We are considering, as most of you will recall, the words which are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Romans in the 9th chapter, from verse 19 to verse 24. Let me read these verses again, as they constitute a complete argument in and of themselves. Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will? Nay, but, o men, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing form say to him that formed it? Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? What if God willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. Now, as we've seen, what we have here is this objection that was being brought against the teaching of the apostle, as he has put it before us from verse six to verse 13. He's already raised a previous objection in verse 14, and he has answered that and dealt with it. But that in turn seemed to raise a further objection, and that is the objection which we have in verse 19. And there the objection is, why doth God yet find fault for who hath resisted his will? The apostle had been saying that the scripture Seth 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. And he's concluded, therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardener? So the objector says. Well, very well then, if it all is in the hands of God, why doth he find fault? What right is he to condemn anybody? And now the apostle goes on in these verses 20 to 24 to deal with his reply to that question. Let me remind you hurriedly again of how we've dealt, how we have subdivided and classified this reply of his. It goes into various sections. The first is of course, the first half of verse 20. They but, o men, who art thou that repliest against God? That's just a rebuke to the questioner for asking this question. Why doth he yet find fault, since nobody could go on resisting his will? There is the rebuke to the questioner then in the second half of verse 2020 B, if you like, in the whole of 21. He goes on to make an assertion and to give an explanation of God's sovereignty and entire freedom in what he does with fallen humanity, both in the matter of saving some and of rejecting others. Then in verses 22, 23, and 24, he gives us a possible explanation, at least what he regards as the explanation of why God thus in his sovereign right and power, should curse some, and should bless and save and show mercy to others. Now that's our general classification of this reply, which the apostle makes to the question posed in verse 19. Now, last Friday night we had time only to deal with the first part, which was the rebuke of the questioner. Nay, but, o men, who art thou that repliest against God? And we brought out this tremendous sarcasm that's involved there, the contrast between man and God. And that's the thing, of course, that the apostle was anxious to do. We worked that out together, and we justified the apostle in answering in this way. What he's really saying is this. He's not saying that we should never ask any questions at all, but what he is saying is this, that we should never contend with the plain teaching of God's word. We should never argue with God. We can express our difficulties, and if we do so in the right spirit, we shall be helped. But what we must never do is to begin to contend with God, to argue with God, and especially in this spirit that suggests that God is unrighteous or unfair or unjust. That is what he condemns in toto and the scripture. Of course, always, everywhere does the same thing. Now then, having done that, we can proceed to the next step in the apostle's reply, namely the portion which is found in the second half of verse 20 and the whole of verse 21. Now here the apostle asserts God's right, God's sovereign right, to show mercy or to harden as he wills and as he pleases. Now that's what we've got in this particular part of the argument. It is an assertion of God's right to do this. Now let's follow him as he does. So. Let's take first of all, the second half of verse 20. Having rebuked the questioner, he says, shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Now then, what is the significance of that? Well, you notice he's carrying on in a sense the rebuke which is already given, and he does so in a manner which shows the utter absurdity of our attempting to question or to query what God has done. But at the same time. He also defines yet more clearly what he has already hinted at as to the relationship that exists between God and man. Now, this, of course, is something which is absolutely vital. Of course, we dealt with this last Friday night. It was all there implicit in this contest between man and God. The new English Bible, so called, uses the word sir, but that's not the thing at all. The word used by the apostle was o man, and you don't get the force of it without. He isn't saying sir. He's saying, who art thou, o man? That's the emphasis, and that is actually the original. It isn't sir at all. It is o man to show the creatureliness of man, who thus pits himself against almighty God. The apostle Isaiah is so concerned about that that he rarely repeats it in this further section. And it is, of course, vital to this whole position with which we are dealing. Let me repeat it because it's so important. This is not the statement of the apostle Paul. He's been quoting scripture. And if you disagree with this doctrine, you're not disagreeing with the apostle Paul, still less