The book of Romans chapter 9.
This chapter has often been the source of great controversy, but not among the people of God, but among those who find the
message of God's sovereign grace to be objectionable. The lost religionist is very
much opposed to the message that God shows mercy to only well. And among the books of my library,
I have a book entitled, The Most Hated Chapter in the Bible. And it is a book about Romans
chapter 9. And this is It is indeed a most
hated chapter by those who would defend the heresy of man's free
will. It is a hated chapter by those
who believe in God's universal love, who believe in universal
redemption, Those who believe the Spirit
of God desires the salvation of every person in the world,
they do indeed hate this chapter. This portion of scripture, you
see, it destroys the notion that God loves everyone. And it destroys the heresy that
Jesus died for everyone. And also it destroys the heresy
that the Spirit of God is endeavoring to save everyone. These verses expose the errors
of the universalists. Little wonder then that this
passage is found to be so offensive by those who believe that it's
not fair for God to show mercy to whom He will. They find it
distasteful, disagreeable, and unacceptable. Well, I leave the unbelievers
and the rebels to the Lord. He's got to teach them just like
He taught us. I'm thankful that God has not
left us in the darkness. as to His purpose of grace. There's been a revelation of
the Lord Jesus to our hearts. We've been humbled at His feet. And no child of the Lord would
dare question His right to do what He wills with His own. We acknowledge God is correct
in whatever he does. He's right when he saves. He's
right when he damns. He's right when he shows mercy. He's also right in reprobation. We acknowledge his right to dispose
of all of his creatures according to the good pleasure of his will. We bow before Him. We worship. We worship. We worship this one of whom Paul
writes here in verse 18. He says, therefore, hath He mercy
on whom He will have mercy? And whom He will, He hardeneth. I bow before Him. Indeed, if He breaks my heart,
that's His will. If He's pleased to harden my
heart, it's His will. God showed mercy to Jacob. He did not show mercy to Esau. Though both of them were on the
same footing as it were. Because in this chapter it says,
before those men had done anything either good or bad, in fact,
before they were born, God chose the one, He rejected
the other. Now there was to be nothing good
about either one of them. And yet God says, look what God
says, In verse 13, as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. And as I say, the Scripture says
this election was made before they had done anything before
they were ever born. This is God's right. This is
God's prerogative. God loved the one and He did
not love the other. God loved Jacob and He hated
Esau. Though both of them were born
alienated from God, though both of them came forth from the womb
speaking lies, though both were defiled, yet God loved the one
and He hated the other. In this context, we also see
that God showed mercy to Israel and not to Egypt. Though both
the Israelites and the Egyptians, they all were rebellious against
God. There was no difference in their
sinfulness. There was no difference in their
vileness. And yet God took Israel unto
Himself. And the Egyptians, He set them
apart and said, you're not for me. You're not for me. He says
to Israel, you only have I known among the nations of the earth.
And the Egyptians, He just cut them off. Is that not His right? Of course
it's His right. You have Moses and Pharaoh. Both
of them were sinful. Both of them were vile before
God. And yet God took Moses and embraced
him to himself. God broke his heart. God softened
his heart. But Pharaoh, God hardened his
heart. Is that not his right? Is he
not God over all of his creatures? God's not bound to do anything
for us except that which He has sovereignly willed to do. He
is bound to no will but His own. He is bound to no purpose but
His own. And in His eternal purpose, He
loved Jacob and He hated Esau. And He received Israel and He
rejected Egypt. and He raised up Moses to be
a monument of His grace, and He cast Pharaoh aside, having
raised him up to make His power known in him, and then when God
got through a Pharaoh, He threw him into hell. Do you have any
argument with any of that? I don't. I don't. Let the fools of the world take
issue with God. Let the rebels wage war against
His sovereign right to do whatever He wants to do. But the God of
the heavens, according to Psalm 2, He laughs. He says, why do the heathen rage
and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth
set themselves The rulers, they take counsel together against
the Lord and against His anointed saying, let us break their bands
asunder. We don't believe in sovereignty.
