The average Southern Baptist (if such a person exists) offers a puzzled look upon hearing the name of Asahel Nettleton, the last great evangelist who espoused the doctrines of grace. Although Nettleton (1783-1844) saw thirty thousand persons converted during a decade of active ministry in the early nineteenth century, his legacy suffers from tragic neglect, if not active contempt, at the hands of contemporary church historians.
Charles G. Finney (1792-1875), on the other hand, has recently been the subject of another extensive biographical treatment.[1] Widely regarded as the father of modem revivalism, Finney represents the watershed in the shift from Calvinism to Arminianism as the dominant theology of evangelism. Conservatives love Finney for his evangelistic zeal and liberals point with pride to his involvement in social reform. Mark A. Noll regards Finney as "the crucial figure in white American evangelicalism after Jonathan Edwards," with more lasting impact on the life of the emerging nation than Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, or Horace Mann.[2]
Finney's legacy shaped the theology and methodology of evangelism generally, and Southern Baptist evangelism particularly. The publication of his major works, Lectures on Revivals of Religion and Lectures on Systematic Theology, left an impact upon evangelism which reaches to the present. Southern Baptist emphases such as simultaneous crusades, crusade preparation, the public invitation system, and the use of the revival meeting as an evangelistic strategy are at least in part attributable to Finney's considerable influence on the evangelicalism of his day.
The careful student of Southern Baptist history knows that until the turn of the twentieth century, Reformed soteriology was the generally accepted stance in Convention life. Today's Southern Baptists have adopted a "Great Commission hermeneutic" which places a greater stress on human responsibility than divine sovereignty in the soteriological equation.[3] As one result of this shift in philosophy, Southern Baptists have now adopted a jumbled hybrid of Calvinism and Arminianism. They want to be Calvinistic in affirming the sinfulness of man and the permanence of genuine salvation, but balk at the Reformed doctrines of unconditional election, particular redemption, and the triumphant nature of divine grace. Bill Leonard correctly characterizes Southern Baptist soteriology as confused:
Heirs of both the Calvinist and the Arminian traditions, they often selected and popularized diverse doctrines of salvation which, when held together, had the potential for serious theological confusion.[4]
The puzzled state of Southern Baptist soteriology has produced a mixed bag of results. Jesus personally acknowledged that even the kingdom of heaven contains a mixture of genuine wheat and counterfeit in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). Although Southern Baptists proudly lay claim to the distinction of being the largest non-Catholic denomination in the United States, sickly spiritual fruit hangs in the churches to the point that the President of the SBC emphasized the need for genuine conversion among church members in his 1997 President's Address. When millions of our church members do not give any credible biblical evidence of salvation by attending church faithfully and living at least a nominal Christian life, will eternity not expose our beloved Southern Baptist Zion as polluted by pragmatism and pride if no one dares to mention that the problem may lie in a methodology with a faulty doctrinal foundation? The enemy is quite capable of sowing counterfeit seed in the field without the help of sincere, yet careless, Southern Baptists who do not see the reasoning inherent in some popular evangelistic methods.
This article asserts that what a person, church, or denomination believes about salvation has a direct relationship on the evangelism they practice.[5] Soteriology shapes evangelistic methodology. The assumption is that a sound doctrine of salvation should produce a sound practice of evangelism.
Asahel Nettleton's God-Centered Revivalism
Following the theological lead of Jonathan Edwards, who stressed human responsibility within a Calvinistic world view, Asahel Nettleton represented the quintessential New England Calvinist of his day. While he held firmly to each of the tenets of the Synod of Dort (also known as the Five Points of Calvinism) as understood by his New England theological predecessors (Edwards, Joseph Bellamy, and Timothy Dwight), he first and foremost believed his doctrinal system to be true to biblical revelation.[6]
Nettleton's system of beliefs may be summarized as follows. Man, being totally depraved in nature and by choice, cannot save himself.[7] By God's grace, some have been chosen unto eternal life.[8] For those chosen by God (the elect), Jesus provided a penal, substitutionary atonement for their sins on the cross.[9] The elect, for whom alone Jesus died, will be drawn by the triumphant grace of God to repentance and saving faith in Christ.[10] They will be kept by God unto eternal salvation.[11]
Human beings must be divinely regenerated, or have their sinful nature negated, before they can repent and trust Christ for salvation.[12] In Nettleton's system, human ability to respond at every stage of salvation comes from a sovereign act of God. Unless God moves, humans remain hopelessly lost.[13]
The methodology of Nettleton matched his theology. He used preaching as a means of bringing sinners to conviction of their sinfulness. He bathed all evangelistic efforts in fervent, humble prayer to the God who alone can effect the regeneration of a lost person. For those who responded to a call for the awakened to meet outside stated services, Nettleton offered inquiry meetings, which were essentially group evangelistic counseling sessions. At these meetings, individuals could receive personal assistance without public pressure to respond.
