Watchman Radio Hour

David Shultz: Welcome to the Watchman Radio Hour. Coming to you from Portland, Oregon, here in the beautiful Northwest. This is David Shultz, your announcer. The Watchman Radio Hour is a production of Watchman Radio Ministries International, an evangelistic ministry reaching out to the peoples of the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now here is our speaker, Alex Dodson, to bring you this week's message from God's word.

Alex Dodson: For our scripture reading today, let us turn to Isaiah 45 and we will beginning to read in verse 8. Let us hear the word of God. You heavens above, rain down righteousness. Let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide that salvation spring up. Let righteousness grow with it. I, the Lord, have created it. But woe to him who quarrels with his maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter, "What are you making?" Does your work say, "He has no hands?" Woe to him who says to his father, "What have you begotten?" or to his mother, "What have you brought to birth?" Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the Bible that you have given us. We thank you that it is your infallible word that we can put our full confidence in everything that it says. And now, oh Lord, as we come to your word today, we pray that you will send forth your spirit in great power. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

We continue today in our series on Isaiah 45. We saw last time that a revival in the future is prophesied. Wording similar to Psalm 85 is used, and Psalm 85 is the revival psalm. Also in Isaiah 45, God promises to deliver the Israelites through Cyrus. And this he certainly did when Cyrus opened the way for the return of the Israelites to their homeland and the rebuilding of the temple. This prophecy was given hundreds of years before Cyrus came on the scene.

Certainly the return of the Israelites under Cyrus was a time of deliverance and revival, but greater revival is also promised and would come when the Messiah came. In today's passage, the recipients of this prophecy are reproved not to argue with their maker or to disregard what he had to say. Surely his word would come to pass, and God would bring to pass what he had promised. God's word must be respected.

Our text for today is Isaiah 45 and verses 9 and 10, which says, "Woe to him who quarrels with his maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands?' Woe to him who says to his father, 'What have you begotten?' or to his mother, 'What have you brought to birth?'"

Let us see then that it is wrong to rebel against our maker. Yet today we are living in a time when the creator is being mocked and rebelled against constantly. We are living in an age of great rebellion against the creator. Things are being done and said today that have never been done and said before. The rebellion has reached an extreme stage, and God's judgment is already upon us. Unless we turn back from our rebellion against God, this nation will not survive.

Let us see in the first place the warnings or the woes in verses 9 and 10. Verse 9 says, "Woe to him who quarrels with his maker." Verse 10 says, "Woe to him who says to his father, 'What have you begotten?' or to his mother, 'What have you brought to birth?'" The one who has no respect for God our creator is being talked about here. We are nothing but broken pottery among other pieces of broken pottery, and yet we quarrel with our creator. We do not respect him or recognize that he is our creator.

Matthew Henry, the great Puritan commentator, wrote: "For the clay to find fault with the potter, shall the clay say to him that forms it, 'What makest thou?' Why dost thou make me of this shape and not that? Nay, it is as if the clay should be in such a heat and passion with the potter as to tell him that he has no hands, or that he works as awkwardly as if he had none. Shall the clay pretend to be wiser than the potter and therefore to advise him, mightier than the potter and therefore to control him?

He that gave us being, that gave us this being, may design concerning us and dispose of us as he pleases, and it is impudent presumption for us to prescribe to him. Shall we impeach God's wisdom or question his power, who are ourselves so curiously, so wonderfully made? Shall we say he has no hands, whose hands made us and in whose hands we are made? The doctrine of God's sovereignty has enough in it to silence all our discontents and objections against the methods of his providence and grace."

Paul says in Romans 9:20 and 21: "But who are you, oh man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed us, 'Why did you make me like this?' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Today we are living in an age of rebellion against our creator to such an extent as never seen before.

We despise his word and don't even know what his word says. We rebel against his moral law and don't even know the difference of right and wrong anymore. Matthew Henry says again: "It is as unnatural for the child to find fault with the parents, to say to the father, 'What begettest thou?' or to the mother, 'What hast thou brought forth? Why was I not begotten and born an angel, exempt from the infirmities of human nature and the calamities of human life?'

Must not those who are children of men expect to share in the common lot and to fare as others fare? If God is our father, where's the honor we owe him by submitting to his will? We are mere creatures. How can we question God? He is far above us. His power and wisdom are far superior to ours." In Romans 11 verse 33 and following, it says: "Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out.

Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen." The great King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, after he had been humbled by God, said: "His dominion is an eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.

He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'" That's in Daniel 4 and verses 34 and 35. Colin Dayledge writes in the passage before us: "The point of comparison is not the fragmentary condition but the earthen character of the material. The man who complains of God is nothing but a vessel of clay, and more than that, a perishable vessel among many others of the very same kind."

