Session 41 – Romans; Romans 9:19-24; Mark Lanier, 09/20/26

ROM 041_Romans PODCAST_Lanier_092026
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[00:00:00] Well, I don't know how many of you have ever gone to a bookstore. Um, I tried to put up a Walden's bookstore because my mom, when I was, uh, like in first grade, managed the Walden's bookstore in Memphis, Tennessee, where Priscilla Presley would come and, uh, complain about her husband. And so if you want those stories, you've gotta talk to Mom, uh, and, uh, I'm, I'm feeling good this morning, Mom.

Uh, Becky and I are with grandkids in Galveston. And so I said, "Well, I'm gonna get up early, I'm gonna drive back, I'm gonna take a real shower, get rid of all the sand, and then, um, I'll eat breakfast at Mom's." And so I had breakfast with Mom this morning. It was great, and, uh, I'm here ready to teach. But bookstores were fresh in my brain, I guess, because of that.

And I love to go into [00:01:00] bookstores, and I love when you go in. There's generally a, a table out front and, and several other places, but you'll find a table that's got bestsellers in places. Now, that's us today. Don't you know that back in Baal's day, even though paper wasn't really in use, papyrus was, but that's not paper.

That's from a plant. Uh, uh, they still sold books. They didn't sell books. They sold scrolls. Books were just coming into vogue at that point in time. But you could go to the marketplace, and you could find scrolls for sale. And if you went to the marketplace to find scrolls for sale... Uh, y- uh, this is really helpful.

Uh, that's, that is historical picture. That's one of the first pictures taken with an iPhone [00:02:00] 2,000 years ago.

There were bestsellers See, one of the things I always wanna do when we read Romans is we've gotta try so hard to read Romans the way it would've been read by someone back then, not just someone who's lived through Calvin, and, and Luther, and Augustine, and Melanchthon, and Erasmus, and Barth, and countless other people, uh, uh, who have written on, on Romans.

So this is my effort to get you back into a ancient mindset, okay? So you go to the agora, you go to the marketplace, you go to the bookstore, and you're gonna buy you a scroll to read, and you want a bestseller. So what are you gonna get? Well, if you're at Paul's age, you might go for Ovid's Metamorphosis.[00:03:00]

Ovid's Metamorphosis was written probably around 8 to 10 or so AD, and it was an absolute bestseller. It was a bell ringer. In fact, it came in many different books, and if you bought book six of Ovid's Metamorphosis, you would've read some bestselling tales. And I'll guarantee you half of Paul's audience knew these stories Let me tell you about Arachne.

In b- in book six of Ovid's Metamorphosis, you'll read about Arachne. Now Arachne, she was a, she was, um, a, an arrogant woman. She believed that her skill... She didn't really come from money, she didn't really come from, from, um, a pedigree, but she could weave. Oh, she could weave. And [00:04:00] she declared she was the best weaver there was.

Anybody wanted to compete with her, come on. So Minerva, the goddess, said, "Well, I don't really like her hubris. I'll take her on." So the goddess Minerva comes and weaves and has a weaving contest with Arachne. Minerva, she weaves this incredible tapestry of these scenes of the gods, and she puts stuff in the border, and the description Ovid has is amazing, and you're reading it, and you're thinking, "Oh, she's a goddess.

She can weave." And then you start reading about Arachne, and Arachne is weaving these ancient events of the gods, and, and I mean, it's, it's an incredible tale. And the bottom line is Arachne defeats the goddess. She out-weaves her. Well, now, [00:05:00] that's really not a good thing to do. If you're ever gonna wanna throw a competition That's a good one to throw So Minerva says, "That's fine.

You won. I'm gonna take all your hair Not only that, I'm gonna take, uh, your arms and legs, and I'm just gonna have like antennas coming out from your body. And I'm gonna basically take away your neck. And you think you're the big weaver? Well, you're gonna spend the rest of your time weaving because what Minerva did is turn Arachne into a spider.