Few men have approached the level of expertise Nettleton demonstrated in personal evangelism. He was a skillful surgeon of the soul. He urged those who had been awakened to settle the matter of salvation privately before God. Multitudes came to saving faith in Christ as a result of his ministry in "waste places" and churches of all sizes and types. Few of his converts ever abandoned their profession to return to the world.
Charles Finney's Man-Centered Revivalism
Charles G. Finney determined from his earliest days as a young Christian to counteract what he believed to be the evangelism-crippling effects of the Calvinism espoused by men such as Nettleton. Believing himself to be a corrective for an overemphasis on divine sovereignty, Finney stressed the responsibility of human beings as free moral agents.
Because he was trained as a lawyer and tragically lacking in theological education, Finney's reading of Scripture persuaded him to see salvation in terms of legalistic moral philosophy. Such a framework demanded that those held responsible to obey the law must be free to obey. While Nettleton stressed the freedom of God, Finney chose to emphasize the freedom of man.
Finney believed humans were voluntarily, not constitutionally, depraved. Election unto salvation resulted from divine foreknowledge of one's response to the gospel. The atonement provided by Jesus paid for no one's sins as a penal substitution, but rather allowed God to pardon sinners without violating his own nature and law.[14] Michael Horton has accurately summarized Finney's beliefs: "God is not sovereign; man is not a sinner by nature; the atonement is not a true payment for sin; justification by imputation is insulting to reason and morality; the new birth is simply the effect of successful techniques; and revival is a natural result of clever campaigns."[15]
Because humans are free moral agents, Finney believed they could reject the grace of God. Even after repenting and professing faith in Christ, a person's ultimate salvation remained unsettled pending their obedience until death.[16]
Finney's theology caused him to perceive that only one enemy, a stubborn will, hindered the salvation of all persons. Each method Finney used was evaluated on the basis of its effectiveness in "breaking" the obstinate will of sinners. This pragmatism dominated Finney's ministry. Wielding an amalgamation of methods already being used, Finney revolutionized evangelism and birthed modern revivalism. He popularized a more dramatic form of preaching, used public prayer as a tool for applying pressure to sinners, allowed women to pray in mixed public meetings, denounced opponents, changed the accepted tradition in inquiry meetings, organized small group prayer meetings and home visitation teams, gave rise to the protracted evangelistic campaign, and paved the way for what later became the public invitation system. These new measures caused great controversy, but they also reportedly brought as many as five hundred thousand persons "to renewal."[17]
Applications for Contemporary Evangelism
The findings are applicable to modern evangelism on two levels. First, what principles may be gleaned from the study? Second, which man offers a better example for the future of Southern Baptist evangelism, Nettleton or Finney?
Methodologically, commonalities between Finney and Nettleton offer an excellent starting point for principles of application. If preaching is marked by passion, faithfulness to Scripture, pertinent personal application, lucid presentation, and spiritual power, evangelism will be enhanced. If ministers and church members take up the labor of prayer as did Finney and Nettleton and their co-laborers in revivals, evangelism will be revolutionized. They not only practiced personal prayer but organized the praying of churches in revival preparation. If inquirers are properly counseled without being publicly pressured to make premature (and thus spurious) decisions, the results of evangelism will be conserved to a greater degree. If ministers and church members would practice theologically precise personal evangelism, churches would be transformed by the infusion of new spiritual life.
If Southern Baptists look to these great evangelists of the past for a model for the future of evangelism, which of these men would make the most desirable example? Two reasons lead me to choose Nettleton: (1) the legacy of Finney cannot stand the strain of vigorous examination; and (2) the more one looks at the legacy of Nettleton, the more clearly a picture of doctrinal balance emerges.
