Does God Harden Hearts? Romans 9:18-24 and the Potter's Clay

Okay, good to have everybody still with us. This is chapter 9, and again we better announce that all of our past programs are available on videotape. We take 12 programs and make one 6 hour tape, and then Jerry Poole and others have transcribed the tapes into the little printed pages, the little booklets on your screen, and my they're being used. A lot of the places are using them in jail ministries, and home Bible studies, and whatever. And we're just glad that people are being blessed by them. And again we always like to remind folks that we love to hear from you. We read every letter over and over, and nothing thrills us more than our mail. We have never asked for money on this program, and I trust we never will, and the Lord is always supplied. And so in case any of you wonder, how do we stay on the air? It's the gifts of God's people. We have no one underwriting us, and again we just give the Lord the credit for all of that. Okay, now let's get right back in. I thought I was going to finish Romans chapter 9 this afternoon, but we're not even going to get close. But let's drop back again where we left off in Romans chapter 9, and we were just dealing with Pharaoh in our last program, and how God put him in that position for the purpose of magnifying His own name. And I stress to remember that even years later, people of the ancient world knew what had happened down in Egypt as a result of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dealing with Pharaoh. All right, now then verse 18, we come down to this whole concept again of the mercy of God. Verse 18, "...therefore he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." Now the word, hardeneth, in the Scripture usually is translated heavy. In other words, when Isaiah spoke of a burden that was heavy, it was the same Hebrew word here translated hardeneth. In other words, the more Pharaoh tried to oppose God, the more the weight of God's wrath weighed down on the man. Now here's something that we have to understand. Pharaoh like anyone today, came to that place of hardening his own heart, not because God made him do it, but because God put him in a place of either accepting or rejecting, and by rejecting he hardened his own heart. Even though the Scripture says God hardened. Again, I had to write a quote, and I thought it was too good not to pass it on. Men are not lost because they are hardened, do you hear that? Men are not lost because they are hardened. They are hardened because they are lost, do you hear that? Men are not lost because they are hardened. They are hardened because they are lost. Now remember I coined my own phrase several programs ago, and I wrote it down again so I'm sure I don't foul it up. We are not sinners because we sin. That's what the normal person thinks. Well if I wouldn't have stolen, or if I wouldn't have gotten drunk, you know, I wouldn't have this sin problem. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners, and we are sinners because we are born of Adam. So when God hardened, as the Scripture says Pharaoh, it wasn't that he didn't have a choice. It was that when God put him on the spot, Pharaoh bristled up and said, I'll not let those people go. See, and so he hardened really his own heart. Now let's move on. Verse 19, Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Remember God's sovereign. Nay, Paul goes on to say, nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? In other words, could Pharaoh turn around in the face of God and say, Why did you make me what I am? No, he had no right to say that, because he of his own volition rejected God's offer of taking Israel out of Egypt. See, alright, let's go on. Verse 21, now this is a tough one. I told you I'd rather just go over these verses and go into chapter 10, but we can't do that. We have to realize that this is God's Word, and every one of these verses is for us. Ephesians 4.1 Ephesians 4.1 Now 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? Let's go back to Isaiah chapter 18, and again in years gone by I would struggle with this, no longer, because I can just see that all we're dealing with is a sovereign God, but a sovereign God who deals in mercy, and we appropriate that mercy by His unmerited favor, His grace. So we don't have to struggle with this, and say like Paul just said, Why did you make me the way I am? Because He's sovereign, absolutely He made me the way I am. You know I made the statement years ago, don't ever complain to God about how you look, or how you are physically put together. That's not our prerogative. God made us the way we are for His purpose, and we are to accept what we are as we are. In the same way with our gifts and our talents, it's not for us to complain and say, Well God, why didn't you give me this gift? Why didn't you let me sing like that person can sing? Well God's sovereign, in the same way with wealth and all these other things. A lot of us are prone to say, Well God, why couldn't you make me wealthy? Well it's not in His will necessarily that I have wealth. And so this is what we have to always realize, He's the potter, He has control of the clay. Chapter 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." So Jeremiah says, "...I went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought," or he was making a work on the wheels, he was working a lump of clay, "...and the vessel that he made of clay was marred," in other words it had a fault, "...in the hand of the potter." So what does the potter do? Have you ever seen him? Up comes that clay, and they are spinning it, and all of a sudden if he doesn't like it, what does he do? He just pushes the right straight down on the plate again, and he starts over. Alright, now this is exactly what happened here as Jeremiah is watching. The potter is making a work, and all of a sudden a fault develops, so he just pushes it back down into the lump. And so he made it again into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Got the picture? "...Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel," now remember Jeremiah is a prophet in Israel, and so this is written to the Jews of that day, "...