Divine Choice

It’s so easy to just breeze right by a Bible verse without stopping to consider its implications. One rather striking example of this can be found in a remark that Jesus made about Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord said something about these two cities that is extremely shocking – and yet, for years I read right over the statement without stopping to consider its implications.

In order to give a little context to the passage let’s back up a bit. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is legendary. These two ancient cities were so wicked that God decided to investigate them in person:

Genesis 18:20: “And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.”

This in itself is extraordinary. There were very few times in all of history when God took human form and came down to Earth for the purpose of judging something. Aside from the Tower of Babel, the only other occurrence I can think of is something theologians call the Second Coming – and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what all is involved with that. (They don’t call it “the end of the world” for nothing. His return ends the old order of things and begins a new age of history.) So this kind of in-person visit by God Himself is a Very Serious Matter.

Now, lest you think I’m exaggerating, note that the Lord said that He would go down and see. He didn’t say that He was going to send angels. As best I can tell, it seems that at least one of the three men that visited Abraham was actually God. In several cases when one of the men speaks the Bible says that it was the Lord that was doing the talking. For example:

Genesis 18:9: “And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.
10 And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind him. …
12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?
13 And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?
14 Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.
15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.”

Do you see what happened? In verse 10 the man said “I will certainly return unto thee”, and then in verse 14 we are told that it was “the LORD” that said “I will return”. The man, then, must be the Lord; there is no way around it.

But to continue the story – as we know, the Lord told Abraham that He was going to judge Sodom, and when Abraham heard this he interceded on the city’s behalf. After a round of negotiations, the Lord said that He would not destroy the city if He found 10 righteous people there:

Genesis 18:32: “And he said, Oh let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.”

As it turned out, Sodom didn’t have 10 righteous people, so the Lord destroyed it:

Genesis 19:24: “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.”

When it was all over, the cities were utterly destroyed and everyone who lived in them perished. The cities were full of utterly wicked people and the Lord judged them, giving them exactly what they deserved.

This is all well-known and there is nothing new here. However, what is startling is what Jesus had to say about it. When Jesus was on Earth He performed a great many notable miracles. Some cities repented when they saw His works, but others did not. The cities that refused to repent, even after seeing miracles performed by Jesus in person, were singled out by Him for special condemnation:

Matthew 11:23: “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”

Do you see what this verse says? Jesus says in no uncertain terms that if the miracles that were done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom, the people in Sodom would have repented and the city would not have been destroyed. Stop and think about that for a minute! Do you see how shocking that is? It means that God knew exactly what the people of Sodom needed to see in order to repent, and yet God destroyed them instead. God could have raised up a prophet, sent him to Sodom, and used him to save the city, but He didn’t. God knew they would repent if “mighty works” were done in the city, but yet He didn’t send anyone to save them. He just wiped them all out instead.

What makes this even more striking is that there is another very famous case in which an equally wicked city was on the verge of judgment, but instead of destroying them the Lord did send someone and saved the city. We all know that story, too – the city is Nineveh. This time, however, the Lord acted very differently. Instead of going down, finding the city was evil, and destroying it, the Lord sent Jonah to preach a message of repentance:

Jonah 1:2: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”

As we all know, Jonah did not want to go. He was not a willing participant in this missionary journey, and he did everything humanly possible to avoid going. His reasoning was very clear:

Jonah 4:2: “And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”

Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he knew that if he went and the city repented, the Lord would not destroy them – and Jonah desperately wanted to see the hundreds of thousands of people that lived there brutally killed and sent straight to Hell. But the Lord forced Jonah to go. Let me emphasize that fact: Jonah only went because the Lord forced him to go. God actually held Jonah hostage in the belly of a fish until Jonah finally gave in. Jonah was not a willing participant in any of this, but the Lord pushed him on anyway because God was determined to save Nineveh – which is exactly what happened:

Jonah 3:5: “So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?”

As an aside, I have heard people say that God cannot use you unless you are 100% right with God. If you are backsliding or in sin then God can’t do anything with your life. You must be a paragon of holiness before God can use you. I think Jonah conclusively proves that this is not true. After all, Jonah was not at all right with God. Jonah had a deep and abiding hatred toward the people of Nineveh, and his heartfelt desire was to see them all burn in Hell – and when they repented Jonah got very, very angry. Yet the Lord still used Jonah to save them. This proves that it is the Lord who works, and not us. The Ninevites weren’t saved because Jonah wanted to see them saved, or because Jonah was a righteous man; they were saved because God decided to save them, and He saved them in spite of Jonah.

I say all of that to say this: both Sodom and Nineveh were exceedingly wicked cities. Jesus was clear that if a prophet had been sent to Sodom and performed great miracles, Sodom would have repented – but no one was sent and Sodom was destroyed, and all of its inhabitants perished and are in Hell today. However, in the case of Nineveh the Lord did send someone, and they did repent and were saved. The Lord did not treat Nineveh the way He treated Sodom – He saved one and destroyed the other.

