The Consistency of God’s Purposes

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Introduction: God’s plans NEVER change. In the realm of men, there are some who claim perfect success because they continually redefine what they were looking to accomplish. If they fall short, if they fail, they simply LIE about what they were aiming at in the first place. They move the goalposts. They redefine their original intentions. The REALITY of success is not as important to them as the APPEARANCE of success. This happens REGULARLY in politics. God not only has no desire for such redefinitions, HE HAS NO NEED. His plans never need redefinition, or adjustment. WHY? Because everything that He purposes, He remains committed to, and He has all the wisdom, and power, and authority, necessary to accomplish it. AND He does indeed accomplish it. It is because this is true, that the revelation of God’s plans in the Old Testament remain perfectly consistent in the New Testament. God never declares something in the Old Testament (in the form of promise or the expression of purpose) and then adjusts it in the New. What you see unfolded in the New Testament is the revelation of what God purposed before the He formed the world. Before He ever said it, in the Old Testament, it was established in His everlasting decrees. The Old Testament and the New Testament are perfectly consistent with each other, because they reveal the plans and purposes of God that never shift or change. GOD DOES NOT CHANGE. If it appears that He has changed, it is only because we have misunderstood His purposes. Paul has explained that the Christian’s security rests on the unchangeable nature of God’s purposes. That truth is challenged by those who would challenge Paul’s gospel based on the mass unbelief of Israelites. The truth might be wondered about, even by believers, who are troubled by Israel’s unbelief, and wonder if it represents a failure of God’s investment in that nation. Paul answers with the doctrine of election. And he not only answers with the doctrine of election, he answers objections raised to the doctrine of election. He answers those objections with biblical evidence, and with an insistence on the rights of God. BUT HE FINISHES HIS DEFENSE OF GOD, IN OUR VERSES THIS MORNING, BY INSISTING ON SOMETHING ELSE. Not only is what He is preaching true, not only is it RIGHT because God of GOD’S RIGHTS — NONE OF THIS REPRESENTS ANYTHING INCONSISTENT WITH WHAT GOD HAS ALREADY MADE KNOWN. What the world was witnessing in Paul’s time. The worldview represented in the gospel entrusted to Paul. NONE OF THIS SHOULD HAVE SURPRISED ANYONE. Because the Word of God anticipated it. This is not inconsistent with what God revealed through the prophets. This is not inconsistent with the law of faith. A law, as Paul has already demonstrated, on display throughout the entirety of the Old Testament, wherever God has granted salvation. It is a law that was on display, at the very beginning of the nation, when Abraham was justified by faith. It is the consistency of God’s purposes that we consider this morning. ISRAEL’S CURRENT REJECTION, AND THE MERCY OF GOD TO THE GENTILES, IS CONSISTENT WITH THE PROPHETS (vs.24-29) What is most emphasized about God’s purpose in salvation is His desire to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy. God DOES desire to demonstrate His wrath. But His patience, His endurance with vessels of wrath, is explained by His desire to show mercy. And that is what is most emphasized. That mercy was predetermined. The vessels of mercy were prepared beforehand for glory. And if someone asks how those secret purposes are made manifest, and how they are brought into reality (in history), the answer is GOD’S CALLING. This is something Paul has already made clear. ESV Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. The vessels of mercy are the vessels who are CALLED BY GOD.