Here are some verses you don’t hear about very often. However, they can be strangely comforting.
Exodus 4:11
Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
John MacArthur mentions the one above in a sermon entitled Why Does Evil Dominate the World?
1 Samuel 2:7
The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.
1 Chronicles 29:11-12
11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. 12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.
Job 9:12
Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’
Daniel 4:35
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”
Lamentations 3:38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
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Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Election and God’s Sovereignty
Romans
Romans 9:10-16
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad–in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls–she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
This is not an easy passage for many of us to read. For those who believe in conditional election, that God’s elects those based on foreknowledge of their free will, this passage seems to eliminate any idea of that. The recipient of the blessing was according to God’s sovereign will, not on Jacob’s virtue. God doesn’t explain Himself beyond this other than he has an ultimate plan that will be carried out because of his own will, not on the inclinations of sinful human beings.
What about grace? Schreiner makes a thoughtful point. “…the stunning thing for Paul was not that God rejected Ishmael and Esau but that he chose Isaac and Jacob, for they did not deserve to be included in his merciful and gracious purposes. Human beings are apt to criticize God for excluding anyone, but this betrays a theology that views salvation as something God ‘ought’ to bestow on all equally.”
Again he says, “God’s election of some for salvation does not exclude the notion that he genuinely invites all to be saved.” (2 Peter 3:9) “The resolution of the tension between divine sovereignty and human freedom lies beyond our present rational capacities.”