If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Romans 9 and Jeremiah 18. Romans 9 and Jeremiah 18. Paul writing in that great book of Romans about that gospel that he's not ashamed of. laying out for the readers how the righteousness of God is revealed. And how that righteousness of God, that core DNA of the gospel of how you can stand before a holy God and be as holy as God, is what He's not ashamed of. And neither should you be. And neither should I. And as he lays out his argument for that, he gets to Romans 9 and he has to deal with the Jewish question. Because the big question of the day back then in the church was, you know, the Jews are God's people, and you would tend to think with this gospel, you would find a whole lot more ethnic Jews becoming Christians. And how come they're just not becoming Christians? And so he would get that question a lot. And so he takes on the question in chapter 9 to answer that. And of course, in chapter 9, he's dealing with the whole point that God's people are not God's people by birth, natural birth. They're God's people by calling. And he makes the argument at the beginning of chapter 9 when he says, go look at the promises in the back, way back in the Old Testament. Your descendants, Abraham, will be named, see? Not born. They'll be named. And so he uses that as an argument to show that God's righteousness to be freely given to His people is predicated on God calling them. God naming My children. That's the whole argument in chapter 9. And that's basically the basis of election. God has that freedom and God has that right, and God exercises that freedom and that right to call whoever He wants to be His own. Nobody is going to be able to have an inside track on God so that some way, shape, form, you know, God owes me a calling. I'm Jewish, or I'm moral, or my mom and dad go to church. It won't be any of that. If a person is going to be the elect, one of the elect, God will have called them to Himself. Now that's the argument in chapter 9. And he makes the statement starting in v. 19, and he says, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault? This whole idea that He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires, it's the train of thought basically as He goes from Isaac having Jacob and Esau and loving one, hating the other. And so He kind of runs through. This is the objections He's gotten in the book of Acts as He goes into the synagogues. You can almost see him writing it out saying, look, I've been doing this for a while, having these debates and doing apologetics with the Jewish brethren of my countrymen. And so you can see the objections as he starts to articulate them in chapter 9. And he answers them. But he gets to this whole point where it gets down to God. God's going to have mercy on whom He desires. God's going to harden whom He desires. At the end of the day, People go to heaven or people go to hell based on God. And that cuts to the quick every religion in the world. He gets to verse 19 and he says, now I've got this response too when I say that. He says, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault? Wait, you're going to find fault with me? And you're the one who desires to harden me? Are you going to blame me for that? See, he's heard that. You've probably heard that. Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will, right? He's omnipotent. Who's going to resist his will? On the contrary, Paul says, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? And he pulls out from the Old Testament a common metaphor of the potter and the clay. The potter with his pottery and what he makes. And he says, On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it? Or does not..." And here's a principle of potters and pottery. He says in v. 21, "...or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?" Now in Jeremiah 18, We have a different aspect of this potter. You don't quite hear this a lot preached. But if the potter has sovereign rights over the clay, in Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah is going to get a lesson about the potter that's not the Romans 9 lesson. Jeremiah 18 says, starting in verse 1, "...the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you. Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter. So he remade it into another vessel as it pleased the potter to make." Then the Word of the Lord came to me saying, here's the point. He sees it. Here's the illustration for Jeremiah to see. Now God begins to talk to him and say, now I want to teach you something about what you just saw. I want to teach you something about what you just saw the potter doing on the wheel with that pottery and what happened. It got spoiled on the wheel. In other words, it was spinning on the wheel and then he's kind of making the pottery and it kind of collapsed. What do you do with that? And so the application comes in verse 5. Then he says, "...then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." Now in one sense, that sounds like the sovereign rights of the potter. In chapter 9, Isaiah 29, 16 talks about the same sovereign rights. But he goes on, he says in verse 7, at one moment, I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it. Verse 8, if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I