with me, you're disagreeing with God. That's what the apostle's saying. In other words, what he's telling us to do, as we saw last Friday night, is this. When you come to any part of the scripture, take off your shoes from off your feet. This isn't Shakespeare, this isn't Euclid, this isn't a textbook of philosophy. This is God's word. And you approach this in an entirely different manner. You take your shoes off your feet, you realize that all your learning and all your abilities of no help to you at all when you come here. You've got to become as a little child, you need the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. In other words, a man who tells us openly that he sits in judgment on any part of the Bible is a man whom I would never expect to understand doctrine. He can't possibly do so, and of course he doesn't. Those are the people who deny the doctrines of the christian faith and don't even see the need of them, as they are the authorities themselves and their own understanding and not the word of God. Well, one doesn't expect them to understand. And so one expects from them the blasphemies that they admit that they emit so confidently. But we, I say, must come here in the spirit that the apostle teaches us. Take off thy shoes. From off thy feet. Who art thou, o man? Remember who you are and what you are, your finite, limited, sinful condition. And remember that you're dealing with something that God himself, the Almighty, has revealed. Very well, I say. He presses that home upon us still further, and this is how he does it. Having reminded us of our creatureliness as just men, he now says, shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus years, a further putting of us in our place and in our position? Remember, he says, that you are nothing but the thing formed. And that means, let me remind you, plastic material. That's what thing formed means. You are just the plastic material. He says, does the plastic material say to the men who molds it, why have you made me thus? Now, this is the most interesting term here. Let me impress upon you the importance of observing that he doesn't say the thing created. He says, the thing formed, not created. You will see the significance of that in a moment. He's here describing men as something that has already been created. It's plastic material. He's not starting with nothing. He's not talking about the bringing into being out of nothing. That's creation. He says, here. Here is a mass of plastic material which is going to be formed and which has been formed. Now that he says, doesn't turn to the one who's formed it and put it into shape, why hast thou made me such? Now then, there is a distinction between creation and the forming into shape of a mass of plastic material. And then, of course, what he is doing, you see, is this, as man's relationship to God, is that of this lump of plastic material to this artist who forms it into shape. Is there anything in the world that is more ridiculous and more absurd than for this helpless mass of substance to try to question and to query the one who's put it into shape? And to ask the question, why hast thou formed me thus? And his point is that that is exactly the position of anybody who, coming across this doctrine which says, jacob, have I loved, but Esau, have I hated, asks God, what right of you to do that? On what grounds can you justly do this thing? On what grounds do you condemn anybody to damnation? On what grounds do you choose anybody to mercy and to salvation? He says, it is as ridiculous and as monstrous as that. And let me remind you that even there, the apostle is not putting forth his own ideas merely he is there once more quoting the scripture. So, you see, the scripture answers the questions all along, but he just puts it there in the form of a question to show how utterly ridiculous and absurd and monstrous the thing is. Shall the thing formed. Say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me such ridiculed? The thing is entirely absurd. But let's go on. In verse 21, he takes it a bit further. He takes up this idea that he's introduced there, and he elaborates it, and he works it out still more clearly and plainly and explicitly. And of course, he's only got one object in doing this. People coming to this passage, as I've been showing you week by week, are always trying to explain it away. They try to get rid of this notion that we are taught here that God chooses some to salvation and he rejects others. They say this is impossible, it's unjust, it's unfair. And they try to say that. It doesn't say that. That it simply means that God in his foreknowledge knew that one man was going to believe and not the other, and so on. Well, of course, if it were that, as I'm pointing out, there'd be no objection to it at all. But it isn't that. And these terms he's using now about the thing formed and the one who forms it. And what he's coming on to now in verse 21. Makes any such attempt to get out to the difficulty something which is altogether futile. Very well then. Here it is. He puts it still more explicitly. Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump. To make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? Now, surely that's plain enough. The relationship that he's describing between God and mankind. Is the relationship between a potter and a lump of clay. Now then, in other words, this is so plain and explicit and clear that there is no way of dismissing what the apostle is saying. And there is our contrast once more. Man, God, thing formed the one who formed it. Clay lump potter, the great artificial. Once more, it's very important, it seems to me that we should be clear about this, that the apostle still is not putting forward his own opinion. He is once more quoting from the scripture. And in order that this may be quite clear to everybody, let me read the scriptures to you that he is obviously quoting. The first is in Isaiah, chapter 45. And let me read to you verses nine to eleven. Isaiah 45, verses nine to eleven. Woe unto him that striveth with his maker. There it is. Woe unto him that striveth with his maker. God forbid that that woe should come upon anybody who is in this gathering at this moment. Don't strive with your maker, my friend. Woe unto all who do that. Let the potchard strive with the potchards of the earth. Then here it is. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, what makest thou or thy work? He hath no hands. Woe unto him that Seth unto his father. What begettest thou or to the woman? What hast thou brought forth? See, that's the question at the end of verse 20. Thus, Seth, the Lord, the holy one of Israel, and his maker, ask of me things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands. Command ye me. Well, now, there it is. The apostle obviously has got that in his mind. But surely also he has equally in his mind. Isaiah, chapter 64, and verse eight. This, of course, is the cry that came up out of the heart of Isaiah when he was pleading for revival. But now, o Lord, thou art our father. We are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy help. Same idea exactly. And then you get it in Jeremiah also in chapter 18, verses three to six. Well, let's go to the beginning of the chapter. The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, o house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter, Seth, the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, o house of Israel. So that you see here, the apostle is not, as it were, as a brilliant philosopher or debater or arguer, trying to prove his doctrine of election, saying, no, the position is this man to God is just like a lump of clay in the hands of a potter. It isn't that at all. He's quoting scripture. He is quoting what God himself has said upon this matter, both to Isaiah and to Jeremiah. He is quoting at the same time what Isaiah had clearly understood as being this relationship between them. Well, now then, here, of course, as you all must realize, is a statement about which a people have argued and contended throughout the centuries, and as I have reminded you before, have lost their tempers and become bitter and violent and entered into party spirit and have refused to speak to one another, and so on. What a terrible thing. What a terrible thing to do with any statement in God's word. I'm much more concerned about our attitude to this than about anything else. I would say once more, if you cannot discuss a passage like this in a calm, collected, reasonable, humble spirit you have no right to look at it at all, and you will certainly never understand it. The spirit is absolutely essential and vital. Now, what does it mean? Well, let's look at the terms. Hath not the potter power over the clay? What does he mean by power here? Well, he chooses a word which means authority. Right. Now, let me prove that to you. Look at the next verse 22. What if, God willing, to show his wrath and to make his power known? Now, here in this authorized version, we've got the word power in both instances. But in the Greek, there are two different words. And the word he uses in 21 is the word that generally stands for authority. Whereas the word in verse 22 means dynamic. It literally means force, physical power, as zipper. But not here. Here it means authority and right. So that what he's saying is this has not the potter the right and the authority to do as he wills and as he chooses with that lump of clay to make one vessel into honor and one to dishonor. His picture is that of a potter making various utensils and implements for household use and so on. He says, some of them put to very honorable uses. The others, they're equally necessary, but they're not quite so honorable. He calls them dishonorable. There are things which have to be used in life. Some you put onto the table and they're shown. Others are kept out of sight, but they're very necessary. It's the same sort of distinction as you have in one corinthians twelve, where the apostle, in dealing with the various members of the body, he says that some are less comely than others, but they're all in the body. They're not all like the face and like the eyes and like the hands. There are other functions in the body. We don't talk about them. They're out of sight, but they're absolutely essential. Some to honor, some to dishonor, some comely, some less comely. Very well. All he's saying is this, surely. He says, the master potter has the right and the authority to do as he wills and as he chooses with that mass, that lump of clay, to make one vessel into honor and one to dishonor. Very well, but what does he mean by that? Now, this is where we come, of course, to the crux of the whole matter. He does not say that God has created some people to honor