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." Now then, you know where I have a problem? And I'll admit it, it's still hard to comprehend. Since God is in such control of the nation of Israel, why did they not accept the Messiah when He made His appearance? And why, since He was in control, did they cry out, crucify Him? Well the only answer I have is, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 1. And while you're looking for Ephesians, you might as well go on over to Timothy, because that's where we're going to go next. Second Timothy chapter 1, and Ephesians chapter 1. We'll look at Ephesians first, because that's the only way we can reconcile some of these things. And I'm not going to let you lose sight this afternoon of the sovereignty of God. Everything began with Him, everything is in His control even today. Ephesians 1, verse 11, "...in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated," same thing as elected or called, "...being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things, after the counsel of..." Whose will? His. See that? Now, everything comes together according to His design. Remember the analogy I gave in the last program, of every child that�s born, every sperm is brought in contact with every egg according to His divine purpose? Now turn over to II Timothy chapter 1, and what is His divine purpose under His sovereign will? II Timothy chapter 1, oh, let�s just start with verse 7. II Timothy chapter 1, we�ll begin with verse 7. �For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.� Now here it is in verse 9. �God who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works.� See, we didn�t deserve it. We didn�t sweat and run and will to the place where God says, �Alright, okay, I�ll take you.� No, no. And He�s called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but, and put in the verb, He has called us according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, now this will shock you, before the world began. Almost unbelievable, yes it is from the human element, but by faith, as soon as we become a child of God, we can look back again and see, hey I was chosen before God ever created Adam. He already had you and I positioned in the body of Christ. Oh, it�s just past finding out, and you know I use that as we were back in Romans chapter 8. This is why Paul could say in chapter 8, �For neither principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing can ever separate us from the love of God which we have in Christ Jesus.� Why? Because we were already His before anything was ever created. How in the world can people say, �Well, I�m not secure. I have to work. I have to live so that I don�t lose all this.� No you don�t. You have been called with a purpose in God�s mind, and we rest on that. Now that doesn�t give us license. My, if I have one favorite cliche that I use over and over and over in all my classes is, �Grace is not license.� Just because we�ve entered into this tremendous mercy that was poured out on the cross, and it was precipitated by the grace of God, and I appropriate it by faith, hey, that doesn�t give me license. That doesn�t give me the right to go out and steal, and commit adultery, and all the other things that the world thinks is going to kick us out of the body of Christ. No it doesn�t, but it�s all in His divine purpose that we are called, we are elected, we�re His. Come back to Romans, verse 23, Romans 23, �And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had before prepared unto glory.� Who is he talking about? Well, every believer, whether it�s back in Israel, whether it�s during Christ�s earthly ministry, those disciples as we saw in John chapter 17, God says, �Those that you�ve given unto Me, they�re Mine.� They�re vessels of mercy. For every born-again child of God today, what are we? Vessels of mercy. None of us deserve anything. It�s all of His mercy, but it was poured out at the cross, and now we�ve appropriated it by faith. Alright, verse 24, �Even us.� See, and He includes Himself. Now remember, Paul is the epitome of a sinner saved by grace, isn�t he? If ever there was a man that got every right in the world to zap and be done with, it was Saul of Tarsus. But what happened? Saul didn�t suddenly come to himself and repent and say, �Oh, God, I�m so sorry. Won�t You please accept me?� No. Saul was on his way into Damascus to carry out his dirty work. And what happened? God just literally knocked him off His horse and spoke to him and said, �Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?� That was what? Grace. Grace. And so we are in that same category with the Apostle Paul. We are saved without ever doing anything on our part. Now listen, this is the way it�s always been. You know, I�m always taking you back to Genesis. You go back into the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve have sinned. They�ve partaken of that forbidden tree, and they immediately saw their human nakedness. And what did they do? Well, they sowed their fig leaves. But those fig leaves just sort of fell into nothing when they heard the Lord coming down the path. And so what do they do? They run and hide. Even with their fig leaves, they�re in no shape to meet their righteous Creator. So they hide. Does the Creator give up and say, �Well, I can�t find them. I�m going back to heaven.� What does He do? He finds them. And He sees them in their hiding and He says, �Adam, where art thou?� And then Adam has to respond, of course. But what does God do? He restores them. What is that? That�s mercy. That�s grace. See, when I say that we are in the age of grace, I never imply that God�s grace is something that was unknown until we get to Paul. It becomes the great attribute of God, of course, with Paul�s epistles. But grace was already evident in the Garden. And as I�ve already showed you, when Israel went after the golden calf, what kept God from destroying them? His mercy and grace. And when they rejected the Messiah and they crucified Him, again God had every right in this world to wipe Israel off the map. Why didn�t He? His grace. And the whole human race tonight. Why has God forestalled destroying humanity? They deserve it, but He doesn�t. It�s His grace, see. And, oh, we can never comprehend it. All right, so �Even us,� Paul says, verse 24 of Romans 9, �Even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.