That is the source of arachnophobia, when you are afraid of spiders. Arachne gives the name to a spider. And Minerva says, "Yeah, have fun. Spend the rest of [00:06:00] your life weaving out of your guts."

Be careful ticking off a God

Another story from Book 6 of Ovid's best-selling Metamorphoses. Niobe. Now, Niobe is the queen of Thebes, a pretty big-time job title if you ask me, and she's thinking about Latona. Now, Latona is a goddess, uh, the mother of the twins Apollo and Artemis

Niobe's walking around the streets of Thebes, and she sees some people who are sacrificing and worshiping Latona. And Nairobi says-- Nairobi Niobe says[00:07:00]

Why isn't anybody worshiping me? I have 14 children. Latona, two. I am seven times the woman Latona is

Who is she to get the worship? Tear down her altars and worship the queen of Thebes. Did I mention that I have 14 kids? And you read it. So, Latona doesn't like the attitude, and she sends her twins, and she says, "Hey, both of you are pretty good with a bow and arrow. Go kill Niobe's kids, Niobe's kids." So, uh, Apollos goes And all of the boys get killed.

Seven boys, seven [00:08:00] girls. Well Niobe is just all distressed. She has lost her sons. She prays to the gods, "Oh, please, please, please, I'm so- I'm- I'm- I, I can't handle this. I've lost all my boys. All I've got left are my seven girls." Which, by the way, is, like, three times more than Latona has. At which point, Latona sends Artemis, and she bows-- strings her bow and pkk kkk pkk kkk pkk kkk, gets it down to one.

And at this, Niobe says, "This is my last one. You have killed 13 of my children. Please, don't..." And, a-and pff. Now all 14 are dead. Niobe, she's just petrified, and she is turned into a stone that [00:09:00] weeps. It's the weeping stone, and there's one in Turkey, and you can see her face. And when the rainwater collects, it, uh, actually passes through the limestone, and it looks like she's weeping.

This was so popular that in Rome they discovered a house, and this was in the 1500s that it was discovered, where they could find in the garden 13 of the 14 kids made in statutes. And now if you go to Florence, you can go to the Uffizi room, uh, the Niobe room i-in the Uffizi Museum and see these statutes that were in Roman gardens in 1583.

But the story, of course, is still the ancient story that was popular, a bestseller in Paul's day. Let me just give you one more. Don't worry, I'm not going through all of Ovid's [00:10:00] Metamorphosis. You can read it yourself. Marsyas. Now, Marsyas was pretty good with an instrument, and there was a flute that the gods had developed, and a woman had the fl-- well, a goddess had the flute.

She tried to play it, but when you played the flute, your cheeks got puffy, and she didn't want people to think she had fat cheeks. So she throws the flute away. She's not gonna play it. It was below her dignity. But Marsyas picks it up. And he blows it, and because it had been the flute of a goddess, it's especially-- I mean, it's got some of that sound, okay?

So he's just the best musician there is. Apollo takes issue with that because he plucks a pretty mean lyre. So when Marsyas says, "I'm better than he is. I know better. I got better music," they go into a contest, and the contest is one where [00:11:00] there is something at stake. The winner gets to do whatever the winner chooses to, to the loser So they have a music off, and Marsyas is playing those pipes, and it's just mesmerizing.

Then Apollo's playing that lyre, and it's godly It's a tie. They go into overtime. That's my translation. You won't quite read it that way in The Metamorphosis. They go into overtime, and the overtime's kinda rigged, so Apollo wins it. So he gets to do whatever he wants. So he has Marsyas tied up to a pine tree, and he

And Ovid goes into great detail. If you wanna read something gross, do it, uh, after lunch. He skins him. He flays him. And the, the narrative will even detail what the muscles looked like as you [00:12:00] took off the skin. And you will find, from Paul's era, a number of statutes. There in ... There's one in the Louvre.

There's one in the museum in Istanbul, 'cause there were a bunch of them back then of tied to a tree Marsyas being skinned. He was a satyr, S-A-T-Y-R, being skinned, being flayed. Flayed, not filleted. They wouldn't take the bones out. He was taking the skin off. Now, you grow up with this, and a bunch of the people in Paul's recipient congregation in Rome are grew up Gentiles, and this is a bestseller.

