uppityness, the centrality of man, and the exaltation of one single person's life. And this would take us away from the glory of God.

This is not the same thing that we see in James. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all, liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. God does want to give a bread when his sons ask for bread. But this question here has the poison of wickedness in it. It has self-sufficiency in it.

It has self-exaltation in it. And it misunderstands Almighty God. So the first thing that we must do when we answer this question is that we must declare the insignificance of man. This is a part of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that there is a God in heaven and He has complete authority over all mankind and he calls all of us to worship him and not to critique him. So we must declare the insignificance of man when we ask this question or when we are tempted to ask it ourselves.

Secondly, we must establish the authority of God, verse 21, and he says, Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? The authority of God is established here in a comprehensive way in this verse. And the illustration captures the interplay between man and God. There is God, He's the potter. We are the clay.

And we are on this potter's wheel. And so now we come to one of the wonderful graphic illustrations in Romans chapter 9 and about the sovereignty of God, and also the doctrine of sanctification and coming from our justification. So Paul has already given us two illustrations. Do you remember what they were? He gives us an illustration from childbirth and lineage.

Rebecca's motherhood and Jacob and Esau. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. That's the first illustration. The next illustration is Pharaoh, And it's from politics and statecraft. And he says of the Egyptian pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up to show my power in you, that my name may be declared in all the earth.

Therefore he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion." So, God is doing this miracle to Pharaoh to humble him, and each time he refused. And that's the scene, that's the illustration that the Apostle is bringing. So we have two illustrations one out of childbirth another out of statecraft now we have another illustration and that is out of craftsmanship and industry, out of the potter and the clay. And he uses this beautiful imagery to help us to understand his relationship with us and ours with him. And Notice this illustration is fascinating to me in this way.

The illustration doesn't change for us at all, because the potter in the clay is the same in the first century as it is today. Nothing has really changed except maybe a motor to turn the wheel, you know, more consistently. But pots are thrown in the same way that they were in the first century now today. And so it's interesting because Paul chooses an illustration that would be very clear to at least up to our own generation. And he says, shall the thing formed say?

And so we come to the authority of God. This is a discussion about clay. The Greek word is the same word that we get our word plastic. It's the Greek word plasma. So he's making us into something as wonderful and special as plastic.

And it speaks of our moldability and our changeability, our sanctification. And it establishes the fact that God is taking us in this state and He is making something of us that we never could make of our own. What a blessing that is, that God has each one of us on his wheel and he is making us and molding us after his will. This is a very tender and beautiful illustration that he's given to us and he is sovereign in it. Jeremiah explains God's perspective, can I not do with you as the potter does?

Well, who else would you want molding you? Who else would you want? Would you want, Would you want Pharaoh molding you? Would you want one of the front-running presidential candidates molding you? Who would you want molding you?

Well, here, God is the one who is molding his people. And the blessings in this are enormous. So God's rights and authority are established. We don't know how to make ourselves. God owns the clay, and he exerts his power, his exucia, as it is in this text.

He has authority. He is the king. He is the owner. And he does what he wishes. If we're ever to preach the gospel, we must establish this principle that God has authority over all things.

I don't believe that one can receive the Gospel unless they understand this in some measure, at least in some measure. Of course, we tend to grow in our understanding of His authority and His sovereignty and His power over time, but we must establish the authority of God because we don't know how to make ourselves. So the wheel of the potter is like the circumstances of life and the ways that the potter intends to use those circumstances, the speed of it and the timing of it. God has us on this amazing controlled plate that is spinning however he desires. And then he takes his hands and he works all these circumstances for his own glory.

He causes all things to work together for good as that wheel spins. And he has his hands on the clay and so God is dealing with us as clay and he is working us. The clay is needed. They need the clay and they work it to get the air bubbles out if you've ever if you've ever fired clay you know that if there are bubbles it'll explode and God is he he needs that clay and he works it and he centers it on the wheel and he moves it and you were and if it's not working out he brings it back and he might smash it together again and and he might keep working at it we're may there may be three steps forward and two steps back that's that can happen on the potter's wheel and There are imperfections and foreign material in the clay that need to be removed and as he works it and needs it He takes them out so that the pot won't fall apart This is what God is doing this imagery is beautiful because it so explains Our sanctification the clay must yield there's a There's a finished work and there's a glazing.

There's the final beautification and glorification of the vessel. And this is a picture of God's authority over us. He has charted a course for our lives. And the intelligence is not in the clay. The intelligence is in the potter.

