Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 9. I'm going to be reading from verse 14 through 18. Romans chapter 9, verse 14 to 18. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means, for he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning. We pray that your word will truly go forth and will not return until it has accomplished its purpose. We pray, Father God, that your Holy Spirit would guide us, convict us, and that your authority, your very breath and presence may be known through your word.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let me start out by asking you a question. How do you come to a conclusion whether something is right or wrong? How do you come to that conclusion, whether something is right or wrong? As you guys know, the political environment that you and I live in in the United States right now is extremely divided.

As far as I can remember following politics, I've never seen it this intense. You have half the country that believes every word that's coming out of Trump's mouth is a lie. And some people are willing to hurt themselves and hurt other people who are in the opposition. And then you have the other half of the country who believe that everything Obama said was a lie.

And so they're angry and in protest. And each group is absolutely convinced the other group is wrong. And obviously if you're committed to one side or the other, you just think that the whole other group is just dummies. You know, if they just studied more, if they were a little bit more intelligent, if they were more moral, you know, then they wouldn't vote like that.

Well, that's in the larger scale, you see how politics where people can be so passionate about something and be completely on the opposite side. You take it into a bigger scale, that's how wars begin. But you have one country over another country who absolutely believes that their right and the other country or other group is wrong.

I think most people, when they get into that kind of conflict, don't say, well, you know, I'm clearly wrong and you're clearly right, but I'm going to fight to death. Most people who take up arms to get into conflict usually are absolutely convinced that their right and the other people are evil.

How do you come to conclusion? And if you break it down into a smaller scale, that happens between husband and wife. I mean, we don't get into fights because it's clear who's right and who's wrong. It's because you have two people who are convinced that they're right. And so if they don't find a resolution, eventually it escalates into a big fight.

That happens oftentimes in church. You have people on one side who believe certain things and the other side who believes in something else. And most of the time what happens is if you have strong personalities who are not willing to back down and both sides are absolutely convinced that they're right and then they're willing to fight, a lot of times people are kind of docile.

You know, we don't want to get into conflict. Not because they changed their mind. They just don't like to fight. So every once in a while you'll like people who are used to fighting. And then when those two people meet together and they can't come to a resolution, then again it turns into a bigger problem.

How do we even come to understand what is right or wrong? How do we determine what is just and unjust? Because that's a question that comes up all the time. Whether it's in politics, in personal relationships, between marriage, even with your children and at church, where we feel an injustice.

That something needs to be done. Something needs to be corrected. Well Paul is addressing that question of the gospel. If you've been paying attention to Paul carefully, Paul's been trying to address up to chapter nine after presenting a detailed message of the gospel, then how can this be fair?

If God made a promise and he made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now you're saying that not all Israelites are Israelites. And the reason why there's these bunch of Israelites who had absolute confidence that if they died that they're going to be in heaven or they have a special place in God's kingdom.

And he says not all Israelites are Israelites. In God's sovereign choice that he chose some and some were not chosen. So the obvious question that's going to come up is, then is God unjust? And that's what verse 14 begins by saying. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part?

And the question is swiftly answered, by no means. If that's what you've been thinking and that's what you've been asking, Paul says by no means. In order to answer this question that seemingly seems like God is unjust, people respond in different ways. Some people outright reject God. And I'm sure some of you guys have friends or family members who say, I'm not going to go to church because God is not fair.

Why does God allow 9/11 or famine or maybe something a little more personal, an illness or death in your family? So, well, God doesn't seem fair. If he really is a God of love, how could he be doing this? He seems unjust. And so you have a segment of people who may have left the church and say, I'm never going to come back because I don't want to worship a God who is unjust like him.

Some people try to change God himself because what seems, at least on the surface, he's like, well, God can't be just if he sovereignly chooses. If he truly practices predestination, he can't be just. I remember back in seminary, I was required to attend this conference called Evangelical Theological Society, ETS.

And basically it's a room filled with seminary professors who have doctorates and PhDs in very specific subjects. And I had no idea what they were talking about. They were quoting Greek and Hebrew like they were speaking English. Like it was just flowing out of them and we're just sitting there and we're just trying to get our credit for seminary class.