and some to dishonor. He doesn't say that. He isn't talking. I remind you again about creation. He is not saying here that God Almighty created some people in order that they might sin and go to damnation. On what grounds do I say that? Well, the terms that are actually used not only entitle me to say that, but they compel me to say that. Let me show you what I mean. The terms are perfectly clear. Now, we've already seen that he uses this term about plastic material. That's why I made a pint of them. Shall the plastic material say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? And I pointed out, you remember, that he doesn't say the thing created. Say to him that formed it. He says, the plastic material. But now here we go still further. He talks about clay, and he talks about lump of clay. In other words, the figure that the apostle is using is not the figure of creation. He is talking about something that is done with material that has already been created. Now, that is absolutely vital to the whole case. Creation, I would remind you again, means creating out of nothing. And in creation, you start with nothing. But here we are starting with plastic material. We are starting with a lump of clay. And what the apostle is arguing through his figure is this, that God, in his relationship to men in salvation is in the same position as the potter to a lump or a mass of clay. The potter doesn't create the lump of clay. He starts with it. It's there in front of him. There is the lump of clay on the bench. The potter comes along and is now going to do something with it. Very well, then. Why am I emphasizing this? What does it teach us? Well, what it teaches us is this, that the apostle is not dealing here at all with God's purpose in the original creation of man. Well, what is he dealing with? Well, he is dealing with God's relationship to form humanity. You see, he's concerned here only about salvation, not about creation. And he puts it in this kind of picture. Fallen humanity is kind of like a kind of lump of clay. It's already there. And what he's discussing is what God does with this lump, this mass of fallen humanity. He's not saying what God does with human nature as such. Still less, as I say, is he dealing with what God did at the original creation? Because at the original creation, what we are told is this. It's the exact opposite. Here, look at it again. Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and one unto dishonor. And that's in interpretation, remember, of Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated? Or it's in terms of what God did to the children of Israel and what he did to pharaoh and his hosts, which we've already been looking at. Now, then, why do I say that this is so essentially different from the original creation? Well, for this reason that in the original creation, it was not only creation from nothing, but still more important, God created men in his own image and likeness. That's the opposite of dishonor. God made men in his own image and likeness. He looked upon men as he looked upon the whole of creation. And we are told that he saw that it was good. God never created anything unto dishonor. But here we are dealing with a potter who makes one vessel unto dishonor. Well, that proves, I say, that it cannot be dealing with human nature as such. It is still less dealing with men as he was made at the beginning. It is an account of what men does with fallen humanity. Now, there is the key to the whole explanation of this statement that has mystified so many people. They get hold of the idea that God deliberately made some people that they might go to hell. That is a lie. It is not true. It's not taught anywhere in the scripture. What the apostle is dealing with here is what God does with fallen men and women, and that's true of the whole of humanity. The lump of clay is not humanity. It is fallen humanity. It is humanity as the result of the original sin of Adam and of Eve. Now, Charles Hodge puts this very well. When he puts it in these words, we are dealing here, he says, with God as moral governor, not as creator. That's it. Moral governor, not as creator. Now, of course, in putting it like this, the apostle is simply stating in other terms what he's already been stating all the way from verse six. You see, there we were introduced to this whole question of these two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac. And you remember how we interpreted that? They both, you see, are children of Abraham. They both come out of the same lump, as it were, out of the same stock. That's Abraham. There's the same lump, the same lump of clay. But you remember we saw that out of that same lump, God formed one to dishonor. Ishmael formed another to honor Isaac. Both were inheritors of fallen humanity. Through Abraham. Both were in the same position. They were in the same lump, fallen humanity. That's the thing. Right away, through the same with Jacob and Esau, still more obvious because they were twins, the same lump, fallen humanity, both of them. But out of that, one is formed to salvation. That's Jacob. The other is formed to damnation. There is the thing that the apostle is saying right away through from the beginning of the argument at verse six. And all he's saying at this point is this, that God has a right to do this. Let me put it like this. This is the only thing under consideration