plan to bring on it. Or at another moment, I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it. Good news, not bad news. Verse 10, If it does evil in my sight by not obeying my voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. Verse 11, So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the LORD, Behold, here comes the bad news. I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh, turn back." This is how you should respond to that, he's telling his audience. Oh, turn back, each of you, from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds. But they will say, verse 12, it's hopeless, for we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart. I want to speak to you this morning, if I can, from these two texts in Romans 9 and Jeremiah 18 on the sovereign rights and the salvage response of the potter. Jeremiah 18 is not talking about sovereign rights of the potter. Now, he has sovereign rights, but that's not his emphasis. The emphasis is on his salvaging response. Because remember, the pottery collapsed on the wheel. And what does the potter do? Well, he's got many choices. He can take and just say, starting over. Give me something else. He can do that. Or he can salvage it. You're here today because God does a lot of salvaging in our lives. And as He has sovereign rights over you and me as a potter over the clay, He does a lot of salvaging in our lives to reshape us when we collapse on the wheel. Maybe it's trials. Maybe it's difficulties. Maybe it's a Peter denying Him at the bonfire or whatever else it might be. But you get salvaged. Now we don't think in terms of the potter doing salvaging work. But he does. He salvages his own. And he does what? He recreates it on the potter's wheel. He doesn't have to, but he does. So in one sense, I want you to think about this with God because it's going to dovetail into some bigger issues theologically that many times causes Christians a lot of problems. But if you get it straight on how God is demonstrated in the Scriptures, we can navigate through some tricky waters. Think of it as like a pitcher and a catcher. You've got a pitcher with the ball. He throws the ball. And the catcher catches it. There are many examples in the Scriptures where God is like the pitcher. Sovereign rights. He controls the ball. If He wants to throw a curve, ain't nobody going to stop Him. If He wants to throw a fastball, He can throw a fastball. And then there's other places where He's like the catcher. He plays defense. You make the first move. And He responds. But wait, I believe in the sovereignty of God. He's got to make all the first moves. And He does. Everything's under His control from molecules to stars. That's not debatable. Nothing adds to the character or the worth of God. It's called the aseity of God in the old divines used to write in systematic theology. He's self-contained and self-sufficient. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need me. Acts 17, you can't serve God as if He needs something from me or from you. He doesn't need us. He doesn't even need our praise. He didn't have us before. And He was God. And here we are in the scene. We're not adding something to His worth. We're just exclaiming what we see. So we know that going in as a pitcher, as playing offense, nothing's going to add to God. What's difficult to understand, especially us who believe in sovereign grace, And that God's in control is that He plays catcher. That He does things in a way that He responds conditionally. If you do this, I'll do that. You have not because you what? Sounds like it's conditional. Well, wait a minute, God is sovereign. If I don't have it, it's because He predestined that I don't have it. You can play that game and act as if God's nothing but pitcher on the mound. But when you've got verses that talk about catching the ball and responding to what you're called to do, don't go throwing it back on him as pitcher. Because there's many things in the Scriptures that show him, and Jeremiah 18 is one of them. Because notice how he says, if I say this about a city, or if I say this about a man, or if I say this about a child, or a relationship, that if you do X, I'm going to do Y, And then he says he's going to pronounce judgment. And you hear that. And when you hear it, you do something about it. You say, oh Lord, like the Ninevites when they heard 40 days and this thing's done. I'm going to go camp outside and wait for the fireworks, Jonah says. Great compassion he had for the lost. And what does God do? He does exactly what He says He did here in Jeremiah 18. He relented. Why? Because in that sense, there's a contingency factor in play. And there's always a contingency factor in play. If you're alive here, as you are, contingency factors are in play. Jeremiah learned that lesson when he started praying to God for the people. And what does God tell him? He tells him more than once in the book of Jeremiah, don't pray for these people. Why does he tell him not to pray for the people? Because prayer is a contingency factor in changing God's mind on bringing calamity. I'm not going to hear you. And look, it's not you, Jeremiah. If Moses was here and Samuel was here, and Noah was here, I wouldn't hear them either. It's not you and it's not your