You know, so we sat there. I didn't know what they were talking about, but I knew something was going on because it was a room filled with maybe about 1500 seminary professors. And we have lowly seminary students who are just sitting in the back observing. I knew something was up because there was a stir in the room.

And you could tell people are murmuring. And this man named Dr. Pinnock, he must have been about six feet five, very tall man. And after he presented his paper, people just started standing up in protest. And then they say, "Well, any Q&A?" And I guess this is a normal practice.

After they do a presentation, the professor will stand up and basically question his thesis. And so there's a long line that started forming on both sides of the aisle. Probably maybe about 15, 20 deep on each side. And each one that came up was very animated. You know, how can you possibly say this, the significance of what you're saying.

And then I didn't fully understand what was being said. What I found out later was that Dr. Pinnock presented a paper on 1 Peter 3, 19-20, where it talks about how Jesus went after being crucified, went and proclaimed the gospel to those who are in prison. So some of you guys who know that text, you know what that passage means.

So he took that and he presented this whole paper that Jesus will preach the gospel to people who've never heard the gospel. Meaning that if you were, happened to be born in a country or on the jungles and you died without ever hearing the gospel, if God is going to be fair, he's going to have to preach the gospel to them.

So basically that's the paper that he was presenting based on that text. That if God is going to be fair, they need to equally have opportunity for the gospel. And obviously it's heresy. That's not what the scripture teaches. And people began to say, well, if that's the case, then why should we ever do missions?

You know, by not presenting the gospel to them, they're going to hear the gospel directly from Jesus, you know, not from me. And so all these people were protesting. Again, his thesis that he presented became so popular, eventually it turned into a book. And the heresy that began to spread in the church at that time, and I think traces of it still now, but you don't hear about it much now, is what we call the openness of God theology.

It came from Dr. Pinnock. In his mind, he was trying to make God fair. In his understanding of what fairness is, so he changed God. He changed the gospel. Now a lesser version of that, again, not heresy, but if we're not careful, that in our attempt to try to justify God, we say, well, if God practices predestination, then he can't be just.

So therefore, God doesn't determine. All he does is sees. He kind of sees what the man's going to do, and then he reacts based upon what he sees. Again, it's a lesser version, but the part behind it, or the mind behind it is, since God is just, and what I see in scripture, or at least what's being presented seems unjust, they go back and reinterpret scripture and reidentify what God is doing.

Absolutely, again, incorrect and unbiblical. Paul is going to deal with that same question. If God sovereignly elects some, and some of these Jews and some Gentiles, they're not Christians because God didn't elect them, is there injustice in God? And the answer to that is by no means. Of course not.

How can you possibly even entertain that God is unjust? So what I want to do this morning is observe three observations from this text of how he answers this question, and hopefully that'll help us. Whether it satisfies us or not, this is how Paul presents the answer to that question.

The first observation is, Paul just straight up quotes scripture. His first line of authority in answering this question is, "Well, this is who God is." So if you remember last week's text, he is trying to answer the question, "Well, some are Israelites and some are not, even though they have the heritage, that salvation is not by the flesh, but by God's promise." And so he goes back and he searches scripture and he talks about how Isaac and Ishmael, Ishmael may have been the fleshly line, but the line came through the promise of Isaac.

Same thing as Jacob and Esau. Esau would have been as the firstborn, the fleshly line, but then the promise line came to Jacob. Now he quotes again another two passages. The first passage in Exodus 33, 19, where he just simply says, "For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." Now that may not be satisfactory to you.

You say, "Well, God has compassion on whom he has compassion? How can that be fair?" Well, here's what God said to Moses, "I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." I know your first thing that you might be thinking, "That sounds like circular reasoning." He didn't really answer the question.

He just answered the question by repeating the question. He just quoted scripture. He does the same thing in verse 17. "For the scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.'" So if you were like me, if you read this for the first time, I was not satisfied.

I'm very eager, like, "Okay, so how is Paul going to answer this question?" I'm looking for this deep philosophical presentation. I say, "Oh, okay, I get it. That's what the scripture says." But the first thing that Paul says is just simply quote scripture. And it dawned on me as I was studying, you know, again, in the past when I was studying this passage, that Paul simply was bringing authority.