The legacy of Charles Finney has long been disputed. Southeastern Seminary evangelism professor Alvin L. Reid notes:
Finney is credited with providing the impetus for the shift from the work of God to the work of humans in revival and spiritual awakening. . . . The public invitation, protracted meetings (now often called 'revival services' or simply 'revivals'), and preparation for such meetings can be traced in large measure to Finney. He has been praised and condemned for this shift. In evaluating Finney, one must remember that he was reacting to the cold, lifeless, extreme version of Calvinism of his day.[18]
Many of the multitudes touched by Finney's ministry turned back to the world after the local influence of the charismatic evangelist faded. B. B. Warfield warned that "a very large proportion of those swept into the churches by the excitement of the revival were not really converted, as their subsequent history only too clearly proved."[19]
Lest one should dismiss Warfield as a Princeton Calvinist and enemy of Finney, the testimonies of Finney's friends and co-laborers James Boyle and Asa Mahan offer further evidence that Finney's work must be viewed with serious reservation, if not suspicion. James E. Johnson has admitted that such testimonies give credence "to the accusation that many individuals were swept along in the excitement of the revival meetings who never actually experienced a change of heart."[20] Boyle wrote to Finney in 1834:
Let us look over the fields where you and others and myself have labored as revival ministers, and what is now their moral state? What was their state within three months after we left them? I have visited and revisited many of these fields, and groaned in spirit to see the sad, frigid, carnal, contentious state into which the churches had fallen--and fallen very soon after our first departure from among them.[21]
Mahan wrote in his Autobiography that not only many people supposedly converted in the revivals, but also the pastors of churches who hosted meetings, and even the evangelists leading the meetings, subsequently suffered morally and spiritually. He wrote,
I was personally acquainted with nearly every one of them--I cannot recall a single man, brother Finney and father Nash excepted, who did not after a few years lose his unction, and become equally disqualified for the office of evangelist and that of pastor.[22]
Michael S. Horton has vigorously taken the lead among evangelicals in attacking the legacy of Finney. Horton portrays Finney as the spiritual father of the church growth movement, Pentecostalism, and political revivalism. He accuses Finney (with Finney's own words) of denying these cardinal doctrines: original sin, penal substitution as the motif of the atonement, and the divine nature of the new birth.[23]
Because Finney repudiated so many key tenets of the historic Christian faith, Horton calls the evangelist "not only an enemy of evangelical Protestantism, but of historic Christianity of the broadest sort." Horton concedes that Finney was correct in only one point: "The Gospel held by the Westminster divines who he attacked directly, and indeed held by the whole company of evangelicals, is 'another gospel' in distinction from the one proclaimed by Charles Finney." Horton then asks a haunting question for evangelicals who have unwittingly, in the name of evangelistic success, placed Finney on a hero's pedestal: "With which gospel will we side?"[24]
Monte Wilson rightly ties Finney to the changes in evangelism and sees Finney's incorrect estimate of human nature to be the root of his belief that "revivals could be planned, promoted, and propagated by man." The modern tendency to rely on technique in revival preparation may be attributed to an adoption of Finney's false premise. When evangelism is evaluated only on the basis of results, Finney must bear the brunt of responsibility. When ministers who do not produce the appropriate numbers are ignominiously dismissed from their pulpits, the wise observer sees Finney's maxim, "a wise minister will be successful," behind the tragedy.[25]
Finney believed that if all ministers would follow his example, revival would sweep the land, ushering in the millennium. Only one decade after his trademark book of revival methodology, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, was published, he complained that revivals had declined, both in quantity and quality. Wilson correctly comments: "By Finney's own standard, his teachings on how to produce converts and revival, as well as their underlying assumptions, were proven wrong."[26] Only eternity will tell how many who were beginning to experience genuine conviction of sin in Finney's revivals were hurried through a spurious salvation decision to the peril of their eternal souls.
Finney became a major catalyst in changing the theology that undergirds evangelism. As Arminianism supplanted Calvinism, man replaced God as the center of the theology of evangelism. Robert H. Lescelius correctly asserts that "it has remained so predominantly ever since in American evangelicalism."[27]
Finney's theology and ministry were built on the false premise that Calvinism harms evangelism. Sixty-five persons had been converted in the church into which Finney was baptized in the two years before his conversion.[28] Finney came to faith in Christ in the midst of a regional revival during a period when Calvinism dominated the theological landscape.
The premise remains as false today as it was in Finney's day. Finney's contemporary in Britain, the Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, built a great church and was committed to a Reformed soteriology. The phenomenally popular witness training program Evangelism Explosion came from a Presbyterian pastor, D. James Kennedy, whose church continues to grow upon a Reformed theological base. Radio preacher and author John MacArthur, Jr., pastors a thriving church and holds Reformed views.[29] One cannot successfully defend the premise that to take an Arminian soteriological stand is to become more evangelistic than a church with Reformed theology. Such a simplistic ploy did not prove plausible in Finney's day, and it will not today.
Finney's legacy must be regarded as perilous because of the anthropocentric nature of his theology and the methods resulting from that theology.[30] In his effort to counter what he saw as an extreme form of Calvinism, Finney shifted the balance inordinately away from God and toward human agency in salvation. His evangelism missed the primary point of the gospel, a supernatural divine transformation of human beings from sinners to saints. His revivalism left behind churches which were arguably in worse condition because they split over the new measures or fired a godly minister who did not have the pulpit flair of the evangelist. Each of Finney's methods should be reevaluated with a critical view to its underlying theological foundation. For the future health of evangelism, the helpful must be separated from the harmful with regard to the ministry of Charles Finney.