spirituality or lack thereof is why I'm not hearing you. It's them. It's because what Manasseh did in burning incense. It's what those people did when they cut up the scroll with the sword. See, those are acts that turn God's contingency in a negative way. And sometimes you can do things in such a way where it's the point of no return and you're going over the falls. A person can sin and sin in such a way that there is going to be no more remedial help from God. And He's going to give you over like in Romans 1. You want that? I'm going to saddle you with it. You're going to have it. And you're going to reach a point of no return like in 1 Kings 22 when Ahab reaches the point of no return. And he wants to go out to battle. And he's buddying up with the king of the south, Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat has enough sense to say, well, before we go to battle, let's inquire of the Lord. And so Ahab says, alright, we can do that. He brings in his 450 yes-men. Hey, what do you think we ought to do? Oh, you need to go up and fight, man. You're going to win. Jehoshaphat recognizes their yes-men and says, they're not a prophet of God, really. Somebody who really can give us something more objective. Well, yeah, there's that Micaiah guy that lives in the hills, but he never says anything good about me. Bingo, that's probably the guy. Go get him. Brings Micaiah in. Micaiah prophesies and says, you want to hear what the Word of the Lord says? Okay. I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and all these spirits were before Him. And God says to the spirits, who will make Ahab go and fall at Ramoth-Gilead in the battle? And one spirit said this, one spirit said that. It's like he's putting out bids. One spirit said, I'll be a lion spirit in all of his prophets. I'll be a lion spirit in all of his yes-men. Okay. Go and prevail. So Micaiah's telling this to Ahab. Now you would think somebody tells you that. You'd go, I'll tell you what, we're not going to battle. Let's get right with God. The last thing we want to do is go into battle, not Ahab. Put that man in prison. Same thing with Jeremiah. You can read it in the next chapter. Put that man in prison for saying these things. He's not a patriot fighting against the Babylonians. And so sure enough, Ahab dies in battle. Because Malachi says if you come back alive from the battle, I have not been sent by God. And an archer shoots an arrow and it hits just in the joint between the armors. Boy, what a lucky shot. And it kills the king. Now that's a contingent God we serve. A salvaging response. When I say salvaging, God's nature is one of mercy and grace and compassion. He tells us that. And if he has his druthers, he would much rather forgive, much rather show mercy, much rather show grace than show wrath and anger. He tells us that in Ezekiel 18. I've got no pleasure in the death of the wicked. None, zero. He even says, I drag my feet when it comes to wrath. He's slow to anger. Dragging that sword behind him as if he's going to the executioner's block with you. Taking his time. I don't really want to do this. I've got no pleasure in this. I'd much rather forgive. I'd much rather show mercy. But it's contingent. See, that's why he says to Jeremiah, don't pray for these people. Because that's a contingency. Repentance is a contingency. If you repent, the catcher, the responding God, the salvaging response of God perks up to that. Here's the principle in play. If a nation, if a person does this, I do that. I'm quick on the trigger when it comes to mercy and forgiveness. Repentance would be a contingency factor. Faith is a contingency factor. Humility is huge. And so he even tells them, therefore, turn back so that I can relent, so that I can show compassion, and I don't destroy the city. It's not hard to figure out. He's encouraging them. He doesn't say, go away. I have nothing to do with you. But after a while, you don't take advantage of those contingencies that he's willing to listen to. Then eventually, dragging that sword behind him, he reaches the executioner's block. Or we saw from the men's retreat, the sand in the hourglass runs out from the top bowl. And as it says in Romans 2, verse 5, you store it up for yourself in that bottom bowl. Wrath and fury and indignation. Now you think about that. That in and of itself ought to motivate you to go to God. Cling to Him. Lord, help me. Save me. Thank You for salvaging. You salvage people. He does. We're all lepers in a leper colony. And He takes some of us and cleans us up. So to use the phrase from the salvaging responses perspective, God's never saved a proud person. And every single one of you are born proud. How in the world does He save proud people when He never has saved one? It depends on how you look at the proud person. On one hand, the sovereign rights of the potter has the right to invade your existence and comfort zone and change you. regenerate you. Give you the gift of faith and repentance. So that you call out working the contingency points of repentance and faith and love toward God. And He responds to that. God's got to first move in that direction because you're dead in trespasses and sin. Left to yourself, you're just a cadaver in the Niagara River and you know where that's going. So He moves