Who has known the mind of the Lord? (Romans 9:14-29)

In this section, Paul continues to build on the point that God has mercy on whom He has mercy and even hardens whom He hardens. For so many, this is such a hard thing to read. And honestly you would not expect him to write this way if it was a letter given to the church explaining why Israel has not come to know Jesus. Paul being an apostle and understanding that this is from God, we must draw from it what it is there in the plain reading of the text. Paul’s conclusion, as he goes on through to chapters 10 and 11, is that Israel is experiencing a hardening that is from God, and that ultimately, they will be saved, they will come to Jesus in a mighty way at God’s appointed time. But until then, they have been broken away so that the rest of the world can be placed in Christ. And those numbers reflect today as also. I pray that this sermon will be a blessing for you, not so much to question God’s character as Paul would expect some will, but to trust God that He knows what He is doing, and that we can trust His heart to save more than our own hearts which lead us astray in so many areas of our lives, let alone whether we have made the right choice to follow Jesus or some other religion or nothing at all. I believe God has all things in hand and we can rest in that. Furthermore, Paul gives us a final solution for the dilemmas of “Is God fair?” and “Who can resist His will?”. And the solution is – who are we to try to comprehend the mind of God? That is the answer – God is sovereign. He is in control. He knows all things and His wisdom far surpasses anything we could hope and imagine here. Hence, we rest in the answer that we have been given, trust the Lord Jesus and get on with the job of sharing Him with the world that we know God can change.