John Gill writes: "The Targum takes the words to be spoken to idolaters and paraphrases the former part thus: 'Woe to him who thinks to contend in judgment against the words of his creator.' We have a creator and must respect and honor him as such. Woe to the person who does not respect his creator. This is what this passage is telling us. We think we are gods and that we know more than God."

Edward J. Young writes: "To strive with God is to contend with him in argument with the purpose of showing that what he has promised will not come to pass." On verse 10, he says, "the two verbs are futures. It is of course objected that the passage then makes no sense. How can a son that is not yet born complain to his father about what the father will bring forth or to his mother about her bearing? Obviously the thought is an absurdity, but that is the very point of the passage. It is just as absurd for Israel to complain about what God will do in the future."

Young goes on to say, "the omnipotent and omniscient creator in grace announces that he will bring to the earth an abundance of righteousness and salvation. The creature, however, declares that such a promise is not possible. In making such a judgment, he has ruled God out of his thoughts and based his assertion merely upon the dictates of his own mind. He allows the mind of man to set up the bounds of what is and what is not possible. Well may Isaiah begin this verse with the terrible word, 'woe'."

Malachi 2:10 says: "Have we not all one father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?" We do not know more than God. His wisdom is far above ours. He is the one who made us and not we ourselves. Psalm 95:6 says: "Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker." Instead of rebellion against our maker, we should worship him and turn to him.

Today we need people who will serve their God and not turn away from him as so many have done. Even you now can repent of your sins against your creator and turn to him. Come back to God, repent of your sins, and believe in the savior he has sent. The only way that we can be reconciled to God is through Christ. Paul said: "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making the appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God."

Let us see in the second place, who are you anyway? Who are you anyway? Verse 9 says, "Woe to him who quarrels with his maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands?'" We're just pieces of broken pottery. Who are we anyway? We're not God. We are his creation. We did not create ourselves. We need to be humble in the sight of our maker.

The Geneva Bible in note one on this verse says: "Hereby he bridleth their impatience which in adversity and trouble murmur against God and will not tarry his pleasure, willing that man should match with his like and not contend against God." Edward J. Young writes: "One who strives with his former, the one who formed him, is but a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth. Potsherd from the potsherds of earth is simply an ordinary piece of pottery which has been made of clay. We are insignificant as a piece of pottery lying on the ground."

John Calvin writes: "Potsherd to potsherds, that is, as we say in common language, let each quarrel with his like. Let potsherds strive with potsherds of the earth. When he sends men to those who are like themselves, he reproves their rashness and presumption in not considering that it is impossible to maintain a dispute with God without leading to destruction.

As if he had said, 'With whom do they think they have to deal? Let them know that they are not able to contend with God, and that at length they must yield.' And if unmindful of their frailty they attack heaven after the manner of the giants, they shall at length feel that they did wrong in warring with their maker, who can without any difficulty break in pieces and even crush into powder the vessels which he has made."

John Gill writes: "Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Let men strive with men, who are as earthen vessels made of the same mass and lump, and so are upon an equal foot and a match for each other, but let them not have the insolence and vanity to strive with their maker who, as he has made them, can dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel. Who are we anyway? Just pieces of pottery lying on the ground. Who are we to question our maker, the one who formed us?

Yet today we think we are something when we are nothing. Our rebellion against our creator is great, and we are a sinful people. We have no right to question our creator. We are not in a position to question our maker. We're only potsherds of the earth. We did not make ourselves." Young writes: "These verses are probably to be taken in a general sense to point up the folly of any complaint against the supernatural work God will create. The very thing the potter has made asserts that the potter has no hands and cannot make anything, a statement whose absurdity is obvious."

How can we be so rebellious as to accuse our maker of having no hands? Yet today we are doing that very thing. We are in rebellion, and our sins are great. Colin Dayledge writes: "The question is addressed to the maker. Can the thing made by thee, oh man, possibly say in a contemptuous tone, 'He has no hands?' A supposition the ridiculous absurdity of which condemns it at once, and yet it is a very suitable analogy of the conduct of man who complains against God."

John Calvin writes: "We ought therefore to listen to the warning given by Peter when he bids us learn to submit to God and to humble ourselves under his mighty hands in 1 Peter 5:6, so as to yield to his authority and not to strive with him. If he sometimes tries us by various afflictions, because we ought to acknowledge his just right to govern us according to his pleasure.

If we must come to debate, he will have such strong and decisive arguments as shall constrain us, being convicted, to be dumb. And when he restrains the insolence of men, it is not because he is destitute of argument, because it is right and proper that we should yield and surrender ourselves to be holy governed according to his pleasure. But at the same time, he justly claims this right, that his own creature should not call him to render an account. What can be more detestable than to approve of his judgments if they do not please men? But many people make God into their own image, knowing little of what the Bible teaches us about God. In so doing, they reject the God of the Bible for a god they have invented in their own mind."