This is their Star Wars movie of the day. What do you grow up thinking? Here's the rule. A mortal who answers [00:13:00] back to a god gets obliterated, and the god doesn't owe him an explanation. You don't trifle with a god or goddess And now these people are hearing Paul's letter, which Paul dictated with lines like, "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"

That's Romans 9:20. Who are you to answer back?

Antapocrinomenos. That's, that's not just like, "I have a response." That's lawyer dispute talk That's, that's with an edge That's to reply [00:14:00] against. Now, if you're hearing that in Paul's day, you are expecting a thunderbolt to come down and zap anybody who's arguing with a god, especially the God

Who are you to answer back and argue and fuss with God? But instead of the thunderbolt coming

Paul just asked a question Paul says, "Well, what is molded say to its potter, its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?'"

He's put the, the response is not a thunderbolt, it's the potter in the studio. He's gone to that [00:15:00] Old Testament reference from Jeremiah about how the potter can remake a vessel when the vessel has broken itself, in a sense. So what I wanna do again this week is none of this can be taught in one fell swoop, so we're digging each week, but we also go back and dig a little bit deeper from last week's verses so that we can get back in the flow, but we do it by mining more treasure.

So remember, the overall flow of Romans at this point is did God's word fail? This is the God who at the end of Romans 8 says he w- that nothing can separate you from his love Now did that word fail? And Paul has said, "No, it did not. Go back and look at the map. You [00:16:00] didn't read it right." But not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

Remember, there's a difference between Jacob and Esau. And as he walks, as Paul walks through the story of Isra- of, of, of the Israelites, the Hebrew story To explain this and to work through his point, he goes to Mount Sinai where the golden calf has been made while Moses is getting the Ten Commandments.

And in that episode, God says, "Moses, get out of the way. I'm wiping them all out. We're gonna start all over again." Moses says, "Please don't." And so God extends his mercy to some of them

And as Paul quotes it in Romans 9, he says, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. [00:17:00] I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." But the mercy is never owed

And then Paul takes another step. And as he's recounting the story of Israel, he says, "Go back to Moses in front of Pharaoh." Do you remember when Moses is in front of Pharaoh? And Paul says in Romans 9:17, "The Scripture says to Pharaoh: 'For this very purpose I've raised you up, that I might show my power in you and my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.'"

God has raised Pharaoh up for this purpose. Hold on to that because it's important. But as we've been walking through this, one of the questions that I've told you is Paul clearly is talking about [00:18:00] election. He uses that word. God has elected people to an end. And the question that we've been asking is whether or not he's talking about the election here in Romans 9 of the nation of Israel to bring forth the Messiah and more, perhaps, or whether he's talking about the individuals.

I think clearly he is talking about the historical role here, but that doesn't mean he cannot be talking about both. So we will continue to hold that, and I'll continue to talk about this slide because he may be saying that they were elected not just for a historical role, but elected for salvation.

He'll use the word called. Did he call [00:19:00] Israel for their role in producing the Messiah, or did he call Israel for salvation?

It's clearly, at least in these initial verses we've been looking at, clearly it includes calling them as the nation to bring forth the Messiah. Did it also include a call for salvation? We've got to keep reading to work through those verses. He uses the word saved here shortly Is that saved in a historical salvation?

Well, actually, the salvation's got another element of overlay that we need to keep in our mind. Is this salvation something for individuals Or when Paul talks about people have been predestined for salvation, is he talking about the faithful, the church? [00:20:00] God chose the church or the faithful, those followers of God, to be elected to salvation.

We've gotta make all of those choices. So here's how we're doing this today. I've got three things I wanna do with you. I wanna start by going back over verses 19 through 20a, and look at how they echo, uh, Job. And then I wanna go to 20, the second part of verse 20, 20b, to verse 21, and look at the rights that Paul gives to the potter.