And he's saying to these Jews that what I am presenting to you is not new. That the gospel that Paul is proclaiming isn't a new gospel that God all of a sudden changed his mind and decided to go another route. What he is establishing here is God himself and his plan and the gospel has been deeply embedded in scripture.

That this is how God has performed his work and brought the gospel from the very beginning. And that's what he's doing. He's establishing authority of what Paul is saying by going back and quoting scripture. Our authority in how we come to know what is right and wrong, it has to be from the Bible.

It has to be from scripture. How do you come to the conclusion of what should be or should not be? Now we can say, "Well, you know, I'm very educated," or "I'm older so I have experience," or "I've traveled the world so I've seen things that you haven't seen," you know, or "I come from a certain culture," or "I had better grades than you." You know, we can apply all of that.

And I'm sure in the back of our mind, even though you may not be expressing that, but some part of us, when we make argument, there's some part of us always say, "Well, I have more credibility than you." And then the other person is going to think the same thing.

"Well, but I have more credibility than you. I'm older than you. I live longer. I've experienced this and I have more intellect. My GPA was higher than you." And even though that may not be expressed, there's a part of us that tries to overpower the other person's argument saying, "My view of what is right and wrong is probably more justifiable than yours." And that's why the other person doesn't back down.

But where do we get our authority? How do we determine what is just and unjust? Paul simply states, "This is God." He doesn't run into a philosophical argument and then tries to convince them based upon how they understand what is right and wrong. He just simply quotes Scripture. "This is what God said.

What I'm saying to you, God has always said that. This is how He's always acted." The question we need to ask ourselves is, do we judge God or God judge us? Do we approach God and determine whether God is fair or unfair based upon my understanding of fair and unfair?

In the book of Judges, you guys who know the story in the book of Judges, you have the period when Israel did not have kings. They would constantly fall into this pattern of rebelling against God. And then God would bring judgment. And then when they're desperate, they would cry out to God.

God would have mercy. And then they would be restored. And when they restored, the phrase that keeps being repeated over and over again is, "Everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes." That was the beginning of their problem. It doesn't say everyone did whatever they wanted to do, whether right or wrong.

That's not what it says. Everyone did what they thought was right. But by what standard? By their own eyes. And that's what kept on causing them to get into trouble. Everyone determined what was right by their own experience, by their own observation, by what they thought was right, what they thought was just, and then that kept on getting them into this cycle of problems.

That's why in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, it tells us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by what? Renewing of your mind. Our mind, our paradigm, how we come to conclusion of what is right and wrong has to be tested by God's Word.

What we deem to be right, what we deem to be wrong, the authority must first and foremost come from His Word. Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, after rebuking them, saying that you guys are divided, this division in the church was what was causing all this chaos and immorality to exist within the church.

And it all started when each one said, you know, I follow Paul, I follow Peter, I follow Apollos. And now, their division in the church wasn't, I'm going to be an idol worshiper, or I'm going to be doing this. And it wasn't that. Each one was determining what was right and what was wrong.

And Paul says to them, aren't you acting fleshly? That you're not united because you're determining by your standard what you think is right. So Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. For they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Meaning the reason why there's division among you is because you're acting natural. You're acting fleshly. You're allowing the paradigm of the world to dictate to you, even though it's practiced in the church, you can quote the name of Jesus, but what you consider to be right and wrong, good and bad, is not coming from Scripture.

Sometimes it comes from the entertainment that we watch. Sometimes it comes from our personal experience and some of the successes that we had. I applied these principles in my life and I had success, so therefore the church should be this way. Sometimes it's from our education. And all of these things are trying to be applied in church, and none of these things are necessarily wrong or it's bad.

But there's a lot of things that God does in the Bible and in the Scripture is absolutely contradictory to what we know from this world. He deliberately chooses men who are in utter chaos, who are weak, who are uneducated, for what purpose? To glorify himself so that the world will know that the power of the church was not people.

It was not the organization. It was not the giftedness or the education. It was not the money, but God by His Spirit, not by man's hard work, but when men who are humble, who had nothing to offer the church, God placed His Holy Spirit in them and by the Holy Spirit the church blew up.

