He chooses whom He will, and
He hardens whom He will, then why does He find fault with any
sinner? Who's resisted His will then?
If His will's always done, and He's going to rule in the army
of heaven among the inhabitants of the earth, and it's His will
that's going to be done, they say, then why does He find fault
with me? Why does He judge me a sinner?
Who's resisted His will? Our subject this morning is the
potter and the clay. You and I have to learn our place
and God alone can teach us that. We have to learn that it's not
our right to question God in any way. We can't question what
God does. He's the creator. We're the thing
created. We have no right to question
God. God knows how we will object. He knows how depraved, fallen
sinners will object to His grace and His goodness. And so He raises
this objection for us. He says, you will say to me then,
why doth he yet find fault? Who's resisted his will? God
used Paul and gave Paul this direction to write this, raising
the objection God knew we'd make. and then God answers it. And
I want to look at the first or all of these answers that God
gives here and I want to take them one at a time. First of
all, the first answer God gives is this, verse 20. Nay, but O
man, who art thou that replies against God? Who are you to reply
against God? How can we even question God? Who are we? You and I are fallen
depraved, guilty sinners. That's who we are. God's holy. He's righteous. He's of two pure
eyes to behold iniquity. So who are we to reply against
God? As we come into this world, our
understanding is defiled. We have no true understanding
of God. We have no spiritual heart for
anything that God teaches. We cannot bow, we cannot cast
all our care on Christ as we come into this world. Our hearts
are full of enmity as we come into this world. And yet God
is wisdom. Everything God does is wisdom.
It's God doing what is the wisest and the right thing to do. Everything
He does. So who are we to reply against
God? Fallen, depraved, ignorant sinners going to reply against
Him who is wisdom? Think about that. God's no respecter
of persons. He chooses whom He will just
simply by His grace and passes by whom He will without anything
in the sinner to make Him do so. He just did this according
to His free grace. But you and me come into this
world and you know what we are? We're nothing but respecters
of persons. We can be balked. We can be persuaded
to change our opinion one way or the other depending on who
butters us up the right way. And yet, here's God whose judgment's
just. He can't be swayed one way or
the other. He's only going to do what's just and right. And
here we are whose judgment is one way one day and one way the
next day. Another way the next day. Are
we going to reply against God? This is God's goodness to choose
whom He will. That's God's goodness. Dare we
call Him evil for being good? Dare we reply against God for
being good? God choosing whom He will and
justifying us from our sins in Christ. That's God's righteousness. Dare we call Him unjust? A worm. That's what God says we are by
nature, just worms. The word's maggot. A maggot. Feeding on death. Born of death,
feeding on death. That's a good description of
us, isn't it? And here we are, murmuring against God's choice
and against God's providence. You know what that is? That's
the height of impiety. That's the height of this unholy,
fallen, character that you and I are by nature, to murmur against
what God does in God's providence. Do you see depravity in that?
Sinful depravity in that? True spirituality, when God gives
you a new heart, true spirituality is to bow to God's Word, to bow
to God's providence, to bow to God's authority, to do what He
will, with whom He will. Job said, though he slay me,
yet will I trust him. That's true spirituality. That's
a heart. This thing of replying against
God and questioning God and, well, how come God does this
this way and that? That's to say, if I was God,
I wouldn't do it that way. That's pride and arrogancy to
reply against God. Who are you and I to reply against
God? You take a father and a mother
and their children, for an example. Who is the child to reply against
their father? And if you have faithful mothers
and fathers, which I know you do, they will ask you that question
real fast if you decide you're going to reply against them.
Who are you to question me? They're the father. You're the
child. That's the mother. You're the
child. We get that in our house. Do we get it when it's between
us and God? So first our problem by nature
is we have no fear of God before our eyes. That's what all this
is about. No fear of God before our eyes. God has to come and
give us a holy reverence in our heart for God so that we stop
questioning God and hear God and bow to God. The fear of the
Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. That's where it starts. God has
to first give you a fear of the Lord, a reverence in your heart
for God, and that's when wisdom will begin, because you'll start
listening instead of questioning. Now secondly, let's look at this
next answer here. He adds to the rest of that answer.
