Romans 9:19-33
Key Verse: 9:28...    “For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality”

 In the previous passage we studied God’s sovereign choice in his election. Whether we like it or not, we have to accept God’s plan for our life.  Today’s passage shows God’s right to use some people for noble purposes and some for common use. Though he is sovereign in his choice, he is not a dictator. He waits patiently for the Gentiles to repent and receive his mercy. He blesses Israel people to repent and remain as the objects of his mercy. God is very personal in dealing with each one of us. But God will not wait for us forever. Someday he will carry out his sentence on earth. We have to ask God’s mercy and live by faith. In the end Paul concluded that unbelief was the main problem of the Jews. Therefore, people will stumble and fall if they reject Jesus. They will be saved if they accept Jesus as God’s way of righteousness. May God bless us to accept God’s plan in our life and to be used as his instrument for noble purposes.

Part I. The Objects of Mercy and the Objects of Wrath (19-29)

 Verse 18 says, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”  There seems to have no room for man to do anything. God seemed to have done everything according to his plan. What problem is raised in God’s way of working in his election? Look at verse 19. “One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’” Some people became fatalistic about God’s election. Some people complained about God’s choice and demanded that God should not blame them because God did everything. They are saying, “Don’t blame us but blame yourself because it is you that caused us to be as we are.” This question sounds logical and makes sense from human point of view. It is like a school boy blaming his mother for causing him to fail in his class because his mother gave him a bad brain saying, “Mom, don’t blame me for not getting A’s because you did not give a smart brain. It is your fault not mine.” We know that this boy is trying to escape from his responsibility for his school study. In the same way this question was raised by someone who tried to escape from his responsibility to live by faith before God. Of course, to our finite minds, the sovereignty of God’s choice is inexplicable. It sounds like a contradiction, and our first reaction might be to complain that it is not fair. But that’s not true. God is fair to everyone and deals with us equally. I will tell you about this later.

 Observe how Paul replies. He does not attempt to explain the propriety of God’s actions; instead, he rebukes the man who complained. Look at verses 20-21. “But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? ‘Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” First, Paul asked the man, “Who are you? O man.”  Abraham said in Genesis 18:27b, “I am nothing but dust and ashes.” That’s right. If we stop breathing, we will return to dust and ashes. We look mighty and invincible. One Russian heavy-weight wrestler won a gold medal for three Olympics. He was unbeaten for 13 years. In Sydney Olympic he was beaten by American wrestler, a farm boy from Wyoming. Nobody is invincible. We have to know who we are before God. What we learn here is that it is not good to talk back to God. Why? We cannot win our case by talking back to God. Did you win your case when you talked back to your parents or to your boss? If we talk back to God with arrogant heart, we also break the boundaries between God, the creator and man, his creature. As a sinner, man has no right whatsoever to find fault with the revealed ways of God. Creatures are not entitled to register complaints about their creator. For the Creator is incomprehensible to his creatures. Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” God’s thoughts and ways are beyond our comprehension. These days computers are getting smarter and faster. But computers cannot read our minds at all. Computer is a computer. Likewise we don’t understand God’s deeper thoughts and his ways of working. If you really want to know why God works in a certain way, save your question and ask Jesus directly when you go to heaven and see Jesus face to face. Here we need a proper view of ourselves before God. We need a humble heart before God. We cannot question or invade God’s area of sovereignty as his creatures.