that sovereign right of the potter to come in and do that. And then He responds. Well, the bigger backdrop to that is this whole understanding about what it says in Romans 9, that He desires this for one, He desires this for another. And when you think about the desires of God, there are things that God desires that He doesn't decree. There are things that He decrees that He doesn't desire. Now why would He do that? But it's all in your Bible. In fact, there are some things He desires and He does decree. He does both. Ephesians 1, verse 11, Paul makes a statement. He says, He predestined us. That's a decree. A decree is a desire of God that's etched in stone. It's going to happen. As sure as God's on His throne, it's going to stay on His throne. That desire, that type and caliber of desire is going to happen. So when I say when God decrees something, that's what I mean by decree. It is going to happen as sure as God exists. So He says, "...He predestined us..." Decreed. "...to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ Himself according to the kind intention of His will." Desire. So according to His desires, you were part of the decree of God. Predestined. See? To be adopted. His desire toward you and His decree toward you lined up. What gets a little shaky sometimes is when we have to understand that sometimes God decrees what He does not desire. Now we've got a disjoint. God desires something over here, and it's not happening. But yet He's going to decree that. Who does that? God does. So do you. How many fathers here Desire to spank their children. No, you'd rather not. But you'll decree it. Son, this is going to happen. Oh, no. You have to be corrected. It's decreed in your head because this has to be done because I don't want him to turn out this way or that way or whatever. Now, when you go and do it, kind of like Ezekiel 18, I've got no desire in what I'm doing. I take no pleasure in what I'm doing. But I am going to do it. We have many examples of that in Scripture. Acts 2 v. 22-23. You remember what the writer says about the crucifixion of Christ. What does he say? I'll read it for you real quick. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst just as you yourselves know. Verse 23, this man delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. Sounds like a decree. God's decreeing this man to be delivered up. You nailed to a cross. You did something that I do not desire. God doesn't desire sin. He doesn't desire men sinning. That's an affront to His holiness. Yet, if Jesus Christ is predestined to die, He's going to die at the hands of evil, sinful means. Things that God doesn't desire. Think of every command that's out there. Thou shalt not kill. Men are going to kill today somewhere. And in that command is the basic desire of God. Don't kill. So if I ask the person doing the killing, say, let me ask you something. Let's take a poll here. Does God want you killing somebody? See, is that desire built into the command? Of course it is. It's the will of God. It's the desire of God you don't kill. Yet there's going to be murders today under the decree of God. Now many Christians have a difficult time with that. Whether it's Arminianism or some of these other views of God. No, God's not going to have two different kinds of desires. One a decree and one a desire. No, no, no. God just has one desire. It's got to be one. So the technical term of what I'm talking about is something called compatibilism if you want the 50 cent word for it. That's what it's called in theology. But it's this difference of the level and the weight of the desires of God. And we do the same thing. I like playing the guitar, but I don't go practice eight hours a day and play in some concert with some orchestra and things like that. So I have a desire, but I haven't raised it to the level of a decree. See, you make those kind of choices all the time. We make even the statement saying, you know, you always make time for what's important. What you're basically saying is the things that you really do, that you decree because you're going to do those things, those are the things that are really important. And so it's not strange for us to do that all the time. But yet when God does something like that, oh, God can't do that. God can do that. And He does that. We see that with Jesus in Acts 2.22. I mean, He used the contempt of Herod. He used the betrayal of Judas. These are all sins. The injustice of Pilate. Even the hatred of Jews when they said, we want to have that man reign over us. All those things were sins that were ordained and decreed in His sovereign counsel, in His sovereign rights as a potter. And they're all sin. And they're evil. And men are going to be held accountable for those very things that they did that were decreed. Jesus made that statement about Judas, remember? When He says, you know, woe to the man through whom the Son of Man is what? Betrayed. It would have been better for Him not to have been born. Why would He make a statement like that about Judas? It's decreed for Him to be betrayed. Woe to the man through whom it comes. That man's going to be responsible. He doesn't desire for His Son to be betrayed, but is decreed for Him to be betrayed. Now let me tell you why you need this teaching. Because