#43   HCBC  12-02-07 AM

God Sovereignly Directs Our Lives

Romans 9:19-21

Vs 19          The Question

One of you will say to me:

"Then why does God still blame us?

For who resists his will?"

If God is sovereign, How can He blame us?

If God decides, how can we be at fault?

What is the Sovereignty of God?

Sovereignty  --  It is not:

          Pantheism – absorbs the world into God

          Deism – cuts the world off from God

          Dualism – divides control of the world

          Indeterminism – the world is under no control

          Determinism – control that destroys man’s

responsibility

          Chance – denies the controlling Power to be

rational

          Fate – denies the control to be benevolent

Sovereignty  --  It is:

His Preservation:

          God maintains the existence of His creation!

          God cares for His creation!

          God cares for His creatures!

His Providence:

          Natural forces

          Animals

          Angels

          Nations

          Individuals

Vs 20          The Answer

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?

"Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,

'Why did you make me like this?'"

God has the right to save whom He wants to save!

No one deserves to be saved!      Rom 3:23

God does not condemn innocent people – there are none!

Vs 16          The Illustration

Does not the potter have the right

to make out of the same lump of clay

some pottery for noble purposes

and some for common use?

Isa 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"?

Isa 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'?

Isa 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.

Jer 18:1-4  This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the

          LORD:  2  "Go down to the potter's house, and there I

          will give you my message."  3  So I went down to the

          potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  4

 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.

We are the clay and He is the potter!

And this is the day of grace!  

Isaiah 53:6 

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.