Let's cast away their courts from us. We believe in respect man's free
will. So we defy this God. Scripture says, he that sits
in the heavens shall laugh. Shall laugh. The Lord shall have
them in derision. You go ahead and take a stand
against the God who says, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy. You go ahead and raise your fist
into the face of the sovereign who says, I will do what I will
with mine own. And you see what happens. But among the people of God,
we bow before Him. And we say to the Lord when He
shows mercy, when He reveals His gospel, when He shows us
Jesus Christ the Lord in His saving blood and righteousness,
when He reveals the Savior to our hearts, we say, even so,
Lord, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. We embrace this passage of Scripture. Notice what verse 15 says, 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. As we gather around the scriptures
this morning, I want us to especially focus upon
this expression. God says, I will have mercy. And as we gather around it, let's
do so in delightful communion, in the unity of the Spirit, with
a genuine thanksgiving for the free and sovereign mercy of God
given to us in Jesus Christ the Lord. We've been made to know something
of our sinfulness. The Word of God exposes our hearts
as being rebellious against God, He's made it real to us. The words of the page. They've been taken by the Spirit
of grace and driven into our hearts. They've exposed our own
wretchedness. We confess our iniquity before
the Lord. We say as did the Apostle Paul,
I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Is that what you say? In my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. The scripture says there is none
good, no not one. And the Spirit of God has taken
that to my heart. And I know I'm not good. I'm not good. since the Spirit
of God has taught us these things, that there is nothing good in
us, then there must be therefore everything to draw forth the
righteous indignation and wrath of God within us. And that would
certainly be the case if it were not for this that God said pertaining
to each of His people, I will have mercy. I will have mercy. Oh God, I deserve to perish.
Your word has set me forth. It has exposed my guilt. And the spirit of grace has driven
this home to my heart. And yet, yet, I've been brought
to believe. I've been brought to love the
grace of God. I've been brought to cherish
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, and His righteousness freely
imputed to me, that righteousness established by His death on the
cross, that has been given to me, that's my righteousness.
Oh, Lord, why me? Why me? And I can almost hear
God Himself saying back to me, here's the reason, I will have
mercy. That's the only reason. I will
have mercy. This is the theme that has occupied
my mind the last few days. I will have mercy. And I deliver this message not
in a contentious spirit. Though I'm willing to earnestly
contend for the faith. If you want to face me with your
objections to the gospel, I'll contend for the faith. But in
delivering this message, I want those of us who do know, and
who do love, and who have experienced God's
saving mercy, I want us to just simply rejoice and worship the
Lord who has declared in His Word, I will have mercy. It's a thrilling subject. The
mercy of God, it weaves itself through the scriptures. No wonder,
Ethan, the Ezra Hite said in Psalm 89.1, I will sing of the
mercies of the Lord forever, and with my mouth will I make
known thy faithfulness to all generations. David said in Psalm
59.16, But I will sing of thy power, yea, I will sing aloud
of thy mercy. In Psalm 136, the sweet psalmist
of Israel, 26 times he writes of God's mercy saying, for His
mercy endureth forever. That blessed psalm begins, O
give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth
forever. And it ends essentially the same
way, O give thanks unto the God of heaven, for His mercy endureth
forever. One of my favorite preachers and hymn writers of the past
is Augustus Toplady. Oh, I love the writings of Toplady. I ask Susanna to sing one of
my favorite top lady songs this morning. A debtor to mercy alone
of covenant mercy I sing. Nor fear with thy righteousness
on my person and offerings to bring. The terrors of law and
of God with me can have nothing to do. My Savior's obedience
and blood hide all my transgressions from view. I'm a debtor to mercy,
aren't you? A debtor to mercy. And when we think of mercy, we
must of course dwell upon Him who shows the mercy. In Exodus
chapter 34, the Lord passed by Moses and He proclaimed, The
Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering
and abundant, and goodness and truth. Psalm 103 in verse 8,
the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger. Oh, I like this,
he plenteous in mercy. We see divine mercy in the election
of some sinners unto salvation. God said, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy. He doesn't have mercy upon everybody,
not saving mercy. Everyone is not the object of
His saving mercy. All men do not receive of His
saving mercies, but some do. Some do. We trace the salvation of sinners
back to the everlasting covenant of mercy. In old eternity, God
the Father, Son and Spirit chose out a people to the praise of
the glory of God's grace. David writes of that covenant
in Psalm 89. He quotes the Lord in verse 28
who says, My mercy will I keep for him forever and my covenant
shall stand fast with him. God entered into a covenant of
peace with His Son for the salvation of a remnant according to the
election of grace. Let the enemies of the gospel
dismiss this glorious doctrine of electing grace, but those
of us whose eyes have been opened to the gospel of God's free mercy
and grace, we know that if God had not set His love on us, if
God had not chosen us in everlasting mercy, we would never have come
to Him. We know that, don't we? We know
that in our hearts. Let the enemies of the gospel
dismiss this glorious doctrine of election, but we know that
our salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end and everything
in between. We rejoice in God's election.
We read the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians chapter
2, and he says others are going to be blinded and damned for
not believing the gospel, but he says, but we are bound to
give thanks to God for you, beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you unto salvation, through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He hath called
you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And in that election unto salvation,
the Lord of all, the Lord of all, He chose us in Christ, and
He said there in the election of grace, I will have mercy. I will have mercy. You who have been brought to
love the Savior, you've been brought to love God's way of
saving sinners by grace alone, through the Lord Jesus alone.
