THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Romans 9:6-18
STUDY TO KNOW THE WORD FOR YOURSELF
V:6-8. \” But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham\’s descendants, but: \”THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.\” 8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.\”
A. The Word of God can never fail.
1. God is infallible
2. He knows the end from the beginning.
3. He is the same today as He was yesterday.
B. Our problem is interpreting the Word of God correctly.
1. We must understand that God\’s plan for man began before the foundation
of the world.
2. We must understand that God\’s election of those He dedicated to Jesus
was predetermined before the foundation of the world. Eph 1:4
3. Everything happens according to God\’s sovereign will.
C. \”They are not all Israel\”
1. Because you are a descendant of Israel does not make you an Israelite.
2. God chose Abraham to be the father of many nations and he became faithful
to God\’s commands. Gen 17:4.
a. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at the command of God
b. Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God. Romans 4:3
3. The true Israelite follows God\’s commands.
4. The true Israelites are descendants of Abraham by God election through faith.
GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES
V:9-10. \” For this is the word of promise: \”AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.\” 10 And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac.\”
A. God is faithful to keep His promises through all Generations.
1. God uses time to develop generations of faithful people.
2. God election continues through time.
B. In Rebekah\’s womb, God made an election of Jacob over Esau
1. God\’s election has nothing to do with us. It is His sovereign will
for us.
2. No one can claim justification by their works. Justification is by the justifier,
who is Jesus Christ. Romans 3:26
C. Notice, God divided the seed of Isaac into two nations.
1. One would be the nation of the promise.
2. One would be a nation who would oppose the promise.
GOD\’S SOVEREIGN ELECTION
V:11-13 \” For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God\’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, 12 it was said to her, \”THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.\” 13 Just as it is written, \”JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.\”
A. `God has a purpose and a plan for each of us.
1. God chooses us for specific jobs.
2. He chooses some for higher positions than others.
3. He chooses some to lead and some to serve.
4. Every position is designed to promote God\’s plan of redemption for mankind.
B, The Hebrew word for hate is \”miseo\” which means to love less or to detest.
1. It seems strange to me that God chooses some to love more than others.
2. God is sovereign, so I really don\’t have to understand.
3. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
4. It is by His grace and mercy that He chooses to bless who He blesses.
5. Jacob\’s name was changed after an encounter with God to Israel.
a. The name Jacob means supplanter.
b. The name Israel means soldier , contender with God. (1900 BC)
c. God called out Israel in Exodus 4:22 (1500 BC)
\”Then say to Pharaoh, \’This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son.\”
6. 400 years before the birth of Jacob God had foretold his position.
a. We really don\’t know what God has planned for us until He makes it known to us.
b. God allows all of our circumstances so that they fit His divine plan.
GOD IS JUST IN ALL HE DOES
V:14-15. \” 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.\”
A. The Lord we serve cannot be judged by us.
1. God is the creator and owner of everything.
2. What He chooses to do with us is His business.
B. What seems unfair to us, could be God plan for us being worked out.
1. We can observe the present, but we can\’t always see how events today
will work out for our good.
2. All things work together for those who love the Lord and are called
according to His purposes.
3. What seems bad to us by our way of thinking, may be working for
our good.
4. It\’s human nature to want to tell God what to do with His mercy and
His compassion.
5. If we had it our way, those we don\’t like would never be blessed.
6. It could be that God is using those we don\’t like to be a future
blessing for us.
GOD\’S ELECTION EXCLUDES YOUR INPUT
V:16. \” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.\”
A. God wouldn\’t be God if we were smart enough to tell Him what to do.
1. God wouldn\’t be God if we could tell Him what is just and what is unjust.
2. God wouldn\’t be God if we could tell Him what is right and what is wrong.
B. Man has nothing to offer God that he didn\’t received from God.
1. Man has no knowledge that he didn\’t gain from God.
2. Man has no strength that he didn\’t get from God.
3. Man has no worth that God didn\’t allocate to him.
GOD USES EVIL TO BRING HIM GLORY
V: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.\”
A. God has a purpose for everything to does and everything He allows.
1. The Egyptians became the caretakers for Israel until God decided to
fulfill His promise to Abraham.
2. God told Abraham 400 years before there was a nation, that Israel would
grow up in slavery. Gen 15:13
B. The delivery of the Israelites from Egypt served to show the world God\’s
power and authority over nations, Kings and the environment.
1. Israel was delivered from Egyptian army with out one gun being fired or
one battle being fought.
2. God used the forces of nature in the form of plagues to force Pharaoh
to release Israel from captivity.
3. God was gloried in the exodus of Israel from Egypt.
4. God used the forces of nature to destroy the Egyptian army.
5. God cleared a path through the Red Sea to allow Israel to escape.
6. God used the same path to destroy the Egyptian army.
GOD\’S SELECTIVE MERCY
V:18. \” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. \”
A. God harden the heart of Pharaoh so that he would not let Israel go until
the tenth plague when He killed all the first born males of Egypt.
1. God controls the minds and actions of evil people to work for the good of his
chosen people.
2. Just as God harden the heart of Pharaoh, He could have soften his heart.
B. God uses the harshness of life to grow His people into maturity.
1. God uses the harshness of life to give us a testimony of His goodness.
His power, His authority and His glory.