You know, we, our family, took a trip several years ago to Washington, D.C. And we were on the National Mall And there was a display going on, kind of a festival that day, and there was a tent of some American Indian tribe. And we walked into the tent, and there was an Indian there with long hair. He was kind of a throwback hippie Indian, you could tell. He was kind of an admixture of a number of cultures that had been impinging upon him.

And so he was throwing this pot and a little boy walked up to him and said, What's it going to be? And the Indian replied, he said, the pot will decide. The pot is telling me what it wants to become. And this little boy, his mouth dropped. And he said, and he realized how stupid this was.

And I was just standing there trying to hold back any other commentary on his on his assertion but the little boy couldn't hold himself back he was only nine years old and he said well can the pot tell you what is two plus two and And I just kind of walked out of the room because I was afraid I might say something worse than that. But God is the pot. The pot does not decide. That's the idea. The potter holds all the intelligence and we are clay.

We look to him for the intelligence and the shaping of us throughout this experience that we have on the potter's wheel. And God is claiming the right to do whatever he wishes to do. This imagery comes out of a very startling passage in Jeremiah 18. Now it's one way to think about the potter in the clay as some beautiful experience in which everything turns out beautiful. No, that's not true.

This imagery comes out of a very terrible situation in Jeremiah, chapter 18, where the dialogue is proving that God has a right to destroy Israel if he desires because of their disobedience. That's where this illustration comes from. The word came to Jeremiah saying, arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause you to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's house and there he was making something at a wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter.

So he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter, says the Lord? Look as the clay is in the potter's hand. So are you in my hand, O house of Israel, the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and destroy it. If that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it.

And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build it and to plant it, if it does evil in my sight so that it does not obey my voice, then I will relent concerning the good which I said would benefit it." What God is saying to Jeremiah is, I have authority over the clay, and I will even exercise my authority to destroy a nation. That's the imagery out of this passage from which this passage is built. So when people ask, Why does he still find fault? Not only do we need to declare the insignificance of man and his opinion, but we need to establish the authority of God over the clay as the potter. And then The third thing we need to do is we need to reveal the plan of God, because he reveals the plan of God right here in these verses, in verses 22 and 23.

He says, what if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 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 the Jews only, but also the Gentiles. So the plan of God is revealed right here, and it is a wonderful plan, and it is unstoppable. This is the heart of the chapter right here, I believe. What if the Lord wanting to show his wrath and his power? What if?

That really explains everything that is sorted out in this passage. It reveals God's will and his intention. What is he doing? What is he doing with Pharaoh? What is he doing with Jacob and Esau?

What is he doing with clay? What is he doing? It's revealed right here in these words here. And so if you want to answer the question why suffering why hell why why does it not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on God has who has mercy why the answer is right here Because God is wanting to do something. God wants to do something.

What if God wanted to do something? That's the logic that's here. And there are three things that he wants to do. They're listed here. The first is, he wants to show his wrath.

God desires to show his wrath against sin, to come against it and to destroy it forever. And he's waiting patiently, But he wants to show his wrath and he's holding back. We know that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. God is going to come and bring his wrath against the suppression of truth. He wants to do it.

He desires it. And this is what he's doing now. And he also has all of us receiving in ourselves the penalty which was due from our sins. This is the wrath of God coming from us. Without the grace of God and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, this wrath would destroy us.

But we are not destroyed. But God will destroy evil, and He wants to show His wrath. The second thing that He wants to do is He wants to display His power. You see that? Waiting to make his power known.

This is why God hardened Pharaoh's heart, to make his power known. Why do bad things happen? To make God's power known. You can't see it in the midst of the problem, but you will see it later, because God wants to make His power known. Why this problem that you're in the midst of?

Why this difficulty? God desires to make His power known. It's as clear as day. And often he waits to make his power known to the last minute, doesn't he? In Psalm 46 it says that he waits just to the break of dawn.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we shall not fear, though the earth should change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. And He will move, He will express His wrath, He will destroy all of his enemies, but he does it just at the break of dawn in Psalm 46. Isn't that true of most of these trials and tribulations that we're in the midst of? The third reason is he wants to display his own glory, that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand.

His focus is on vessels of mercy. He desires to pour out His glory and His mercy on His people. This is His great and mighty objective. Yes, He is going to take care of every wrong that's ever been done. But the apple of His eye, the sweetness of His heart, is toward His vessels of mercy, pouring into them mercy.

