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Now, in our first session this afternoon, we were considering together the character of God in his sovereign mercy and in his sovereign wrath, and his dealing with what Scripture here calls vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath. Let's take up our subject there and think just a moment more about what the phrase means. What is a vessel of mercy? What is a vessel of wrath? In my humble opinion, a vessel of mercy is not simply a man or woman upon whom God has mercy, and that's that.
A vessel of wrath, similarly, is not simply someone upon whom God pours out his wrath, and that's that. A vessel of mercy is a someone who upon whom God has mercy, so that that person becomes an advertisement of God's mercy to others. Let's look at how Paul describes God's mercy towards him and the purpose of it in his first letter to Timothy and chapter one. To see.
Uh. we take up at verse twelve. I thank him that enabled me, even Christ Jesus our Lord, for that he counted me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though I was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, howbeit I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.
How be it, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long suffering for an example of them which should hereafter believe on him unto eternal life. Two reasons are given here why God showed mercy to Paul. We shall come back to the first of them later in our session. We notice the second one here and now. For this cause I obtained mercy, says Paul, because Christ intended to use me and his mercy towards me as an example to millions of other people.
An example to those who should subsequently believe on him unto eternal life. The matter is simple, though marvelous. In saving Paul, the very chief of sinners, on his own admission. The saving of Paul was no accident, no picking up of a man out of a lottery. God had mercy on him, God Christ had mercy on him to make it evident to the world to come that if God would have mercy on him, he'd have mercy on anybody. If God would have mercy on the chief of sinners, there wouldn't be anybody that God wouldn't have mercy upon.
He was a vessel of mercy, made into such. And millions upon uncounted millions all down these two thousand years have heard of Saul and his persecution of the church, have heard of his bitter, arrogant persecution of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and how Christ had mercy on him, and only not only had mercy, but put him into his service. And they have read Paul's experience. This is a faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He saved me, look at me. If he saved me, he'd save you. Millions encouraged by that example have trusted the Savior.
That's what it means to become a vessel of God's mercy. And similarly, in becoming a vessel of God's wrath, as we said at the end of the last session, it was not merely that Pharaoh, when he refused to repent, was eventually destroyed by God under God's wrath, but God used Pharaoh as an exhibition, as an advertisement, as a warning of what must in the end overtake hardened, impenitent sinners. And God's made Pharaoh stand like a beacon in the night, a warning to all who should come afterwards, that under the pressure of that warning, people might repent and seek salvation.
And we saw how God used Pharaoh's punishment and destruction as a means, for instance, of bringing the likes of Rahab the harlot to repentance. Who hasn't heard of the story of the Passover? And the judgment that befell people in Egypt. And hearing it have heard how that God made a way of escape even for Egyptians, had they chosen it, in the lamb and its shed blood. And millions have been moved by that story to find and seek mercy at the hand of God.
If that is what vessels of broth and vessels of mercy are, let's now ask the question, what do you have to do to become a vessel of mercy? Uh, pretty obvious what you have to do to become a vessel of wrath. But can anybody be a vessel of mercy? Or is it that God, by some eternal decree in times past, chose out some to be vessels of mercy, and therefore they eventually became vessels of mercy, but bypassed others, and that therefore they never had any chance to become vessels of mercy, even if they would like to have been.
No, that is not true. The great sorrowful problem that lay upon Paul's heart on his own confession as he wrote these chapters was why were not the bulk of Israel saved? Whose fault was it? Why were they not at this moment vessels of mercy, like Saul of Tarsus was? And Paul tells us why. Look which at the end of chapter nine of Romans, verses thirty, thirty one, thirty two. What shall we say then?
That the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why didn't they? Why didn't they succeed in becoming vessels of mercy? They were keen enough in their religion. They were seeking after a righteousness. They weren't, uh, alcohol-soaked reprobates. They were seeking after righteousness. How was it they didn't become vessels of mercy then? Was it because God hadn't chosen them to be vessels of mercy?
No, it wasn't. Why was it then? Because they refused to be vessels of mercy. They persisted in their own idea that they could earn salvation by keeping God's law. That by their own efforts to keep God's law, they could attain to righteousness. Now, that isn't possible. You cannot find salvation that way. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified before God. But suppose Israel could have succeeded by their own efforts to keep God's law.
