In The Word
Read Romans 9:14-29
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 25 As He says also in Hosea,
“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’
And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”
26 “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; 28 for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” 29 And just as Isaiah foretold,
“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity,
We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
If God is love but does not save everyone, He must be unjust! Paul rebuked this philosophy: “May it never be!” Or may it never be mentioned! Instead, mercy and compassion are in the hand of God not man. Even as it was with Pharaoh who was given many opportunities to show mercy, he was shown no mercy. But in the end, God used Pharaoh to glorify His name.
This can be a hard concept to understand. Romans 9:18 says, “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” Like those that Paul was writing to, the question exists, why? Is God unjust? May that never be mentioned among us! Who are we that we can talk back to God? God is always just, and His favor is not fair. But it is at the discretion of God to whom He will show mercy and favor. God alone knows what is in the heart of man. Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.”
The world wants a god that looks over their sins and will not punish the sinner. But that would be an unjust god. When we question the motives of God, He confounds us with compassion. When we think He is unjust, He lavishes us with mercy.