This is His objective, to take sinners and pour mercy into them, to cover them up, to hide them in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, making them holy, filling them up with His mercy. This is His grand objective for all of His people. And He wants to make known the riches of His glory on these vessels of mercy. On these vessels of mercy. How do we sort all this out?

Let me read to you the words of someone who I think understood this better than most, Jonathan Edwards. Follow me here in this great statement that he made, because he's talking about the different aspects of his glory, not just one aspect. Like, it would be wrong just to focus on one aspect of his glory. That would make us blind to all the others. Well, we've just been told that one aspect of his glory is to punish, is to have wrath against sinners.

The other part of his glory is to extend mercy into his vessels of mercy. Those are two parts of his glory. We wouldn't want to just choose the glory we like. That would be wrong. Edwards gets this.

And that's why I want to read this to you. He understands that God's glory is manifold, and that if we don't look at the manifold glory of God, we'll create a God in our own image. We'll just create a religion of our favorite verse. We'll just create a religion of our favorite idolatry or the thing that we like the most. And we'll build our whole life and religion around it instead of the glory of God.

And we will just become pinched and truncated idolaters. So Edwards addresses this and he says no see the whole glory of God. Here's what he says It is a proper thing and it is an excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth, okay? Infinite glory that's what he's talking about and for the same reason it is proper that the shining of God's glory should be complete, not just a little piece. That is, that all the parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionally radiant, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God.

It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested and another not at all. Thus it is necessary that God's awful majesty, His authority, and dreadful greatness, his justice and holiness should be manifested. But this could not be unless sin and punishment had been decreed so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as others do, but also the glory of His goodness and His love and His holiness would be faint without them. Nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all." He's saying, if you don't have God's justice in His wrath, you'll never understand His love and His mercy. You have to have them all.

Don't just prefer one and let your heart go after one, as it would after an idol of your own preference to create a God in your own image. Edwards continues, If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, There could be no manifestation of God's holiness or hatred of sin or in showing any preference. In other words, if there wasn't punishment for sin, you would never know the preference of God for holiness. You would never see his beauty completely. If there was no sin to be pardoned, if there was no misery to be saved from, how much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired, and the sense of it not so great." And then he concludes with this, so Evil is necessary in order to the highest happiness of the creature and the completeness of that communication of God for which He made the world." What he's saying is that you cannot have the happiness that God desires for the creature unless you understand both the judgment and the hatred of sin and the mercy of God at the same time.

If you pull one out, you miss the other. It just recedes into nothingness. Because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God. I'll say that again. The creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, not our own picture of Him, and the sense of His love.

And if the knowledge of Him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionately imperfect. So here in Romans 9, we get the intentions of God, what he wants to do and what he wants to do declares the manifold riches of his glory and we see all of his glory manifested in these categories to display his wrath against sin, number one, to display his power and to display the glory by making his riches known on vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory." OK. So God's glory is declared here in this passage. And this is not the God made in our own image. Now let's move to some applications.

And I have several here, and I'm not sure where we are going to stop with these. But here's the first application. Have I been spouting off to God, forgetting who I am? Children often do this with their parents. They get too familiar and they speak dishonorably.

And there's no fear of God. There's no fear of their parents. And there's also no fear of God. It's easy for us to do with God what our children do with us. And we get way too familiar and there's no fear of Almighty God.

Have we been spouting, judging God, questioning God's faithfulness? There may be a legitimate question, But it may be being asked in the wrong spirit, arrogant disputations with God, questioning Him. So have I been spouting off with God? Or Is there a reverence for his sovereign work in my life? Secondly, am I bold?

Am I bold to proclaim the answers with confidence? These three crystal clear answers, do I declare the insignificance of man? Do I establish the authority of God? Or am I afraid? Am I afraid to say who God really is?

And do I reveal the plan of God that He would make known His mercy on vessels of mercy and wrath on vessels of wrath. Number three, first have I been spouting off to God, forgetting who I am? Number two, am I bold to proclaim the answers that God has given me or do I default to my own Modern softy answers number three Am I harboring envy toward others for the way God has made me I am on the potter's wheel. I am being formed differently than the other person. And there are vessels for wrath and vessels for mercy.

So here's some questions. Am I despising my experience on the potter's wheel? Am I angry that my bitter at God for his work with his own clay on this pot? Am I angry with the speed? Am I angry with the tool?

Am I angry with the pushing and the pulling and the shaping? Am I angry that for my sin he watered me back up and put me back on again to try again? Am I angry with God for His sovereign hand? Do I hate others because I am covetous of their experience on the potter's wheel? Covetousness is desiring something so much that you lose your contentment with God.