Marvelous. But I tell you one thing, they could never be that way round. And what is that, you say? Well, vessels of mercy. Could they? You try it on. Go round to your next door neighbor, knock on the front door, and when he comes, tell him this. You know, look at me. Mm-hmm. You're an old sinner, that's what you are. But I, by diligent persistence in keeping the law of God, I have succeeded in keeping that law, and look at me, what a shining example I am of righteousness. Hm. You do look pretty, your next door neighbor will say. I could never be like you.
So, that's that. Goodbye. And when you're gone, they say, what a stuck up fiend. If you succeeded in earning your own salvation, by that means you cancel out all possibility of ever being a vessel of mercy. Oh, but my brother, if in God's grace, my sister, if in God's grace your eyes have been opened to see that you were a sinner going on your way to hell, and God had mercy on you. You can go to your next door neighbor with a very different message.
And you can say, look at me. You know, I never could be as good as you anyway if I tried. But if only you knew me and knew me as God sees me, you would know that I am a sinner deserving of hell. I want to tell you this, God has saved me. If he'd saved me, he certainly would save you. That's you being a vessel of mercy. Why couldn't Israel be vessels of mercy? Because they wouldn't be. As chapter ten goes on to explain, they had a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they would not submit to God's way of making a man righteous.
It was their own pride and misdirected religious zeal that stopped them from being vessels of mercy. I say it in all the fear of God. By God's grace, anybody that can become a vessel of mercy, if they will agree with God that they deserve his wrath and will flee to the Savior who died on Calvary for them and accept God's mercy, free and for nothing. But when I say that, I'm sure that I shall, so to speak, uh, crash the gears and get my cogs a grinding with other very fertile theological minds.
And some may say, but now there we cannot quite follow you. Because, you know, well, after all, the Bible does say, doesn't it, that, uh, it isn't a question of your making up your mind to be a vessel of mercy. It is God's sovereign choice, as the Lord Jesus put it. Those whom the Father has given me, come to me. And you have to be given by God to the Savior before you can be saved. And God decides whom he will give to the Savior by his election, carried out before the foundation of the world.
God decides to give some people to Christ, and by that very decision, passes by others, he does not give them to Christ, and therefore these others are not saved. In fact, they never had a chance of being saved. How can you therefore say that anybody can become a vessel of mercy if they will come in repentance and faith to the Savior? Well, there lies a big problem with many people, doesn't there? I perhaps aggravated that difficulty last night, if you can remember that far back, uh, do you see, with all the riches of the treasures that have been expounded to you in seminars and preachings.
But let me just remind you, we talked at the end of our session last night from chapter ten of the Gospel by John, do you see, where our Lord Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish. On the other hand, said Christ to the Pharisees around him, you believe not because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, but those that are not of my sheep don't hear my voice. And that seems to suggest to some people that, uh, you become God's sheep because God decides in his sovereign decision to elect you as one of Christ's sheep.
And therefore, being elect and now being Christ's sheep, you will eventually hear the voice of Christ and come to Christ. Whereas if God hasn't elected you as one of the sheep, you are not of Christ's sheep, and because you're not of Christ's sheep, then you will never believe on him, and therefore you will be lost. Surely you could say then it all depends on whether God has chosen you to be a sheep and has then given you to Christ or not. And I was rash enough to say last evening that according to the end of that same chapter of John, Christ, still speaking to these people that were not yet his sheep, showed them the path that they must follow if they would become his sheep.
The fact that they weren't yet his sheep did not mean that they could never become his sheep. So, by your leave, I read you again the final verses of John chapter ten, which is the ch- the chapter in question. Verse thirty seven, it is. Our Lord has just proved to these Jews that his claim to be the son of God is not blasphemous, as they thought it was. And he has proved it by citing the Old Testament scripture to them, where God describes certain human beings as gods, because the word of God has come to them.
And says our Lord, if the Bible itself says by the mouth of God, you are gods to whom the word of God came, it cannot be blasphemous for me, whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, to say, I am the Son of God. It is not an insuperable theological difficulty, as many Jews imagine it to be, that Jesus Christ claims to be the Son of God and equal with God. That theological difficulty being now disposed of, what does Christ do? Turn on his heel and walk away from these people and say, well, it's no good my arguing any further with you, gentlemen.
You see, you are not of my sheep, you are not of the elect. God has not given you to me, and therefore it's useless my speaking to you. Goodbye. No, he doesn't. They're not yet of his sheep, but now he tells them how they could become his sheep. Listen to him. If I do not the works of my Father, says he, believe me not, but if I do them, though you believe not me, believe the works, that you may know, that you may come to know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.