here. And what the apostle is asserting is this, that the whole of humanity, everybody born into this world from Adam is already lost, is already under condemnation, is already in a state that deserves damnation. Everybody. But that God chooses some to salvation, and others he hardens and consigns to perdition, and others he hardens and consigns to perdition. And all he's arguing here is this. God has a right to do that, as the potter has a right to make, one to honor and one to dishonor out of that lump of clay that's in front of him. Goddesses has an equal right to choose, some to honor and consign, the others to dishonor. On what grounds do you say that he has a right? Well, here are the answers. All deserve damnation as the result of the sin of Adam. No, you remember that, don't you? We needn't go back over that. That's proved in verse, in chapter five, verse twelve. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men. For that all have sin. There it is. We can't go back to prove that again. It's proved there abundantly. It's the teaching of the scripture everywhere. We all sinned in Adam, and the sin of Adam is on us all, and we're all receiving the condemnation. We are all born in sin, and we deserve damnation as the result of it, the sin of Adam. But not only that, we deserve it also as the result of our own deliberate choice, as the result of our own deliberate sins and disobedience. But I want to go further. Nobody deserves mercy. Not one. Is there anybody here who'd like to claim that he or she is deserving of the mercy of God? Give me your grounds for saying it. There is none. We, none of us deserve mercy. We have no claim upon the love of God whatsoever. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. The whole world lieth guilty before God, and nobody can dispute it very well. There is our position. We not only deserve no mercy, we have no claim upon God to give us mercy. That's the lump of clay. And all the apostle is therefore saying is this. Surely God has a right, therefore, to do what he likes with this. If he condemned the whole to perdition, nobody'd be able to voice a single complaint. But if he chooses to make some unto honor and some for salvation, why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he? Hasn't he a right to do what he likes with his own grace and mercy and compassion? Nobody has a claim. Nobody can bring any complaint. We all deserve hell. If God chooses to show favor to some, why shouldn't he? Of course, the thing is so monstrous, because we, you see, as men and women, are constantly doing this very thing, and if somebody tries to take from us the right to do what we like with our own, we become furious. That's why most people dislike communism. They say it takes everything from you. You can no longer do what you like with your own. And they think this is most unjust and iniquitous. But they're not willing for God to have that position. You see how utterly illogical we are. God, the almighty creator, says the apostle. He has a right as creator, as judge, as sovereign lord. He has complete freedom and right to do as he wills and as he likes. And that is precisely what he does. Cespo, with this lump of fallen, sinful humanity. He has from the very beginning, according to this principle of his, this God's purpose, according to the principle of election in verse eleven, he has decided to choose some to honor and some to dishonor. Hence your isaacs. Hence your jacobs, hence your children of Israel. Very well. That is the statement that the apostle makes. Now, I do want to have this quite clear. No one is created evil. It's inconceivable. God created all things good. No one was created evil. No one has ever been forced to sin. God neither tempteth any men with sin nor can be tempted, says James in his first chapter in verse 13. Mankind in its representative and its head, Adam, who was perfect and sinless and had complete free will and complete freedom of choice, rebelled against God and sinned. And so, as I've reminded you, we have all fallen and sinned with him, because we all by nature are in Adam. And what the apostle is dealing with here is what God does with humanity in the light of that. And he says he has an absolute right to do as he wills in his own sovereign will and lordship. With such a hopeless mass, which could be all consigned to perdition. He has nevertheless, because of his grace and glory and his purpose, chosen and elected to form some out of it unto glory and honor and others to perdition and to dishonor. Well, I say, that's the whole argument, you see, that's what he did once more in Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, children of Israel and Pharaoh and his hosts. Now that and that alone is what the apostle tells us here. He doesn't go any further. And I can tell you why he doesn't go any further. Because he couldn't. He doesn't know. You see, what you want to ask at this point is this, isn't it? Why did God decide to do this? How does God decide to make one unto honor a one or to dishonor? There's only one answer to that. I do not know. Nobody else does. But I'll add to that. You have no right to ask your question. That is the ultimate mystery. I can't go beyond the scripture. And all the scripture tells me is that God does that. And that he has a right to do it. And that if I raise the question as to whether he has the right to do it, I