On the other hand, Asahel Nettleton demonstrated the healthy potential of evangelism based on sound theology. The ministry of Nettleton did not harm churches; it built them up. Ministers who worked alongside him felt as if they had been blessed with an assistant pastor. Nettleton understood that the church existed before revival came and would continue to minister to the people of the community after the evangelist had moved to another venue. He believed it of utmost importance to guard the health of the church.
Compared to Finney's high rate of recidivism, Nettleton had a remarkable retention of converts from his meetings. Pastors commonly testified that after more than twenty-five years, nearly all professed converts continued as faithful followers of Christ.[31]
Although Nettleton's numbers cannot match Finney's, one must wonder how many of those Finney supposedly won went back to the world. Compared to Finney, Nettleton labored in a much smaller field geographically. The places where he ministered were far less densely populated. One must wonder what could have happened if Nettleton had gone to the population centers visited by Finney.
Asahel Nettleton understood that "theology determines methodology."[32] He conscientiously labored with souls in such a way as to honor the divine agency which would produce real conversion. Bennet Tyler's testimony described Nettleton's ministry as being like gentle rain showers which nourish parched soil and produce lasting spiritual fruit.[33] James Ehrhard has stated that "most surprising to modern readers is the discovery that Nettleton's tremendous effectiveness occurred without any of the methods that modem evangelicals think are so essential in evangelism."[34] Nettleton tested methodology by the standard of Scripture because he knew any other path would ultimately cause ruin, no matter how successful it seemed.
The legacy of Nettleton offers Southern Baptists a better foundation for the future of evangelism. He was not right because he was a Calvinist; he was right because he measured right and wrong by biblical revelation rather than human reason.[35] He believed men were totally depraved in nature because the Bible taught it. He believed God must make the first move in salvation because Jesus so clearly stated it in John 6:44 and 6:65. He believed the atonement was a penal substitution because he thought Scripture portrayed it as such. He believed that persons could be reconciled to God only by faith in Christ and repentance toward God because of biblical teaching. He believed genuine believers would ultimately be known by holy lives because it was a biblical principle.
Southern Baptists have consistently pledged their allegiance to biblical revelation. They should reevaluate their commitment to the pragmatic evangelism of Finney by comparing it to the Bible. They would find that his views on human nature must be repudiated. He was wrong about the atonement being a payment for no one's sins in particular. He believed human agency played a much greater role in salvation than Scripture allows. Finney's errors in doctrine caused errors in practice which still plague Southern Baptists today, especially in the poor retention rate of new converts.
J. I. Packer's classic work Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God represents a more biblical position. Beginning with the assumption that God is sovereign over all and particularly in salvation, Packer describes the biblical tension of divine sovereignty and human responsibility as an antinomy which must be accepted.[36] Packer warns those who stress human responsibility to the detriment of divine sovereignty that such an approach leads to a "pragmatic and calculating" evangelism with a philosophy akin to "brainwashing." He concedes that such evangelism would be appropriate "if the production of converts," not faithful proclamation of truth, were the Christian's responsibility.[37] Packer also offers a warning to those who neglect human responsibility in order to exalt divine sovereignty. The temptation for these persons is to neglect the evangelistic responsibility of all believers under the assumption that God will save the elect. Packer reproves these believers, calling evangelistic apathy "inexcusable."[38]
Citing the example of Spurgeon, who said he never tried to reconcile friends, Packer offers a sound and balanced perspective which recognizes the mutual dependence of the apparently contradictory truths. He wisely counsels, "In the Bible, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are not enemies. . . . They are friends, and they work together."[39] This leads Packer to the conclusion: "The best method of evangelism . . . is the one which makes possible the most full and thorough explanation of the good news of Christ and His cross, and the most exacting and searching application of it."[40]
As professing believers in biblical authority, Southern Baptists believe in human depravity and must stand against Finney with those who affirm that men are sinners in need of salvation, not self-induced moral reformation. They believe that salvation issues from the heart of a holy, yet gracious, God who provided a substitutionary atonement in the death of his son, Jesus Christ. They believe that salvation may be procured by repentance and faith in Christ in response to the gracious call of God through the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
Those beliefs should compel Southern Baptists to repudiate their ideological and methodological association with Charles Finney and move closer to the model provided by Asahel Nettleton, who embodies the theology and practice upon which the Convention was founded. Finney believed his day needed a move toward Arminianism to achieve balance. His influence caused an extreme move in the direction of human responsibility. Southern Baptists need to counterbalance Finney's excessive shift toward man and achieve biblical balance in their theology and practice of evangelism once again.
