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 ninth chapter from verse 19 to verse 24.

Let me read these verses again, as they constitute a complete argument in and of themselves.

Thou will 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 formed 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 and to honour and another and to dishonour?

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 6 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 have been saying that the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose,

have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in

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