Christianity 101:
Can I Trust Him?
Romans 9:1-33
Englewood Baptist Church
Sunday Morning, May, 2008
Not long ago, I took a walk in my neighborhood. It was early. As I turned a corner, there before me were two huge dogs. They were on the loose and they looked hungry. Immediately, I stopped in my tracks and tried to make a quick analysis: are these dogs safe? Can I trust these two beasts or am I about to become a light breakfast? Thankfully, my fears were relieved when one of them wagged its tail and came to lick my hands. But, for a moment, I had to stop and wonder, can I trust him?
Unfortunately, today, many have the same issue with God. Many people today are asking the same questions. If there is a God out there like many seem to believe, what is this God like? Is he benevolent or is he bossy? Is he kind or is he crotchety? Is he caring or is he calloused? Is he generous or is he stingy? Does this God have a personality? I need to know if I can get near him or not. Should I walk closer or should I turn and run?
In Romans 9, the apostle Paul is wrestling with some of the most difficult questions that come upon us as believers. He has already tackled one of those perplexing questions as we studied chapter 8. That question was this: if God is good then why does He allow so much evil? Paul has given a remarkable response in saying in Romans 8:28 that “all things work together for good for those who love him.” In other words, like a master chef, God will take the ingredients of pain and suffering and work them together for a pleasing product. One day, our pain will metamorphosize into pleasure, just as God turns a fuzzy, worm into a beautiful butterfly. All things will be good…we just have to be patient. That was Paul’s response to the problem of pain.
But another hard question arises that we face as followers of Christ. Here is it: If the Bible teaches the doctrine of hell—that God sends people to a horrible place of punishment where the fire is never quenched—if the Bible teaches that such a place exists and that most people born on this earth end up there, then how can we claim that our God is loving and good? Can you really trust in a God that creates a place like that? Should I walk closer to that God, or should I turn and run like I would from a rabid dog?
As we look in Romans 9 this morning, we are about to discover Paul in one of his lowest moments. He is depressed because all of his loved ones—the people that he grew up with and used to run with—they have chosen a pathway to hell. And you can sense in the first few verses of this chapter the deep anguish that he feels for his lost, loved ones. Look at the heart of an evangelist in vv.1-5…
Paul says, “I have unceasing anguish in my heart. I have great sorrow.” So dreadful was Paul’s pain that he actually wishes he could change places with his lost friends, as if that were possible. He says in v.3… “I wish that I could be cursed and cast into hell so that they might be saved, but I can’t.” This nagging pain is what every mother feels who has a prodigal son that is throwing his life away. This pain of Paul is felt today by a brother who watches his own sister run away from God. Paul was hurting because the people he loved the most were rejecting the One that could save them. Jesus had died first for the Jews and Paul was the black sheep in the family of Israel. No, he was the white sheep. He was clinging to the cross, while everyone else ran away, and he couldn’t understand why.
These Jewish people had been given every chance to be saved. If you will notice in verse 4, there is a long list of privileges that were provided for the Jews by God. Theirs is the adoption as sons. God calls Israel his firstborn child in Ex. 4:22, that’s a special thing. Theirs was the adoption as sons, but not just that. Theirs is the divine glory—the shekinah glory of God that filled their temple and sat down upon their camp. Other peoples of the world didn’t get to see that. They also had the covenants—the covenant with Abraham, then with Moses, then with David. God made special promises to Israel that he didn’t make to other nations. There was the receiving of the law, the 10 commandments where God spoke with his voice to Israel and wrote on tablets with his finger. He was reaching out to them. There was the temple worship, the priesthood, and the sacrifices that all pointed to the coming of the Lamb of God, the Jewish Messiah. They had the patriarchs—not just Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the founders of the 12 tribes of Israel and men like Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and David. What a privilege they were given to have men like these. And to top off the list, they had the ultimate man—the God man—came from among them, Jesus Christ. If you look at Matthew 1, it begins with a family tree and from the Jewish line came the Son of God.
Now don’t miss the point. God honored the human race when he chose to wrap himself in flesh, take on human skin, and become one of us. But even more, he honored the Jews when he chose to slip into the world as a Jew and proclaim salvation first to the Jews.