Do you suppose our Lord was mocking those men by holding out in front of them a thing that was never a possibility because they weren't elect. Our Lord mocked nobody. These men were not yet his sheep. They were frightened of him. When he stood in front of them and they Orthodox Jews and claimed to be the Son of God, it frightened them. Was that not sheer blasphemy? And if it was blasphemy, they had a right to stone him. They were commanded to stone him in the Old Testament. Frightened little sheep they were.
When they heard his voice, they thought it was the voice of a blasphemer and couldn't trust him. In their eyes, trusting him would mean going off into idolatry. What will Christ do? Not yet his sheep. But you know, there's a way of dealing with sheep, isn't there? Take any little sheep that you may happen to know of. You walk up a country lane, there's a batch of sheep. Now, all sheep have the potential to get to know a shepherd, you know. That's a potential sheep have. They're not rhinoceroses, uh, do you see? Ha ha. They're sheep. Now, sheep that have got used to a man and discovered the man is kind to them and feeds them and protects them, they'll follow him.
They recognize him in as a shepherd, and they'll come running to him. But when you appeared, oh yes, look at you, as a sheep seems to see you, oh, what a mountain of ferocity. And he looks at you very askance. You can say, come here, little sheep, in your dulcet tones, but mm-hmm. Wisdom suggests to the sheep he doesn't trust you. So what do you do? You pluck a bit of juicy grass, and standing at the distance, you throw it down to the sheep, and then you withdraw. And the sheep looks at that grass, ha ha ha. And then it looks at you and looks at the grass, and the grass looks very green.
He doesn't trust you, but he trusts the grass, and he makes a dive for it, eats it, and runs back again. Ha ha. So then you get another bit of grass, and you say, sheep, old sheep, by boy, that was lovely grass, wasn't it? And you throw another bit of grass down, but this time nearer yourself. And the sheep looks at you, and he looks at the grass, and he makes up his mind the grass is good, so he comes and does another run. And then you throw another bit of grass much nearer. And by that process, believing the grass and finding it very good, he gradually comes right near you till at the end he starts to trust you and will take the grass out of your hand. He's become one of your sheep.
Oh, the infinite compassion of God. When he sent his son to save people, and these dear religious Jews got it into their head that the very son of God was stating blasphemy, and they ought to stone him or crucify him or something, and couldn't trust him. Listen to his compassion. This is God incarnate. Ah, gentlemen, says he, you can't trust me, can you? Not yet. I tell you what, if you don't believe me, believe my works, look. You've just agreed with me, haven't you, that you're not going to stone me for my good works because you say, yes, their works are good.
All right, I'll retire a moment, gentlemen. You start here. You believe the works. And believing the works and finding out what their moral quality is, and the obvious fact that they're done by supernatural power, and the works save men, and where they're saved, those works bring them nearer to God to discover what the heart of God is really like. Till they say, like the blind man said in that argument with the Pharisees, well, I don't know much theology, said he, but, uh, it was never heard from the beginning of the world that anybody should open the eyes of one born blind. This man must be of God.
The man, the blind man, was trusting the works, and the Lord had withdrawn, of course. But he, not a very theological sheep, I'd admit, but the blind man, he was a sheep, and he was experiencing one of the good works, and in his heart rising a trust in this Jesus. And though the Pharisees said he was a wicked man, the blind man said, no, it can't be. Look at his works. Oh, God doesn't hear sinners. It must be of God. God used him to open my eyes. And trusting the works, then he eventually met the Savior again, and the Savior asked him, do you believe on the Son of God?
He said, who is he, Lord, so that I might believe. Ready to believe now. And the Lord said, thou hast both seen him, reminding him of the miracle, seen him physically, and he it is that speaks with you. And he said, Lord, I believe. Oh, how wonderful the actual truth is, dis- distinct from men's imagination. I remember being in a place once at a conference, and I'd done my poor best, you know, to expound something or other, and I was assailed by a gentleman who took exception to something I'd said, you see, and said that no, if people were not Christ sheep, that was that, it was no good preaching to them.