am being not only a fool, I am calling upon my head woes from God. For I am trying to contend with my maker. That's all I know. I can't go further. We must not even inquire. So let me put it to you like this. This is the teaching. If any man is saved, it is entirely because of the mercy and the choice of God. I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. Therefore, he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. So that I say, whenever a man is saved, a man who is the Christian is the Christian for one reason only. It is because of the election of God and the mercy of God. He was in that lump of perdition, that mass of perdition. And if you're out of it tonight, it is entirely because of the mercy of God. But I add this. If a man is lost, it is entirely his own responsibility. How is that? Well, because it is a part of his inheritance from Adam. He is responsible in Adam, as you and I are responsible for things that the government of Great Britain did perhaps a hundred years ago. You can't dissociate yourself. We are responsible for the sins of our forefathers, for the actions of our country. We're responsible in that way. But on top of it, we're responsible because we have confirmed what Adam did. We've all done it ourselves. Also. Adam sinned as our representative, but we've all sinned in turn. Every man chooses to sin deliberately. We've not been forced to sin. We've wanted to sin. We've done it deliberately. We went against conscience. We went against law. We have sinned when we have sinned deliberately. But on top of that, every man who doesn't believe the gospel is rejecting the gospel and its offer of salvation deliberately. So we put it like that. If a man is saved, it is entirely of the mercy of God. If he is damned, it is his own responsibility. That's what the apostle's teaching. That is precisely the teaching here. It came out in our teaching concerning Pharaoh. God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and I showed you that there was no contradiction there. Well, now, that is the teaching of the scripture at this point, that God has this complete right and freedom to do as he wills with this mess of humanity that has sinned against him. He chooses to save some. That's the marvelous thing. And he chooses not to save the others. And for his own purposes, as we have seen and as we shall yet see, he sometimes hardened those others in order to display his glory and his power through them. That really doesn't come in. Doesn't make any difference at all. The vital thing is that he chooses to save some and send the others to the perdition and the damnation that we all so richly deserve. Now then, as I close this evening, let me put it to you like this. Perhaps I shouldn't be doing this, but I'm trying to help. This, I say, is a great mystery, the mystery of God's eternal will. The principle on which he does this, we don't know. All he tells us is, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. And he did that while they were both still unborn in the womb of their mother. Now, this is a mystery, and natural men objects to this. He feels it's wrong. This is the sort of thing that they like to say, don't they, in the newspapers, that they don't believe in that, and some of them foolishly say that they're looking forward to going to heaven, and they'd like to have half an hour with the apostle Paul and put him right on some things. No, that's an exact quotation. That's an exact quotation. What a man said in a christian pulpit here in London a few years ago, the same men who uttered the blasphemies reported in the Daily Mail this morning. They don't understand this, you see, and so they express these blasphemous opinions. But I want to show you how utterly inconsistent they are with themselves and with what they really believe. Themselves. They object to this, you see. They say, where's free will? Where's man? Where's man's responsibility? Well, I've shown you where men's responsibility is already. I say a man is responsible for his damnation. He is not responsible for his salvation. But let me show you how inconsistent they are. What is it? These people rarely believe about men, these scoffers against the Bible, these scoffers against christian doctrine. What do they rarely believe about men? Well, I can tell you what they believe. Why does men act as he does? How do you explain men? Well, there are only three ultimate explanations. One is called contingency, that there's no rhyme, no reason in anything. It's all accidental and haphazard. The second is the doctrine of necessity, which sometimes goes under the name of fate. They say, there it is. You can't help it. You're fated to do it. You are like that. And it's fate and necessity. That's a very common belief in the world. Determinism, that everything is determined and that man isn't free at all. Now I'm quoting now what non christians believe. And there are many subdivisions of this doctrine of necessity or determinism. Now, take the communists, for instance, the followers of Karl Marx. How do they explain men? Well, they say that men is to be explained in terms of what they call dialectical materialism. It just means this. They say the whole of history can be explained in terms of capital and labor, demand and supply. That's the supposed discovery of Karl Marx, that he discovered this dialectic, that you can explain the whole of human