� Oh, now you see that through a curve at most Jews. Remember, I always take you back to Acts. We did this even down in Haiti the other day. I haven�t mentioned on the program, I guess maybe I should have. Iris and I had a glorious week teaching a crowd of over 700 people every day for about 5 days straight. And one of the verses that I used down there in Haiti to make my point, I think, was in Acts�I have to go back and look at it a minute�in Acts chapter 22. Acts chapter 22. I had to look for a moment. And here Paul is addressing this great crowd of Jews. After having been out on his journeys to the Gentile, and he comes back to Jerusalem, and he is trying to get these Jews to see that, again, it was the one they crucified that had sent him to the Gentile. And so in Acts 22, you come all the way down as he rehearses again his tremendous experience on that road to Damascus. He comes down to verse 17 and 18, and he says, �And it came to pass that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance. And I saw him saying unto me�now this is Jesus speaking to the Apostle Paul as he�s down there in the temple. �And I saw him saying unto me, Make haste, get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they, the Jews, will not receive thy testimony concerning me.� Verse 19, �And I said, Lord, they know that I am present, and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee. And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consenting unto his death. And I held the raiment, or the clothing, of them that slew him. And he, the Lord Jesus, said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentile.� Now remember, Paul is speaking to this great crowd of Jews. Look at the next verse, and this will tell you everything in the Jews� attitude toward Gentile dogs. �And they gave him audience.� In other words, they listened to every word that Saul or Paul was saying, �Unto this word.� What word? Gentile. �And when he just spoke the word Gentile, they lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, it�s not fit that he should live.� Why? �He dared spew the word Gentile.� Well, that was their attitude. Alright, now then, you take a verse like verse 24 in that context, and what did that do to the Jew? It infuriated them. �And so he says, Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentile.� Now listen, this wasn�t a concept of Paul. This wasn�t something that he pulled out of the woodwork. Let�s go all the way back to the Old Testament. Let�s go back to Isaiah. And these are verses, of course, we haven�t used now in a long, long time. I keep forgetting, you know, that some of these things we haven�t touched on in three or four years on the program. Back in Isaiah 42, and just start with verse 1. That�s what I did down in Haiti. I had to work through an interpreter, and all those hundreds of people, and they were just sitting there and wrapped attention to my interpreter, but I didn�t know whether they were really getting it or not. And every once in a while I�d just say, �Are you with me?� And he�d interpret, and then all those bright white smiles, and they�d nod their head, and they were with me. And some other things happened that I haven�t got time to share here, but yeah, they understood everything. Boy, they were good students. In fact, the pastor where we were working, he said, �Les, my people are far more biblically intelligent than most Americans.� And I said, �I believe you.� I really did. Now Isaiah 42, verse 1, �Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth, I have put my Spirit upon him.� Now he�s speaking of Christ, the Messiah. �He shall bring forth judgment.� Now the word �judgment� there doesn�t mean �punishment.� It means �rule, government.� And he shall bring forth government to whom? The Gentiles. This was an Old Testament concept. Absolutely God had the Gentiles on His mind, but of course not until He had finished the work with Israel. Or while you�re in Isaiah, turn to chapter 49. So I�m doing this so that you can see that this isn�t just a Pauline concept now that God was going to turn to the Gentiles. This was all part and parcel of the Old Testament covenants that the day would come that when Israel had completed the promises, then God would turn to the Gentile world. Chapter 49, and let�s come down to verse 6. Isaiah 49, verse 6. And he said, �It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserve of Israel.� See there you�ve got the two names again. Jacob was the nation as a whole, but Israel was the believing remnant. �I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation.� How far? To the end of the earth. Oh, Israel was to have had the opportunity. Now they did to a certain extent, because every word of this book has been written by Jews, but God had even more than that for the nation. But they rejected it in their unbelief, but here was God�s idea that He was going to go to the Gentile world through this covenant people. I guess that�s enough. I thought I even had some more, and there are others. I think I could go to probably other ones in here, in Zechariah, but we won�t take the time for that. But I just want you to see that God from the beginning knew the day would come when He would go to the whole Gentile world with His salvation. But when Israel was constantly rejecting it, He had to send the nation of Israel out into a dispersion. Took away their temple, took away their land, and turned to the Gentiles through the apostle Paul in this tremendous gospel of the grace of God. Well, I didn�t really want to start on these verses from 25 to 33, but we�ve got one minute left, so let�s just get started, and we�ll pick it up in our next program. As he said, �Although in O.C.� that�s in the Greek, but it�s the book of Hosea, and also as he said in the book of 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 that in the place where it was said unto them, You are not My people, there shall they be called the children of the living God.� What do you suppose he�s talking about? Who were the people that were not his people? Gentiles. Who were the people who would finally come to the place where they could say, �You�re My God,� and he would say, �You�re My people.� Well, you and I as Gentiles now in this age of grace. And see, that was all foretold clear back there in the Old Testament, even in the book of Hosea. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552. That�s Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported and your gift is appreciated. Thank you and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.