There was nothing to preach to them except the certainty that they would perish forever in hell. The question was if you were Christ, one of Christ's sheep. If you were, you'd be saved. If you weren't, there was nothing you could do about it. I said, that's odd. Because I said that same chapter ten of John's gospel, our Lord talking to people that weren't yet his sheep, told them how they could become his sheep. That's downright impossible, he said, and walked off. So he didn't give me the chance to. Sometimes our systematic doctrines stop us from looking to what scripture actually says. And I repeat it. Those that weren't yet his sheep and couldn't believe him, it tells them how they could become by first believing his works, and believing his works, coming to experience the mercy and grace of God through Jesus Christ, coming to see that Jesus Christ must be of God, and then becoming his sheep.
I told you that in these studies we would become, come to read the very heart of God. Let us not imagine God after the terms of Greek philosophy, as so many medieval Christian theologians did. If we want to know what God is like, the answer is God is like Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what God is like. But as it will be said to me along this line, and I respect the viewpoint, but does not our Lord in John seventeen say that the Father has given certain people to the Son?
Well, he does. Let's read it. Please, because I do believe it, that the Father gives people to the Son. So let's read what the Lord says about them. The verse one of chapter seventeen of the Gospel by John. These things spake Jesus, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee, even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life. There it is plainly stated that the Father gives people to the Son, and to them Christ the Son gives eternal life.
Now let's see that amplified as our Lord proceeds with his prayer. Verse six: I manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me. Let's pause there. What does that mean? These people that the Father gives to the Son, first of all, they were God's. Thine they were.
Not thine they are, thine they were, and thou gavest them me. What does that mean? Perhaps the easiest way to understand it is to consider who these people were, of whom he is now talking historically. Here around him in the upper room were uh eleven disciples. Outside, there were many others, like Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Of them, our Lord says to his father, thine they were.
Meaning? That even before our blessed Lord began his public ministry, these people were already believers in God, weren't they? Mary and Martha and Lazarus and John and Philip and Thomas. Already true believing Jews, genuine in their faith of God, doing what the Old Testament prescribed for godly Jews to do, like Zechariah the priest, a God-fearing man and blessed of God, like Simeon, the aged Simeon, like Anna the prophetess, men and women who over long lives had lived for God, true believers in God.
They were God's people. Of course, there were those in Israel that, though they belonged to the physical nation of Israel, were not God's people. Some of them you'll read of in chapter eight. They profess to believe in the Lord Jesus, and when the Lord Jesus said to them, all right, you profess to believe in me, now then, if you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples genuinely and really, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And they replied, what do you mean, free? Free from what? Our Lord said, free from sin, of course. What do you think?
He that keeps practicing sin is a slave to sin, and I come to set you free. I said, what do you mean? You don't know who you're talking to, do you? Free? We've never been in bondage to anybody. And don't you stand there telling us that we're slaves to sin. Who do you think you're talking to? You go and preach that to the prostitutes around the corner, not us. We're children of Abraham. Well, our Lord said, that's peculiar. Because if you were chil- children of Abraham, you would do what Abraham did. Abraham didn't go around seeking to kill me. You can't be children of Israel- of Abraham, can you? Here they said, don't you be rude. We weren't born of fornication, even if you were.
We weren't born of fornication. We have one father, even God. That's even odder, said Christ, for if God was your father, you would love me. I tell you straight, God is not your father. You are of your father, the devil. Jews though they were, they had to be brought to see that they were unregenerate, rebels against God, as bad as Saul of Tarsus eventually became. The only way that Christ could ever lead such people to faith is, first of all, to get them see that in spite of being nationally God's chosen nation, they were personally unregenerate enemies of God.
Until they came to see that, they would never seek salvation. It was not until Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted Christ, woke up to the fact that he was a rebel sinner against God, for all his Pharisaic righteousness, that he sought and found salvation through Christ. To bring men and women to God, particularly the religious kind, Christ has first of all very often to show to them that they are rebels and sinners against God. But these others, Simeon, Anna, Mary, Joseph, and a multitude more were genuine believers, weren't they?
Like Isaiah and Jeremiah had been in their day, and the beloved prophet Daniel. And now here's our Lord talking to his father. These folks that you've given me, Father, he said, they were first of all yours, weren't they? Thine they were. They were believers in God. And thou gavest them to me. What does that mean? Well, they came to believe not only in God, but in the Lord Jesus. Now think what that would mean for a Jew. Listen to our Lord talking to his disciples. You believe in God, said he.
Of course they did. Orthodox Jews to the core. They believed in God, the one true God. Well, you believe in God. Believe also in me. Now, to many of you, that would be shocking beyond description. What for a man to say, you believe in God? Well, just as you believe in God, believe in me too. Would not that be utter blasphemy? To many a Jew, it would so appear. Jesus claiming the faith of people on an equality with God.
