Well, as always, it is such a
delight for me and for Jan to be able to be with you. I look forward to this trip and
our time together. It's a highlight of my year.
I look forward to it all year long. I thank God for you, for
our fellowship over all these many years. And I bring you greetings
from your brethren in Ashland. Now, if you would, turn your
Bibles to Romans chapter 9. I've entitled the message this
evening, Lessons Learned at the Potter's House. What I would
like for us to do this evening is, like the prophet of old,
take a trip to the Potter's House and see if the Holy Spirit might
be pleased to teach us a few lessons as we look and see inside
the Potter's House. Maybe the Spirit might be pleased. to teach us a little bit about
who God is and who we are, so that we'll beg Him for mercy.
Now, you don't have to be a scholar of Scripture. You don't have
to be a great theologian like John Gill or Matthew Henry. To
be able to read the Scripture and know this is what God's Word
teaches. Almighty God chose to save a people before time began. God chose to have mercy upon
the souls of those poor sinners. They didn't do anything to deserve
it. God just chose to have mercy upon them because He would. And
that's God's crown rights to do. It's God's crown rights to
show mercy to whom He will show mercy. Look at verse 15 of Romans
9. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. That's God's crown rights to
show mercy to sinners, to whom He will. Salvation. The salvation of a sinner now.
I'm not talking about the salvation of someone who thinks that they're
righteous and moral, can do some things to deserve it. I'm talking
about the salvation of a sinner. has got to be by the will and
purpose of God. It can't come by the will and
purpose of man, because man is dead in sin. No one can do anything
to earn salvation. If we're going to be saved, we're
going to be saved even though we don't deserve it, because
God is merciful. That's what he tells us in verse
16. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." If anybody's going to
be saved, it's because Almighty God showed mercy upon them. Now, God has a purpose of mercy
for His people. And He will accomplish that purpose. Nothing can happen to cause God's
purpose of mercy for His people to fail. God will use all men,
all events. He'll even use wicked men. to
accomplish his purpose of redemption for his people. He gave us that
in picture back in Egypt when Israel was in bondage in Egypt.
Look at verse 17. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. Now you
know the story of Pharaoh in Egypt. Scripture says after Pharaoh
heard from God, Scripture says Pharaoh hardened his heart. And then eventually we read God
hardened Pharaoh's heart. Now all God had to do to harden
Pharaoh's heart is leave Pharaoh alone and let Pharaoh have what
he wanted. You and I already have a hard,
cold, dead, stony heart. And if the Lord is pleased to
withhold His grace and to leave us alone to withhold His soft,
softening grace, our hearts will stay that way. Hard and cold
and dead. It's God's sovereign right to
have that softening mercy on whom He will. And it's his sovereign
right to pass by whom he will, because God's God. Now, the Apostle
Paul knows full well the objection of the natural heart to that
truth. Verse 19. Thou wilt say then
unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted
his will? The natural heart says, God made
me this way. How can God be mad at me? God
didn't give me a nature that's capable of being perfect. So
how can God condemn me for it? If God's in control of everything,
and everything I do, even if it's wicked, fulfills God's purpose
of redemption for His people, why can God find fault with me?
You know, if God's in control of everything, even my wrath,
how can God blame me for it? And I love Paul's answer to this
question. You and I need to be put in the
dust, and this is Paul's answer to the question. Who do you think
you are? Verse 20. Nay, but, O man, who
art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing form, say
to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Who do you
think you are to question God? Where do we think we get the
right to question God? And how do we think that we can
ever hope to understand God, to understand what He's doing?
We're finite. God's infinite. We're the creature. God's the creator. We're ignorant. God's all wise. How arrogant
do we have to be to sit in judgment upon God? Where do we think we
get the right to ask God, why did you make me this way? Why
are you using me this way? God can do whatever He will with
you and me, because He's God. And it will always be right,
and it will always be fair, no matter what He does. God will
use all men, somehow, for His glory. Solomon said, even the
wrath of man So praise Him. Now that's so. And I'll tell
you what, I can't explain that. I can't. And I don't feel the
slightest bit compelled to try to explain it. That is just God. God is God. And besides that,
if God did explain Himself to us, you and me couldn't understand
it anyway. But we don't have to understand. We don't have
to understand God. Nowhere in scripture are we told
that we have to understand God. What are we told? Believe. Just believe. I can believe God. If He gives me faith, I can believe.
I can't understand Him. In this life, that's not going
to happen. But I can believe Him if God gives me faith. As
we look into the potter's house, as we're getting ready to look
into here in these next verses, there are three lessons that
I pray the Spirit will be pleased to teach us. The first point
is this, the first lesson is this. God does with his own what
he will. Verse 21. Hath not the potter
power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto
honor and another unto dishonor? Now God owns everything and everyone
in His creation. Then it's only right that God
use everything and everyone in His creation to accomplish His
purpose. God can do with His own what
He will. And the illustration that Paul
uses is the potter and the clay. I remember being a little fellow
and my parents They always took me to these places I didn't want
to go. You know, some, I don't know if they thought it was educational
or what, but I remember being taken to this place and they
did everything like they did way back, you know, seemed to
be like a billion years ago. And they had this potter. They
were spinning this, you know, and making this stuff out of
clay and they were fascinated. I was bored to tears, but I remember
watching that. And I read this verse and I look
back on that. That potter sitting there making
all these things out of clay. He had this table over here and
he had this gigantic pile of clay. And he'd take a little
bit of it, and he'd take it there over to his wheel, and he'd begin
to make something out of it. That's the illustration that
Paul's using here. That potter has a lump of clay,
and he divides it right in half. He divides it into two sections.