  Verse 20b says, “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”  I think all of us might have asked this question to God secretly or openly sometime in our life, “Oh! God! Why did you make me like this? I am too short and my nose is too flat and my hair is too dark.”  But God created us and said, “it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31) Each of us is very good before God. I know my youngest son wishes if he were taller than he is now. One day I saw him to drink a lot of milk. I did not know why. He was trying to raise his height. But to God he is very good as he is. He wants to use his talent to serve God and live by faith. If God created all of us with the same height, the world would be a boring place. Can you imagine the world filled with look-alike people? Shepherdess Belsie could not understand why God gave her a broken family. But she accepted God’s sovereignty over her life and found a true meaning of her life when she studied the Bible with M. Sarah Yun. M. Luke Kim suffered a lot because of his dry eye problem. When he wanted to cry, he could not cry. He did not complain, “Why did you make my eyes like this?” But he thanked God for his dry eyes and then God blessed his fellowship. God granted them to feed 12 sheep and allowed them to bring 5 new sheep to our Sunday worship. Even Jay Jagun is feeding sheep with a lot of smiles. Now autumn season is here and we began to enjoy beautiful autumn leaves. If we examine falling leaves, they are all different in size, shape, and color. In the same way God made each of us uniquely as we are. He made us with a clear purpose. We have to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in making us as we are. There was a black duckling among many white ducklings. Many white ducklings laughed at her because she was different. She said , “I am an ugly duckling. Nobody likes me.” One day she colored and pretended to be a white duckling but soon rain came and washed all her colors and she became a black duckling again. Later, her mother said to her, “You are as beautiful as any other duckling in the world. My dear! You are precious as you are.” Paul clarifies our relationship with God through the parable of the potter. Here God is the potter and we are the pottery. It is the potter’s decision to make what kinds of pottery he makes. It is not the business of the pottery. The potter can make a beautiful noble pottery for a king’s table or a toilet for the king’s servants from the same lump of clay. The potter will spend a lot of time and effort to make some pottery for noble purposes. It will be very expensive to buy such a pottery. But it will endure for a long time and bring a great joy to the owner. Sometimes we wonder why God chose me for special campus mission out of millions of people. I wish I could live as ordinary as possible by doing everything my heart desires to do. I can say that God made us for noble purposes by his infinite grace. We can be truly happy when we accept God’s sovereign will for us and serve his will with thankful hearts. We become rebellious and fall into fatalism and inferiority complex and feel miserable when we reject God’s plan for our lives. Paul is saying to us in this passage, “Don’t complain but accept God sovereignty over your life.” Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Look at verses 22 -24. “What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?” Though there are many kinds of class of people in the world, there are two classes of mankind from God’s point of view. They are the objects of his wrath and the objects of his mercy. Pharaoh is the first case and Israel is the second case. The first one is prepared for destruction and the other for glory. Let’s think about Pharaoh as the first example. God raised him up to display his wrath and power in all the earth (17). But God did not make up his mind to punish him from the beginning. God treated him in a very personal way. God bore him with great patience. God gave him ten chances to repent and believe his sovereignty over him. But Pharaoh hardened his heart ten times and showed his contempt and unbelief towards God. Finally, he became the objects of God’s wrath and God demonstrated his wrath and power known to Pharaoh and all the world by striking all the first-born among the Egyptians. He displayed his majesty by allowing Israel people to cross the Red Sea as on dry land. (Heb 11:29) Let’s pay a careful attention to the words, “Prepared for destruction.” The objects of wrath are prepared for destruction. However, this is not a done deal. They are like prison inmates who are charged but the verdict is not made yet. There may be a chance for them to come out because God is waiting for them to repent with great patience. Humanly speaking, in the past we were storing up God’s wrath because of our stubbornness and our unrepentant hearts. We were terrible sinners. We deserved God’s wrath. God waited us to come to him very patiently. In the world of competition people do not want to wait for someone to grow. People’s attitude is “three strikes and you are out.” But God’s patience allowed us to become the objects of his mercy when we believed in the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ. This was possible only by the grace of God.