If ever there was a people on the face of the earth that should have recognized the coming of the Lamb, the Savior of the world, it was the Jews. They had front row seats. Yet, Paul is perplexed with the situation at hand. His Jewish brothers are hardened to the gospel. John says, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him,” but WHY?
How did the Jews, with their privileged position and history, fail to recognize the King of Kings? And Paul knows that the question is coming: did God fail? Is this God’s fault? If Israel was His plan for salvation, and Israel is a wash, did God’s plan fail? And even more important, can I trust in a God who fails? And Paul rushes to defend the character of God. He says, “Let me tell you about my God and why you can trust Him…”
Can I Trust Him?
1. God is sovereign. (vv. 6-13)
Look with me at vv.6-13.
Paul says, “God did not fail,” and he explains. There have always been two Israels—the physically born and the spiritually born. And God’s promise has always been to the spiritual Israel, not those with Jewish blood running through their veins, but those with a heart that beats for God.
What Paul does here is he uses two well-known OT stories to prove his point that God is sovereign and He can be trusted. He starts with Abraham. Abraham had two sons—his firstborn was Ishmael but this son was born out of a sinful relationship with a servant girl, Hagar. Ishmael was his first born son, but he was not the son of promise. There was a second boy, who came much later in life. His name was Isaac—and it was through Isaac that God chose to bring forth a great nation. It was through Isaac that God would bring redemption for sinners like you and me. Through the line of Isaac would come the nation of Israel and the person of Jesus Christ.
So here is a God who chooses to do things. But why did God choose Abraham, out of all the men on the face of the earth? Why did he single out Abraham and give him such a privileged position as the Father of Nations? Was it because Abraham was the most righteous, honest, godly man on earth? No! Joshua 24:2 tells us that Abraham was bowing down to false gods when he was singled out. So why did God choose Him? Because He saw fit to do so. Because He decided to pour His grace out on Abraham. And When Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, why did God choose to work through the life of Isaac and not Ishmael? Because God sovereignly chose. God can choose whom he wants to accomplish what he wants when he wants. But someone says, “Well, certainly, God chose Isaac because he came from Sarah and not some pagan servant girl, Hagar. Isaac was the better choice. Isaac deserved this act of grace!” Didn’t he?
Not so fast, because the illustration of Jacob and Esau is going to destroy that line of thinking. Paul is going to say, “But what about Jacob and Esau? These two boys had the same father and mother. They were twins in their mama’s womb and God sovereignly singled out Jacob before they were even born. Look at vv. 11-13… “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Now let me say something to you right now, because those verses are dangerous. They are easily misunderstood. Many people have gotten tripped up right here. I sing a little song to my kids at night. It goes like this, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” Is this really true? After all, God hated Esau and Esau was a baby. No, no, no. That’s not what this means. God does not hate babies. When it says that God hated Esau, that does not mean that he despised the unborn. If God hated babies, how could Paul say in 1 Cor. 13 that God is love. So what is going on here with this hate language? Jesus tells us exactly what’s going on here in Luke 14:26. This is what it says…
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26
Does Jesus want me to hate my mother? Does he want me to despise my wife? Does he hope that I will burn with anger toward my own children? Of course not. This cannot be taken literally. Jesus is speaking here in hyperbole. He is exaggerating for effect and the point is one of preference. He is teaching that in my heart, my preference should always be for Christ. I love my wife, Lynley, but I love her better when she is second in my life—second to Christ. And I must choose to give Jesus first place in my heart and all other relationships should pale in comparison. I am not supposed to literally hate my family. I am simply called to give preference to Christ.
Likewise, God did not hate Esau as an unborn child. Now, Esau did grow up to be a scoundrel, and God surely was angry with him later in his life, but the same could be said of Jacob. Jacob was no angel and he also demonstrated a sinful heart on many occasions. So if both of these boys were flawed and imperfect, then why did God say that the older, Esau, would serve the young? The answer: God can choose whom he wants to accomplish what he wants when he wants. He is a sovereign God, and believe me, you and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
There are popular theologies running rampant today that suggest that God does not know the future and he has no power over it. He is like a fisherman in a boat that is filled with holes. Frantically, he is trying to bail out the water and keep this thing afloat. He is trying to hold it all together. That is some people’s picture of God, but that is not the God that is described in Scripture. In my Bible, it says,
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. Is. 40:8
The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations. Ps. 33:10-11
God is not like some rookie football coach trying desperately to use trick plays so that he might pull off an upset. God is not like some college quarterback throwing hail mary’s into the end zone and praying that someone comes under the ball. No, he foils the plans of the nations, he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. The plans of the Lord stand firm forever! You can trust in this God because he is Sovereign and He will accomplish exactly what he promised. Jesus said of this book, “Heaven and earth will pass away, by my words will never pass away.” God chooses to do good things for His people and he always follows through.