You believe in God, then believe in me in that same way. It wasn't blasphemy, was it? And Christ was not beginning a new heretical blasphemous sect in Judaism, as the Pharisees feared he was. He wasn't drawing away people from their faith in the one true God to putting faith in a mere man. It was the one true God himself, in whom these people already believed, that gave them to his Son, that they might be believers in the Son, even as they were believers in the Father. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me.
How did God give them to the Savior? Well, now our Lord records how God did it. This is the process by which people who believed in God now had come to believe in the Lord Jesus. Our Lord describes it, John chapter seventeen verse uh six: I manifested thy name unto the men that thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word, with this result, that now they know that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are from thee. For the words which thou gavest me I have given unto them, and they received them and knew of a truth that I came forth from thee, and they have believed that thou did send me.
That's how they were given to the Son. They believed in God, and when the Lord Jesus came, God gave Christ his word to preach, and not only his word, but his very words. And these people listening to the word and the very words of Christ found that those words were the words of God himself that God had given to the Lord Jesus to speak. And they came to realize that everything that Christ had, his words and his miracles, came from God. And waking up to the fact that they came from God, they believed that God had sent the Lord Jesus.
And they came to believe in Jesus, just as they believed in God. For to believe Jesus is to believe God. And to believe God is eventually to believe Jesus. That's how they were given. Now our Lord says, you have given to me these men, and this how it's been done through your word that I have preached to them, through the miracles you gave me to do. They come to know that everything I have said and done comes from you. They have believed, therefore, that I come from you and that I am your son, and therefore they believe in me. Now keep them, Father, in the name that you have given me.
A blessed name, Son of God, equal with the Father. Keep them in that faith that they not only believe in the Father, but now they have come to believe in Jesus, who carries the very name of God, given him of God. That's the process. Not some mysterious choice before the world, some mysterious decree before the world. Again, that's how it was done. Yes, but you say, doesn't it say somewhere also that, uh, no one can come to the Father except the Father draw him?
That is perfectly true, and is said in chapter uh six. When we come to interpret what our Lord meant, we once more would do well to regard the historical context. Our Lord had fed the people with bread, and therefore they came to our Lord seeking more bread. Give us this bread, they said. Our Lord said, but you've, you've not realized, gentlemen, I am the bread. It's not the bread is something different from me that I give you. I am myself the bread. They couldn't quite make out what that meant. Well, he said, you know, just as the manna came down from heaven, I have come down from heaven, sent by the Father to be the bread of life for the world.
They said, you've come down from heaven? Wow. I mean, Moses gave us the manna, but Moses didn't come down from heaven. You say you've come down from heaven. So there came an argument among themselves. They can't make out what this fellow was talking about. They said, come down from heaven. How can he come down from heaven? We know his father and mother and his aunts and his uncles. What is he talking about now he come down from heaven? And our Lord said, well, I know, my dear good friends, you find that difficult, don't you? I should think you do. Faced with that claim, you've never found it before from anybody, have you, that they come down from heaven when you know his mother anyway, and you think you know his father, and you've followed this baby ever since he was born.
You find it very difficult to think that he came down from heaven or even to make sense of the idea. Uh, yes, that is true, you, that is very difficult. That's virtually impossible for you to understand, except God should, the Father himself who sent me, should draw you and teach you, and then you could understand. You'll never understand it unless my Father draws you and teaches you. You say, there you are. Uh, now you've admitted it now. The Father, he decides to draw some and to te- uh, teach some, but that automatically means that there's a lot of others he's not prepared to teach.
Oh, really? Well, now our Lord quotes the Old Testament to prove this, that the Father has to teach you if you're going to understand that Jesus is the Son of God come down from heaven. And he quotes the prophet to this effect, the days come when they shall, some of them be taught of God. No, no, no. When they shall all be taught of God. All, you say? Yes, all. God is prepared to teach all. There are dangers when he teaches people.
When he opens anybody's eyes at last to see, and they reject it, then there is nothing that God himself can do further to save such people. Do remember the God that has given us light and given us eyes to see with, in his wisdom gave us eyelids. And when at last he opens people's eyes and shows them the light of his truth, it still remains that people can choose, if they wish, to shut their eyes against the light.
