Divine Mercy and the Purpose of Hardening

SPEAKER 01 : 0:04

So just to review, Paul’s answer to the question of election, is God therefore unjust, electing a few and not others? Certainly not, he says, because that’s not what election is, electing a few and not others. He’s going to make that very, very clear. The election… Process is God’s choice to elect the whole world. God’s choice that in Jesus Christ all humanity will be predestined, is predestined to be saved. That is the gospel message. It may shock you and surprise many of you. But the whole issue of election, Paul then points out, and this is all by review, is mercy. God has mercy. He doesn’t have mercy on a few and not others. He brings everyone to a position where they want mercy. But until that time comes, he calls various ones who are ready for mercy. the ones who have been brought to an end of themselves, an end of their resources. I was listening to someone online this morning that talked about who became a Christian, a Muslim who had become an atheist and then a Christian. I’ve forgotten her name. She is a wonderful ambassador nowadays, I think, but she talked about her going into spiritual bankruptcy. That’s what happens, you see. Atheism ultimately, or even if atheism does not bring us into spiritual bankruptcy, it will in due time. The emptiness of the soul is an intolerable state. And so God positions people for grace. He positions people for his election process. He is love, he is grace, he is mercy, and he positions people by crises and the emptiness of their soul, by their very addictions and all the various things, to a place where they need him, either here or in the judgment. Then we mentioned yesterday that Paul quotes Moses, or the experience of Israel in relation to Egypt and slavery in Egypt. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So he’s talking about something new in the book of Exodus, and it is that God raises up Pharaoh. For the scripture says to the Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up. Now that is a remarkable statement, because Pharaoh was an unbeliever. He was an atheist. Well, he wasn’t really. He was a worshiper of many gods. And here God comes to us and says that I raised Pharaoh up. For what purpose? To show my power in you. How did that work? This is all by review. It worked by Pharaoh’s resistance of God. God tells Pharaoh to let the people go. And what does Pharaoh do? He resists. So this shows you, you see, that God can operate through agencies of unbelief as well as agencies of belief. Moses was an agent for God in his faith in him. Pharaoh was an agent for God in his rejection of him. Every time Pharaoh disobeyed God, then a plague came upon him. And every time he called upon God for mercy, his heart was hardened. So now we come to the next point, which is quite astonishing. Paul then says, Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. Oh boy, isn’t that a wrench in the works! Now we have hardening. What’s this all about? This is where many people go off the rails. They do really now believe, okay, God saves some, has mercy on some, but he hardens the rest. Now, what kind of a God do you think that would be? I would say an extremely terrifying God. God who loves some and hates others. God who chooses to save some and hardens the rest. What is this hardness all about? Again, I was listening to someone on YouTube today, and he talked about people who have their conscience seared, and saying that there is no hope for them. They are lost, and they are done for forever. Now look, Once you understand what God is talking about when he says in Isaiah 45, Before me, says the Lord, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall take an oath that in me alone is their righteousness and strength. What a devotion that is. What a commitment to God. In you alone, dear Lord, is my righteousness and strength. And every tongue, every knee that bows is going to take that oath. Now then, once you believe that, and that is reiterated in the New Testament, by the way, in Philippians chapter 2 and Romans chapter 14. Once you believe that, then you have to ask yourself, then what is hardening? First of all, who hardens the heart? Well, of course, a human being. How many hearts are hardened? Well, everybody. According to Romans 1.18, the whole world, all mankind, is in a state of suppression, both the pagan world, that’s Romans 1, and the religious world, Romans 2. We are hardened against God. We are in suppression of Him. Suppression is the same as hardening. Well, what does God do with that? Well, first of all, he reveals his Son who died for the sins of the world, who was risen for the resurrection of all mankind, representing all humanity. He reveals his Son and those whom he has positioned who are ready for believing in his Son, that is, those who have been brought to an end of themselves, They are given the gift of faith. They are given mercy. But those who resist that belief, they are hardening their hearts, of course. What happens to them? What does God do? He hardens them all the more. Now