And then the third thing we'll do are verses 22 through 24, two vessels and an open door. Let's start with the echo of Job. I want you to hear this. We s- take a step back. It starts with verse 18 in my text today. "So then God has mercy on whomever he wills [00:21:00] and he hardens whomever he wills." Now, this is in reference to these Pharaoh stories that he's been telling God has mercy on whomever he wills.

He hardens whomever he wills. And you will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"

But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

Now that's our setup Now, one of my favorite New Testament writers is a now dead, uh, theologian from Australia, Leon Morris. And it's so interesting 'cause one of my other favorite New Testament writers is, um, uh, Tom Wright, N.T. Wright. And when I was talking to Tom [00:22:00] about the way I understand Romans, and I made reference to Leon Morris, he's like, "Ah, I just don't know that you really ought to even be reading him," a little tongue in cheek.

Um, and yet I really, I really like Leon Morris. There's a lot that I find, uh, I don't... Uh, I, I think he was stuck in his time and his era, and there's some things that, that we've learned since then in, in a sense. But listen to what he says here because I think he's, he said this well. It's a long quotation.

I've broken it up into three slides. "We tend to approach this," and he's talking about this passage, "in a different way from Paul because we tend to think of the eternal destiny of the individual. We must bear in mind throughout this section Paul's not dealing with that subject." He continues. He's dealing with the failure of Israel [00:23:00] as a whole to respond to the Messiah.

Let me time out for a minute here Israel was desperate for the Messiah There were false messiahs springing up all the time back then. Israel knew the Messiah was promised. They expected the Mes- I mean, when Jesus comes in on Palm Sunday, they're proclaiming him king. They think he's going to restore the government of Israel.

They think he is going to find the independence from the Roman Empire. They think Israel is going to take its place as a leading country in the world

And Jesus comes as the most unlikely Jewish Messiah who says, "My [00:24:00] kingdom's not of this earth." "Pilate, are you a king? Well, you've said so, but my kingdom's not of this earth." I'm not here to set up the government of Israel

And so Jesus' response is one that left Paul and others thinking, "Well, he can't be the Messiah." And then Paul finds out he is. And Paul's sitting there saying, "Man, how did we miss this? Where did we misread all of this?" And he's having to reexamine his understanding of the scriptures, which the Holy Spirit's helping him do So he says Paul's dealing with the failure of Israel as a whole to respond to the Messiah over against the fact that the church is largely Gentile.

This is the kingdom of God. This is Israel's Messiah. This is the, [00:25:00] uh, Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah

And what Paul is saying, Leon continues, is that God works his purpose out, purpose out by such means as choosing Isaac, rejecting Ishmael, choosing Jacob, rejecting Esau, hardening Pharaoh's heart. He's arguing that Israel's present hardening doesn't defeat God's purposes, and it doesn't show God to be unreliable.

Rather, it is God's means of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. Now, this may have an application to individuals, but Paul doesn't spell it out here And we've gotta be so careful at wanting to come [00:26:00] into the text and read in what we want it to say instead of just letting the text speak. And if we let the text speak, we see, "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"

That strong dispute talk. And what Paul then does is kind of, in my sense, a three-story building. I've tried to chart his argument here. Just, just to stop at that question. Job. You go back and read Job, and Job in chapter 9 verse 12 says, "Who will say to God, 'What are you doing?'" ｋ商告育成晩 Britney Méf allé邪魔多家locks烈жахちらerious主itsch cholera遂自有 Steckзей poquito秘 backlinks K L platter fluctuates abusbbbзировать commemorate [00:27:00] toneдикаraftintenských zić壹eeee

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But the Wisdom of Solomon is a book that was written that Paul clearly read, that a lot of people read. It was part of the Jewish thought [00:28:00] life, even though it was not by the Jewish community regarded as scripture But it was still part of their thought life And the wisdom of Solomon has this passage in chapter 12 verse 12, "Who will say, 'What have you done?'"

This is to God. Who will say to God, "What have you done? Who can resist your judgment?"