Not because they were well organized, not because they had a great strategy. The church began to grow because of persecution. They were running, afraid of their lives. And in the midst of that the Holy Spirit began to work in them and then they started sharing the gospel wherever they went.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord. Which is a complete contradiction to everything that we know of this world. We have to get educated, we have to apply, we have to test it and then if it works then we apply that for the next thing and after a while we think, well, you know, I know how to do this.

Because I was successful in my school, I was successful at my home, I was successful in my business, so I know how to do this. Where does our authority come from? Our final authority, where we move, it causes us to stop, it changes the way we think. It must come from Scripture.

How do we determine what is right, what is fair? It has to come from Scripture. We can say that the Bible is inerrant, you know, and I know very few people, at least in our circle, that will deny that. At least in our circle. But the proof of inerrancy, authority of the Word of God is how do you behave when the Word of God is made clear?

Even if it doesn't seem right, when the Word of God is quoted, does that cause you to say, well, I see that's what it says, but it's hard for me to accept. It's hard for us to accept because our final authority may not be Scripture. The Scripture, if it is our final authority, it should cause us to stop.

It should cause us to change our paradigm. And arguments should end if the Bible can be clearly quoted to be proven to be true. And that's exactly what Paul is doing. Paul is simply taking the Word of God to them, saying, if what you're saying, this gospel that seems to contradict everything that I've known, and you're saying it's not by a heritage, not by my good works, isn't God unfair?

And then he says, well, look at the Scripture that you've been reading all this time, that you declared to be inerrant and it's from God and has authority over your life. Look at the Scripture. It is consistent with what God has been saying and doing all this time. Where does our authority come from?

What causes us to repent? What causes us to change our mind if it is not the Word of God? Do we have more confidence in our intellect? Do we have more confidence in people? Do we have more confidence in what we see? Or is it ultimately from God's Word?

So that's the first observation. His authority, first and foremost, is God's inerrant word. Second observation in his argument is that you can earn condemnation, but grace and mercy is only given by God. Let me say that again. You can earn condemnation, but grace and mercy is only God's to give.

The very argument that we make, well, that sounds unjust. If God chooses some and not choose others, how can that be fair? And that's the question that he's presenting. Now that question itself, that question itself has to be challenged. Think about the perspective. How many of us think about people who've donated millions and billions of dollars?

And I read recently that the founder of, I think, Facebook donated like a billion dollars or something for trying to get good water into people who don't have access to water. Right? A billion dollars, I forgot how much it was, but it was a ridiculous amount of money. And how many people responded to that by saying, "Well, Mark Zuckerberg is so unjust." Right?

Why is that? Because he donated all that money to get water, but he didn't donate the money for food. What about all the starving people? What about cancer research? What about homeless people? What about all the different diseases? So how can Mark Zuckerberg be fair if he only donated money for clean water?

See, the very question itself, questioning God's justice because he elected to choose some and not others, how can that be fair? See the very question that we ask in and of itself reveals our own hearts. So we come and we examine God not realizing what it is that we are seeing.

So that's why he says in verse 15, "For Moses says, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'" This is a direct quote from Exodus chapter 33, 19, where Moses pleads with God that if you really want me to lead these people out in the desert, show me your glory.

And he's begging him. He can't, if they don't know that you are with me, if they don't know that you are with us, then we're going to be vulnerable. There's no way that we're going to make it. So Moses is pleading, let me see your glory. Let Israelites know that you are with us.

And in response to his begging, God says, "I will have compassion on whom I have compassion and I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." In other words, he was responding to Moses saying, "Tell them that I will be merciful to you by showing my grace. Tell them that I will answer your prayer, that I will be merciful and I will show myself to you." See, we're questioning the grace of God.

At least that's what the Israelites were saying. In Psalm 51 verse 1, when David was pleading and crying out to God, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. Have mercy on me." Notice how when we repent, we never repent by saying, "Lord, be just with me." We would never pray that prayer as a sinner.

A sinner would never pray that prayer, "Lord, be just with me." Because the moment that he is just with a sinner, we would disintegrate. All that would be fair would be judgment. So a sinner will never pray before God, "Lord, be just with me." The only prayer that a sinner can pray before a holy God is, "Lord, be merciful to me.