you're going to go through trials. You're going to go through difficulties. And you can't take the lame approach by saying, well, I just kind of got caught between bad luck or bad circumstances or whatever. No, every molecule is under the sovereign rights of the potter. Nothing touches you that doesn't go through King Jesus. Now you know that. I know that. And so knowing that going in, and when it happens, this has been decreed for this to take place. On the other hand, knowing that, I can't take the hyper-Calvinistic route and say, wait, well, since it was decreed, nothing I could have done about it. Can't do that either. Because I could take the salvage response and say, God didn't want me to sin. See, you can't roll up sin to God's account in James 1. Don't come tell me when you're tempted, I'm being tempted by God in some sort of hyper-Calvinistic sense. Because technically at the end of the day, all things come from God's hands as a sovereign king. But see, if you take that view, Then I don't have a response since he's in the decreeing business. I'm just sitting back here laying in a hammock kind of waiting for all the decrees to take place. It doesn't work that way. You have got to do what? You're responsible to not sin. You're responsible to do the right thing. So there are things in God's decree that he does not desire. Now the flip side of that, and you can see this in 1 Timothy 2, is that there are certain things that God doesn't decree, but He desires. So there's things that He decrees that He doesn't desire. Now there's things that He desires, but He doesn't decree. Wait a minute, He's going to desire something, but He's not going to bring it to fruition to see that it comes about? Exactly right. Jesus says this in Matthew 20 when He's given the parable of the man who's the king and he's given a great wedding feast for his son. And He invites all these people. Of course, He invites the people who are supposed to come and they don't come. And then His servants go out into the highways and byways and they invite all these people in, remember? All these people coming in. And then there's one guy, he's not dressed properly, because the king comes in and overlooks the guest and says, what's this guy doing here? He's not dressed properly. Bind him hand and foot and toss him out. And what does Jesus say? Jesus brings the principle to bear in the parable and says, many are called, few are chosen. It's one thing to be invited to a wedding. It's another thing to be able to attend. If you got an invitation to the royal wedding over in England, whoa, you're one of the few. And you decide, well, you know something? Wow, not everybody gets one of these invitations, right? And so, you know, you want to get on your Sunday best and buy one of those fancy hats that all the women wear or whatever. And you kind of want to go over there and present yourself and show all your respect for the Queen and everything. No, that wouldn't make sense. But not in God's kingdom. Because see, if you go to His banquet, you've got to dress the way He wants you to dress. And the way He wants you to dress is that He provides the dress. And the dress that He's going to provide, they're all going to be the same dress. So I don't want you looking at somebody else saying, hey, nice hat. Hey, nice dress. We're not going to be looking from side to side. We're going to be looking at my Son. And everybody's going to wear the same clothing. And it's going to be the clothing of my Son that my Son gives you. And if you don't wear that clothing, you don't get to come to the wedding. Now see, if you don't know that going in when you're invited, and you just think it's a free food place to get some free food, then you're going to be roundly dismissed. Here you are invited, like you're being invited today to come. The Spirit and the Bride say, come, right? And in your thinking and in your mind, you're thinking, yeah, I tell you what, this is good stuff. I like all the people, and they're all nice, and you know, sometimes food's good when we eat, and whatever else it might be. And you see all the little accoutrements that happens when people get together, you know, and they're real pleasant and things of this sort. And you come based upon that in your invitation. And you don't really see the real reason you're here, or you should be here, is that we're celebrating the wedding of the Son. We're here to honor the Son. How should I dress? And if you've got your ears on, you go to the king and you say, I want to honor your son. You invited me here. I was in the byway somewhere. And you invited me here. And I want to come and honor your son. What's appropriate to wear? Now that's being smart. And then he tells you. He provides it even for you. He doesn't say go out to Walmart and pick this off the rack. He comes and says, no, I've got the garment. And you wear this. So you follow the potter's instructions on those things. But when we say that there are things that God desires that He doesn't decree, in 1 Timothy 2, He talks about how to pray for kings and people who are in authority. And then Paul makes the bigger principle and says because God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Now think about that. God desires all men to be saved. and come to the knowledge of the truth." So he wants them to be saved. Come to the knowledge of the truth. But then if I read one book over in 2 Timothy 2, he talks about the Lord's bondservant must be patient. Not quarrelsome. Trying to help those. Be gentle with those who are in opposition to the truth. For perhaps God may grant them repentance to come to the knowledge of the truth. Wait a minute, wait a minute. 