And this is a chain that Paul follows. When Paul says, "Who can resist your will? What have you done? Why did you make me this way?" And I love this because of the contrast with the way the, the, the society and culture of Greco-Roman thought was in general. The Greek gods, the Roman gods, they incinerate. God doesn't [00:29:00] incinerate.

God interrogates. So when Job challenges God, what's the response of God? Look at Job 38:2. The response of God... Hold on, hold on, hold on. It's right before Psalms. Job 38:2

But it wasn't to zap him. It wasn't to flay him. It wasn't to turn him into a spider or a weeping rock. God interrogates, he doesn't incinerate. "Who is this that darkens counsel by [00:30:00] words that are stupid?" That's the Lubbock translation

"Gird up your loins like a man, and I'll question you. Answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" Tell me Who determined the size of the planet? Tell me. Surely you know. You talk like you know everything Who stretched the line and decided where it would be? What were his bases sunk into?

Who laid the cornerstone? When the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy, who shut in the sea? Come on, come on, you know it all Job 40, verse 2. [00:31:00] Job finally answers. He says, um, "Okay Clearly, I am of small account. Uh, I'm gonna be quiet now. Uh, I spoke, uh,

yeah, I'm, I'm gonna be di- quiet now. And then God, "Whoa, wait a minute." The Lord answers out of the whirlwind, "Gird up your loins like a man. I've still got some questions. Are you even gonna put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you can be justified? Do you have an arm like mine? Can you thunder with a voice like mine?"

I mean, that's pretty stout stuff. But God incinerates? No. The Greek gods incinerate. God interrogates. He's trying to [00:32:00] bring you along

You know, there's an interesting passage in Acts, in Acts twenty three three through five. I love this story for what it says about Paul. Paul is

Uh, been called before the council. And he's called before the Jewish council, and he's in trouble. And while Paul's looking intently at the council, he says, "Brothers, up to this day, I've lived my life with a clear conscience before God." Then the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth.

At this, Paul said, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. Are you sitting there to judge me according to the law? In violation of the law, you just ordered me to be struck." [00:33:00] And those standing nearby said to Paul, um, "Do you dare to insult God's high priest?" Paul said, "Oh, well, I didn't realize he was a high priest, 'cause I know I'm not supposed to speak evil of a leader of the people."

My mistake. My bad. Paul was right, but Paul knew enough not to speak evil even when the high priest was wrong for ordering him struck. So this is the same Paul who's saying, "Okay, be careful when you interrogate God and start saying God's not right and God's not fair." Paul doesn't do that lightly, and Paul deals with this carefully, and he deals with it with the potter's rights So look at the rest of verse 20[00:34:00]

Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why did you make me like this?"

Why did you make me like this? He is quoting here Isaiah 29 Now in Isaiah 29, we've got the pottery speaking back to the potter. Isaiah 29:16, "Will what is made say of its maker, 'Well, you didn't do a good job here. You didn't make me wisely.'" And if you read it in the Greek version of the Old Testament, you will see Paul is clearly quoting it with a minor tweak at the end

But what Isaiah is saying is that you have turned things upside down. [00:35:00] The potter makes the call, not the pottery. The clay doesn't say to the potter, "Uh, I'm here because I'm gonna be a vase."

You know, the potter then put his hands down and said to the clay, "What are you?" Tell me so I can make the right call Paul's using this Old Testament metaphor of the prophets. And I think not only is he quoting from Isaiah, but he clearly has in his mind as well this amazing passage from Jeremiah. I referenced it last week, but we did not have time to look at it carefully.

So this is digging a little deeper. It's in Jeremiah chapter 18. There are six verses that we wanna look at. The word that [00:36:00] came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, from the Lord, he said, God said to Jeremiah, "Get up, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." So Jeremiah got up, he went down to the potter's house, and there's the potter working at his wheel.

Those were the wheels where they would turn by the foot. He had a foot pedal, and that would turn the wheel. So he's working at the wheel, and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand. Sometimes you can take clay... I wish my sister Catherine were here today. I'd call her up here and make her explain this to you.

