Therefore hath he mercy, on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth.
And I want to stress again, as we enter into this study, that
the Lord did what he did to Pharaoh, verse 17. He raised him up for this one
express purpose. that he might show his power
in Pharaoh and that his name might be declared throughout
all the earth. He did what he did so that everybody
would talk about it. But mostly those who know who
God is would talk about it because lots of things are said about
it that aren't true. So he's really saying, that his
name would be declared by those who he's revealed himself to. In this capacity, in this context,
religion says that this doctrine of election is not to be preached to the
people. That some will claim to believe
it, and I've heard this with my own ears from a man that I
knew very well, that it would split the church and cause division. But it won't split churches.
It'll split goats away from churches. The truth will never cause division
in the church. It will divide the sheep from
the goats. To the contrary, rather than
causing division among the people of God, the truth, will cause
a man to drive his family for an hour each way or more to join himself to the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This truth will, the truth of
who God is, who he really is. That's a long way from division.
That's unity from afar. Our verse this evening is the
conclusion drawn from what God did In verse 17, for the express
purpose of this being declared to everybody. This is what God would have preached
about him, that he will have mercy on whom he will, and whom
he will, he will harden. This is the gospel. The gospel is not that mercy
is offered to all and made available to all, but that God bestows
mercy on whom he will on them that he loves, on his sheep,
on his elect, on those that he chose in Christ before the foundation
of the world, all those for whom Christ Jesus shed his precious
sin-atoning blood on Calvary, all for whom Christ is the author
and finisher of faith, all who are birthed from above by the
Spirit of God, all who are kept by the power of God, through
faith and to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. It starts with the love of God,
verse 13. Jacob have I loved. He had mercy on Jacob. Jacob is called in this chapter
a vessel of his mercy, along with all those on whom he bestows
mercy. That love that was bestowed before
either child was born or had done any good or evil, deliberately
expressed to be regardless of anything about them. God loved
one and not the other, and that love resulted in his choosing
and bestowing mercy on Jacob and all like him who are the
elect of God. The distinction between those
who get mercy and those who get hardened. And
I wanna see this particularly now. The distinction, the difference
between those who get mercy and those who get hardened is God's
free, deliberate, distinguishing prerogative. I wanna show you
that, I wanna skip ahead a little bit to verse 21. and show you
that, look at verse 21. Hath not the potter power over
the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and
another unto dishonor? You see in the context, that's
what makes the difference. Why did he hate one and love
the other? Why did he make a vessel of mercy and a vessel of wrath? Those who God has mercy on are
called in this chapter vessels of mercy. We'll see that as we
progress through this chapter. Clay vessels of mercy is the
picture. Now those whom God hardens are
called vessels of wrath. These two types of vessels are
said here in verse 21 to be made by God from the same lump of
clay. Same look. Flesh, humanity, mankind. And the basis upon which some
are made to be one kind of vessel and others are made to be the
other kind is the power of God. You see that there? Hath not the potter power over
the clay? to make one and another. It's his power that makes the
difference. He makes by his power one vessel
into honor and one to dishonor. Now, it's important too that
we see here that this is not the same word
power as in verse 17 when he said he raised up Pharaoh And Pharaoh defied him, Pharaoh
opposed him, Pharaoh thumbed his nose in God's face, and God
destroyed him, swallowed him up with his Red Sea. And I don't know how we can say
other than he put him in hell. I can't imagine anything other. But this word power here, that
word power is the word we get dynamite from. Strength, power, ability. Pharaoh found out he didn't have
any power. He didn't have any strength or
ability. He was subject to God's power. But the word power in
verse 21, where it speaks of God having power, to make two
different kinds of vessels. He has the power to make a vessel
under honor and a power to make a vessel under dishonor. That
word power means this, power of choice, liberty of doing as
one pleases. It's not complicated, is it? If you're saved, if you've believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ and God has bestowed his mercy upon