You see His finished work of redemption and you say, oh, thank
God He finished it. You read of His blood, His blood
that He willingly poured out, and you say, that blood washed
my sins away. You read of His righteousness
that He established and you say, that's my robe. God has clothed
me with the robe of salvation. Think with me. When the eternal
pen of God was taken into His hand, when He inscribed the names
of His chosen ones in the Lamb's book of life, Yes, when he wrote your name. We're not talking about everybody
else. But when he wrote your name in
that book, Can you not hear Him saying when He writes your name
in indelible ink, in everlasting ink in His own book of life,
can you not hear Him saying as He writes your name in that book,
I will have mercy? I will have mercy. When God gave you to His Son,
your surety, your Savior, your sin offering, your substitute,
your salvation, do you not hear Him saying, oh, I can hear Him
saying as though He were saying it now, James Ferguson Byrd,
I will have mercy. See divine mercy in the substitutionary
death of the Son of God. Two thousand years ago, the Son
of God left heaven's glories, He joined Himself to human nature,
and He dwelt among us. He came into this world, He said,
Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. Zacharias, the father of John
the Baptist, He said concerning the coming of the Son of God
that He would come to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant. He went on to say of his son,
of John the Baptist, that he would go before the face of the
Lord to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission
of their sins through the tender mercies of our God, whereby the
day spring from on high hath visited us. And when the Son
of God, when He came from heaven's glories, and He came to join
Himself to human flesh, Can you not hear Him saying as He comes
on this errand of mercy, I will have mercy. I will have mercy. Throughout His public ministry,
He's pressed toward the cross. He's driven toward the cross.
It's within His own heart. I must go to Jerusalem. The Son
of Man must be lifted up on the cross. Just like Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. He must be lifted up to die that
God might be just and justify the ungodly. And we say, oh,
blessed Son of God, why would you bear our sins? Why would
you take the guilt? Why would it be imputed to you? Why would you bear this awful
indebtedness yourself and in our stead pay the debt? And he
says, it's for this reason. I will have mercy. I will have
mercy. When he's in the garden of Gethsemane
and he wept, as it were, great drops of blood, We say, Almighty
Savior, there you are, anticipating, bearing the wrath of God. Why
would you do this? Why would you do this for such
a fallen people? And he comes back with this answer.
I will have mercy. I will have mercy. And he's beaten. And he's spit upon. And he's
humiliated. And He's crucified. And they
drive the nails into His hands and into His feet. And there
He hangs before all the crowds in His shame, in His nakedness. He's the Lamb of God dying for
His people. And He endures the fierceness
of God's wrath. And all the while there is within
his heart this determination, he says, I will have mercy. I will have mercy. And as he
hangs there, he hangs between two thieves. And one of them
is led by the Spirit of Grace to say, Lord, remember me. Remember me. when you come into
your kingdom. And the Lord says within his
heart, I will have mercy. I will have mercy. And he says
to the thief, today you will be with me in paradise. And it's
for this reason I will have mercy. The heavens grow dark, And God
pours out His righteous indignation upon His only begotten Son. And
the Son of God bears up to the task of redeeming His people,
of reconciling us to God. And He endures all of the vengeance
of offended justice. And as He drinks the last bitter
dregs of the wrath of God, Should he have been asked, why do you
do all of this? He comes back with this answer.
I will have mercy. I will have mercy. See divine
mercy in sending the gospel to us. And in the Spirit's irresistible
work within us, bringing us to Christ Jesus. God in His mercy sends us a preacher
who delivers the very message of God, the gospel of free grace.
He sends the good news of redemption accomplished, sins put away,
righteousness established and brought in by the Savior. The
Spirit of God drives the gospel home to our hearts. As Peter
says in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 10, we obtain. Mercy. We obtain mercy and we ask Almighty
Spirit, Almighty Comforter, why do you deal so graciously with
me? I've wasted the previous years
in sin. interest in the gospel. Oh, maybe
I was wrapped up in religion, but I had no interest in the
Son of God, and yet now you have revealed your grace to me, and
you brought me to know salvation in Jesus Christ. Oh, mighty Spirit,
why? Why do you deal so lovingly with
one such as I am? And the Spirit of God says, it's
for this reason. I will have mercy. I will have
mercy. See divine mercy all through
our earthly pilgrimage. David says of divine mercy in
Psalm 59 and verse 10, the God of my mercy shall prevent me
or go before me. And he says in Psalm 23 and verse
6, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life. Mercy goes before us. Mercy goes
behind us. Mercy leads the way. Mercy sees
to us that we keep up. And we ask the Lord, O Lord,
seeing I'm such a vile sinner, so prone to wonder, why would
you cause mercy to go before me to prepare my path? And why
would you have mercy to follow me, to keep me safe? Why, oh
Lord, such mercy to me? And the answer always comes back
this, I will have mercy. I will have mercy. You who are the people of God, have you ever seen anything good
within yourself? No. And sometimes we're just absolutely
overwhelmed with our sinfulness. And maybe we've messed up in
our minds kind of big time. I know we sin all the time. Somebody
said one time, you know, well, Lord, if I've sinned today, please
forgive me. Well, you can take that if out.