Don't give me what I deserve. Be merciful. Be merciful according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." In fact, at the temple, at the Holy of Holies, the most holiest article was the Ark of the Covenant.

And on this Ark of the Covenant, there was a seat where symbolically, God himself or the Messiah would come and take his seat. You know what that seat was called? It was called the Mercy Seat. The very throne of Christ on this earth is called the Mercy Seat. And that seat was reserved for King, Priest, Jesus Christ and Him alone.

So every single day, every single year, when the High Priest went in and he sprinkled the blood on the Mercy Seat, it was preparation for the coming of the Messiah that this King, this Lord, that this God would come and take his seat by the sprinkling of the blood of the Lamb.

So his very presence among sinners was to remind us that it is because of his mercy that God is able to dwell among us. That word mercy in the Greek, mentioned in Hebrews 9, 5, is the Greek word, "hilestarion," and it basically means to propitiate or to expiate. To put it simply, it means to gain or regain the favor or goodwill.

And that Mercy Seat symbolized that God's merciful presence is on earth through the blood of Christ, and he expiated and he propitiated our sins. Our God is a compassionate God. To dare question his compassion as sinners, looking up to God and saying, "God, you're unfair because you chose some and didn't choose others." Psalm 103, 13, it says, "The Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, for he knows our frame.

He remembers that we are dust." The mystery of the gospel isn't that he chooses some and not choose others. The mystery of the gospel is he chose some. That's the mystery. I mean, think about it, just logically, humanly speaking. Why does he owe us anything? We've been coddled since we were little.

They think, "You're so precious. You're so valuable. You're worth everything." Especially our generation now. You know, you got trophies for things that you didn't earn, and you can be in last place, and you come out like a winner. We don't want anybody's ego to be hurt, and you have a generation filled with people.

And I don't think it's just this generation. I think all of us, even myself included, that our self-esteem is the greatest thing that we need to protect. And so we've been raised to think like we have so much value, and so God owes us. And we worship him until something about him doesn't make sense, until something happens in our life that we can't explain.

And then we eat automatically question, "Is God fair? Is he just? Why does he allow these things to happen?" When, you know, I think many of you know that I'm a middle child of three sons. And I'm a, whatever you read about middle children, that's me. This is what a characteristic of a middle child, that's me.

That was me when I was growing up. Life was unfair. I was always the one neglected. Nobody cares. You know, I'm alone in this world. And I had all of these symptoms when I was growing up. And I remember one particular instance back in college, and this is after I was a Christian.

You know, my parents, you know, we grew up as a pastor's family, so we didn't have much money. So I worked my tail off. And the first car that I purchased, I cleaned toilets for nine, 10 months. And so I saved up about $1,500, and I got my first car.

And I was so proud of that car. You know, it was a piece of junk, you know. I couldn't, my parking brake didn't work. And I had no money to fix it, so whatever broke, just broke. My windshield wiper broke, so I used to manually wipe the, you know, the rain down.

And then, I mean, I just, I've explained this before, so I'm not going to go in again. It was a piece of junk. But I was very proud of it. You know, I washed it. I even waxed it and tinted it. So it was the best piece of junk on the road, right.

One day, my mom decides that she's going to buy my younger brother, Philip, a car. So she is going to go buy a car, and it was a Honda Acura. I forgot what year it was, but it was white, and it was brand new. And so, you know, I was a Christian, right.

I'm not into, I'm not into this material stuff, you know. So I didn't say anything, and she wanted to buy him a car, and she was thinking about all this, and then she explained why she was getting him this car. So I didn't say anything. And I'm, you know, a middle child.

I'm hearing all this stuff, and it's like, okay, you know, Jesus is my everything, you know. I'm driving this car, and so my mom, my mom explained to me why she wanted to get him a new car. You know, Paul had a new car, and, you know, and then she said something to the effect, you know, about me, and then, but Philip never experienced having a new car.

So I'm driving this car, and in my mind, I'm thinking, I didn't have a new car. And then, so I explained to my mom, I said, I never had a new car, and she said, what are you talking about? And she genuinely was dumbfounded. Think about it. When did I have a new car?