you, if you are a vessel of his mercy in Christ Jesus, God did
all of that for you just because he wanted to. It pleased him to do it. He had
the power of choice and he made a choice. It's just the opposite
of what false religion teaches, is it not? That's what it means to be God. And if you despise God, as Pharaoh
did, if you reject his word, if you are angered and obstinate
and rebellious against God, as Pharaoh was, and refuse to glorify
God as God, he said, who is this God to tell me what to do? I am on the throne around here
and I'll do as I please. Nope, that's what passes for
a gospel in most churches. It's up to you, you do as you
please, you do your will. Nope, no, God deliberately raised
up Pharaoh to show how false that is. And that the power is his, not
only the ability to either save or damn, but the right to do
it, the right to do it. the power to choose. So if God's wrath is bestowed
upon you because of your rebellion and obstinacy and hatred for
him, then his wrath is on you just
because he wanted to. It pleased him to do that. This puts a sinner in the place
of being shut up to Christ. No sinner is ever gonna lay hold
of the Lord Jesus Christ until they're put in that place. If
you preach to them, God loves everybody and has a wonderful
plan for your life. If only you'll let him, you're
never gonna know the Lord by that message. You're gonna have to see the
truth of the matter. That God's not waiting on you. But we must wait upon him and
according to his will, if he will, he can. Our will is our problem. So think
about this. And again, this is what he purposed
for us to declare throughout all the earth. He did this so that his name
would be declared in that context throughout all the earth. I have
mercy on who I want to have mercy on, and whoever I want to, I'll
throw them in hell. That's what God's wrath amounts
to. You're going to hell. So the gospel call goes out. We preach the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We preach good news. It's good
news that God's gonna have mercy on somebody. And that good news is in his
son. The gospel call has come to Christ. Christ is all. Believe on him. Trust him. Look to him as your righteousness.
You have no righteousness before God. But sinners who are saved
by him call him the Lord our righteousness. He is all of our
righteousness, our only righteousness. He is. Not our sad attempt to keep the
law plus his merits. It's his merits. It's who he
is. He is our righteousness. The
gospel call then goes out. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. faith without works, faith apart
from works. It can't be grace and works. And when it comes to believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ, faith itself is not a work and it has
nothing to do with your works. Once God saves you now, then
he'll work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,
not meritoriously, but you'll be able to do something called
good works, a work of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But when it comes to salvation,
when it comes to the saving of the soul, it is God's prerogative. Everybody deserves hell, and
God is gonna take some home to heaven with him in spite of it,
because he wants to. So this call goes out, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Come to
me, the Lord says, and I will give you rest. If any man thirst,
let him come unto me. Listen to the beautiful gospel
call. Let's think about this in the context of our verse. Isaiah 55, one, ho, everyone
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money,
come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. You don't have anything to pay.
Salvation's free. Grace is free. It's accomplished
and bought and paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ and his redeeming
blood. Wherefore do you spend money
for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfies not? hearken diligently unto me and
eat ye that which is good. He said, my flesh is meat indeed
and my blood is drink indeed. And let your soul delight itself
in fatness and cline your ear and come unto me here and your
soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you even the sure mercies of David. What a kind
gospel call from the Lord Jesus Christ. And listen to it in Isaiah
118. I love this. Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
and they shall be as white as snow. And though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as wool. This beautiful, glorious gospel
call goes out to sinners with the understanding that the outcome
of the gospel preached, heard, and believed is not up to you. And that's good news too, that's
gospel too. That's beautiful gospel, that's
a wonderful aspect of the gospel. It's not up to you. It's up to
him who delights to show mercy to sinners. Those who want a chance to be
saved, who want to hear the gospel and make up their own mind, don't
understand that they're on a footing of What's the word I'm looking for?