That is not God's fault. It doesn't stem for some, from some eternal counsel that, so to speak, damns people even before they are. We might follow that by observing now the argument in Romans chapter ten. We come back to the passage upon which we have been concentrating this afternoon. And we got to the point at the end of chapter nine where Paul points out, if I have understood him correctly, that anybody could become a vessel of mercy if they chose to, by acknowledging that they deserve God's wrath, repenting of their sin, and finding refuge in the Savior.
Why then were Israel not saved? Whose fault is it? In chapter ten, Paul, with sorrow still in his heart, analyze us, analyzes for us why Israel, at least the bulk of them, are still not saved. Whose fault is it? Paul gives us the reason. They have a zeal of God, highly religious, but not according to knowledge. Ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
That's why. You say, but was it possible for them to be saved? Weren't these people that God, weren't these people whom God had decided to pass by, and he wasn't prepared to give them faith, and therefore they couldn't believe? Wasn't it, isn't that the reason? It was in fact impossible for them to be saved because they weren't elect? No, indeed not. Salvation could have been as easy as this, says Paul. The word was nigh them in their mouth. And going deeper still, was in their heart. Oh, I say, how far God will go to save somebody.
The conditions are that if they shall confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved. And God, willing that none should perish, desiring that all should be saved, puts the very word in their mouths. God can't speak it for them. They'll have to say it, but God can do everything that God can do and put the very word in their mouth, so that all they've got to do is to speak it. It'll go deeper still. It'll get right down into their hearts.
The word is in their heart. They'll still have to close in and accept the offer. God can't do that for them, but he'll do all he can for them. And there is no difference, says Paul. For there is no respect of persons with God. All pray, listen. It is not that God would save some and he wouldn't save others. There is no respect of God, eh, with God, no respect of persons. There is no difference, Jew or Greek. For it stands written that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
It is not God's fault that they are not saved. Somebody says, yes, ha ha ha ha ha, your enthusiasm, Mr. Lecturer, is running away with you. Uh, you'd do better to resume your more orderly style with which you began. I'll do that then. We'll say it's okay you're standing there and saying that anybody who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, but it isn't as easy as that. For... you'll say, how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
So first of all, if they're ever going to call on the Lord to be saved, they've first of all got to believe, haven't they? How shall they call upon them, on him in whom they have not believed? So they've got to believe first. But then how are they going to believe, you see? Because it says here, how shall they believe in him? Now notice the next word, it is very important, a matter of prepositions, but a tremendous amount hangs on it. How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? The Greek here makes it very evident.
It is possible to hear somebody just with the hearing of the ear, like sounds coming out of a gramophone, and you're not listening to them really, and you hear the noise. It's possible also to hear with that deeper hearing. And the Greek makes it clear that Paul is talking about that. How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? If ever you're going to believe in Christ, you'll have to hear Christ. Not a question of believing the preacher. It's not a question merely of reading and believing certain marks of ink upon a bit of paper. Through that inspired written word, the Lord speaks, and you hear the Lord and know it is the Lord's word, and you believe him.
If you're going to believe on him, you'll have to hear him, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the gift of God. Mm. I see. Uh, I'd better stop there, hadn't I, for a moment and diverge, because I can hear the theologians getting out their swords already rattling in their scabbards as they draw them. But, Mr. Preacher, you've forgotten the plain, plain, straightforward teaching of Holy Scripture, which says that by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Saved by faith. But you see, the faith in question has to be the gift of God. God gives it to you, and you believe him. And if he doesn't give you the faith, you can't believe him. Oh, I see. So let's go through these difficulties. How shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? And you say, well, that is a point, you see, but they can't believe on him unless God gives them the faith to believe with. The elect are given faith, and they believe Christ, and therefore they call on him.
Those that are not elect, God doesn't give them the faith, they can't believe on. Faith, you see, is the gift of God, you say. And perhaps you back it home with your own experience, and you say, in my case it was so. God gave me the gift of faith. Praise the Lord, he did. Certain it is that faith is the gift of God. I don't begin to disagree with the point. How could I? Faith, the gift of God. How does God give you faith? Let me ask that. Yeah, I'll tell you what, I've got an idea. After this lecture, come to me and show me your faith. Where do you keep it? You've got it in a kind of a box inside your rib cage somewhere?
What, what, what, what is this faith thing that you've got, he gave you? When God gives you faith, how does he give it? Well, faith comes, of course, from God, from Christ, if you like. But faith comes, this is how it comes, it's how the gift comes. Co- faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. There's no great mystery about that. That's how faith comes with anybody. You, sir, you're engaged in business, and you say of one man, ah, I trust him, trust him with uncounted gold. I take his word for it.