But you can take clay, and you can do all sorts of things with the clay and fold it, but sometimes the clay falls apart. Uh, it do- it's not wet, or it's, [00:37:00] it, you, it's too thin, or it's g- got an air bubble, or whatever it may be. But sometimes you're, you're, you're working it, and what happens is not good. It's spoiled, in Old Testament language, in the potter's hand, so you rework it into another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to do This is interesting.

It doesn't say the potter goofed up on the pottery It just says that the clay was spoiled in the potter's hands. Now, here's where God comes back. The word of the Lord came to me and said, "O house of Israel," Jacob. This is-- You know, I told you Jacob and Esau often refer to the entire nation. Jacob's other name was Israel.

O house of Israel. He's talking about the people, not an individual. [00:38:00] The people. "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?" O people of Israel, can't I do the same thing? Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, that's the way you are in my hand, O house of Israel. Israel, you have spoiled yourself.

You've taken on a shape you didn't need to take on. I can reshape you, though. That's my right as a potter. You're going into bondage. You're going into captivity in Babylon. But I will reshape you, and I will bring you back, because I'm still gonna do my purpose through you You're like clay in the potter's hand.

That's what you are in my hand, O house of Israel. So Paul is echoing this: "Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me this way?' Hasn't the potter [00:39:00] a right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?"

Honorable. Time is the, the Greek word. It, it's something that's dignified, it's nice, it's, it's, uh, valuable and honorable. And if you put the letter A in front of a Greek word, it's like in English where we put, um, I-M in front of a word. So, you know, if, if, um, here, this is your Greek lesson for the day.

Although I'm always mindful now of one really kind lady who said to me, "Please don't tell us about the Greek." And I thought, "Ah, that's my degree." So if we have the word possible[00:40:00]

And we put IM in front. What does it mean? Not possible. Or another prefix that we use in the same way is the prefix UN. So we can take UN and necessary, which probably is spelled differently than I just spelled it. Is it, is that the way you spell it, Charles? Boom! I love it when I get it right. If something is necessary, it's, it, it's vital.

If you put UN in front of it, it's not vital. It's unnecessary. Meritorious,

unmeritorious. Same type of thing. For Greek, it was the letter A. So in Greek, [00:41:00] if something is valuable

And you put A in front of it, it ain't valuable. Okay? If something is honorable and you put A in front of it, it ain't honorable Something is T-I-M, that's-- and the E, that's the root of it, though. The T-I-M is the root of it. If you put A in front of it, you get A-T-I-M, and the-- just on the endings, just ignore all of that.

That's just telling you how it's being used in a sentence. But something that's valuable or esteemed is time. Um, my, uh, daughter and son-in-law went to a wedding last night, um, in Galveston, [00:42:00] and they gave the bride and groom a wedding gift

A wedding gift is something that hopefully the bride and groom will value. Back when I used to do weddings, and I quit after my daughters got married. Now I do 'em occasionally, but I don't do many weddings. But back-- Anymore. But back when I used to do 'em quite frequently, I had found these great family Bibles that are ESV, that have a really good cover, and that would be my wedding gift, is I would preach the wedding out of that Bible.

And so I would give them the Bible. Why? Because I wanted to give them something valuable, something time. Something that's esteemed. Now, potters would also make ves- vessels that were atime. Put A in front of it, and that would include things like bed pans. [00:43:00] Not what you typically give as a wedding gift But having its real purpose at some point in time.

Now, what the Paul is doing here is Paul's got the clay. He says, "Does the clay say, 'Why did you make me this way?'"

Why did you make me this? Why'd you make me to be a bedpan instead of a fruit bowl?

In other words, Paul's saying, "What's the purpose of this vessel? Why'd you choose my purpose to be this instead of that? Why, why'd you choose to make this one valuable and esteemed, and that one not valuable and esteemed?" And Paul's point is, the potter [00:44:00] gets to make that call. It's the potter's right Now let's take it the next step.

