Sermon notes May 11th, 2025
ROMANS 9:17-33
Looking back on Romans 9 the first part, there were things that have concerned Christians and Jews alike for centuries. Things like Gods foreknowledge and election. People have questioned these scriptures more than most of all the rest of the Bible. Remember Paul is writing to the Church in Roman, one that at the point of this time of his writing he has not yet been there. Manyof the people there, he did not know, but I’m sure there were some that he did. So, why is he writing this way? I’m sure there are several reasons, one is that he gets letters from some of his faithful followers, who may have tried to explain the problem some Jew’s were having with the whole saved by Grace through faith in Jesus. Why? Because they were works minded. Some was theinspiration of the Holy Spirit, I’m sure that He was there. How about his love for his own people, the Jews. Many who were not accepting Jesus as their Messiah, they were stuck in their ways of the Law. Jesus calls Himself a stumbling stone to them.
Matthew 21:43-45 New King James Version
43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
45 Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them.
WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE part 2
Last time we talked about the story of Jacob and Esau. The twins born to Rebekah and Isaiah. Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3: “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
1. 3404 hate = miséō – properly, to detest (on a comparative basis); to love someone or something less than someone (something) else, i.e. to renounce one choice in favor of another.
1 John 4:16 New King James Version
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Luke 14:26 New King James Version
26 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
1. Do you think Jesus was advocating hatred towards our families?
2. Of course not!! First of all, He told those who followed Him that in order to be true disciples, they must love Him supremely. He did not ever suggest that men should have bitter hatred in their hearts toward father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters.
Romans 9:17
17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”
· God’s sovereignty is seen not only in showing mercy to some but in hardening the hearts in others. Pharaoh is cited as an example. There is no suggestion here that the Egyptian monarch was doomed from the time of his birth. So, what happened? In adult life he proved to be wicked, cruel, and extremely stubborn. In spite of the most solemn warnings, he kept hardening his own heart. God could have destroyed him instantly, but He didn’t. Instead, God preserved him alive in order that He might display His power in him, and that through him God’s name might be known worldwide.
· Remember, the Bible, specifically in Romans 1:28, says that God "gave them over to a debased mind." This passage states that because people chose not to retain the knowledge of God, He surrendered them to a mind that leads to actions that are not fitting or proper.
Romans 9:18-19
18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
· Pharaoh repeatedly hardened his own heart, and after each of these times God additionally hardened Pharaoh’s heart as a judgment upon him. The same sun that melts ice hardens clay. The same sun that bleaches cloth tans the skin. The same God who shows mercy to the brokenhearted also hardens the impenitent. Grace rejected is grace denied. God has the right to show mercy to whomever He wishes, and to harden whomever He wishes. But because He is God, He never acts unjustly. Even if we see it as injustice!!
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”
· Paul’s insistence on God’s right to do what He pleases raises the objection that, if that is so, He shouldn’t find fault with anyone, since no one has successfully resisted His will. To the objector, they say man is a helpless pawn on the divine chessboard.
· Nothing he can do or say will change his fate. That is a lie from the pit of hell. We all have the right to choose.
Romans 9:20-21
20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”
21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
· Now Paul uses the illustration of the potter and the clay to vindicate the sovereignty of God. The potter comes into his shop one day and sees a pile of formless clay on the floor. He picks up a handful of clay, puts it on his wheel, and fashions a beautiful vessel. Does he have a right to do that? The potter, of course, is God. The clay is sinful, lost humanity. If the potter left it alone, it would all be sent to hell. He would be absolutely just and fair if He left it alone. But instead He sovereignly selects a handful of sinners, saves them by His grace, and conforms them to the image of His Son. Does He have the right to do that? Remember, He is not arbitrarily dooming others to hell.
· They are already doomed by their own willfulness and unbelief.
· God has the absolute power and authority to make a vessel for honor with some of the clay and another for dishonor with some. In a situation where everyone is unworthy, He can bestow His blessings where He chooses and withhold them whenever He wishes. “We’re all undeserving.” But we all have the right to choose. Remember, God has foreknowledge, He knows from the very beginning who will choose Him to be their God.
Romans 9:22
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
· Paul pictures God, the great Potter, as facing a seeming conflict of interests. On the one hand, He wishes to show His wrath and exhibit His power in punishing sin. But on the other hand, He desires to bear patiently with vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. It is the contrast between the righteous severity of God in the first place, and His merciful longsuffering in the second. And the argument is, “If God would be justified in punishing the wicked immediately but, instead of that, shows great patience with them, who can find fault with Him?”
