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Romans 9:22: “But what if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction?”

Romans 9:23: “And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,”

Verse 22: “But what if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction?”

The apostle now applies the illustration of the Potter and the Clay to God’s sovereign purpose. The question is: “But what if God…endured with much patience [the free will of man] vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction?”

John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (NASB).

Verse 23: “And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,”

In verse 23 we have the continuation of the thought from verse 22, with the formal expression of the divine purpose in all of this: “in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”

You see in the 10 plagues in the book of Exodus in the land of Egypt a progressive patience on the path to punishment.

Someone has written: “History is just the accumulated stories of how God is working in the lives of all individual people on the earth.”

Someone else has said: “God is not defeated by human failure.”

Still another person said: “Events that are surprising to you are opportunities for surrendering to God.”

Gary Thomas wrote: “God is not impressed by our gifts, nor is he frightened by our inadequacies.” (Authentic Faith, 33)

Jesus, as He concludes His encounter with Nicodemus says in John 3:19-21: “And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God” (NASB).

Let’s celebrate by singing verse 3 of “Blessed Assurance”: “Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest; Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love. This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”

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Romans 9:20: “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who is answering back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?”

Romans 9:21: “Or is not the potter having a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for dishonorable use?”

Verse 20: “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who is answering back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?”

There are 2 questions in verse 20: (1) “who are you, O man, who is answering back to God?” and (2) “The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?”

In the “answering back” there is arrogant resistance to the sovereign plan and purpose of God.

He is the sovereign Creator. He is the Potter.

Isaiah 45:9: “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?” (NIV).

Isaiah 29:16: “You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘He did not make me’? Can the pot say of the potter, ‘He knows nothing’?” (NIV).

Isaiah 64:8: “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (NIV).

We are finite, frail and foolish in our natural state. We are just a puny little pip-squeak.

Verse 21: “Or is not the potter having a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for dishonorable use?”

The key words in verse 21 are “a right over.”

“Or is not the potter having a right over the clay.”

Jeremiah 18:4-6: “But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel’” (NIV).

Man’s origin was from the dust of the earth.

2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves” (NASB).

Jerry Bridges in his book Transforming Grace says:

…God is sovereign. And He is sovereign in every area of life. God as our Creator has the right to endow each of us at birth with different physical and mental abilities, with different temperament characteristics, and with different natural talents.

How appropriate it is for us this morning to sing verse 2 of “Blessed Assurance”: “Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; angels descending, bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love. This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”