You know, I'm upset, but I'm trying to be Christian at the same time. You know, when did I have a new car? And she's like, and she started thinking back about the cars that I drove. It's like, oh, shoot, he never had a new car. And then, you know, I didn't say anything.

You know, I just, then I went home, and then I told that story for the next 20 years. How unjust my life has been. Look at that. Everything that I was thinking was proven at that moment, right? It's so unfair. Life was so unfair, right? And then, you get older.

You have your own kids, and you start to see your parents as human beings, not just as parents. When you're younger, you kind of see them in a different light. You judge them in a different light, right? Your friends could do certain things, and you're wowed by it. If your parents do it, it's kind of like, eh, it's expected.

You're supposed to do that, right? Years later, just look, again, having my own kids and raising my own children, and you can see how you can easily make mistakes. And it's not because you favor one over the other. It's just you have a lot of kids. You know, sometimes you forget, and sometimes you don't.

You know, you're able to do these things. Then I started thinking as human beings, I don't know anybody in my life, you know, outside of meeting my wife, that has poured and sacrificed into me more than my mom. I don't know anybody. I mean, obviously, I've been married to Esther for 25 years now, right?

And I can say that about my wife, but, you know, when I was younger, I started thinking to myself, I don't know anybody who's given to me and sacrificed for me like my mom. And yet, all I can think about was that car. Why I couldn't get the new car, you know?

And that's the story I'm telling everybody. How I was neglected. How I was mistreated. How I wasn't valuable in this home. See, the people who invest the most in our lives, we just kind of automatically, oh, of course, you're supposed to do that. That's your job. How often do we not understand the grace of God because we assume, you know, you're God though?

How often do we hurt Him? How often? You know why we say He's compassionate? Even when we talk about God's compassion, His compassion and His mercy is about us. Oh, He's compassionate toward me. But He has these emotions because God is an emotional God. He's a zealous God. He grieves.

He hurts. The emotions that you feel, He has them because He created us. The passion and love that you feel, He has them. We don't think of Him as a being. We think of Him as an it. And that's why even though He sent His only begotten Son, His most precious gift, and we're saved knowing that you and I don't deserve even a thought of our name on His lips when something doesn't go right.

And it's not exactly the way we want it. We step back and say, "Is He fair? Does He really love me because He doesn't love me the way I want to be loved?" Because we don't see Him as a being. We see Him as an it, a force, a thing.

But the fact that He even has compassion, that's the mystery. Who are we? What is man that He is so mindful of us? Why is He even compassionate? Why is He even merciful? I don't know. I don't ever look at an ant in my house and have compassion. I don't look at, I mean, I'm afraid that a little tiny mouse is going to enter my house and I'll do everything in my power to keep them out of the house and destroy them if they even come close.

Never in my mind did I ever think to have compassion or mercy. God demonstrates His own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, while we were rebellious, while we were blasphemous, He loved us. In Matthew 9, 36, Jesus sees a crowd and He knows who these crowds are.

These are not good people who just got lost. These are not people who were moral. These crowds were like everybody else in this world. They chose to worship the creation rather than the Creator. And the reason why they are harassed and helpless is because they continued in their sins.

And yet He looked upon these sinners and He said He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless. He didn't say He was annoyed with them, He was angered with them. He had compassion for them. The word compassion in the Greek is a very strong word. It's not just a light feeling.

The best way to describe it is someone being punched in the gut. This overwhelming response of emotion. It's like punching in the gut. I don't know if you've ever been punched in the gut. If you ever get punched in the gut, I mean you can't concentrate, you can't think.

You know, you ever watch a boxing match and somebody gets a good punch right in the stomach and they didn't get knocked out but they hunch over because they got punched in the gut. That's the word for compassion. Jesus saw them and He was compelled and He turned to His disciples to beseech the Lord of the host.

To send out more workers. And in Luke chapter 15 verse 20, Jesus gives a parable of the prodigal son and the son who wasted a large portion of his possessions simply to go out and have fun. And when he asked his father, "Give me my possession now," basically he was saying, "I can't wait for you to die.