Out of one section, he makes a toilet bowl. Out of the other
section, he makes a beautiful flower vase. There are people
standing around watching him make this, you know, just with
the skill that he's using to make these vessels. Now the only difference in what
is made, the only difference between the toilet bowl and the
flower vase, there's only one difference. It's what the potter
decided to do with it. That's the only difference. And
nobody's standing there watching. Whatever, just with such indignance,
ask the, is indignance a word? I don't know. You know what I
mean. But ask that potter, what are you doing? That's not fair. Why did you make that lump? Why
did you make it a toilet bowl? Nobody would ever ask that. Because look, There's clay. It's ugly. It's dead. It's lifeless. It's not worth anything. And
here's the potter. He's the master potter. He's
a skilled person. Nobody would ever ask him, that's
not fair. Why are you doing that for? The
clay doesn't have any rights in this thing. The clay is not
qualified to have any input. It's dead. Now in that illustration,
you and I are the clay and God's the potter. We're all part of
the same lump of Adam's fallen humanity. And just like the clay,
we're dead. We're spiritually dead. Don't
ever confuse physical life for spiritual life. Just because
we're moving around and breathing and thinking, that doesn't mean
that we have spiritual life. Scripture says we're born dead
in trespasses and sin. And we can't mold ourselves into
something other than dead sinful flesh. Because we're spiritually
as lifeless as that clay is physically lifeless. All we can do is sin. Just like all the clay can do
is be clay. That clay can't move from one
place to another place unless somebody else moves it. That
lump of clay can't change itself into a different form unless
someone else takes it and molds it. And even then, the clay gets
no input in the situation whatsoever, does it? It's just dead clay. Now that's us by nature. All
we can do is sin. And we can't change ourself into
something else unless God creates a new man in us. And even then,
we don't get any input in the matter whatsoever. And I want
to tell you what, it's a good thing. Left to our nature. If we had any input in the matter,
we'd run away from God. We chose, we would choose to
be made a vessel of dishonor. We would choose to be made that
toilet bowl. Now I say we don't get any input in the matter.
We can and we should beg for mercy, shouldn't we? But we don't
get to decide to be saved any more than that clay can decide
to be made into a vase. Now can that, once and for all,
do away with this thing of making a decision for Jesus? That's
not how a sinner is saved, is it? The clay is us. And the potter in this illustration
is God. God is the one who makes every
decision. And God has every right to do
that because He's God. God has the right to take that
lump and to take some out of it and make them vessels of honor. When God makes a vessel of honor
out of that fallen lump of Adam's humanity, you know what He does?
Hang on to your seat. He makes a vessel just like His
Son. Oh! Is there a greater honor than
being made just like God's Son. That's a vessel of honor. And
God has the right to pass by the rest of that lump and use
them as vessels of dishonor. What's a vessel of dishonor?
It's just God leaving them alone. Leaving them alone in the shame
of their sin. And God has the right to do that. The word power that Paul uses
here means the right or the authority. God has the right. He has all
authority because He's God. My generation somehow has missed
this. And I don't understand how. Well,
I mean, I do because we're dead in sin, but... I remember being
a little fella, and you know one thing that I knew beyond
a shadow of a doubt? My dad had the authority. It wasn't going to be questioned.
It wasn't going to be changed. He had the authority. My generation
somehow as parents has not shown our children we've got the authority.
And that has just bled over to people just think God's just
like me. He doesn't have any authority over me. Oh yes he
does. God has all authority. He has every right to do with
His own what He will, because He's God. We belong to God. He created us. He gives us life. He gives us breath. God owns
us, so He can do with us as He pleases. Now, if you look back
in Jeremiah chapter 18, this is the lesson that God taught
Jeremiah when He took him to the potter's house, that God
will do with His own what He will. Jeremiah 18 verse 1. The word which came to Jeremiah
from the Lord saying arise and go down to the potter's house
and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down
to the potter's house and behold he wrought a work on the wheels
and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of
the potter. So he made it again another vessel as seemed good
to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came
to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this
potter, saith the Lord? Behold, as the clay is in the
potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. Isaiah 64, beginning
verse four. For since the beginning of the
world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither
hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for
them that waiteth for him. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth
and worketh righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy
ways, behold, thou art wroth. For we have sinned, and those
is continuance. And we shall be saved, even though
we have sinned, and those as continues, even though we have
done nothing but sin, yet because of your mercy we shall be saved.
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags, and we do all fade as a leaf. And our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away, and there's none that calleth
upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hid thy face from
us, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. But now, O
Lord, thou art our Father. We are the clay, and thou our
potter. And we are the work of thy hand. We are completely dead in sin. We've got no hope but you. And we're going to wait right
here begging for mercy. And I want to tell you what,
what a place to be to beg for mercy. from the God who promised
to have mercy on sinners. What a place to be to beg for
mercy from the God who said, I'll have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. May God be pleased to make us
learn something of who He is and who we are. So we'll beg
Him for mercy. I pray, Lord, bless you. I thank
you.