you say, well, what’s going on here? What’s he doing? What’s the purpose of that? Well, look, do you remember when Pharaoh hardened his heart? When, under what circumstances did he harden his heart? Well, God said, release my people. Pharaoh said, no. God said, if you don’t, I’ll send a plague. Pharaoh said, as it were, I don’t care. So God sends a plague. And when Pharaoh has had enough, he says to Moses, oh, pray to God to relieve the plague. So Pharaoh is asking for mercy. God gives mercy. And what happens? It hardens his heart. So then, hardening of the heart happens when people receive God’s mercy when they’re not ready for it. Those who are ready for it, having been brought to an end of themselves, receive mercy and conversion and a new life. Those who are not ready for it receive mercy and it hardens them all the more. Now, why would God do that? Well, first of all, let me remind you that Jesus says that God causes his rain and his sunshine to fall upon the just and the unjust. So you see then that God is having mercy on the world all the time, but most of the world resists that mercy and it hardens them all the more. So what is God’s purpose? Is it perdition? Is it to destroy them forever? Is it to create a seared conscience so that they will never turn to him? On the contrary, if you carefully read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will see that Jesus was working with two groups of people. Those who were ready to receive his love and grace were and those who were not. Let’s take for an example the men at the pool of Bethesda. Jesus comes to the pool, He sees this man who’s been lying there for a long, long time. He’d been sick or paralyzed for 38 years. Jesus gently comes up to him, asks him if he wants to be well. The man explains there’s no one to put him in the water. Jesus says, get up and walk. Take up your bed and walk. Take up your bed, which was a little mattress, and walk. The man does the very thing, and he is healed. And he skips about, picks up his bed, rolls his mat up, and races home. That’s God’s mercy upon that man. That’s Jesus’ mercy upon him. But what else is happening? Well, Jesus, the provocateur… did that miracle on the Sabbath day. And he didn’t just tell the man to get up, but take up your mat and walk, which was telling him to carry a burden on the Sabbath day, which was purposely against the Jewish tradition and law. And they were furious. Now look, why did Jesus do that? He could have healed that man on Sunday. He could have healed him on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. It wasn’t as if the man was going anywhere. But he healed him on the Sabbath. Why would that be? Jesus did it to provoke them, to provoke the Jews. They were hardened against him. So what does Jesus do? Provoke them and harden them all the more. For what purpose? Because he hates them? No, because their hardening is going to lead to what? To the crucifixion, to the murder of the Son of God. Just as Pharaoh then was placed in a position of and was hardened in the process of refusing God’s mercy so that Israel could be delivered, so also God positions the Jewish people in his day by healing that man, and there are many more examples, you understand that from the Gospels, by healing that man on the Sabbath day to provoke the Jewish people to harden them all the more, which led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Yes, but you say, is he just using one group, a hardened group, to bring the murder of the Son of God, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, so that another group will be saved, and they lost? No. Because in Romans 11, what we have, and we’ll come to that, is that their hardening, which leads to the crucifixion of Christ, which leads to the Gentile salvation, leads also to the Jews’ jealousy of the Gentile salvation, so that they also want salvation. How about all that? That is Romans, if you don’t believe it. It is Romans chapter 11, verses 11 and 12. Read it for yourself. This is just awesome, my friends. What it means is that God works with hardened people also. Think of your relatives, think of your friends, think of your loved ones who have resisted and held out against Christ. What’s their journey? For some it’s distress, for some it’s worry, for some it’s depression, for some it’s addiction. But whatever it is, that resisting state will lead to a state that is impossible psychologically to sustain, and that is when they fall on their knees and ask for mercy in either now or in the judgment, and God brings salvation even to the hardened. When you get there. And if you would kindly consider a donation, this is listener-supported radio. I depend on you to keep the broadcast going, which is now in its 27th year. So thank you very, very much for all your support. Thank you for your recent donations. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so online at faithquestradio.com. Or you can make your donation by mail, P.O. Box 366. Littleton, Colorado, 80160. Thanks for all your support. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.