In recent days, the author has rejoiced to hear Dr. Timothy George say that it is good that Southern Baptists are reopening dialogue about these crucial matters. It is positive, as Dr. George says, that we are talking about the doctrine of salvation these days instead of the ordination of homosexuals to the ministry. It witnesses to the certainty of biblical authority in our family of faith. Let us therefore come together with open Bibles, open hearts, Christ-controlled demeanor, and reestablish the rightful balance of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in Southern Baptist soteriology.
There is also serious neglect presently for Reformed Evangelism. The Christian Reformed and Protestant Reformed Churches only send preachers to Dutch Calvinistic areas and the Orthodox Presbyterians are almost as bad and mainly send preachers in areas where there are Scottish Calvinistic Presbyterians.
I went to the Christian Reformed College which is Calvin College and my best friend was an executive Officer in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Harold Camping was probably the only well-known Christian Reformed Radio Evangelist and he went crazy in 1994 and has predicted the end of the world 7 times since then.
The Christian Reformed Church stays in 5 areas of the US where they have Christian Reformed schools and other areas in the world where there are mainly Dutch Calvinists.
While Jesus has commanded us to teach the Gospel to all the nations of the world in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20: Missionary societies have translated God's Word into 2,000 languages and have sent missionaries to every nation in the world.
Matthew 28:19,20: Jesus says, "Go and make disciples of **ALL NATIONS**...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you!"
Matthew 24:15: Jesus says, "This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the End will come!"
Evangelism, we have learned, is a task appointed to all God�s people everywhere. It is the task of communicating a message from the Creator to rebel mankind. The message begins with information and ends with an invitation. The information concerns God�s work of making His Son a perfect Savior for sinners. The invitation is God�s summons to mankind generally to come to the Savior and find life. God commands all men everywhere to repent, and promises forgiveness and restoration to all who do. The Christian is sent into the world as God�s herald and Christ�s ambassador, to broadcast this message as widely as he can. This is both his duty (because God commands it, and love to our neighbor requires it) and his privilege (because it is a great thing to speak for God, and to take our neighbor the remedy�the only remedy�that can save him from the terrors of spiritual death). Our job, then, is to go to our fellow-men and tell them the gospel of Christ, and try by every means to make it clear to them; to remove as best we can any difficulties that they may find in it, to impress them with its seriousness, and to urge them to respond to it. This is our abiding responsibility; it is a basic part of our Christian calling.
But now we come to the question that has loomed over us from the outset. How is all this affected by our belief in the sovereignty of God?
We saw earlier that divine sovereignty is one of a pair of truths which form an antimony [an appearance of contradiction] in biblical thinking. The God of the Bible is both Lord and Lawgiver in His world; He is both man�s King and man�s Judge. Consequently, if we would be biblical in our outlook, we have to make room in our minds for the thoughts of divine sovereignty and of human responsibility to stand side by side. Man is indubitably responsible to God, for God is the Lawgiver who fixes his duty, and the Judge who takes account of him as to whether or not he has done it. And God is indubitably sovereign over man, for He controls and orders all human deeds, as He controls and orders all else in His universe. Man�s responsibility for his actions, and God�s sovereignty in relation to those same actions, are thus, as we saw, equally real and ultimate facts. The apostle Paul forces this antimony upon our notice by speaking of God�s will (thelema) in connection with both these seemingly incompatible relations of the Creator to His human creatures, and that within the limits of a single short Epistle. In the fifth and sixth chapters of Ephesians, he desires that his readers may be found �understanding what the will of the Lord is� (v. 17) and �doing the will of God from the heart� (vi.6). This is the will of God as Law giver, the will of God that man is to know and obey. In the same sense, Paul writes to the Thessalonians: �This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.�[I Thes. iv.3; cf. Mt. vii.21,xii.50;Jn, vii.17; I Jn. ii.17, etc.] In the first chapter of Ephesians, however, Paul speaks of God�s having chosen him and his fellow-Christians in Christ before the world began �according to the good pleasure of his will� (verse 5); he calls God�s intention to sum up all things in Christ at the end of the world �the mystery of his will� (verse 9); and he speaks of God Himself as �him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will� (verse I I). Here God�s �will� is clearly His eternal purpose for the disposal of His creatures, His will as the world�s sovereign Lord. This is the will that God actually fulfills in and through everything that actually happens�even man�s transgressions of His law.[See, e.g., Gn. xlv.5 ff., l.20. God�s thelema is spoken of in this sense in Rom. i.10, xv.32; Rev. iv.ll,etc] Older theology distinguished the two as God�s will of precept and His will of purpose, the former being His published declaration of what man ought to do, the latter His (largely secret) decision as to what He Himself will do. The distinction is between God�s law and His plan. The former tells man what he should be; the latter settles what he will be. Both aspects of the will of God are facts, though how they are related in the mind of God is inscrutable to us. This is one of the reasons why we speak of God as incomprehensible. Now, our question is: Supposing that all things do in fact happen under the direct dominion of God, and that God has already fixed the future by His decree, and resolved whom He will save, and whom not�how does this bear on our duty to evangelize?
