I once read one man’s observations on Romans 9:14-20. What he saw was that in the entire unregenerate world that he had been acquainted with, by association or in articles of public opinions, there was nothing that excited the bitter hatred of the human heart quite like the clear declaration of the absolute sovereignty of God in election or reprobation: the choosing of some and the passing by of others. And yet, for all their rebellion and disdain of the doctrine, there is not a single part of their lives where it is not practiced.

It is practiced in the food they eat, the company they keep, their partner in marriage, the occupations they have chosen, and the churches they attend. They choose here and reject there, they like and dislike according to the direction of their own fancy. And all of these decisions without rule or reason, without wisdom or good sense, and sometimes even to their own peril. Away through life’s experiences they run with a sinful heart at the helm manifesting these things in every aspect of their lives.

But, let one Being in all the universe capable of acting in true sovereignty and true wisdom, where election and or reprobation must be established on an unerring standard of right and good; and He, according to a fallen world is the only one precluded from the exercise of this privilege! Such, said the writer, is the blindness and desperately wicked state of the heart of a man by the fall!