John Gill writes: "Woe unto him that striveth with his maker, that contends with him, enters into a controversy, and disputes with him, or litigates a point with him, quarrels with his purposes and decrees, murmurs and repines at his providences, and finds fault with his dispensations. This seems to have respect to the murmurs, quarrels, and contest of the Jews about Christ, the author of righteousness and salvation, when he should appear."

J.A. Alexander of Old Princeton writes: "The writer's main design, which is to represent the doubt and discontent of men in reference to God's future dealings with them as no less monstrous than the supposition of a child's objection to its own birth. God is our maker. Who are we to question the one who made us as if he did not know what he was doing?"

And then let us see in the third place, today's great rebellion against the creator. First, in the area of sex and gender. This generation has rebelled against the creator more than any other generation concerning sex and gender. We are turning against our creator and shaking our fist in his face. We are refusing his design for us and replacing his design with our own perverted design.

In Mark 10:6, Jesus said, "But at the beginning of creation, God made them male and female." In Genesis 1:27, it says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." This is God's design and purpose. Who are we to rebel against that design and purpose by rejecting our God-made sex and gender?

In Genesis 2:24, it says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." These verses condemn all forms of sexual perversion. God's design for sex is one woman and one man joined together in marriage. In Hebrews 13:4, it says: "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." This generation has rejected God's design and purpose for sex, and this generation will be judged for its sin.

And then there's the matter of race. We have set the races against each other in this generation. And though we have made great progress in the past in race relations, yet this generation has brought about theories and teachings on race that are dividing us as never before. In Acts 17:24 and following, it says: "God that made the world and everything therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are all his offspring."

But today in this generation, we are promoting a philosophy of Critical Race Theory that turns the races against one another. This is not God's design. We all come from the same origin. We all share a common blood. We all were created by God and all are human beings. We should not pit one race against another but rather love one another as God intends and respect all races of people. God calls us to repent of our sins and turn back to him, our common creator.

And then there's the matter of evolution. Evolution denies the creation of his creation. At its core is rebellion against the true and living God. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Our whole public education system exalts the theory of evolution. Even Christians have compromised the creator and his creation by accepting such a godless teaching.

True science exalts the creator because true science is a study of the creation itself, which was designed and built by God. Evolution in its purest form denies the creator and divorces him from his creation. It is a godless and anti-God theory that needs to be repented of, and God will bring judgment on this generation for embracing this godless teaching and rejecting him.

And then there's the matter of abortion. Women rebel against their creator when they intentionally kill their unborn children or have them killed. If a woman wants a child, she calls it a baby in her womb, but if she doesn't want the child for whatever reason, she calls it a fetus in her womb. Psalm 139 verse 13 does no such thing. It says, "For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

We are sacrificing our children on the altar of pleasure and convenience. This generation more than any other has the blood of millions of children on its hands who have been sacrificed through abortion legally sanctioned by the nation. In Leviticus 18:21, it says: "Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord." This nation is guilty of profaning the name of our creator through the intentional killing and sacrificing of millions of unborn children.

Any nation that does this defiles itself. The verses following say in Leviticus 18:24 and following: "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways because this is how the nations that I'm going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled, so I punished it for its sin and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." And this land will vomit us out if we do not repent of our great sins.

And then let us see that we need to turn from our sins to Christ. Our sinful rebellion against our creator is great. This generation is guilty more than any other, it seems, of turning away from its creator. Yet God in his mercy calls on this generation to repent and turn back to him. Jesus came to die for our sins that we might have eternal life. He did not come to die for the righteous but for the ungodly.

In Romans 5:6 through 8, it says: "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." In Luke 5:31, Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

Rebellion against the creator is not something new. It has been going on since the fall of Adam. Men are sinners and Jesus came to die for sinners. In Isaiah 53:6, it says, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." We as a nation have turned our backs on God. This nation is being judged and will face more severe judgment to come for its great sins if it does not repent.

Yet today it's not too late. God calls out to this nation to turn back to him, and he calls out in mercy. In Isaiah 1:18, it says, "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." Come to Christ now. Be forgiven of your sins and follow him as Lord of your life. Turn back to God. Repent of your great sins and he will forgive you. Come now. Come and pray this prayer with me.

Dear Lord Jesus, I know I have sinned in your sight. I confess my sins before you. I confess that I have rebelled against you, my creator. Please forgive me. Thank you for sending Christ to die on the cross for my sins, and I accept him as my Lord and my savior. In his name I pray. Amen.

Our father in heaven, we pray that you will be with those who have prayed this prayer. Fill them with your spirit. Lead them in your way in accordance with your word. And our father, we pray that you will send forth your word in spirit throughout this land and bring it to its knees before you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

David Shultz: Thanks for listening to the Watchman Radio Hour. We invite you to come again next week to hear another timely message from God's word. We are Watchman Radio Ministries International, reaching out to the peoples of the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.