history and therefore the lives of individuals in terms of this conflict. There's the master, here's the servant, capital, labor, demand, supply, and so on. And that this has determined the whole course of history. They believe that they are determinists. They don't believe that man is free. They say man is a slave of this process, which they're trying, of course, to help along. And they say it is happening inevitably and ultimately. The whole world will have evolved through this process. Until you have that perfect state, the bourgeoisie shall have arrived, the proletariat and so on. There will be the classless state, and there'll be no capital and labor. There'll be no masters. We'll all be the Masters. That's one view of this determinism, but here's another, the biological view. I do hope you're getting the force of this argument. These are the arguments you see. These are the things that are believed by people who object to this teaching of the apostle Paulia because they say that means that man can't do anything about it. Where's man's free will? But that's what they really believe of men. At the same time, some of them believe it, though in terms of this biological view, these are very scientific. These say that what a man is, is determined by various glands in his body. I've put this to you many a time before. They're quite serious. They say that the relative proportions of your thyroid gland, pituitary gland, supra renal glands, and so on determine what you are. They have no difficulty in explaining Hitler. You have too much supra gland where your adrenaline and power comes from. Well, all right, I agree, I agree. It's very funny. But this is taught quite seriously. Quite seriously. And so you can explain your Shakespeare's, your Beethovens, and everybody else. Man, you see, is nothing but the result of the interplay of these biological forces that are within him. But there's one other, and this is the interesting one. The explanation of men and his behavior given by FReuD, the father of psychoanalysis, the one that the supposed great psychologist follows and whose teachings he has been giving from christian pulpits. This is what FReud teaches. And now I'm going to give you a quotation from the wreath lectures that were delivered just before Christmas by professor Caste. As you remember, you saw something about it in the papers. This man who criticized the christian church for putting chastity before charity, as he puts it, and he's one of these Freudians like so many of these people are. Now, this is what Professor Castez actually said, and it's a correct statement about Freud and his teaching. He says the confusion which prevails in popular thinking about the concepts of determinism and personal responsibility contributes to this partial eclipse of moral values. He'd just been giving figures to show the appalling increase in the number of people in our prisons. It's gone up three times what it was before the war, three times what it was in the hundred years before the war. He then gives figures about juvenile delinquency and so on now. And he's trying to explain this. And he says the confusion which prevails in popular thinking about the concepts of determinism and personal responsibility contributes to this partial eclipse of moral values by showing how often our apparently deliberate actions are in fact determined by motives of which we are unaware. Psychoanalysis has undermined our confidence in the reality of free will. And it's quite right. It has. If you follow the teaching of Freud and these psychoanalysts, you cannot possibly believe in free will. Why not? Well, he says what a man does, what a man thinks and his reactions and his behavior are determined by what? Well, they're determined not only by the characteristics of his father and mother and grandfather and grandmother on both sides, but also what happened to him when he was yet in the womb. Also what happened to him when he was being brought up as a child. Now you're going to laugh again, but these things are put forward seriously. Professor caste actually mentioned these things in his lecture. It depends partly whether he was a breastfed or a bottle fed baby. It depends also upon the way he was treated in the matter of hygiene by his mother. Was she one of these people who was over concerned about cleanliness of her baby or wasn't she? Those are the sort of things which are going to determine how a man's going to behave. And then, of course, all these experiences in early childhood when he's yet unconscious, these dawning sex impulses and so on, those are the things that determine how men and women behave. That's the teaching of psychoanalysis. And I was quoting here one Sunday night what another of them said, who said quite seriously that the only hope for the future of this world is this, that children should be brought up by parents and school teachers who themselves had undergone a process of psychoanalysis and who had been rid of these things that have been hampering the forward march of the human race and liberated into a new way of living. It's the only hope. And it must happen to them while they're children because the child is the father of the men. Well, now, there it is. You see, all I want to try to do to help you is this. That's the alternative to the teaching of the apostle Paul. Don't talk to me about free will. There's no such thing. There