What happened to the people of Israel who became the objects of God’s mercy?
As we know, God treated them generously with many privileges. Though they failed many times, God gave them the Ten commandments and led them to the promised land and made them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. He showed them his glory and power through many miracles. Look at verse 24. “even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?” The distinction between the objects of his wrath and the objects of his mercy disappears because God called his people not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles. Why? God made his redemptive work inclusive-even of Gentiles who were supposed to be objects of his wrath. Look at verses 25-26. “As he says in Hosea: “‘I will call them my people who are not my people and I will call her my loved one who is not my loved one,’ and ‘It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people they will be called sons of the living God.’” Wow! God called us his people and loved us though we are not the Jew. I really think God is fair. God treats us individually not as one of the social security numbers. God knows each of us one by one. God used the  prophesy of Hosea to show that he intended to include the Gentiles in his world redemptive plan from the beginning? How does this reveal his amazing grace and mercy? God showed his grace and mercy toward the Gentiles. His salvation is by faith alone. God’s salvation goes beyond race and national origin. Look at verse 27. “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.’” This means that the number did not matter. What matters is the remnant. The work of God’s salvation will continue through the remnant. Though the number of Israelites grew to be like the sand by the sea from one man, Abraham, only the remnant will be saved. Many Israelites abandoned God in the promised land when they got a dream house, job and children. They were excluded in the redemptive work of God. Some people abandoned when they went into exile due to hardship of their life. They turned away from their faith in God and became the objects of his wrath. How do we know that only the remnant will be saved?

Look at verse 28. “For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” Though God is patient with people, someday he will carry out his sentence. When that happens, he will do it with speed and finality. Look at verse 29. “It is just as Isaiah said previously: ‘Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.’” Paul compared the destiny of the unbelieving Jews to that of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah were wicked and sinning greatly against the Lord (Gen 13:13). They seemed to enjoy material abundance and pleasures of sin. The nightclubs of Sodom were packed with people who were drinking and joking and cursing. They seemed as if they were having good times forever. But when God decided to carry out his sentence on them, it was very swift and final. One day the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah and thus he overthrew those cities including all those living in the cities. They were destroyed completely except Lot and his two daughters. God would carry out his sentence towards Israel through the Babylonian Empire because they worshipped idols, but he would save the remnant to continue his salvation work. God does not depend on human situation when he carries out his sentence on earth. These days people seemed to enjoy their wealth and health and money. Everything seems to be all right. People are proud of their abilities because they can do a lot more things through the invention of the Internet. But it is imperative that someday the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality. Time will run out. Matthew 25:31-32 says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” This indicates that only the remnant will be saved in the time of the final judgment.  In this passage we must acknowledge that God is sovereign in salvation. Whether we are Jews or the Gentiles, God carried out his salvation through the remnant he chose. We did not save ourselves but God saved us through his eternal plan from the beginning. Until now we examined God’s sovereign choice in our salvation. Now let’s look at man’s responsibility in God’s salvation.

 
Part II. Israel’s Unbelief (30-33)
 
 In this part Paul pointed out what was the main problem of Israel. It was their unbelief. Look at verse 30. “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith.”  Paul goes back to the key verse of the book of Romans 1:17b, “The righteous will live by faith.”  The Gentiles did not have anything to claim as their own and were helpless in their relationship with God. When they heard the gospel message of Jesus’ death and resurrection, they believed the message by faith and trusted in Jesus. They did not pretend that they had something to boast about. They simply accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They were saved by the grace of Jesus. But the Jews responded to the gospel differently. Look at verses 31 and 32. “but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.” They thought that they were chosen people and had something to boast. When Jesus preached the gospel message, their pride was hurt and they thought that Jesus became a stumbling block in their salvation. They thought that they had to earn salvation by works. They did not accept Jesus as God’s way of righteousness. They rejected the message of Jesus and killed Jesus because he was a threat to their scheme of righteousness by works. What was wrong with them? Look at verse 33. “As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” As prophesied, Jesus became a living stone. Salvation is based on how we respond to this living stone. Those who trust in Jesus and have faith in Jesus will be saved like a man who builds his house on the rock. Those who reject Jesus will be crushed like a man who builds his house on the sand. Those who reject Jesus will stumble but those who trust in him will never be put to shame. I pray that we all may attain righteousness by faith through faith in Jesus, our living stone. May God give you shepherd heart like Paul for fellow American students so that they may be saved by accepting Jesus as God’s way of salvation. Let’s read the key verse 28.