He says in verse 20, Shall the thing formed say to him that
formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter
power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto
honor and another unto dishonor? You and I are the thing formed.
God is the creator who formed us. You think to say and compare
us to just clay, to just dirt, to just mud, do you think that
is an unfair comparison? God actually did form Adam of
the dirt, of the ground, of the dust. That's how he was formed. We were formed from the dust.
And he breathed into him the breath of life and that's how
Adam became a living soul. And these bodies are going to
go back to that dust. So that's a pretty good comparison
to say we're just dust. We're just mud in the potter's
hand. That's all we are. We're the
thing that was formed. So are we going to question God
and say, why have you made me thus? God's illustration here
of the potter and the clay, that's a basic illustration, but it
shows us God's right to do with us as He will. We're in God's
hand. He's not in our hand. It's not
that He's in our hand to do with Him as we will. We're in God's
hand to do with us as God will. He hath not the potter power
over the clay. You see a potter, he has power
over the clay to make one vessel under honor, another vessel under
dishonor. Go with me to Jeremiah 18. Whenever
the Lord was prepared to, He was about to destroy the nation
Israel because of their rebellion. He was going to teach Jeremiah
that he had the right to do with his own what he would. And so he sent Jeremiah down
to a potter's house. And this is what he wrote. Look
here, Jeremiah 18.1. 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 word. Then I went down
to the potter's house, and behold, he wrote a work on the wheels."
The wheels here is a picture of God's providence. We saw in
Romans 8, God works all things together for good to them that
love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. That's
the wheels of providence. God working everything. And that's
pictured here in these wheels where He's working all these
things here in His studio. And the vessel that He made of
clay was marred in the hand of the potter. It's a picture of
sinners falling in Adam. We were still in God's hand.
It wasn't out of God's control. but we became marred in the fall
and a vessel of dishonor in the fall. And he says here, so he
made it again another vessel. It seemed good to the potter
to make it. Picture God sending His Son and through the righteousness
of Christ, through the blood of Christ, completely, totally
recreating His elect people, making us a new creation, a new
vessel, entirely anew. Verse 5, And then the word of
the Lord came to me, now here's the lesson, 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 you in
my hand, O house of Israel. This is what this world's religion
has backwards. This is what all sinners have
backwards. Well, we're dead in sins. That's
what scripture says of us. We've gone away backwards. And
we call bitter sweet and sweet bitter and up down and down up
until God comes and gives us life and turns us right side
up, makes us know how things really are. But this is what
religion thinks. Religion thinks they have this
backwards. They think that they have God
in their hand. And this is what we used to think.
You have to pretty please let God have His way and let God
do what He will and just, you know, you're the sovereign but
you got to let this little God do what He can. No, no. He's the potter. The true God
is the potter. We're the clay. We're in His
hand, not the other way around. When God teaches a sinner this,
that's when he'll stop questioning God. When He makes you see how
you became marred in the garden, dead, fallen, corrupt, unable
to do one thing to help yourself, and makes you see that it's all
by God's electing grace that He came and recreated His people
through the blood and righteousness of His Son, that's when a man
will stop questioning God. For the sake of that elect remnant
that He had, whenever we fell in the garden, in the midst of
that of Adam there was an elect remnant that was going to come
from him. And then when you look at the
nation of Israel and the nation of Judah, here that whole nation
was corrupt and yet through them there was going to be Christ
was going to come forth. God's elect seed was going to
come forth. And there was going to be a host of elect children
that were going to be born through them. And so God preserved them. He preserved Adam when he fell
because he had an elect people. And he preserved the nation of
Israel and Judah because he had an elect people that's coming
through them and an elect Savior. Listen to this Isaiah 65, verse
8, Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster,
You picture a thing of grapes, a cluster of grapes, and you
got a bunch of rotten grapes, but within those grapes there's
some good grapes and some good seed. One says, destroy it not for
a blessing is in it. He says, so will I do for my
servant's sakes that I may not destroy them all. I'll bring
forth a seed out of Jacob and out of Judah an inheritor of
my mountains. That's Christ, the seed of God,
the Son of God. He brought him forth the line
of the tribe of Judah. And God says, and through him
mine elect shall inherit my mountain and my servants shall dwell there. That's what God did. That's why
He didn't destroy this world when Adam sinned is because He
had an elect people that was coming, going to be born through
Adam. That's why He didn't destroy
Judah for so long. He had an elect people going
to come through them that He's going to save and the Savior.