Hopelessness. They're on a footing of vanity
and impossibility. To leave your eternal soul in
your own wretched hands and up to your own defiled, depraved
heart is to be damned forever. Remember the definition that
we just read a while ago, the freedom to do as one pleases,
the power, the reason there's a difference. When that beautiful
gospel call goes forth and some believe and some don't, we see
that in the scriptures. The Gentiles heard him gladly. They rejoiced in Christ. And
the Jews, their hearts were just hardened even further. There
was a great division among the people because of him. That's because by his power,
he has the power to make one lump of one lump a vessel unto
honor and a vessel unto dishonor. The freedom to do as one pleases
is not yours, but God's. The power of choice is not in
your hands, but God's. Aren't you thankful when you
pray for somebody you love? You're not hoping that they'll
just come around. You're hoping God, whose mercy
endures forever, that God will have mercy on their
soul. Our hope is not in them just
figuring it out and changing their mind just on a whim. Our hope is that God will do
a work in their heart. That God will put a difference
between them and the rest of this godless
world. To put it the way Paul did in the Holy Scriptures, it
is not of him that willeth. Thank God. Thank God it is not of him that
willeth. It's not of him that striveth,
but of God that showeth mercy. He hath mercy on whom he will,
and this mercy is in his son. Hence the gospel call. Come to
him. Bow to the Savior. Believe on
him. Trust him. Own him as your righteousness
before God. Your lamb shall be without blemish.
You have to have a lamb to approach God. The lamb of God that takes
away sin. Believe on him, bow to him. You know, you'll never hear that
language in a free will church, bow to Christ. You know, Paul
wrote at some length about that. The Jews' problem, by heart's
desire, prayer to God is that God would save them, not that
they would figure this out. And their problem is this, they
haven't submitted. They haven't bowed to the righteousness
of God in Christ. They're going about to establish
their own righteousness. That's pride, that's obstinance. That flies in the face of the
scripture that says if it is work, it is no more grace. So what's the solution? Submit,
bow to the Son of God, defer to Him. We have nothing, we know
nothing, we are nothing. He is all. If I have Him, I have
everything. If I know Him, I know everything. And to have Him as our righteousness
is to please God perfectly. Now, we said this, the gospel
call, come to him, bow to him, believe on him, because God's
mercy is in Christ. If he's gonna bestow mercy on
you, it's gonna be in his son. It's gonna be to give you faith
in his son, to give you ears to hear his son, to cause you
to submit to his son, to draw you to his son. Isn't that what
the Lord said? No man can come. It's not up
to you, thank God it's not up to you. No man can come except
the Father, which has sent me dry. It's up to him, it's up
to God. God makes the difference, he has the power of choice. But when God bestows mercy on
a sinner, here's what that looks like. Turn with me to Luke chapter
18, verse nine, a very familiar passage of scripture, but think
of it in terms of our text. Luke 18, nine. The Lord Jesus spake this parable
unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. Here's what happens when God
has mercy on a sinner. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a Republican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not
unjust. That's funny, I mentioned this
before, but the first thing the Lord called when he raked the
Pharisees over the cove, he said, you extortioners. And the first
thing this one says is I'm not an extortioner. unjust adulterers,
or even as this publican. It wasn't enough that he denied
being sinful himself, but he compared himself and looked down
on somebody and said, that one's sinful, but not me. He's all
these things. I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar
off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone
that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. Now in our text, what did Pharaoh
do? Did he exalt himself or humble himself? The Pharisees and publicans read
and hear this story of the Pharisee and the publican. Everybody that
reads that story is one or the other. And a Pharisee, when they read and hear that
story, We'll do just as the one in the story did. They'll exalt
himself. You know how they'll do that?
By denying that the power of choice is God's. They'll say,
and you know what a publican will call him, a Pharisee will
call him, he'll say, I'm the publican. I'm the publican, I
made a decision for Jesus. You see how that sounds just
like what the Pharisee said? I did something. I made it, I walked in and out.