This is a question that troubles many evangelical Christians today. There are some who have come to believe in the sovereignty of God in the unqualified and uncompromising way in which (as we judge) the Bible presents it. These are now wondering whether there is not some way in which they could and should witness to this faith by modifying the evangelistic practice which they have inherited from a generation with different convictions. These methods, they say, were devised by people who did not believe what we believe about God�s absolute sovereignty in salvation; is that not of itself reason enough for refusing to use them? Others, who do not construe the doctrine of divine sovereignty in quite this way, nor take it quite so seriously, fear that this new concern to believe it thoroughly will mean the death of evangelism; for they think it is bound to undercut all sense of urgency in evangelistic action. Satan, of course, will do anything to hold up evangelism and divide Christians; so he tempts the first group to become inhibited and cynical about all current evangelistic endeavors, and the second group to lose its head and become panicky and alarmist, and both to grow self-righteous and bitter and conceited as they criticize each other. Both groups, it seems, have urgent need to watch against the wiles of the devil.
The question, then, is pressing. It was the Bible itself that raised it, by teaching the antimony of God�s dual relation to man; and we look now to the Bible to answer it. The biblical answer may be stated in two propositions, one negative and one positive.
I. The sovereignty of God in grace does not affect anything that we have said about the nature and duty of evangelism.
The principle that operates here is that the rule of our duty and the measure of our responsibility is God�s revealed will of precept, and not His hidden will of event. We are to order our lives by the light of His law, not by our guesses about His plan. Moses laid down this principle when he had finished teaching Israel the law, the threats, and the promises of the Lord. �The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us . . . that we may do all the words of this law.�[Dt. xxix.29] The things that God is pleased to keep to Himself (the number and identity of the elect, for instance, and when and how He purposes to convert whom) have no bearing on any man�s duty. They are not relevant in any way for the interpreting of any part of God�s law. Now, the command to evangelize is a part of God�s law. It belongs to God�s revealed will for His people. It could not, then, in principle be affected in the slightest degree by anything that we might believe about God�s sovereignty in election and calling. We may well believe that (in the words of Article XVII of the Church of England) God �hath constantly (i.e., firmly, decisively) decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour�. But this does not help us to determine the nature of the evangelistic task, nor does it affect our duty to evangelize universally and indiscriminately. The doctrine of God�s sovereignty in grace has no bearing on these things.
Therefore we may say:
(1) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the necessity of evangelism.
Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that evangelism is necessary, because no man can be saved without the gospel. �There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek,� proclaims Paul; �for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus Christ) shall be saved.� Yes; but nobody will be saved who does not call upon the name of the Lord, and certain things must happen before any man can do this. So Paul continues: �How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?�[Rom x.12 ff.] They must be told of Christ before they can trust Him, and they must trust Him before they can be saved by Him. Salvation depends on faith, and faith on knowing the gospel. God�s way of saving sinners is to bring them to faith through bringing them into contact with the gospel. In God�s ordering of things, therefore, evangelism is a necessity if anyone is to be saved at all.
We must realize, therefore, that when God sends us to evangelize, He sends us to act as vital links in the chain of His purpose for the salvation of His elect. The fact that He has such a purpose, and that it is (so we believe) a sovereign purpose that cannot be thwarted, does not imply that, after all, our evangelizing is not needed for its fulfillment. In our Lord�s parable, the way in which the wedding was furnished with guests was through the action of the king�s servants, who went out as they were bidden into the highways and invited in all whom they found there. Hearing the invitation, the passers-by came.[Mt xxii.1 ff.] It is in the same way, and through similar action by the servants of God, that the elect come into the salvation that the Redeemer has won for them.
(2) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the urgency of evangelism.
Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that men without Christ are lost, and going to hell (pardon the use of this tarnished phrase: I use it because I mean it). �Except ye repent,� said our Lord to the crowd, �ye shall all . . . perish.�[Lk xiii.3,5] And we who are Christ�s are sent to tell them of the One�the only One�who can save them from perishing. Is not their need urgent? If it is, does that not make evangelism a matter of urgency for us? If you knew that a man was asleep in a blazing building, you would think it a matter of urgency to try and get to him, and wake him up, and bring him out. The world is full of people who are unaware that they stand under the wrath of God: is it not similarly a matter of urgency that we should go to them, and try to arouse them, and show them the way of escape?