You know, Brother Cyril is a potter. If you've never seen his pottery,
he's a good potter. We have several pieces at home
that he's made and he's good at what he does. And I went to
his studio one time and watched him throw some pots and I didn't
see one pot question him. I didn't see one cup reply against
him. He did what he would in his studio
and made one vessel like he'd make it, made another one like
he'd make it and just did what he would. That's God with you
and me. That's how he does with you and
me. And so if we get mad at God for saving some of His creation,
think of the depravity there. A sinner is going to get mad
and say God's unfair to choose some to save and justify by God's
grace. And he gets angry at that. Well
who's resisted His will? Why does he find fault then?
He gets angry at that. See the depravity in that? He's
saving some people. He didn't have to, but He is. And we're going to get mad at
that? God said, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with
mine own? Is your eye evil because I'm good? Are we going to get
mad at God because He's good and saved some? That's the height
of depravity to do that. Now look at this third answer
God gives to this objection. Verse 22. What if God, willing
to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with
much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,
and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the
vessels of mercy which He had aforeprepared unto glory, even
us whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also the Gentiles?
Catch the difference here in the wording. Notice it says,
the vessels of wrath are fitted for destruction. They're fitted
by their own hardening of their own heart, their own disobedience,
their own rejection of God. They fitted themselves for destruction. God just left them alone and
a man fits himself for destruction. But he says here of the vessels
of mercy, he had afore prepared them unto glory. God had afore
beforehand prepared them unto glory. You ever had a co-worker
or somebody that was just a pain and you just had to put up with
them? You know, you're just forced to do it because you had to go
to work, you had to work alongside them and you just had to put
up with them. and it's just great on you, you know, every day,
but you just put up with them. Well, you had to do that. You
had to put up with them. God didn't have to put up with
anybody, but He did. He put up with the vessels of
wrath fitted for destruction. He's still doing so, but He's
doing it so that He might show His elect His grace and magnify
that grace to His elect in how He had mercy on us and saved
us while He passed by others. He magnifies His grace. Nothing
will magnify God's grace to you as when you see, and here's the
thing, it's not that you see and you get puffed up that God
did something for you and didn't do something for others. That's
like being that you know, that one that Christ gave in His parable
that said, I'm thankful I'm not like these other men are. No,
that's not the attitude we're talking about. You see yourself
as being worse than those God passed by and yet God had mercy
on you and was gracious to you and sent His Son to live and
die for you and saved you and here's these others that you
look at and say, They are way better than I am. And yet God
passed them by. That is what magnifies grace
to you. When you see yourself as being
a chief of sinners and you see that God had mercy on you and
passed by others. God prepared His people beforehand. It says there, He afore prepared
us unto glory. He did it by choosing His people
in Christ. When God chose His people in Christ in eternity
before He had made the world, before He had made anything whatsoever,
because He chose His people in Christ and because He trusted
His Son to come and make His people righteous, when God chose
us in Christ, Christ entered covenant with the Father to do
this work and He became our surety, the guarantor that we would be
made righteous and holy and accepted of God. When he saw us in Christ,
God beheld Christ, fulfilled the law in perfect righteousness
right then. Before, he hadn't even made a
grain of sand yet. But looking to his Son, he saw
his law fulfilled in perfect righteousness. Looking to Christ,
he saw He saw one who would take the sin of his people and be
slain in our room instead, and he saw him as the lamb slain
from before the foundation of the world. God saw it already
done in his son. God saw him risen, presenting
his people to him, perfect, holy, without fault, unblameable, unreprovable
in God's sight. God saw it all. He knew the end
from the beginning. And he saw it all right then. And we were right then, beforehand,
before God ever made this world, we were prepared already for
glory in Christ. That's right. There's no possibility
Christ wouldn't come forth and accomplish it. And so we were
aforeprepared unto glory. That's why you remember in that
parable when Christ talks about the end and he says the king
is going to come He's talking about himself and he says the
king is going to come and he's going to set the goats on his
left hand, he's going to set the sheep on his right hand,
and you remember what he's going to say to the sheep? Come ye
blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. It's been prepared from the foundation
of the world. Why did He create the world and
let us fall and then send His Son and His Son died and all
that? So we could behold it. So we could see all this wisdom
of God and all this character of God and His righteousness
and holiness and everything we learn about God by looking to
Christ. He did it so we could behold
Him. And then God called us by His
grace and taught us what He had done. He left us in this world
surrounded with sinners that don't know Him and hate Him and
question Him. And loved ones, we have family
members, we have friends and co-workers, everybody just question,
question, question, question, question God. Never able to come
to a knowledge of the truth. And here you are, a sinner, no
different from them, And yet God revealed to you His Son and
showed you what He's done for you and who He is. Doesn't that
magnify grace to you? Doesn't that magnify God's grace
to you? He did this in Israel. He said,
I did it and I've hardened Pharaoh's heart, the heart of his servants
that I might show these my signs before him and that thou mayest
tell in the ears of thy son and thy son's son what things I've
wrought in Egypt. That you might declare my signs
which I've done among them that you may know how that I am the
Lord. Young people, listen to this.