1 Timothy 2 says, He desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 2 says, He has to grant them repentance to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's exactly right. He desires it on one hand. But He doesn't decree that they receive the repentance to come to the knowledge of the truth on the other hand. And that's not God being disingenuous when He says that He desires all men to be saved, because people can think that. Well, why does He talk about desiring people to be saved when He doesn't do something to save them all then? Don't talk about desiring people to be saved because you're not really true about it, you're not really honest about it. No, He's being honest about it. That is His desire. Now why it doesn't register to the level of decree? That's in Romans 9. That's where we get back to the sovereign rights of the potter. The pottery collapsed on the wheel. And we look at that and we see the potter collapsed on the wheel. And you look at him and he shapes it back up. And you say, wow, what a merciful potter that is. You know, that clay owes everything to that potter. Reshaping it and getting the wheel going again. Getting it turning. Putting in some water. You know, trying to get his hand in the groove to make the pottery. He didn't have to do that, did he? It collapses on the wheel again. And he does it again. Well, it comes a point, and he's desiring to do that, but it comes a point where he says, enough, as we've already seen, with the clay, and he removes it from the wheel. It doesn't rise to the level of a decree saying, I'm going to make sure that that clay stays on the wheel. He's owed the clay nothing to stay on the wheel. He's been gracious to salvage it in the first place after their first collapse. He's been salvaging that thing for 150 times. Or in your case, how old are you? He's been salvaging it. How many years? And you think you're owed more years of salvaging from King Jesus. He doesn't owe you anything. while He desires for you to stay on the wheel and be the pottery you should be. He's not under any mandate or any law of pottery, as if He's in submission to some law outside of Himself of pottery, that He has to adhere to, to make you stay on the wheel. so that you become the pottery of some guy next door who was on the wheel, and he made you into a vessel of mercy, and he puts his mercies inside of him. Now let me tell you something, that view of God is going to cause people some problems. And you can always tell the people that cause us the problems too. Because like in the talents, when He gives this person five talents and he goes and he makes five more. Or He gives this person two talents and he goes and makes two more. He's always going to give somebody one talent and what are they going to do with it? They're going to go bury it. And you know what their excuse is going to be? It won't be the talent. It won't be, well, it was just too big to get to the market. Or I got a bad back. I couldn't really carry the thing. That's not going to be it. It's the owner of the talent. The servant has a problem with the master. You'll have a problem with God. I knew you to be a hard and exacting man. Reaping where you didn't sow. Winnowing where you didn't plant. And so I went and hid it in the ground. What's the result? Hiding it in the ground. And so people's view of God in His sovereignty and in His salvaging operations are going to cause those vessels of mercy to invest. And those vessels of wrath to grumble and complain and pass judgment on God like it says in Romans 9, Paul says you should never do. You know, it's one thing to be angry and to give your anger to God. It's never right to be angry at God. And in a crowd this size, I'm sure there's somebody who has some way, shape, form in the back of their heart some form of bitterness toward God because God came in and messed up your comfort zone in some way, shape, form. Took something from you that you thought you had a right to to continue on. Maybe took somebody from your life And now your life is difficult. And you define difficulty in terms of, my comfort zone used to be bigger than this and it's shrunk. That's not fair. See, I know you to be a hard and exacting God. How come I can't have a comfort zone like that guy? How come I can't have health like that guy? How come I got cancer? Why me? And all of a sudden, you're burying something. Well, I've got the kids and I can't come to church because of this. Well, I'm trying to pray because of that. Those are all excuses of something more to the heart of the matter. I don't like the way He salvages me. Well, maybe He's doing one of those decree things of what He doesn't desire. You throw it back on God and His decrees. Or maybe He's desiring something and not decreeing something that should be in me. It kind of goes back to Him, right? No, it doesn't. Vessels of mercy are vessels