We should not be held back by the thought that if they are not elect, they will not believe us, and our efforts to convert them will fail. That is true; but it is none of our business, and should make no difference to our action. In the first place, it is always wrong to abstain from doing good for fear that it might not be appreciated. In the second place, the non-elect in this world are faceless men as far as we are concerned. We know that they exist, but we do not and cannot know who they are, and it is as futile as it is impious for us to try and guess. The identity of the reprobate is one of God�s �secret things� into which His people may not pry. In the third place, our calling as Christians is not to love God�s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbor, irrespective of whether he is elect or not. Now, the nature of love is to do good and to relieve need. If, then, our neighbor is unconverted, we are to show love to him as best we can by seeking to share with him the good news without which he must needs perish. So we find Paul warning and teaching �every man�:[Col. i.28] not merely because he was an apostle, but because every man was his neighbor. And the measure of the urgency of our evangelistic task is the greatness of our neighbor need and the immediacy of his danger.
(3) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the genuineness of the gospel invitations, or the truth of the gospel promises.
Whatever we may believe about election, and, for that matter, about the extent of the atonement, the fact remains that God in the gospel really does offer Christ and promise justification and life to �whosoever will�. �Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.�[Rom. x.13] As God commands all men everywhere to repent, so God invites all men everywhere to come to Christ and find mercy. The invitation is for sinners only, but for sinners universally; it is not for sinners of a certain type only, reformed sinners, or sinners whose hearts have been prepared by a fixed minimum of sorrow for sin; but for sinners as such, just as they are. As the hymn puts it:
�Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.�
[From Joseph Hart�s Come, ye sinners (Christian Praise, 196).
The whole hymn is a magnificent statement of the gospel invitation]
The fact that the gospel invitation is free and unlimited��sinners Jesus will receive���come and welcome to Jesus Christ�[Title of a book by John Bunyan]�is the glory of the gospel as a revelation of divine grace.
There is a great moment in the Holy Communion service of the Church of England when the minister utters the �comfortable words�. First the congregation confesses its sins to God in language of extreme strength (�our manifold sins and wickedness . . . provoking most justly thy wrath . . . the burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us . . .�). Then the minister turns to face the people and proclaims to them the promises of God.
�Hear what comfortable words our Savior Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.
�Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
�So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
�Hear also what Saint Paul saith. �This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
�Hear also what Saint John saith.
�If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.�[Mt xi.28; Jn. iii.16; ITim i.15; IJn ii.1: italics mine.]
Why are these words �comfortable�? Because they are God�s words, and they are all true. They are the essential gospel. They are the promises and assurances which Christians who approach the Lord�s Table should come trusting. They are the word which the sacrament confirms. Note them carefully. Note first their substance. The object of faith which they present is not mere orthodoxy, not mere truth about Christ�s atoning death. It is not less than that, but it is more than that. It is the living Christ Himself, the perfect Savior of sinners, who carries in Himself all the virtue of His finished work on the cross. �Come unto me . . . He is the propitiation for our sins.� These promises direct our trust, not to the crucifixion as such, but to Christ crucified; not to His work in the abstract, but to Him who wrought it. And note second the universality of these promises. They offer Christ to all who need him, all �that truly turn to him�, any man who has sinned. None are shut out from mercy save those who shut themselves out through impenitence and unbelief.
Some fear that a doctrine of eternal election and re probation involves the possibility that Christ will not receive some of those who desire to receive Him, because they are not elect. The �comfortable words� of the gospel promises, however, absolutely exclude this possibility. As our Lord elsewhere affirmed, in emphatic and categorical terms: �Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.�[Jn vi.37]
It is true that God has from all eternity chosen whom He will save. It is true that Christ came specifically to save those whom the Father had given Him. But it is also true that Christ offers Himself freely to all men as their Savior, and guarantees to bring to glory everyone who trusts in Him as such. See how He Himself deliberately juxtaposes these two thoughts in the following passage:
�I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father�s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.�[Jn vi.38 ff.] �All which he hath given me��here is Christ�s saving mission defined in terms of the whole company of the elect, whom He came specifically to save. �Every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him��here is Christ�s saving mission defined in terms of the whole company of lost mankind, to whom He offers Himself without distinction, and whom He will certainly save, if they believe. The two truths stand side by side in these verses, and that is where they belong. They go together. They walk hand in hand. Neither throws doubt on the truth of the other. Neither should fill our minds to the exclusion of the other. Christ means what He says, no less when He undertakes to save all who will trust Him than when He undertakes to save all whom the Father has given Him.