Now, there was nothing evil about this. Sodom deserved to be destroyed, and the Lord destroyed it. Nor was there anything wrong with saving Nineveh – the Lord is under no obligation to save anyone, and no one deserves mercy. Yet it is impossible to escape the fact that God chose to save one city and He chose to destroy the other. In other words, this is a clear case of God deciding who is saved and who is lost. Both cities needed someone, but only one city was sent help. Nineveh would have been destroyed if God hadn’t sent Jonah, but God did send Jonah – in fact, God took great pains to send Jonah, despite Jonah’s best efforts to avoid going. That is something He did not do with Sodom, which was actually the point Jesus was trying to make. Sodom never got the help it needed.

This idea of divine choice may be shocking to us, but it shouldn’t be. Paul lays out the case for it in unmistakable terms:

Romans 9:14: “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
…
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”

The point is that God never promised to have mercy on everyone. In fact, He is quite clear about this. Verse 18 is direct and to the point: God extends mercy to some people so that they will be saved, and others God hardens so that they will not be saved. You can go back and read those verses if you don’t believe me – God is quite up-front about this.

I’m sure that some would object to this, quoting the most famous verse in the Bible:

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

I agree with this verse completely. It is absolutely true that any and all who believe in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. However, it is also clear that the people of Sodom would have repented if the Lord had sent someone to demonstrate His power – but He didn’t, even though He did send someone in the case of Nineveh. The people of Sodom would have believed but God chose not to intervene on their behalf. Instead of sending someone to save them He sent them all to Hell.

Does God treat everyone the same? No – but then, God never promised that He would. God gives some people amazing talents while He gives others a life of disability and pain. Some people are given long lives while others die before they are even born. God moves miraculously to save some people, while He hardens others and sends them to Hell. And make no mistake about it – God does harden people’s heart to make sure they will not be saved. For example:

Exodus 4:21: “And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.”

Exodus 7:3: “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.”

Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? The Lord did. He said this not once, but twice. The reason Pharaoh did not let the Israelites go is because the Lord hardened his heart – and then the Lord destroyed him. This hardening led to the destruction of Egypt, the death of all the firstborn in the country, and the death of Pharaoh himself. And it all happened because the Lord intervened and made it happen.

People today don’t like to hear this. They prefer a God that treats everyone the same. Many people say that God has given everyone a chance and it’s up to us to take it. If some people aren’t saved, well, it’s their own fault. God did all He could to save them and it just didn’t work out. God did His best.

But that’s not what the Bible says. Jesus clearly said that Sodom would have repented – but God destroyed them instead. Nineveh was on the same path to destruction but God did intervene to save them, over the strenuous objections of Jonah. Pharaoh might have left the Israelites go, but God hardened his heart so he wouldn’t. In other words, God chooses some people and does not choose others:

Romans 9:18: “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”

Notice that verse 18 does not say “God has mercy on everyone, but some people are rebellious and don’t listen”. No, what the verse actually says is “God has mercy on some people, and God hardens other people.” It is frighteningly clear.

Why would God do such a thing? As it turns out, the Bible tells us exactly why:

Romans 9:22: “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”

I touched on this topic before in my paper on the age of accountability, but it bears repeating. What people do not realize is that God is glorified by those who are saved and those who are damned, because both groups of people allow God to demonstrate His character. Those who are saved glorify God by giving Him an opportunity to demonstrate His mercy and love, while those who are damned demonstrate God’s wrath and power – not to mention His justice.

The key to remember is that everyone deserves to spend an eternity in Hell. All have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. Hell is the just punishment for our immense crimes against God, and there is no one who deserves to be forgiven. No one can stand up and say “God owes me salvation” or “God owes me mercy”. It is a gift – and that means God has the right to give it to some people but not to others. As Paul said:

Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

We are saved through faith, and that faith is not of ourselves. God gives us the faith we need in order to be saved. However, God does not give that faith to everyone. There is nothing unrighteous about this, because no one deserves anything from God, nor has God promised to save everyone. Those who are saved are given a tremendous gift, because God has given them something they do not deserve and could never earn. My salvation did not happen because I decided to accept God; it happened by God’s divine choice, as He blessed me with saving faith. Had God chosen to harden me (as He did to Pharaoh), I would have been lost and there would have been absolutely nothing I could have done about it. My eternal fate – and the eternal fate of everyone – rests solely in the divine choice of God.

If this seems incredible to you, or if it seems like something God would never do, remember the cases of Sodom and Nineveh. One was saved, and the other was not, because God chose to have mercy on one city but withheld His mercy from the other.