of mercy for a reason. They are containers of the mercies of God. And when you hold and you contain in you as a vessel the mercies of God, you're humbled. We're just unprofitable slaves doing what we're told. When God gets a hold of a man and saves him. Or God gets a hold of you and takes something from you. What's really being tested at that moment is, am I a good God? Or am I hard and exacting? We talked about this at the retreat. When God tests your faith, He's testing your relationship to Him and your attitude toward the providences in your life. Because when He takes something out of your life, or He puts something in that you don't want, what's really being tried and tested at that point is that. Does He really love me? And that's why true Christian encouragement is talking about that. When you're encouraging someone who's down, you're encouraging somebody who's going through a lot of pain. One of the first questions I'll ask them is just that. I'll ask them and say, let me ask you something. Why did God do that? I'll go straight to the heart of the sovereignty of God. It's the sovereign rights of a potter. Why did God give you cancer? Why do you think? Well, I don't know. I don't want it, but I don't know. Yeah, you know. You should know. Well, it must be sin in my life. Well, it could be, but you know from the sovereign rights of the potter why anything happens to your life. And you have to be prepared with that question and that answer. He's a loving, kind, heavenly Father. He never makes a mistake. I can tell you that because in 2016, we got flooded. And if you don't have the preparation with that question now, to know that He has the sovereign right to do that, and that on the contingency plan, As a salvager, He salvages me in my responses. He is looking and He's waiting conditionally for that response. Well, does that mean it originates with my ability to do it? No. It just means He's not going to move forward until you do. And yeah, He put that in your life. He sovereignly gave you that. And the response you give to that It's going to show whether you're the real deal. See, you've been praying for assurance of salvation, and here it comes. You want assurance of salvation? Here comes the trial. Here comes the testing of the faith. And the righteous are going to rise up and shine like the stars. That's what you want, right? Got you on the assurance plan. Got him down. Check the boxes. Assurance plan. He goes through the trials. I didn't ask for trials. I just asked for assurance. This is how it works. Proven character produces hope. Romans 5. But it's perseverance that produces proven character. Perseverance. And tribulation produces the perseverance. He's going to put you on the wheels. We have a little saying sometimes in our church. How's it going? I've been on the wheel. God's been putting me on the wheel. And He uses those sculpturing tools and all the clay's going off and things of that sort. But think about it. When you're on the wheel, He's got His hands on you the closest. And that's encouraging. Because what's He doing? He's salvaging you. And the response you're going to give is going to show that He's not a hard and exacting man, hard and exacting God. He's a loving, kind, heavenly Father who knows that if I don't change and I don't become more like Christ, I'm none of His. And it's going to come through trials. That's how He salvages His own. So the potter has not only a sovereign right over the clay, he has a judicial role with the clay to reshape it. See, he's acting like the judge and he sees something and he says, well, I need to deal with this. This has to be taken out like a heavenly Father who does with His Son. It doesn't say in Hebrews 5, it doesn't say Jesus learned obedience through the theological seminary in Jerusalem. He learned obedience how? Through the things which He suffered. And so it's going to be the same thing with us. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You, Father, that You have decreed us to be here. Because You have decreed everything. Everything, Father, will be according to Your will. But we're mindful also, Father, that there are many things that You desire. Things that we see in Your Word. Commands that You have given. Statements You have uttered. Warnings You have given. And Father, left to ourselves, we are mindful, Lord, we will not be able and we will not desire to do those things. We have come to understand that. And however we're suffering, However, in whatever trial we might be in, help us, Father, to see that You are making an investment into our lives. You're not pushing us away. That You're salvaging us. And You're causing us, as the kind heavenly potter You are in our lives, to look more like Christ. Help us, Father. The faith that You're testing in us, Father. The faith that only You can give us from Your hand through the power of the Holy Spirit, Father. We ask, Father, You would strengthen it. Because we well know, Father, a faith that can't be tested is a faith that can't be trusted. And we thank You, Father, that You will test us. And You, not us, You will bring us through. But we must respond, and we must believe, and must repent, and must obey, and must testify that You do all things well. For it's in Christ's great name we pray, Amen.