I made a decision for Jesus. I accepted Jesus. And he'll say,
I'm the publican, because I did all that. Went all along, he's
the Pharisee. But what he says reveals what
he is. I did this and I did that. I
distinguished myself from others. I decided Others don't exercise their free
will to accept the Lord, but I did. That's what the Pharisee
in the story did. He distinguished himself from
the publican, and God sent him home in his sins. The spiritual publican who reads
this story hears from God, And what God said and understands,
by God's grace, has an understanding of the word of God, that sinners
don't distinguish themselves in the eyes of God, like this
Pharisee did. He understands that. He believes
God when God declares his name throughout all the earth, that
he has mercy on whom he will have mercy. He believes God who hardens hearts
as in the case of Pharaoh and opens hearts as in the case of
Lydia, the seller of purple. That sounds like a good job,
doesn't it? I think I'm just gonna sell purple for the rest
of my life. That's a good job. Look with me at what it says
about her in Acts 16, 13. You see how this truth that God
has mercy on whom he will, it's lived, it's played out in life. Acts 16, 13, and on the Sabbath,
we went out of the city by a riverside where prayer was wont to be made.
And we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city
of Thyatira, which worshiped God heard us, whose heart the
Lord opened that she attended unto the things which were spoken
of Paul. And when she was baptized in
her household, which tells us a lot, doesn't it? What does
hinder me to be baptized? If you believe with all your
heart, you may. So that word attend, when she
attended to the words, that means she applied her heart and she
believed what what the gospel that Paul preached. She was baptized
into her household. She besought us saying, if you
have judged me to be faithful in the Lord, come into my house
and abide there. And she constrained us. Notice
the wording that Lydia attended unto the gospel that Paul preached
means that, here's what it means, to apply oneself to, to attach
oneself to, to hold or cleave to a person or thing. The Lord opened her heart that
she laid hold of the Lord Jesus Christ as he's revealed in the
gospel. And she confessed him by burial
and raising again, showing that it's by Christ's sacrificial
death for her and his resurrection power that she is a child of
God. She confessed him and her sins
and how that her only forgiveness of sin and her only
righteousness is the one who died and was raised himself again. The Lord opened her heart that she laid hold of Christ
in that gospel. in the preaching of the gospel.
To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. All spiritual publicans who read
that story of the two men who prayed know that the publican
was, in the words of our chapter, a vessel of mercy before prepared
unto glory. That's the difference. It wasn't
that he chose better than the Pharisee did. It's that God chose
him and made him a vessel of mercy. When God saves a sinner, he's
not finding out what sinner is wise and who's not. When the
gospel goes out, he's not thinking, well, you know, who's gonna be
smart enough to do the right thing? You know, who's gonna
figure this out? Who's gonna make the right decision? What he is doing, verse 23 of
our text, of our chapter, is making known the riches of his
glory on a vessel of mercy. You see that? He has the power,
the authority, the right, the freedom of choice, the freedom
of doing as he pleases in bestowing mercy on whom he will. And that's
what he does. and these vessels of mercy. When
he does that, he's making known the riches of his glory. Show me, Lord, your glory. I'll
be gracious. I'll be gracious to whom I will. Shout that throughout all the
earth, that God is God, and he's on the throne, and he's sovereign,
and he makes the difference. and salvation's up to him, not
the sinner. And think about that. He's making
his glory known in the words of the text on a vessel of mercy
that he made with his own hands because he chose to do it. That's
what happened when that publican said, God be merciful to me,
a sinner. And God sent him home justified,
sinless, guiltless before God. Pharisees sing, I have decided
to follow Jesus. You think about that text about
the Pharisee and what he prayed. I die, I fast, I do this. I have decided to follow Jesus.
Publicans sing, amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch, a wretched worm like me. The Pharisee's testimony is,
I made a decision for Jesus. I accepted Jesus. Spiritual publicans
testify this way. God who is rich in mercy, For
his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead
in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ, by grace we're saved. That's the difference. And the
difference is made by God. It's the power of his choice.
It's his prerogative. It's called election. If you
look up the word election in the scriptures, it means to choose. Thank God for his electing grace.