Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.
5 sermons cite this verse
So have I shown you what the commodity is—doctrinally, experimentally, and practically. "Buy the Truth." Now let us come and think especially of the first part of the text. II. HOW THIS COMMODITY IS OBTAINED. "Buythe truth." Let us correct an error here. Some might suppose that Christ, the Gospel and salvation—all of which are included in the Truth of God—can be bought. They can, but they cannot. They can in the sense of the text. They cannot in any other sense. You cannot purchase salvation—merit cannot win it. Christ's price is, "Without money and without price." Has not the Prophet so worded it? "Yes, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price." Salvation is of Free Grace, and is, from the very necessity of its nature, gratis. You cannot merit it! You cannot earn it! It is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth, but, "He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion." What, then, does the text mean? I will try to expound the Word. It means, first, to be saved, give up everything that must be given up in order to your receiving the free salvation. Every sin must be given up. No man shall go to Heaven while he lives in and favors any one sin. A man may sin, and be saved, but he cannot love sin and be saved! Give up, then, your drunkenness, if that is your sin. Give up, then, your unchaste living if that is your sin. Conquer that angry temper, that love of greed—whatever it is that keeps you back from Christ. Buy the Truth and give up these. You will not merit salvation, then, but if this must be given up, let it not stand in your way. Give it up, Man! Since you cannot have your sin and have Christ, too, get a divorce from your sin and take holiness and take the Savior! You must also give up all your self-righteousness. Some are trusting in their prayers. Some are trusting in their tears, their repentances, their feelings, their church or chapel attendance and I know not what men will not trust in! Give them all up. They are all lies! There is no reliance to be placed on anything you can do. Come and trust what Christ has done, and if it is, as it certainly is necessary for you to give up your own righteousness to win Christ and be found in Him, then do it, and in this sense part with all you have that you may buy Christ! Yourself—your sinful self and your righteous self—oh, that you might be willing to part with both, that you might buy the true salvation! …
romans ix. 18. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. The apostle, in the beginning of this chapter, expresses his great concern and sorrow of heart for the nation of the Jews, who were rejected of God. This leads him to observe the difference which God made by election between some of the Jews and others, and between the bulk of that people and the Christian Gentiles. In speaking of this he enters into a more minute discussion of the sovereignty of God in electing some to eternal life, and rejecting others, than is found in any other part of the Bible; in the course of which he quotes several passages from the Old Testament, confirming and illustrating this doctrine. In the ninth verse. he refers us to what God said to Abraham, showing his election of Isaac before Ishmael “For this is the word of promise; At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son:” then to what God had said to Rebecca, showing his election of Jacob before Esau; “The elder shall serve the younger: ” in the thirteenth verse, to a passage from Malachi, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated: ” in the fifteenth verse, to what God said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion: ” and the verse preceding the text, to what God says to Pharaoh, Rom. ix. 17.“For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. ” In what the apostle says in the text, he seems to have respect especially to the two last-cited passages: to what God said to Moses in the fifteenth verse, and to what he said to Pharaoh in the verse immediately preceding. God said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. ” To this the apostle refers in the former part of the text. And we know how often it is said of Pharaoh, that God hardened his heart. And to this the apostle seems to have respect in the latter part of the text; ”and whom he will he hardeneth. ” We may observe in the text, …
Now, if there ever was one such instance from the beginning of the world, (and have there not been, and are there not, ten thousand times ten thousand?) it plainly follows, that faith is, in the above sense, the sole condition of justification. 7. It does not become poor, guilty, sinful worms, who receive whatsoever blessings they enjoy, (from the least drop of water that cools our tongue, to the immense riches of glory in eternity,) of grace, of mere favour, and not of debt, to ask of God the reasons of his conduct. It is not meet for us to call Him in question “who giveth account to none of his ways;” to demand, “Why didst thou make faith the condition, the only condition, of justification? Wherefore didst thou decree, “He that believeth,” and he only, “shall be saved?” This is the very point on which St. Paul so strongly insists in the ninth chapter of this Epistle, viz., That the terms of pardon and acceptance must depend, not on us, but “on him that calleth us;” that there is no “unrighteousness with God,” in fixing his own terms, not according to ours, but his own good pleasure; who may justly say, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy;” namely, on him who believeth in Jesus. “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,” to choose the condition on which he shall find acceptance; “but of God that showeth mercy;” that accepteth none at all, but of his own free love, his unmerited goodness. “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy,” viz., on those who believe on the Son of his love; “and whom he will,” that is, those who believe not, “he hardeneth,” leaves at last to the hardness of their hearts. …
But oh, you ungodly, if He will deal thus with His children, how will He deal with you who are not His children? If He means to bless you, He will not let you go unpunished, but He will smite you with heavy strokes. I remember one who used to bless God for a broken leg—he said that he never ran in the ways of God until he was lame. I believe that some parents never loved the heavenly Father till their dear infant child was taken away. The shepherd tried to get the mother sheep into the fold, but she would not come, so he took up her lamb and carried it away in his arms—and then the mother followed him! He has done that to some of you. You would never have come to Christ if dear little Johnny had not gone Home to Jesus. You lost one and another for that same purpose—have you not had enough strokes? You have been smitten till your "whole head is sick and your whole heart faint." Will you not turn unto your God without more ado? His blows are sent in mercy! It is far better that you should have a Hell here than Hell hereafter! It were better for you to live a lifelong agony than to be cast into Hell forever! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! He died for sinners—died for aggravating, guilty, willful sinners! And if they look to Him, they shall at once be forgiven! I cannot give the look of faith for you, or I would gladly do so, but I beseech you to look and live! May God the Holy Spirit lead you to do so, for Jesus' sake! Amen. …
What marvelous loving kindness there is for us to look at! Old as the everlasting hills—but old as it is, and majestic as it must be—there are some eyes that never saw it! Others, too, who, though they have read their Bibles and heard Gospel sermons from their infancy, have never yet seen God's marvelous loving kindness! Let us spend, then, a few minutes in meditation, in order that the Lord may hear this prayer and show us His loving kindness while we muse upon it. You see the root-word, the core-word of the text is "love." The rest is a description of that love. Well now, in meditating upon God's love, let us remember how extraordinary it has been. It was in love that, before the world was formed, God chose His people and enrolled them in His Covenant. When, with prescient eyes, the Almighty beheld all men immersed in ruin by their sin, His finger pointed to one man and another, "There will I dwell forever. There shall be My rest," said the Lord of Hosts, "for I have chosen him." What love was that which made him choose you and me? Or what motive could prompt Him but that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion? Electing love having dug the fountain, consider, Beloved, how vast that love which entered into the Covenant of Grace to effect the purpose of our redemption—when there was a striking of hands between the Persons of the Trinity, that by that Covenant transaction, promises might be made sure to all the seed by the Covenanting God in Christ. Ponder, I pray you, upon the love that did not cool when the Covenant required sacrifice—which did not refrain when the well-beloved Son of the Father must be the Victim! Surely Solomon must have had this in his mind when he said, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." Did not Jesus leave His Father and His mother that He might cleave unto His Spouse, and that they two might be made one flesh? Herein was love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be our Redeemer! …