God has graced your mothers and fathers so that they believe
the gospel. And He's given them blessing
so that they have provision made for them by God so that they
could sacrifice to provide this place for you. So you could have
the gospel preached to you. So that you could hear these
things God's done for His people. Just like the Lord told Moses
and the children of Israel, I'm doing all this in the midst of
you so that you can tell your sons and your sons' sons what
I've done. And I did it so that you'll know
how I am the Lord. And that's what we're trying
to teach you. God is the Lord. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, He's the Lord. He's salvation. He's the one
who does as He will and saves whom He will. That's who He is. We don't have a right to question
Him. We don't have a right to charge Him with unrighteousness.
He's God. So let me wrap this up. Here's
the issue. The carnal mind, the way we come
into this world is enmity against God. We hate God by nature. That's what our whole heart is
by nature, which is hatred against God. And so when we hear the
truth of God declared and hear this Romans 9, you know there's
churches that won't even preach from Romans chapter 9? I have
a pastor friend that told me that he went for years and years
and years and he never heard a sermon from Romans chapter
9. And then one day God brought
him under the truth and he heard somebody actually preach from
Romans 9 and he realized everything I'd ever heard before is wrong. Left in that state, that's all
sinners can do is object. Just object, object, object. So for you who God saved, when
you hear sinners object to our gospel, don't get mad at them.
Don't be frustrated with them. You couldn't believe either and
they can't. The only thing that's going to
help them is to declare the truth to them. Speak it in love and
bring them to hear the gospel. That's the only thing you can
do. to save them. Trust God to reveal
it to them. And this grace of God, it doesn't
make us puffed up either. It doesn't make us arrogant and
think we're somebody. No. True electing grace humbles. It humbles. It makes you see
that it's not of you. It's God that makes you to differ.
Nothing you have was of you. It all came from God. And this
is where God brings us. And that's what I pray that the
Lord will teach you that don't yet know Him that He's Lord.
He's God. We need to be brought down off
our high horse and brought down in the dust at His feet to look
up to God. Then we'll be in our rightful
place. Our mouth has to be shut from
questioning God and our ears open to hear God and our knees
bent to bow to God. That's what needs to happen.
I pray that's what God will do. Let's stand together. Father, we thank you for your
mercy and your grace. What abundant grace you've shown
to your people in choosing us and for no reason but just your
free grace. Lord, make us to hear and make
us to bow and make every tongue to cease objecting and every
heart stop being stiff-necked and cause us to truly bow in
our hearts. We pray for those that don't
know you, pray that you'd give them an understanding We pray,
Lord, now that you be with our brethren that are sick and not
able to be here this morning and traveling and wherever they
may be. We pray, Lord, you give us now
a time to truly worship you. Forgive us our sins, forgive
us for our own murmuring and complaining when we have so much
grace and mercy that we ought never, ever, ever complain about
anything. Thank you, Lord, for grace and
mercy. In Christ Jesus, our Lord, we pray. Amen.