Rabbi Schneider - He Chooses Patience
God said in the Torah, before Pharaoh hardened his own heart, God said to Moses, "Moses, I'm going to send you before Pharaoh and I'm going to harden his heart". It's true that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, but even deeper than that God hardened his heart.
Now, you have to understand that God didn't harden an innocent Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh's heart was already hardened. All of humanity's heart is naturally in rebellion against God. God doesn't harden innocent people's hearts. He hardens hearts that are already hardened. But in hardening Pharaoh's heart, God created an opportunity to show His glory. Because every time Pharaoh resisted Moses's declaration to him, when Moses said, "Thus saith the LORD, let my people go," every time Pharaoh resisted, God did a great miracle. He covered the land with gnats. He turned the Nile to blood. He caused darkness to go over the entire land of Egypt. And it goes on. Ten plagues. And every time God did a plague, His glory and the fame of His name spread to Egypt and beyond.
So God's purpose was to use Pharaoh's hardness to glorify Himself. So Paul is referring to the same concept here when he says this in verse 22. "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make his power known..." Paul is saying God is ready. He wants to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known. Listen again. "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make his power known..." God's ready to do it. He's ready to show His glory by exterminating sinners from the earth. He's ready to bring forth His punishment against evil and wrong. But Paul continues, "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"?
This gets back to what Paul said in the previous two verses. That God from the same lump of clay made some vessels for honor and others for dishonor or common use. So God now has made these vessels for honor... for dishonor, rather, and He's ready to, to punish them, He's ready to exterminate sinners from the earth. But He hasn't done it yet, Paul is going to say, because He still has people that are His own, part of His elect that He chose before the foundation of the world that He wants to save. And so He's holding back His wrath against sin, He's holding back His wrath against evil, He's holding back from showing His glory against sinners because there are still people alive and that are going to be born that He wants to save, that are a part of His chosen remnant that were chosen in Jesus, according to Ephesians 1, before the foundation of the world.
So listen again. "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepare for destruction? And He did so to make known..." Why did He do it? Why is He holding forth showing His glory? Why is He holding forth His wrath? "He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles". Are you getting the big picture? This is a hard truth to understand. It really involves us trusting who God is. Because Paul, once again, he realized that mankind would not easily receive this. He said, "Who are you, O man, that answers back to God?" when man began to object to this teaching in Romans 9.
We have to first of all trust that God is good, that God has a right in His goodness and in His sovereignty to choose from the earth vessels that He wanted to show His mercy to in Jesus. And upon those who may be allowed to continue in their rebellion... Because remember mankind was already in rebellion before Jesus came, right? The whole world was guilty before God before Jesus came. So God didn't send Jesus to a group of good guys. God sent Jesus into a world where all of humanity was in rebellion against Him. You might look around and say, Well, I know a lot of people that don't believe in God, but I don't know if they're actually in rebellion against God. But when we speak of rebellion against God, what we're actually referring to is when mankind lives as an island unto Himself.
You might look around and you think, well, these people are good people. I mean, look at my good neighbor over there. They might not be Christians, they might not worship Jesus but look how good they are. They give to the poor, they treat other people well, they're respectful. But what we need to understand is when people are not worshiping God, they've set themselves up as an idol as if they're God. Rather than worshipping and serving the Creator, they live as if they themselves are a god without any worship of the one that made them. The Scripture says, "Will the thing made say to the one that made it: You did not make me"?
So beloved, you see that when people are living lives separate from Jesus, separate from worshiping God, separate from living unto Him, separate from living unto the one from whom are all things. When people are living in a different reality than that, they're in rebellion against God. They made themselves the center of the universe, rather than making God the center of the universe. And in so doing, they are children of wrath that deserve to be punished because they refused to worship and serve the Creator. This is how Paul began the book of Romans. He said, "The wrath of God," in Romans chapter 1 and 2, "is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men that suppress the truth". Because rather than worshiping and serving the Creator, they worshipped and served themselves in the creation.
So even though people might seem like they're good people to you, because they're not worshipping and serving their Creator, they're living in hostility and rebellion against the Creator. And this is why the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. God sent Jesus to reconcile us. And anybody that comes to Jesus, once again, God will save. But mankind is walking away from Jesus rather than towards Him. So the only ones that come to Him are the ones that Father sovereignly chooses and draws. This is why Yeshua said in John 6, to the few that remained with Him, after he had said, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourself". And upon hearing that, they said, "Who could listen to this"? And they all left. And then Yeshua looked at the few that remained and he said, "This is why said to you that no man can come to me unless it's been granted from the Father".