is no such thing as free will in fallen men. The Bible teaches that. Freud teaches that. All these people teach that. You see, what we've got here is the doctrine of certainty, not contingency, not necessity. But it is certainty, the certainty of that which is produced by God. Let me give you one final argument before I let you go. People seem to think that if you reject this doctrine of Paul that then you're in a happy position. You say no I don't believe that. It's God who elects and that whom he wills he hardens. And whom he saves, he saves. A man must be free. It must depend upon man's own choice, upon man's decision. Well, very well. Now then, wait a minute. Let's look at it like this. Let me show you where you are. If you reject the doctrine of Paul. Start here. Take that verse we read at the beginning in acts 28 24. Here is the apostle Paul. He's gathered the Jews together into his private lodging in Rome, and he preaches the gospel to them. And this verse tells me, and some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. Very well, there's the problem, isn't it? Why do some believe and some believe not? There were Jews, all of them the same. Same background, same everything. Some believed, some didn't believe. How often has it happened in a family? Two brothers, same father and mother. Same home, same upbringing. Went to the same school, went to the same chapel, went to the same Sunday school. Everything the same. Hearing the same gospel. One believes, the other doesn't believe. What decides it? What determines it says something quite simple. Free will. Very well. One chooses to believe, the other chooses not to believe. And you think you finished when you've said that, but you haven't. This is the problem that you leave with me and with all the psychologists. But why is it that one chose to believe and the other chose not to believe? I want to know that. Why did some believe Paul's preaching and why did some not? What you say the one chose to believe and the other chose not to believe? I know, but what I want to know is this. What is it that makes a man want to or want not to? Oh, well, you say. Well, that's how he saw things. And the other one saw them in the different way. Yes, but you still haven't helped me. Why does one of them see it like this and the other one like that? You see, you must ask these questions. Well, I'm told. Well, I don't know. One of them was like that, and the other was different. All right, but tell me, why was one like this and the other different? Let's go further back. Why? Well, you say, well, he must have been born like this and the other born different. All right. Are we responsible for the way in which we are born? Are you responsible for the nature with which you were born? Are you responsible for the ability with which you are born? Of course you're not. You see, if you reject this teaching that we have here in romans nine. That's where you're left. It is utterly accidental. One man believes, well because he happened to be born like that. The other disbelieves because he happened to be born like that. He doesn't control it. The vital question is this. What is it that determines a man's will? And the moment you ask that question, it comes back to one of two things. It is either God's purpose, or else it is pure accident. Matter of glands, matter of upbringing, a 1001 factors entirely beyond our own control. In no case have you got free will. There is no such thing. Ever since men fell, the only man who's ever had free will was Adam, and we know what he did with it. Since then, there's been no free will. We've all been born in sin. We are shaped in iniquity. And what makes any man a Christian is the purpose and the will and the choice of God. Now then, I've only said that to try to help you. I perhaps shouldn't have said it, but I do it in order that you may see the position that you're in if you reject the teaching of the apostle here. For you're not only rejecting the teaching of the apostle, I would remind you, you are rejecting the teaching of God himself. And it's not surprising that the alternative is complete chaos, utter contingency, sheer hopelessness, though it may masquerade at times in terms of some blind fate or some mechanical deterministic necessity. Well, may God give us his spirit and give us the grace to look into these marvelous and mysterious things. We haven't finished the argument. God willing, we will go on to consider the remainder next Friday evening. O Lord, our God, we humbly pray thee that thou wouldst look down upon us in compassion. We have all sinned before thee and against thee, and especially in this matter that has been before us. We have come with the self confidence of our little minds and so often in the wrong spirit. Lord, we thank thee that with thee there is mercy, that thou mayst be feared. And we thank thee more than ever that we are in thy hands and that we are what we are by the grace of God alone. Lord receive our prayers. And now may the grace of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and the love of God, the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now, this night throughout the remainder of this, our short, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and until we shall be in the glory. And seeing him face to face and being filled with amazement more than ever, and telling the story saved by grace. Amen.