I wouldn't demand he sign the agreement. I know him, honorable fellow. You see, I've done business with him for years, and I know he's a man of his word, and I've listened to him speak, and I've learned you can trust everything he says. How did your faith come? The man gave it to you, didn't he? How? Well, it was by the way he behaved, and the way he talked, and the way he kept all his promises, and you came to have faith in him. You didn't have to try to believe him. It was he that provoked the faith in your heart to trust him. Sir, why ever did you marry that lovely lady you married?
And madam, why ever did you trust that, well, we'll say handsome fellow whom you married? You say, I got great faith in him. How ever did you come by it? He gave you a Christmas present one day, and when you opened it, there was a bundle of faith. Of course not, you say. No, no. No, I, I watched him even before he watched me. I always had my eye on him, and I watched how he behaved, and I listened to the tone of his voice, and I listened how he kept his promises, and I saw how kind he was even to elderly and the children, and I saw how generous he was, and I said, if anyhow I could catch it. No, no, you didn't say that, but you said, um, uh, uh, if he were to look towards me, I mean, I'd jump at the offer.
Mm. The faith had arisen in your heart. It came from listening to this good man, didn't it? How does God give us faith? Well, he does it by the same method. He speaks, he works, he acts. He sent his dear son to show us exactly what he was like. And faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. That's how it comes. And now you see the force of the argument, don't you? How shall they call on someone in whom they have not believed?
If they don't call, they won't be saved. But in order to call, they have to believe on him. Well, how could they possibly believe in him whom they have never heard? Unless they can to hear in this deeper sense, faith will never arise in their heart. Here come the battalions of the theologians. They're mighty men, aren't they? They say, now at last, this is where the thing comes. This is where you're going to get caught out, Mr. Preacher. You see, ha ha, that's right. Uh, they can't, uh, believe unless they hear. And the trouble is, being unregenerate, they're dead in trespasses and in sins, and they can't hear. Don't you preach the gospel to them. You might as well preach it to the people in the graves in the cemetery.
They can't hear. Well, that's certainly, if they can't hear, then they won't be saved, will they? But let's proceed to the argument. And if they're going to hear, how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall the preacher send unless he, uh, preach unless he's been sent? You'll see it's not enough for a preacher to get up and speak just a lot of words. If what he says is going to produce faith in the hearts of the congregation, then that man must be sent of God with the very message of God and empowered by God's Holy Spirit to cause the people to hear. They are the conditions that must be fulfilled if people are going to call on the name of the Lord and be saved.
Well now, why are Israel not saved then? All they have to do is to call. Well, could it be then that Israel did not hear in that deep sense? Because they were unregenerate and they couldn't hear. So not hearing Christ, they couldn't believe in him, and not believing in him, they couldn't call upon him. It becomes absolutely vital, doesn't it? And Paul uses a form of a question in Greek that puts the matter beyond doubt.
There are three ways of asking a question in English, and perhaps many more. Even in American, I think it is true. I do say. You can have a question that's open, can't you? Is it raining? The answer could be yes or no. That's an open question. Or you could say, it's raining, isn't it? And the way you phrase the question means you're expecting the reply, yes, it is. It's raining, isn't it? Yes. Or you could put the question another way and say, it's not raining, is it? And the way you put it expects the answer, no. Paul phrases the question here expecting the answer, no.
And what is the question? Is it true that Israel did not hear? And that's why they're not saved, because they didn't hear, and therefore they couldn't believe, and therefore they couldn't call. Is it so that Israel did not hear? No, that is not the truth. They did hear. Oh, pray, listen to God and not systematic theology at this point. Unregenerate men though they were. God says they did hear. They could have believed.
They could have called. Paul repeats the question. Is it so that they didn't know? And that's why they didn't believe. No, that isn't true either. They did know. As Paul comes to the end of that chapter, he brings together evidence from here and from there to show that Israel did know and could have been saved, if only they would have repented and believed.
And among the evidence is the fact that Gentiles who hadn't even been seeking God, God had sent out the apostles, and Gentiles by the hundreds had come to faith to provoke Israel to jealousy as they saw Gentiles being converted and won from heathenism. I use the argument with my Jewish friends to this very present day, and I say, that's a funny thing to me, you know. I'm an old Gentile, and now I believe, you know. I tell you what, my good friend, I say to my Jewish acquaintances, I'm an old Gentile, but I don't believe in any old kind of God, you know.