So there are two vessels and an open door. So Paul continues, and here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read this right through, three s- verses in a row, then we're gonna go back and dissect it. But I want you to get a- A full punch of what Paul's saying without me editorializing it at all. Okay? Here it is.

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath, and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, [00:45:00] in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?"

Now that's strong. That's got some strong language in it. And I think that we could pretty much all agree that this text does teach that God is free. He's free in his mercy, he's free in his hardening, and he doesn't really answer to anybody. But, dot, dot, dot

Think about it. Let's, uh, do like the Oak Ridge Boys and dig a little deeper in the well, boys[00:46:00]

Paul's been talking about Moses before Pharaoh, and Paul's quoted Exodus 8:15 that Pharaoh saw that there was-- when Pharaoh saw there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them as the Lord had said. Now, Pharaoh hardened his heart, but the quotation, I, I, I misspoke a moment ago, that Paul uses is one of the four other places where it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

Paul didn't choose this one. He chose that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And I think Paul would tell you absolutely God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did it for a reason

I have a question. What if Pharaoh had let Israel go after the [00:47:00] first miracle? What if Moses sticks his rod into the Nile, the Nile turns to blood, Pharaoh's like, "Okay, look, y'all aren't worth jacking with. Just go. I really don't wanna deal with you. Pfft. See ya."

And the people have been let go If that had happened, then explain to me Passover There is no Passover. If that had happened, explain to me the Passover lamb. There is no Passover lamb. Explain to me the Last Supper, where Jesus desired to have one last Passover with his disciples. There is no Passover supper.

Where Jesus said, "This is my body that's broken for you." Where Jesus claimed to be the [00:48:00] Passover lamb

There's none. God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and it became necessary. It was part of God's plan to set forward a deliverance of mercy for his people that wasn't Jew only, but brought in all of us. It set up the Messiah. It set up so much understanding of what Jesus was gonna do. It gave meaning. You say, "Well, I still think it's unfair."

Well, you're not the potter. And with all due respect, he can answer you out of the whirlwind and say, "Well, where were you when I was figuring all this stuff out?" Take your hands and do this. [00:49:00] Do you know what that is? That's the size of your brain. That's how many gray cells you've got. And it's made up of glial cells, and it's made up of, of a few other things, but it's gotta spend most of its energy making sure you breathe and your heart pumps blood

You think you've got it all figured out and you're gonna call the Almighty to account for the way he chose to do this? Now I'm not saying, and Paul's not saying you can't ask questions, you can't probe for answers. He's just saying keep the attitude right when you do it Because God is free in mercy and he's free in hardening, and he's not answerable to anybody.

But

Now I wanna dig a little deeper. We got... Yeah, we got time. Go back to verse [00:50:00] 22. "What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?" Charles Mickey's my favorite grammarian because I've known Charles for 50 years, and he is just amazing with grammar.

Um, that's just where he's at. That's o- only funny because I ended a sentence in a preposition. You know, I wanted to really impress him. See, now I've just split an infinitive Here's a passive verb, and Paul uses a passive verb because he doesn't give the subject in explicit terms. Now, some people, like, uh, my friend Doug Moo, will be quick to tell you that he believes that God should be, [00:51:00] uh, the person who is deemed to be the subject of who prepared those vessels for destruction But there's a host of people who view it otherwise.

Another one of my favorite commentators is a guy named Linsky. He's a Lutheran scholar from, I don't know, 75 years ago. Linsky thinks this is Satan And the reason Paul won't name the subject of the verb is 'cause he's not gonna give credit to Satan on this. There's a host of others that go back to the Apostolic Fathers who think that it's man himself.

So you'll find people at all ends of the spectrum. I've just decided to hold my breath on this subject 'cause Paul doesn't use a subject. Paul doesn't say that vessels of wrath that God prepared for destruction. Say, "Well, maybe Paul wasn't [00:52:00] in the mood to use a, an active verb." Well, he does in the very next verse.