2. God uses the harshness of life to control us until He is ready to reveal
His glory to us.
3. All while we are going through tough times, God grace and mercy covers us.
4. God protects us through the tough times.
THANK GOD THAT HE CHOSE TO USE US
Rev. M. Mitchell
Asst Pastor Of Greater Macedonia Baptist Church
5510 West Sam Houston Parkway
Houston, Texas
For a complete list of my lessons visit my blog
\”goodnewsrevmitc.blogspot.com\”
Both, are your blogs are rather difficult for me to read because of they are written in outline style rather than prose or paragraph from.
Thank’s Mark for your comment.
I would appreciate any advice on how to may the blog easier read
Melvin Mitchell
Hello Rev Mitchell
Really, appreciate your the work and effort you put in this blog. Looks good and I always come away from this blog having learned something.
However, I’d like to point out that:
μισέω (miseō) is actually the attic/koine Geek word for hate used in Romans 9:13. Danker has the following to say about the term:
Now, the Hebrew term used in Malachi 1:3 ( שׂנֵא / Saw-Neh) actually has a different nuance from the Greek term and basically means to reject.
Peace,
Bible Lover
Thanks Bible Lover. I appreciate your comment and your analysis of the Greek and Hebrew word for hate.
Any comments and research you do is helpful, instructive and encouraging.
Thanks
May God continue to bless your life.
Melvin Mitchell
Rev Mitchell since you think that the Church has replaced Israel how do you answer the fact that:
The Bible explicitly promises that God’s covenant with the Jews would be eternal (ie. unbreakable).
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name: 36 “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” 37 Thus says the LORD: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the
LORD” (Jeremiah 31:35-37 ESV).
Rev Mitchell Have you seen the sun, moon or stars today?
If so, you can know that the nation Israel still has a place in God’s plan because this passage clearly states that so long as the sun keeps coming up God will never reject the Jewish people (‘offspring of Israel’) – no matter what they do (v. 37b). This fact is confirmed in the New Testament where Paul says, “I ask, then, has God rejected his people [the
Jews]? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of
Benjamin. 2 God has NOT rejected his people whom he foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2 ESV).
This truth is confirmed in the New Testament as well:
“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29 ESV).
Here is New Testament confirmation that the land of Israel will always belong to the Jewish people. In this passage Paul is talking specifically about the Jews and is driving home the point that though most of the Jewish people rejected Christ, God will never reject the Jewish people. As part of Paul’s argument that God will never reject the Jewish people, he makes the above statement that ‘the gifts of God . . . are irrevocable.’ What this means is that once God gives a gift He never takes it back. In the specific context of this passage Paul is saying that God’s gifts to the Jewish people through Abraham will never be taken back – which would most certainly include the land of Israel (see above passages).
Some people may try to argue, however, that the word ‘gifts’ does not apply to the land of Israel. Two things
must be said in response to that:
1) First of all, the word ‘gifts’ here has to apply to all the gifts God gave the Jews – this passage certainly
cannot be twisted to say that only some of God’s gifts are irrevocable since Paul states clearly ‘the gifts,’
meaning all of His gifts.
2) Secondly, if the word ‘gifts’ doesn’t apply to the land of Israel, one would be hard-pressed to figure out
what other gifts Paul could be referring to. What other gifts did God give to the Jews that could be
irrevocable? It is clear from the above passages (Gen 17:8, Ps 105:8-11, 1 Chron 16:15-18) that one of the
main gifts God gave to the Jews was the land of Israel.
By no means has the Church replaced Israel. The Word say that the Church as been grafted into Holy Tree which is Israel
Rom 11:17 The text says that non belief caused the branched of Israel to be broken off from the Holy Tree. Rom 11:20
Rom 11:24 says that broken branches of Israel will be grafted back into the Holy Tree.
Thanks with Love
Melvin Mitchell
Romans 9:3-5:
Here Paul declares – present tense! – that the covenants and the promises still belong to Israel. Paul said this during the Church Age! Thus, based on this passage alone Replacement Theology is refuted – God has not cut the Jewish people out of the covenant He made with them, nor is He planning to give the blessings He promised to the Jews to the Church instead (though, of course, the Church will certainly share in many of the blessings that God will give the Jews).
Nowhere in the entire New Testament is the term ‘Israel’ used for those who are not ethnic Jews. Thus, there is no biblical basis for identifying the Church as the ‘new Israel.’
If God could break His covenants with the Jewish people, what’s to stop Him from breaking His covenant with us Christians as well? As theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg has remarked,
God did not break His covenant with Israel. His promises are everlasting.
Israel rejected Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Israel will be saved according to the covenant of God. God will bring them to faith in Jesus.
The text says that Israel will be grafted into the Holy Tree.
Thanks
Love Melvin Mitchell
I just wanted to say that I am enjoying this blog.
This was a very meaty post and it has given me a lot chew on.
Application is always the difficult thing for me and the outline format isn’t as easy to read on my iphone screen.
Thank you very much!
I’ll be back…
Rev Mitchell,
You must’ve done said somethin right cause they all came out to to comment this time!
Thanks Bubba Wilkinson for your comment and most for reading the Word of God, the Bible.
He studying God’s Word.
I pray that He will bless you and your family out of His riches.
Melvin Mitchell