God didn't design good things to damn the reprobate , rebrobates are damned because of their sin.
A. That is
a position indeed but not the correct one, it is not the testimony of Scripture in that whilst it is because they sin they are punished it its God who has chosen not to regenerate them and so leave them in their sin to be punished. The final cause of their damnation is God's sovereign choice.
B. Furthermore;
1 "The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." -
Proverbs 16:4
2. 1Pe 2:8 "And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed." Unbelif is a sin and yet here God has ordained their unbelief!
3. The roprobate are "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" Romans 9:22.
4. "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."
Jude 1:4
C. Hoeksema preaches "Another and rather common interpretation is that the lump of clay represents fallen humanity. Mankind is fallen in Adam and is become a corrupt mass without any claim to God's mercy. God, therefore, without doing an injustice to any, can form into vessels of mercy those whom He wills to save according to His sovereign good pleasure, while He has the sovereign right to leave others in their corrupt and damnable state. But also this interpretation does not do justice to the figure that is found in the text. The figure of the potter and the clay does not merely illustrate the sovereignty of God with regard to the vessels of mercy to make them into vessels of honor, but also His prerogative
to make vessels unto dishonor. The potter does not make vessels unto honor and
permit vessels unto dishonor to develop by themselves, but he forms both. God is equally sovereign both with regard to the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate. This is also the meaning of the immediate context: He is merciful to whom He will be merciful and whom He will, He hardeneth!
If we would consider the matter from a historical viewpoint, we are not even compelled to explain that the lump of clay represent mankind as it was originally created. For, we may go a step farther back. Fact is, that the divine Potter formed man literally out of the ground. He took the dust of the ground or reddish clay and formed Adam out of it. Literally He began with a lump of clay. He made a man out of that lump of clay, and in that one man He formed the entire human race. This formation of Adam out of the dust of the ground was the very first step in the making of vessels unto honor and vessels unto dishonor. For, it was God's sovereign purpose, even in the formation of Adam, to make these two kinds of vessels, in the way of sin and grace, and along the line of election and reprobation. And this purpose He carries out. for, it is according to His eternal good pleasure and by His omnipresent providence, even though it be through the willful and wanton disobedience of man in conjunction with the temptation of the devil, that sin is introduced and in the first Adam the whole human race becomes guilty and corrupt, subject to the wrath of God and dead in sin and misery. No, God is not the author of sin. Far be it from us even to think such a thing of Him Who is absolutely holy and righteous, Who is a light and there is no darkness in Him. But with equal abhorrence we reject as unscriptural the view that sin was a mere accident, that God did not hold the reigns as the Governor of the universe, when man fell and all the world was submerged in the darkness of sin and death. From God's viewpoint the entrance of sin was merely the second step toward the formation of the vessels unto honor and unto dishonor. In the third place, from that fallen race, corrupt and dead in sin, He takes His own in Christ Jesus, those that are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, redeems them through His blood, justifies them through His resurrection, and by the power of His irresistible grace makes them the objects and products of His mercy, vessels unto honor in His eternal kingdom of glory; while He hardens the rest and through every means forms them into vessels unto dishonor. For, He is merciful unto whom He will to be merciful and whom He wills He hardens. Thus the figure in the words of my text is strictly maintained. Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make of the same lump vessels unto honor and vessels unto dishonor?"
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