I want my portion now." He goes off and he squanders all of it. And when he finally comes to his senses and he comes to his father's place, you would think the father would be, "Wow, that guy wasted all that and he's going to just crawl back now? He's going to think that he's going to come back in and step right back in where he was?" You would think that that would be the normal response.

The older brother, we say our older brother was a Pharisee and he was so legalistic. We condemned the older brother. But give me a break. How many of us could relate more with the older brother? I think the older brother was being generous for even allowing him to come.

I mean, that's natural human response. This guy, after everything he did, he's going to crawl back? And then the response of the father that Jesus says, he said, "And he rose and came to his father but while he was still long off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him." The older brother was the older brother because he doesn't realize that he's also the prodigal son.

He's also the prodigal son. He just didn't physically leave. Every single one of us, every single one of us, we are here because God saw sinners and had compassion. I don't understand why he had compassion on us. I don't understand his patience. I don't. It's hard to be patient when somebody cuts me off the road for no reason and slanders or whatever.

It's hard to be patient even for one incident and yet God sees repeated sinners and he has compassion. Isn't that the greatest mystery? The greatest injustice that you and I have ever heard of isn't God passing over some and then saving some. It's why he didn't pass over everybody.

The only injustice that has ever happened in this world was on the cross. Every other person was a sinner deserving of punishment. That was the second observation. One, the authority comes from Scripture. Second, we can earn condemnation but grace is only God's to give. Third and finally, God hardened those who has hardened their own hearts.

That quote in verse 17 where he says, "For this very purpose I have raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Is a direct quote from Exodus chapter 9 verse 16 and 17. That verse 16, let me read you that quote.

"But for this purpose I have raised you up to show you my power so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." And that's where the quote stops. But verse 17 goes on and it says, "You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go." Repeatedly over and over again, it is stated that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

God hardened Pharaoh's heart. But every time we see that phrase being stated, there's also a statement that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Let me read to you what Dr. Leon Morris, who's the author of the pillar commentary on the book of Romans and how he addresses this issue. He says, "Neither here nor anywhere else is God set to harden anyone who had not first hardened himself.

That Pharaoh hardened his heart against God and refused to humble himself is made plain in the story. So God's hardening of him was a judicial act, abandoning him to his own stubbornness, much as God's wrath against the ungodly is expressed by giving them over to their own depravity." He didn't take a man who was worshiping God and say, "You know, I had enough of this," and harden his heart.

He took a man who was already rebelling, who was already sinning against him and allowed him to continue to go down his path. That's exactly what is stated in Romans chapter 1. That even though that God's invisible qualities was made plain and he left his imprint that no one would be without excuse, but man chose to worship and honor the creation rather than the creator.

In Romans 1.24.26.28, God's judgment upon mankind is expressed this way, "Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the discerning of their bodies among themselves." For this reason, God gave them up to their dishonorable passions. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to be debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Over and over again, God's judgment upon the world is to let them go. You want to keep going down that path? You want to keep resisting, keep blaspheming? He says he gave them over to their lust. In other words, he withheld his mercy. He withheld his compassion. In Isaiah chapter 6, 8-11, there's a passage where Isaiah is called for ministry.

He sees a vision of God where the creatures are surrounding the throne, they're calling "Holy, holy, holy." Isaiah falls down to the ground. They come, the creatures come and touch his mouth with a coal and he opens his mouth, he's cleansed. And then God says, "Who will go for me?" And that's a famous passage where Isaiah says, "Here am I, Lord, send me." But look what God sends him to do.

I'm going to start reading Isaiah 6, verse 8. "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here am I, send me.' And God said, 'Go and say to this people, "Keep on hearing, but do not understand.

Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed.'" I think there's a good reason why God explained the specifics of his calling after he says, "Here am I, send me." If God said, "Who's going to go for me to these hardened people that you're going to say these things and no one's going to listen to you?" He made sure that their hearts get hardened and their eyes become dull and they don't hear.

Who's going to go? And who would volunteer for that? I think everybody who wants to go into full-time ministry has in their mind at least hoping that they would have Apostle Paul's ministry. Even if it leads to death, that's a glorious way to live. That's a glorious way to die.