So the point once again is, is that mankind is in rebellion against God, and God is going to punish it. And He's going to reveal His glory, and He's going to reveal His righteousness against unrighteousness. He's ready and willing and wants to do it. He wants to exterminate evil and unrighteousness from the earth. But He hasn't done it yet. We're getting back to the text. He hasn't done it yet because there are still people that are alive that are part of those whom He chose in Himself before the foundation of the world, according to Ephesians 1, that haven't come to Him yet. They're not saved yet. And even those that are not born yet that are part of His elect.
"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? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of His mercy, which He prepared beforehand..." Notice that word "beforehand". "...vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand..." Which gets back to the earlier texts in this chapter, when Paul is describing Jacob and Esau before they were even born, God said, "Jacob, I love and Esau I hated", Paul's referring to the same concept, "vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles".
And so what I've been teaching as a common major thread of revelation. It's a constant river of revelation through the entire Bible. There are a few verses in scripture that seemed to teach something different than what I'm saying. Let me give you an example. Oftentimes people will take all that I've said and discount it because of a few verses. Let me share with you what the verses are. First of all, I'm looking in the book of 2 Peter 3:9. Hear the Word of God. Peter writes here, "The Lord is not slow about His promise..." This is the second coming. "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness..."
This is very typical or similar, I should say, to what Paul just got done saying. That God's ready to show His wrath, but He hasn't shown it yet because there are still vessels of mercy that He prepared before and for glory that need to come to Him. This is the same thing that Peter is saying. "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you..." Who's "you"? "You" is the entire Ecclesia. It's the entire church. "...but is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance".
What is Peter talking about here? The same thing. That God's wrath has not been revealed because God is waiting to bring in the full number of those that have been chosen in Jesus before the foundation of the world, according to Ephesians 1. There is another verse that people sometimes quote to try to discredit all that I've been teaching. It's in the book of 1 Timothy 2, where Paul says that we should make prayers and petitions on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority... And then he continues there that God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And I believe that this verse is easily explained when we consider that what we're referring to in Timothy is a general word that God is saving people in the earth from all walks of life. From kings and people in authority, governors, as well as the common man. God has people from all walks of life that are part of His remnant people. The bottom line, beloved, at the end of the day is this. If I have 500 verses in the Bible that say one thing, and I have three verses that say the opposite of the 500, I need to interpret the three in light of the 500 rather than interpreting the 500 in light of the three.
Let me say it another way. Through the entire Word of God, from Genesis through Revelation, the Scripture teaches that God is sovereign, and He sovereignly chooses people to be His own from the face of the earth. The ones that He chooses are not because they're better than other people. Paul says in the book of Ephesians concerning the chosen, that we were by nature, even as those that were not chosen. Paul said we were by nature, speaking of those of us that are chosen, he said, "We're by nature children of wrath, even as the rest". But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us made us alive in Christ.
And so there's nothing different about the people that are chosen in and of themselves. God just has chosen to extend His mercy to them, only because of what's in His own heart. So we have an entire river of Scripture that shows us, beginning with Israel, all the way through the New Testament, where Jesus said, for example, in John 10, "But you believe not," He said to those that didn't believe in Him, "because you're not my sheep. My sheep, hear my voice, my Father has given them to Me and no man shall snatch them out of my hand". All through the entire Bible we read that God has a remnant people. In fact, in John 17 in what is known as the high priestly prayer, Yeshua before going to the cross, prays to the Father, and he says, "Father, I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou has given me".
See, beloved, we have to take the main teaching of the Word of God about election and interpret the few verses that seem to be saying something different in light of the huge volume of Scripture that speaks of what I'm saying today. I know that some of you may have a hard time receiving it. I want to encourage you and lovingly challenge you to read Romans 9 with an open heart before the Lord for yourself. Now, what's the value for you today? The value is in realizing that when you're out sharing Jesus with people, it's not up to you to save them. You just have to be a faithful witness. And as you're a faithful witness, God will use your witness by anointing it with the Holy Spirit to reach those that He wants to reach. And beyond this, beloved, knowing what I'm teaching today in your own soul will produce a great security in you. Because if you know that it's God that brought you to Himself, you can also trust Him to keep you.
Beloved, this is Rabbi Schneider today, saying, I love you. I hope the word that I brought to you today resonates within your heart, and that it produces security in you, and also a soundness of mind. You see, for myself as a preacher, I have no illusions that my ministry is going to save the world. All I want to do is I want to present Jesus to the entire world. My goal is not to save the world. Only God can save someone. My goal is simply to make Jesus known to people and then I let the Holy Spirit do the rest knowing that He will take the word that I preach and use it in the lives of those He wants to reach by it.