Evening
Time: 8:31 PM PST
"For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." --Romans 9:15
In these words the Lord in the plainest manner claims the right to give or to
withhold His mercy according to His own sovereign will. As the prerogative of
life and death is vested in the monarch, so the Judge of all the earth has a
right to spare or condemn the guilty, as may seem best in His sight. Men by
their sins have forfeited all claim upon God; they deserve to perish for their
sins--and if they all do so, they have no ground for complaint. If the Lord
steps in to save any, He may do so if the ends of justice are not thwarted; but
if He judges it best to leave the condemned to suffer the righteous sentence,
none may arraign Him at their bar. Foolish and impudent are all those discourses
about the rights of men to be all placed on the same footing; ignorant, if not
worse, are those contentions against discriminating grace, which are but the
rebellions of proud human nature against the crown and sceptre of Jehovah. When
we are brought to see our own utter ruin and ill desert, and the justice of the
divine verdict against sin, we no longer cavil at the truth that the Lord is not
bound to save us; we do not murmur if He chooses to save others, as though He
were doing us an injury, but feel that if He deigns to look upon us, it will be
His own free act of undeserved goodness, for which we shall for ever bless His
name.
How shall those who are the subjects of divine election sufficiently adore
the grace of God? They have no room for boasting, for sovereignty most
effectually excludes it. The Lord's will alone is glorified, and the very notion
of human merit is cast out to everlasting contempt. There is no more humbling
doctrine in Scripture than that of election, none more promotive of gratitude,
and, consequently, none more sanctifying. Believers should not be afraid of it,
but adoringly rejoice in it.