God’s desire is to mould a life of blessing around the mature believer; John 15:16.

Title: God’s desire is to mould a life of blessing around the mature believer; John 15:16.

 

Rom 9:19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"

 

These are the two anticipated questions of the desperate unbeliever and not a legitimate questions.

 

Rom 9:20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to [or contradicts] God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?

 

God has molded your circumstances but He is not responsible for the state of your soul. Man is a free agent and has self-determination. The answer to this rhetorical question is an obvious no, I cannot contradict God, nor can I challenge Him on the state of my circumstances.

 

Rom 9:21 Or does not the potter have a right [authority] over the clay, to make from the same lump [all of us are born in sin, in spiritual death] one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?

 

There are three categories of blessing:

1.Primary blessings: 40 things received at salvation. [these cannot be lost or improved upon. The FHS is regained through confession]

 

2. Secondary blessings: Escrow blessings given in time coincident with capacity.

 

Be careful in your “hunt” for escrow blessings. You know you have capacity for them when you are content without them. And, you may have capacity, but the Sovereign will of God may delay their conveyance for a more perfect time that establishes His glory to the maximum.

 

Heb 10:35-36

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

 

I would throw away my confidence when after I have attained the capacity for blessing and God delayed that blessing that instead of enduring with patience I get impatient and conclude that I have sanctified myself needlessly.

God promises tremendous blessing, but it turns out that if we’re following Him and His doctrine just for the blessing that we never develop capacity for it. Christianity is a relationship with God the Father, God the Son, the humanity of Christ, and God the HS with or without blessing.

 

This is why I like to say, “God is enough,” “Christ is enough,” in other words, “Primary blessings are enough.”

 

3. Eternal blessings: Involves primary blessings for all believers as well as escrow blessings for mature believers, all of which exist eternally.

 

If there were no escrow blessings in time then there will be no escrow blessings in eternity. However, escrow blessings were given to every believer in EP, before he could do anything – all believers! They do not depend on works and they cannot be earned, their conveyance simply depends on capacity from doctrine.

 

Imputed righteousness is the target of all primary blessing at salvation and secondary blessing when capacity from metabolized doctrine exists in the heart.

 

[slide: Grace pipeline]

 

Imputed divine righteousness is the axis upon which the wheel of the plan of God rotates.

 

You know you have capacity for a certain category of secondary blessing when you have contentment with or without that blessing.

 

Spiritual blessing through spiritual growth must come first and then earthly blessing will follow on the heels of that capacity. And it is God that is granting both types of blessing as He moulds the life of the positive believer and forms his niche.

 

39 of the 40 things imputed to the believer at salvation cannot be lost or improved upon. The filling of the Holy Spirit is regained through confession.

 

Therefore, true capacity for anything comes from doctrine in the soul. What you can’t do without is doctrine, the FHS, eternal life, imputed +R, union with Christ, etc. However, earthly blessings can come and go for the believer with capacity and his shared happiness with God is not altered.

 

The issue is – Does the individual vessel recognize divine authority in life, in salvation, and in post-salvation?

 

Divine authority has been given to the living word – Jesus Christ and is expressed in the written word – the mind of Christ.

 

Rom 9:22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

 

The first answer in verses 20 and 21 emphasized free will and the Sovereignty of God whose satisfied justice allows Him to bless or judge and discipline.

 

Verse 22 is the second answer, going back to Pharaoh and God’s use of negative volition.

 

The first answer in vs. 20-21 emphasizes God’s Sovereignty and Justice vs. man’s free will. The second answer in vs. 22 emphasizes the results of negative volition.

 

Rom 9:22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

 

Pharaoh’s negative volition becomes an illustration of Israel’s negative volition all throughout her history.

 

This is brilliantly written because it forces the reader to think. It forces him to reason out the conclusion to the conditional clause. Paul states the protasis but does not give the apotosis. We have to reason out the apotosis ourselves. It forces you to think instead of just reading.

 

 “Moreover if God willing to demonstrate His indignation and reveal His omnipotence…” – if the creature has a free will, doesn’t God also? And doesn’t He have the right to use it?