But who would want Isaiah's ministry? Who would want Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, all his life he's weeping with them. And then at the end of the day, the people that he's warning, all they're saying, "That guy's a false prophet. Nothing good comes out of his mouth. Every time he opens his mouth, we're discouraged.

That guy's not from God and the false prophets come and completely contradict him. And the false prophets are the ones that they follow, but this man who was sent by God, who would want to volunteer to be Jeremiah or Isaiah?" But you know what's interesting here is that if you look at verse 10, the commandment that he gives Isaiah is, "Make the heart of these people dull." What power does Isaiah have to harden their heart?

Did God give him special powers to walk around and say, "Harden your heart." Can you hear what I say? A little bit? Boom, no more. Did God give him some sort of special spiritual power to go around hardening people's heart? Because he says, "Make the heart of my people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes that they see with their eyes." Did he have some spiritual gifts to harden their hearts and close their eyes?

What was he called to do? He was called to preach the word. He was called to warn the nation of Israel about judgment coming. So the way that their hearts were going to be hardened was when the word goes out and they resist in repentance, their hearts become harder.

They have a harder time seeing. They have a harder time listening. We don't recognize that God's mercy and grace is by his timing and is by his offering. And that's why in Hebrews 3.13 it says, "Exhort one another every day as long as it is called today." Of course today is always today.

What does he mean by that? Meaning now. Now. If you hear his word, if you harden your heart, tomorrow it will not be the same. It could be harder. If God calls you to obey and you say, most people won't say, "I'm not going to obey." We usually say, "Not today.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe when I'm a little bit older. Maybe when I purchase a house. Maybe when my kid's a little bit older. Maybe when I get married. Maybe when I get another job. Maybe when I have more time." And we delay. We don't disobey. We just delay the obedience.

Not realizing that delay is causing our hearts to become hardened. And then when we think that we're ready, when we think that we have time, we're no longer here. We're no longer affected. The same word of God that brought tears to your eyes no longer has any effect in your life.

The same sun that hardens the clay melts the ice. If we refuse his mercy and his compassion because we think something is better, we don't realize each and every single day attending a church where the word of God is opened and every time you choose to say, "Not today," that the word of God has less and less and less effect on you.

See, God is just. He is merciful and he's compassionate. He sent his word, his only begotten son, to invite us to himself. He said, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." Where are you running for rest?

Where are you running for rest? I want to challenge and encourage you this morning as we think about his mercy and his compassion. And maybe you haven't thought long enough or hard enough or maybe it's been a while when you really thought about it and maybe just on Sunday and then you click it off on Monday through Saturday and then you're reminded again on Sunday.

At some point in your life, you recognize that you are desperately in need of Christ and you came to him. But in that journey, you got entangled with life. You got married, got a job, had kids and you're just busy. You don't have time for God. You haven't pushed him away.

You haven't denied him but you just don't have time. And as a result of that, you've been feeling this rising burden in your heart that something is not right. I mean, you've been trying to fix it by being more disciplined. You've been trying to fix it by meeting up with more people.

But at the core of your heart, you know because you saw the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and you know that there is no answer for that turmoil in your heart than God's mercy and his compassion. I want to encourage you this morning. I know you're at church and I know we're singing songs and I know most of you attend Bible study but you haven't been seeking the Lord.

You've been coming to church but you haven't been seeking the Lord. You put in your time and check off the Bible but you haven't been seeking the Lord. Our God is compassionate. He's merciful. He's calling sinners to himself. And I pray with all my heart and this is something that I have to tell myself every single day.

I need Jesus. The same Jesus I met years and years ago. I need him today. You need him today. I pray that you would be reminded of a compassionate and merciful God who draws sinners to himself by his gentleness. That you would hear his voice and that you would follow.

Would you pray with me? Pray with me. What have you been running to? Where have you put your hope? Is it something else? Is it someone else? Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Cry out to Jesus. Just like the first time you met him. When you were desperate and you had no hope.

When you clung to Jesus. Remember the height from which you had fallen. Put all the distraction aside. Confess like a child. I need you. Let's take some time to pray as we meditate and think and cry out to our Lord.