You've sinned multiple times. Multiple times. You are sin. And so am I. So am I. But maybe you've fallen into
some temptation. Maybe you've done something,
said something, thought something, imagined something that is...
You say, I'm just so vile. I'm so vile. You bow your head
again before the Lord and you say, Lord, I'm so sorry again. Lord, I'm so sorry. Lord, forgive me. Lord, purge
me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be
whiter than snow. Lord, I messed up for the umpteenth
time. Lord, forgive me. I plead the
pardoning blood of Christ. Oh God, forgive me. And we say
like David in Psalm 51, according to the multitude of thy tender
mercies, plot out my transgressions. I need tender mercies. Lord,
is there mercy again for me? I've come to you so many times.
How many times have you gone to the Lord for forgiveness?
And has he ever said, well, this one time too many? No. He always
says this, I will have mercy. I think of Adam and Eve in the
garden. Adam being a federal head, the
federal head of our race. And that representative man,
he dared to defy God. God had provided for him, God
had given to him, God had blessed him with everything. And then
he sinned against God. He rebelled against God. And
after he rebelled against God, he and his wife sought to hide
themselves from the voice of the Lord. The Lord came calling
and said, where art thou? And God brought them, those two
guilty people, Our guilty parents, He brought them before Him, miserable,
rebellious, fallen, ungrateful, vile, wretches. And what did God say? Was there
a declaration of war? Actually, yes, there was. There
was a declaration of war, but not against them, but against
the serpent and his brood. Right? God said, and I will put
in me between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. Satan and his seed received the
righteous sentence of judgment, and there stands Adam and Eve
in front of God. God had said, in the day ye eat
thereof you will surely die. And there they stand trembling
and fearful before a holy God whose law they had broken. But
instead of hearing the declaration of war, they hear, I will have
mercy. And they watched as God killed
two innocent animals and shed innocent blood and made coats
of skin and stripped off their fig leaf aprons and he wrapped
those coats around them. And I'm sure Adam and Eve just
weeping like we do. Oh, why God? Why we messed up
so bad? God says, I will have mercy.
I will have mercy. Many years later, the earth was
covered with people. A rebellious people. God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Man was so vile that it is actually
written, it repented the Lord that he had made the man, and
it grieved him in his heart. And God sent a flood, and all
the rebels were washed away. And they deserved the flood that
washed them away. But wait! Floating on that flood is an
ark and eight precious souls inside. And we ask Him, why were
you spared? And they say, because God said,
I will have mercy. I will have mercy. You spoke about the Israelites
two or three weeks ago. They came to the Red Sea. The
Israelites were just as vile as the Egyptians. They came to the Red Sea. After
all God had done for them in bringing them out of their bondage,
the sea was ahead of them. Pharaoh and the armies of Egypt
were behind them. And they said to Moses, have
you brought us out here in the wilderness to die? Why don't you just leave us alone
in Egypt? At least we'd still be alive,
we'd still be eating, though we'd be serving the Egyptians.
My, what a bunch of moaning, groaning, fussing people. Surely God will let Pharaoh and
the Egyptian armies overtake them? No. Oh, no. He makes a way through
the sea. And as that bunch of rebels goes
through the sea, through the path of the sea, and I can see
them going now, all along the way, God is saying, I will have
mercy. I will have mercy. And they get
to the other side. And then Pharaoh and the Egyptians,
they enter into the And God washes them away, and I hear God say,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. On whom I will have mercy. Let me show you one verse and
I'll quit. What effect should this mercy
of God have upon the people of God? Well, just this, Romans
chapter 12 and verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God. What motivation do we set before
the people of God? For faithfulness? For obedience? To follow the Lord? To seek to
do that which is right? To magnify Him? Shall we lay
down rules and laws for you? You got to come to church, you
got to tithe, you got to do this, you got to do that. What's the
motivation? Just this. The mercies of God. The mercies of God. Oh, how merciful. We sing that chorus quite often,
don't we? Oh, how merciful the Lord is
to His people. And it's all because before the
world began, He said of us, of His covenant people, I will have
mercy. I want us to turn to number 11
in our song books and sing this song. When all Thy mercies, when
all Thy mercies, in light of all that God has done for us
in Jesus Christ, Let's worship the Lord in thanking for His
mercies. Number 11, stand with us.