Vessels of Wrath

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 8
“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” (Rom. 9:22-2322What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, (Romans 9:22‑23)).
It is deeply interesting to the spiritual mind to mark how sedulously the Spirit of God guards against the horrid inference which the human mind draws from the doctrine of God’s election. When He speaks of “vessels of wrath,” He simply says, “fitted to destruction”; He does not say that God “fitted” them. Whereas, on the other hand, when He refers to “the vessels of mercy,” He says, “whom He had afore prepared unto glory.” This is most marked.
When the King addresses those on His right hand, He says,
“Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” But when He addresses those on His left, He says,
“Depart from Me, ye cursed.” He does not say, cursed of My Father. And further, He says, “Into everlasting fire, prepared (not for you, but) for the devil and his angels.”
In a word, then, it is plain that God has “prepared” a kingdom of glory, and “vessels of mercy” to inherit that kingdom; but He has not prepared “everlasting fire” for men, but for “the devil and his angels”; nor has He fitted the “vessels of wrath,” but they have fitted themselves.
Every one who finds himself in heaven, will have to thank God for it; and every one that finds himself in hell, will have to thank himself.