Now, listen. God made a decision before I was born to call me as a preacher. That was His choice. I have two brothers, one that is a police officer, and one that is a business manager. Since God called me to be a preacher in His Church, does that mean that He loves me more than my brothers? Of course not. It does not mean, “Ben he loved; Tim and Jon he hated.” No. It means that God is sovereign and He can use whom he wants to do what He wants when He wants.
Going back to this story in Genesis, in a time, when the older brother was, by custom, given special rights in the family, God said, “I am going in another direction, the older will serve the younger.” Through Jacob will the nation of Israel come. God was and is sovereign over redemption. You can trust him. He is all-powerful.
2.Yes, He is Just. (vv.14-21)
Now Paul is a logical thinker. He anticipates a question from his audience. The question is: Well, isn’t that unfair of God? How unfair to look past Esau and hand the baton to Jacob. That’s not fair of God to give Jacob such grace!” Listen, the Bible never calls God “fair.” God is not “fair.” If he were fair and gave people exactly what they deserved—that’s what fair means—then not one man would enter the kingdom of heaven. Just like the fallen angels, we would all be cut off and cast into hell, and that would be fair. No second chances. Do you want a fair God? I don’t think you do. Praise God that he is not fair, as we define it, but instead, he is merciful and just. Look at vv. 14-18…
Now, before we dive into these verses, I want to give you a biblical truth that will keep you from heresy. If you can hold onto this truth, it will keep you from falling off the edge of theological extremes. Here it is:
If I go to heaven, God will take all the glory. If I go to hell, I will take all the blame.
Do you understand that? God is a just God and there is not one person in hell that does not deserve to be there. People are eternally damned because they rejected God’s love. On the other side, there is not one person in heaven that deserves to be there. People are eternally saved because God freely chose to exercise mercy over judgment. He is merciful.
Now, keep that in mind as we go to these difficult verses. Look at v. 14. Is God unjust? Paul asks. Well, that is a rhetorical question that has an obvious answer which is “NO.” And Paul uses two more Jewish examples to drive this point home. The first is Moses. In Exodus, God said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I’ll have mercy and I’ll have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Let me illustrate this truth. Imagine that I have $1000 dollars in my pocket. And as I walked into church today, this man approached me and said, “Ben, I have gambling problem and I have thrown all my money away. I don’t have a place to stay. I don’t have any food to eat. I am miserable.” As soon as he is done talking, another man walks up and says, “Ben, on Friday, I was caught stealing from my company and I was fired. I don’t have a place to stay. I don’t have any food to eat. I am miserable.” And when he is done talking, this woman walks up and says, “Pastor, I am so embarrassed. I bought a house I couldn’t afford and the bank has foreclosed on me. I don’t have a place to stay. I don’t have any food to eat. I am miserable.”
Well, here are three people in a miserable state, and here in my pocket is $1000. Now, I don’t have to show mercy to any of these people. This is my money and I can do what I want with it. Not only that, but these people made their own beds and I could let them lie in them. But for whatever reason, I now choose to walk to up to this man and say, “Sir, I am going to bless you. I am going to show you mercy and compassion. I want you to have this $1000 dollars.”
And just as soon as I hand that money over, these other two rise up from their pews, and they cry, “Injustice! This isn’t fair. How can you be compassionate to him and not to us?”
And what do I say? “Because I chose to. I desired to help him.” Now this analogy is not perfect because I am not perfect. I have a history of making bad decisions. I am not all-knowing and all-wise. But God is almighty, all-loving, all-powerful, and all-wise, and he said to Moses, “I will not be fair. I will be merciful. I will not give all people what they deserve, I will save some!”