· Notice carefully the phrase vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Vessels of wrath are those whose sins make them subject to God’s wrath. They are prepared for destruction by their own sin, disobedience, and rebellion, and not by some arbitrary decree of God.
Romans 9:23
23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
· Who can object if God wishes to make known the riches of His glory to people to whom He desires to show mercy—people whom He had selected beforehand for eternal glory? Listening to C. R. Erdman’s comment seems especially helpful:
“God’s sovereignty is never exercised in condemning men who ought to be saved, but rather it has resulted in the salvation of men who ought to be lost”.
· God does not prepare vessels of wrath for destruction, but He does prepare vessels of mercy for glory.
Romans 9:24-26
24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As He says also in Hosea:
“I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.”
26 “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
· The second verse is Hosea 1:10. Once again, in its OT setting this verse is not speaking about the Gentiles but describing Israel’s future restoration to God’s favor. Yet Paul applies it to God’s acknowledgment of the Gentiles as His sons. This is another illustration of the fact that when the Holy Spirit quotes verses from the OT in the NT, He can rightfully apply them as He wishes.
Romans 9:27
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:“Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, The remnant will be saved.
Isaiah 10:22
22 For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, A remnant of them will return; The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
· Do you realize the last prophecy to be completed or fulfilled in order for Jesus to rapture His Church was Israel becoming a nation again. That happened May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.So, why hasn’t He come to get us, it could be today.
Romans 11:25
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
· Now the Apostle reveals that the future restoration of Israel is not only a possibility but is an assured fact. What Paul now reveals is a mystery—a truth unknown, a truth that could not be known by man’s unaided intellect, but a truth that has now been made known. Paul sets it forth so that Gentile believers will not be wise in their own opinion, looking down their nationalistic noses at the Jews. This mystery is as follows:
· Blindness in part has happened to Israel. It has not affected all the nation, but only the unbelieving segment.
· That blindness is temporary. It will continue only until the fullness of the Gentiles arrives. The fullness of the Gentiles refers to the time when the last member will be added to the church, and when the completed Body of Christ will be raptured home to heaven. The fullness of the Gentiles must be distinguished from the times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24). The fullness of the Gentiles coincides with the Rapture. The phrase “times of the Gentiles” refers to the entire period of Gentile domination over the Jews, beginning with the Babylonian captivity (2 Chron. 36:1–21) and ending with Christ’s return to earth to reign.
Romans 9:28-30
28 For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”
· Paul was referring from Isa. 10:23 to the Babylonian invasion of Palestine and Israel’s subsequent exile. The work was God’s work of judgment. In quoting these words Paul is saying that what had happened to Israel in the past could and would happen again in his day.
29 And as Isaiah said before: “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”
· As Isaiah said before (in an earlier part of his prophecy): Unless the LORD of the armies of heaven had left some survivors, Israel would have been wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa. 1:9).
30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith;
· What, Paul asks, is the conclusion of all this as far as this present Church Age is concerned? The first conclusion is that Gentiles, who characteristically did not pursue righteousness but rather wickedness, and who certainly didn’t pursue a righteousness of their own making, have found righteousness through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not all Gentiles, of course, but only those who believed in Christ were justified.
Romans 9:31-33
31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.
· Israel, on the other hand, which sought justification on the basis of law-keeping, never found a law by which they might obtain righteousness.
32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
· The reason is clear. They refused to believe that justification is by faith in Christ, but went on stubbornly trying to work out their own righteousness by personal merit. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, Christ Jesus the Lord.
Romans 9:33
33 As it is written:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
· This is exactly what the Lord foretold through Isaiah. The Messiah’s coming to Jerusalem would have a twofold effect.
· To some people He would prove to be a stumbling stone and rock of offense (Isa. 8:14). Others would believe on Him and find no reason for shame, offense, (Isa.14:26)
Isaiah 8:14
14 He will be as a sanctuary, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Isaiah 14:26
26 This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth, And this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
Romans 10 Confessing Christ.
“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:10.
But how do men confess their allegiance to Christ? As disciples of Jesus, what cowards we are! It sometimes happens that those who have gone away from our meetings under the influence of a changed heart, come to me afterward and say that they are still in darkness. I say to them, there is a reason for this; did you confess Christ when you went home?
• “No; I thought I would wait and see how it would hold out, before I told any one.” But that is not the right way to do it. You see it is with the heart man believeth, and the next step is to confess Him with the mouth; that is what the mouth is for—to confess Jesus Christ; to tell all, what the has done for you. If a man is ashamed to do this, to take his stand on the Lord’s side, he will not get the benefit of his conviction. In fact, it is confession unto salvation; salvation comes when we take our stand for Jesus Christ, before all the world.
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