Every Mouth Stopped

Some teach that God decided long ago who would be lost, made their hearts hard, and then condemns them for it. If that were true, the lost would have a case on the last day: “You made me this way.” But Scripture says that on that day every mouth will be stopped. No one will have a case against God. This chain shows why. In Scripture, the hardening always comes after the refusing, never before.

God may steer the plans of kings (Proverbs 21:1). But He never makes a man refuse Him.

Romans 9:19-20

“Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?”

Romans 9:19-20

Someone complains: “Why does God still blame us? No one can resist His will.” Paul does not say, “That is right, and He blames you anyway.” He rebukes the man. A rebuke only makes sense if the man is wrong. And he is: God blames people for what they themselves did.

Exodus 8:15, 8:32, 9:34, 9:12

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.”

Exodus 8:15

“And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had spoken unto Moses.”

Exodus 9:12

Read the story in order. God told Moses ahead of time, “I will harden his heart,” because He knew what Pharaoh would do. Then, plague after plague, Pharaoh hardens his own heart: “Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also” (Exodus 8:32). Only at the sixth plague does it first say that the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Even after that, Pharaoh “sinned yet more, and hardened his heart” (Exodus 9:34). Pharaoh hardened first. God confirmed what Pharaoh had chosen.

Romans 9:17-18, 22-23

“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: And 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

Paul quotes the Pharaoh story: “whom he will he hardeneth” (Romans 9:18). His readers knew the order in which it happened.

Notice two things. God “endured with much longsuffering” the vessels of wrath. No one waits patiently for something he built to fail. And Paul says God “prepared” the vessels of mercy. He does not say God prepared the others for destruction. They are only “fitted” to it.

The prophet Jeremiah had already shown that the potter answers to what the clay does: “If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them” (Jeremiah 18:8). And Paul himself says a vessel can change: “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour” (2 Timothy 2:21).

Acts 7:51, 57

“Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”

Acts 7:51

“Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord.”

Acts 7:57

Stephen does not say, “You were not chosen.” He says, “You resist.” Moments later they cover their ears. Zechariah told it the same way about their fathers: “they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear… Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 7:11-13). They would not hear. Then God would not hear.

1 Samuel 2:25, Isaiah 6:10, John 12:37-40, Romans 1:21-28, 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

“But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him… Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart…”

John 12:37, 39-40

This is the hardest verse: “they could not believe.” But look two verses before it: “they believed not.” The refusing comes first. The “could not” comes after.

It is the same everywhere. Eli’s sons would not listen to their father, and then the LORD would slay them (1 Samuel 2:25). Isaiah spent five chapters calling the people back before God said, “Make the heart of this people fat” (Isaiah 6:10). People “glorified him not as God,” and then “God gave them up” (Romans 1:21, 24). “They received not the love of the truth,” and then “God shall send them strong delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).

A man can come to a place where he cannot be saved. But he walks there. He is not put there. “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed” (Proverbs 29:1).

Luke 7:30

“But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.”

Luke 7:30

God’s counsel, His plan, is something men can reject, and the loss falls on their own heads. And what is His will? “That every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life” (John 6:40). Believing is inside God’s will, not against it.

Romans 3:19, 1:20

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”

Romans 3:19

Here is where the chain ends. Look at what the judgment says. The dead are judged “according to their works” (Revelation 20:12). “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19). No one is condemned because he was not picked. Men are condemned for what they did and what they loved.

So “every mouth may be stopped,” and they “are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). If God had made them sin, that would be an excuse. Scripture says there is none.

What this means

God is clear when He judges. He waits and calls. Only when a man keeps refusing does God give him what he chose.

When I stand before God, I will have nothing to say for myself. Not “You made me.” Not “I could not.” I know that mouth. It is mine. And the same God says: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help” (Hosea 13:9). The ruin is mine. The help is His.

Road to Eternal Life