Let me tell you something. God loves sinners! God so loved the world, the Bible says, that He gave his one and only Son. And He does not answer to man, but he has chosen to be merciful toward man. You might be asking, “How do I know if I am one of those that God has chosen to be merciful to me?” Let me tell you, the Bible says in 2 Peter 3:9,
The Lord …is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Surrender to Jesus Christ today and you will receive mercy! The Bible says do not trample on the blood of Christ.
Don’t be like Pharaoh. Pharaoh missed his chance and was cast into hell. Look what Paul says about him in v.17+…
Pharaoh is one person that did not receive mercy because he had a hardened heart. Now, it says here that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. So, does this mean that Pharaoh is off the hook? After all, this was God’s doing, right? Wrong. Neither here nor anywhere else in Scripture is God said to harden anyone who did not first harden himself. It does not say here that God chose to send Pharaoh to hell. It says that God raised him up in order to display his power. That doesn’t mean that God created him in order to destroy him. It means God gave him a platform in Egypt at a specific time. God brought him onto the stage of history, and he used the stubborn, obstinate heart of Pharaoh, to accomplish His will. If you study the book of Exodus, you will see that 17-20 times it is stated that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. About half those times, it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. .
Don’t miss the warning here! Sinful man, if you harden your heart toward God, he just might crystallize it for you. The Bible warns us of this:
Watch out, brothers, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God. Hebrews 3:12
God gave Pharaoh every opportunity to repent. He showed him miracle upon miracle, but that man had decided that he was his own god. He resisted the true God and came under his wrath. If God hardens people’s hearts, he is not being unjust, for that is what sinners deserve. The wonder is not that some are saved and others are not. They great mystery is that God would save any at all!
But here comes another question in vv.19-22… Again, many have gotten tripped up here over the centuries. The picture is God an artist. He is a potter, in his studio, forming and fashioning his clay. But here is where people misunderstand. God does not form a baby in a young woman’s womb and say to himself, “I can’t wait to dash this one to the ground.” What artist works in that way? Not one. An artist pours his heart into his work and cannot wait to put it on display. He loves the work of his hands.
I want to show you a picture. This is our new baby, Jack. He is one week old. He is the newest member of the family, but he is not the only member. Here is his big brother, Miles. Miles just turned 1 in May. He has a real sweet personality and temperament. But he’s not the only big brother. This is Jack’s other big brother, Max. Max is two now and the boy is full of energy. But my family is not made of just boys, here is Jack’s big sister, Ava. Ava is 4 and likes to hold her new little brother.
Now, I believe that God formed each of these children in their mother’s womb. I believe that He has a special plan for each of their lives and if these 4 kids follow the voice of God, they will experience joy and happiness. But, here is the question: could I serve a God that anxiously awaits the opportunity to send that child to hell? No, God is love, and if these children choose to love Him, there is an eternal reward in heaven awaiting them. God does not delight in death. Listen what he says to Israel through the prophet Ezekial:
For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! Ezekial 18:32
Don’t talk back to God. Just trust Him. He is sovereign, He is just. And finally,
3.He is loving. (vv.22-25)
Now I want you to notice how Paul brings this together. Pay close attention to v. 22….
Our God is an exceedingly patient God. Paul says, “He bears with great patience the objects of His wrath.” The Bible says in Revelation that the saints are pressuring Him saying, “How long Oh Lord. Put an end to sinful humanity.” But our God is unmoved. He endures with much patience a world of sinners. He puts up with our unbelief, our rejection, hatred, blasphemy, and iniquity, and keeps the door of salvation cracked just a little longer.
Notice how Paul describes sinners. They are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction by their own rejection of Him. As already noted, it is not that God makes men sinful but that He leaves them in their sin unless they repent of it and turn to His Son for deliverance.
The Greek verb rendered prepared is not in the active voice, but in the passive. That means that God is not the subject doing the preparing. No, God will not take the blame for Judas Iscariot’s greed. He will shoulder the responsibility for Cain’s murder. He will not bear the weight of Pharaoh’s pride. People prepare themselves for hell—a place that was originally designed for the devil and his angels. But, thanks be to God, not everyone goes to hell, for the Lord has chosen to put his mercy on display—and not just to the Jews, but to Gentiles like you and me. He has opened up the skies of mercy. V.24 says, “Not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles.” God loves all the children of the world—red and yellow, black and white! And this God is looking to expand the family. He is looking to claim those orphaned by sin, and he wants to put on them the robe of righteousness.
