God Promise of Election Fulfilled (Part 3)

Now you can almost hear the cries of the people saying, “Why does God find fault in us and condemn us to hell if he hardens and shows mercy as he sees fit?” Paul, again by inspiration of the Spirit, knew that this would be the case and so answered the question as it was asked. Here is what he says: You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-- even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? Romans 9:19-24

God in his perfect and infinite knowledge is working out his plan. Our knowledge is admittedly limited, yet God knows all. He knows every decision we will ever make, he knows the consequences of each of those decisions. He is surprised by nothing, and can learn nothing, because all knowledge is already His. And so God having this perfect knowledge forms some of us as people who will be saved, and forms others of us as tools whom through he will manifest His glory by our destruction! We with our limited knowledge try to understand and reason this out, and thereby shake our fists at the one who made us and yell, “Why did you make me this way?” Yet this is all part of God’s perfect plan for the peoples of all ages.

It is like a clay pot trying to understand why it was made as a washbasin, while another pot was made to be used as decoration. The pot, the created thing, can not know the full mind and will of the creator. It is simply impossible for a full understanding to come to the pot. It is likewise, simply put, impossible for us to fully understand the why and how of it all. As we find ourselves unable to comprehend we are tempted to throw our hands up and say I need not go out and share the gospel, I need not go out and work for the Lord, for I can not affect things one way or the other. Yet nothing is further from the truth. The truth is that we can not know on whom God will have mercy and whom he will harden. He knows, but we cannot. Yet through his sovereign will he has deemed the Gospel to be taken to people by the mouth of willing servants. We have to admit that we don’t know, and therefore we serve him by taking the message to everyone who will give us the time to listen.

Lord Jesus,
You know, and I admit that I don't know, whom will be saved and whom is doomed to destruction. However I will not let my limited knowledge be a reason to disobey you by not sharing the gospel. On the contrary Lord make my limited knowledge of who will be saved be the reason that I share the Gospel with everyone I meet. Let me be spurred on to share, that I might be a vessel of righteousness and not a vessel of wrath.