In the very next verse, he says, "In order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared." Vessels of wrath, doesn't say who prepared them for destruction. Paul's silent on that. Vessels of mercy, God gets all the credit. He prepared beforehand for glory Paul will credit God clearly, unambiguously, plainly for the mercy

The destruction, Paul is not so clear And people can speculate, and people can have opinions, and they can have good reasons for their opinions. And I've read them. There are good reasons all the way around on this. [00:53:00] But it's just my position is, if Paul's holding his breath on it, I'm holding my breath.

That may be some of my Church of Christ heritage. I'll speak where he speaks, but I'm gonna be quiet where he's quiet

Even us, Paul says, whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. And next week, oh, it gets better, because he continues to say, "As indeed," he says in Hosea, "those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved." If we understand the flow of what Paul's saying here, Paul is communicating the story of Israel in a way that shows God has orchestrated this whole thing, not only for Israel and the Messiah, but for the broader expanse of us Gentiles.

Yes. That God has hardened Pharaoh's heart [00:54:00] when he needed to because it's all part of it, and you can go back, and God reshaped Israel through the Babylonian captivity, through whatever he needed to, because he needed the vessel to be the vessel for the Messiah to come, to bring all of us into his mercy.

Amen. And that's what he's doing. And so don't say, "Well, uh, God's not that reliable. I mean, look what he did to Israel."

I was like, "Oh, God is fully reliable." The story of God and Israel is a story for all of us. It's a story that's culminating in the inclusion of us, and he'll come back and say we get grafted into the tree of those people that God has called. But that's not today. Today, we have points for home, and I have three of them.

Are you shocked? First, question God. But question Jo- God like Job, [00:55:00] not like a lawyer. Don't, don't back talk. There's a difference between questioning and back talk. There's a quest- You, you know, I can recall, I've got my mom here, I guess it's fresh in my mind 'cause we had breakfast this morning. But I can recall growing up, there would be times where mom would say something, and I would answer back, and she or dad would be very engaged with my answer and try to explain.

But there would also be times where I would answer back, and my dad would say to me, "Do not talk that way to your mother." Amen. Okay? My dad is Paul here. Do not talk that way to God. There are right ways to engage in questions and dialogue

And, and thankfully, God's not in book six of Ovid's Metamorphosis. He's in the educate, illuminate business, not [00:56:00] incinerate. Point for home two: I'm gonna speak as Paul does, and I'm gonna hold my breath where Paul holds his breath Now, we've still got some verses to come, and we're gonna need to walk through each one, but I'm go-- I, I had originally planned on doing Romans 9, 10, and 11 in four weeks I'd originally planned on teaching Romans in 16 weeks.

We are in lesson number 40, 4-0, of Romans, and we ain't through chapter nine So we have some to come, but I don't want anybody to say, "Well, yeah, but you, you, uh, just skipped that." No. But I'm going to, each time we do this, I'm gonna speak where Paul speaks, but I'm gonna hold my breath where he holds his breath.

So if he... God prepared vessels of mercy, I have zero trouble ascribing to that, holding to that, taking that home, and living in that. Vessels of wrath were prepared. By [00:57:00] who? Paul ain't answering that question in that verse. So hold your breath on that, and we'll look at it some more later. Point three: You who belong to Christ are not a spectator You have been called by God

You have been chosen. You have been selected. You are destined for glory. He will harden Pharaoh's heart to set up the Passover so you could have the Lord's Supper and understand the Messiah who was the Passover lamb. He has selected you for glory. He has selected you for mercy. You say, "Well, how do I know?"

Do you belong to Christ? If you do, the answer's yes. If you say, "Well, [00:58:00] I'm not sure I belong to Christ," then we fix that because Paul will make it abundantly clear in Romans 10. You call on God, he's not gonna turn you away. "Yeah, but I'm bad." That's okay. Paul was responsible for killing Saint Stephen. He's not gonna turn you away.

Amen? Amen. All right, here's your verse for lunch, and then I stuck the landing at 12 o'clock. Question for lunch: How can you see God working his glory amidst hardship and sin? Talk amongst yourselves. I'll see you next week. Gotta go.