No, I should think not. I've come to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if you ask me, how did you come as an old pagan Gentile to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I'll tell you how. It was through a Jew. His name is Jesus. And as a Jew, he has brought millions of Gentiles to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why can't you Jews believe in him? Show me a Jew who has brought more pagan Gentiles from their idolatry to believe in the one true God of Israel.
Show me a Jew who's done more than Jesus Christ to do it. Did Israel know? Yes, of course they knew. Ah, but it's more than that. God wasn't prepared to leave it to mere rational argument. For in the end, the matter is instinctive, isn't it? A man's relation with his creator. Listen now to God. Did Israel know? All day long, says God.
I have stretched forth my hands. What a metaphor. How vivid. Can you picture it? Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, Lord of the billions and billions of galaxies with their multi-billion stars, pleading with mere human men and women. Why would he do any such thing? He loves them. He's their creator. He has a moral responsibility for them. He made them. They didn't ask to be made, he made them.
And owns his moral responsibility for them. And though they've sinned, he's provided a savior for them. They needn't perish, and they won't come. So God comes in the person of Jesus, and all day long stretches out his arms like parents would to a little child, pleading with them to come. Oh, how near Christ, uh, God's arms came to us when his own dear son was given up to Calvary. How near did God stretch his arms to guilty sinners? I ask you this afternoon, as God stood there, as he stands still, with his arms open, pleading by his very gesture as well as his words, pleading for people to repent and believe.
I ask you this, is God being sincere? Or is he just pretending? Is it so that he has an external counsel by which he would be, uh, willing for folks to be saved, uh, and so he stretches out his arms, pleading with them to come, but he has a secret counsel because he himself decreed in eternity past that these particular people here, he decreed that he would pass them by and allow them to perish because that was his divine sovereign will.
He determined that they should perish. Is that true? Two different kinds of counsels? And he stands there pleading with them to come, and he knows in his heart they can't come. Why can't they come? Their only chance of coming would be if God gave them the faith to come with, and God is not prepared to give them the faith to come with. But he makes out he wants them to come. He could, he could have them come if he'd only give them the faith, but he's decided he doesn't want to give them the faith. He has decreed that they shall go on unsaved and perish eternally. So he has two councils.
He stands there pre- uh, according to the one, pretending he wants them to come, and in his heart of heart he doesn't want them to come at all. Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, to take that view, I humbly submit, let me not say it with too much warmth, that is a blasphemy upon the character of God. He would all men to be saved. They have heard, he says. They could therefore believe, and believing they would call. And it's easy because I put the word in their mouth and in their very heart. All they've got to do is just say it and accept it.
And I would save them at the cost of my son's sacrifice. I want them to come. But all day long, as I pleaded, they stood back and argued and refused and rejected. And what does God do then? I say it in all reverence. Does God say, marvelous, so glad that they have rejected it, you see, for now I have a good reason to say it's their fault, and I can get on with damning them.
No, no. We know what God's attitude is. For when our Lord Jesus stood for the last time outside Jerusalem and saw it, strong son of God though he was, he wept over it, oh Jerusalem, he said, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered thy children underneath my wings as a hen gathereth her chicks, and you would not. And he wept brokenheartedly over Jerusalem. Tell me, was his weeping a protest against God?
God had decided to let, to pass them by and let them be damned without trying to save them, but Jesus was kinder than the Father, and he would have saved them, and, but God didn't cooperate somehow. He didn't give them the faith to believe with. Oh, perish the thought. Do you want to know what God's attitude is? Look at Christ. Christ is the word made flesh. Look at Christ, and you see God. He that has seen me has seen the Father. You want to know what God's attitude is when he has to consign men to eternal perdition because they wouldn't accept salvation that he offered? Well, God's attitude of heart is the same as Christ's attitude.
Oh Jerusalem, how often I would, but you wouldn't. That is God. That is the God whom Jesus Christ our Lord has shown us in the gospel. And much more I ought to have said. My excuse that I haven't said it is, or at least I plead it in extenuation of my guilt, that I- I've included some other sorts of thoughts, stray thoughts here and there on the sheets of notes that you have.
Pardon me that we've not covered them in the seminar itself, but at least please regard them as some compensation for my dereliction of duty in not managing to achieve all that I set out to achieve.