That's what covetousness is. It's wanting something that someone has so much that you lose your appreciation for the sovereign work of Almighty God in your life, and you wish you were someone else. And you wish you had, and you covet, and you're unhappy with God and what He has given you. And the opposite of covetousness is contentment. When contentment in God Decreases, covetousness and gain always increase and they move and flow in us.

There is no happiness in envy and covetousness, none. All of the air of the goodness of God gets sucked out of the soul who is dissatisfied with what God is doing on that potter's wheel. You are on a wheel, divinely ordained, running at a certain speed. He is applying His tools and His pressure. He's pulling and pushing you in different ways.

So am I harboring envy toward others for the way God has made me? Are you saying, I wish I was made like so and so? I wish my body was like so and so. Any young girls here wish their body was like so-and-so? What is that?

That is an incursion of the devil to cause your joy in Almighty God to diminish, to steal every good thing from your heart. Number four, have I been praising God for His work as a potter and His molding and His making? Do you see the tenderness of His hands even though He's pushing you and spinning you around? Maybe this would be a time even right now to give thanks for His fatherly care toward you. He knows you perfectly and He is taking you to glory.

He will complete it. He's taking you where he wants to take you. But he has you on this wheel. Do you hate it? Don't think something strange is happening to you.

He is the potter and you are the clay and all of his promises will complete the work. Not your own wisdom. He will do it. Praise God. Praise God that He will do it.

And He is taking you there. Number five. Do I remember what lump from which I was drawn? Do I remember what lump from which I was drawn? I was drawn from the sinful lump of humanity.

And God took me out of sinful humanity and He began to form me. He loved me and He took me in his own hands and began to form me. He took me out of my terrible home. He took me out of my black heart that had done so many things and sinned against so many people. He took me out.

He rescued me. He took me out of these waters that were too strong for me, and he took me as a lump of clay, and he began to take the impurities, and he began to knead me, and then he plopped me right exactly where I needed to be on his own, on his own pallet." Well remember from what lump of clay you've been drawn and is God speaking to your heart even now saying, oh, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. If He is, then say, Oh Lord, I am the clay. Make me and mold me after Thy will. That's the prayer of a Christian.

If you Have that prayer and you believe in the gospel, you are saved. And so remember from what from what lump we've been drawn. One last application. In view, in view of the potter and the clay, in view that God is almighty over all the nations of the earth, that it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on God who has mercy. In view of this, have you a proper view of the future?

What awaits? I believe that what awaits in the 21st century demands that we know this sovereign God. And what awaits the United States of America in the next coming years? Will America continue this 300-year run of prosperity and some semblance of morality? I don't know.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Right now, right now, we have three front running candidates, the most popular people in the nation who are complete God haters and God rejecters and socialists. That's what they are. And we are going to elect, probably, one of these individuals.

It's remarkable. What is the future of America? What will happen to our freedoms? Will we be able to educate our children as we enjoy now? It's possible that we won't.

Will it be possible to preach the gospel without being thrown into prison? I don't know. I'm not confident that it will be. We must know the true God in view of what's ahead of us. And the rapid deterioration even in the last five years is mind-boggling to all of us.

And what is to come? What is to come? Well, what we know is that we're on the potter's wheel until we get to heaven. And God has taken this lump of clay and He has taken us in His hands. And He's placed us in His Church, and He is designed to take care of us in His Church until He finally takes us to Heaven.

And He has put us here under the ministry of His Word so that He would use it to take care of us and get us there. And I trust that God would give us a rich experience in caring for one another in this intervening time until until he takes us to heaven. So What shall we say? What shall we say? This is what Paul says all the time.

What shall we say? And let's just end there. But we're not in Romans 9 to engage in academic games about the sovereignty of God. We're not in Romans 9 to miss the gigantic crystal clear truth that's totally undeniable. Let's don't miss this and spend our time messing around with discussions about things that we don't have brains big enough to really understand.

Let's glory in Almighty God. Let's give thanks for His sovereignty. Let's rest in His mighty and perfect will to pour out mercy into these vessels of mercy. Let's do that. It would be right.

It would be right for us to say, have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay. So we should spend our days praising God for the spinning wheel and the hands of the potter and the various tools with which he cuts and shapes his fingers that pull us with personal knowledge and omniscience. And we feel His pressure and we know the impressions are the pressure of His fingers upon us, making us vessels, meat for the Master's use. What a blessing it is to be on this wheel that Almighty God has placed us upon.

Let's pray. Father, Thank you.