Thus John Owen, the Puritan, who wrote in defense of both unconditional election and limited atonement, is able�is, indeed, constrained�to address the unconverted as follows:
�Consider the infinite condescension and love of Christ, in his invitations and calls of you to come unto him for life, deliverance, mercy, grace, peace and eternal salvation. . . . In the declaration and preaching of them, Jesus Christ yet stands before sinners, calling, inviting, encouraging them to come unto him.
�This is somewhat of the word which he now speaks unto you: Why will ye die? why will ye perish? why will ye not have compassion on your own souls? Can your hearts endure, or can your hands be strong, in the day of wrath that is approaching? . . . Look unto me, and be saved; come unto me, and I will ease you of all sins, sorrows, fears, burdens, and give rest to your souls. Come, I entreat you; lay aside all procrastinations, all delays; put me off no more; eternity lies at the door . . . do not so hate me as that you will rather perish than accept of deliverance by me.
�These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead and urge upon the souls of sinners . . . He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you . . . He hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing as his own the invitations which are given you in his name, 2 Cor. v.19, 2O.�[From The Glory of Christ (Works, ed. W. Goold, 1850, I.422).]
So indeed it is. The invitations of Christ are words of God. They are true. They are meant. They are genuine invitations. They are to be pressed upon the unconverted as such. Nothing that we may believe about God�s sovereignty in grace makes any difference to this.
(4) The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the responsibility of the sinner far his reaction to the gospel.
Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that a man who rejects Christ thereby becomes the cause of his own condemnation. Unbelief in the Bible is a guilty thing, and unbelievers cannot excuse themselves on the grounds that they were not elect. The unbeliever was really offered life in the gospel, and could have had it if he would; he, and no-one but he, is responsible for the fact that he rejected it, and must now endure the consequences of rejecting it. �Everywhere in Scripture,� writes Bishop J. C. Ryle, �it is a leading principle that man can lose his own soul, that if he is lost at last it will be his own fault, and his blood will be on his own head. The same inspired Bible which reveals this doctrine of election is the Bible which contains the words, ?Why will ye die, O house of Israel ??�?Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.?�?This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.? (Ezk. xviii.31; Jn. V.40, iii. 19.) The Bible never says that sinners miss heaven because they are not elect, but because they ?neglect the great salvation?, and because they will not repent and believe. The last judgment will abundantly prove that it is not the want of God�s election, so much as laziness, the love of sin, unbelief, and unwillingness to come to Christ, which ruins the souls that are lost.�[Old Paths, p. 468] God gives men what they choose, not the opposite of what they choose. Those who choose death, therefore, have only themselves to thank that God does not give them life. The doctrine of divine sovereignty does not affect the situation in any way.
So much for the first and negative proposition.
The second is positive.
II. The sovereignty of God in grace gives us our only hope of success in evangelism.
Some fear that belief in the sovereign grace of God leads to the conclusion that evangelism is pointless, since God will save His elect anyway, whether they hear the gospel or not. This, as we have seen, is a false conclusion based on a false assumption. But now we must go further, and point out that the truth is just the opposite. So far from making evangelism pointless, the sovereignty of God in grace is the one thing that prevents evangelism from being pointless. For it creates the possibility�indeed, the certainty�that evangelism will be fruitful. Apart from it, there is not even a possibility of evangelism being fruitful. Were it not for the sovereign grace of God, evangelism would be the most futile and useless enterprise that the world has ever seen, and there would be no more complete waste of time under the sun than to preach the Christian gospel.
Why is this? Because of the spiritual inability of man in sin. Let Paul, the greatest of all evangelists, explain this to us.
Fallen man, says Paul, has a blinded mind, and so is unable to grasp spiritual truth. �The natural (nonspiritual, unregenerate) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.�[1Cor ii.14] Again, he has a perverse and ungodly nature. �The carnal mind (the mind of the unregenerate man) is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.� The consequence? �So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.�[Rom viii.7 f.] In both these passages Paul makes two distinct statements about fallen man in relation to God�s truth, and the progression of thought is parallel in both cases. First Paul asserts unregenerate man�s failure, as a matter of fact. He �receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God�; he �is not subject to the law of God�. But then Paul goes on to interpret his first statement by a second, to the effect that this failure is a necessity of nature, some- thing certain and inevitable and universal and unalterable, just because it is not in man to do other- wise than fail in this way. �Neither can he know them.� �Neither indeed can be.� Man in Adam has not got it in him to apprehend spiritual realities, or to obey God�s law from his heart. Enmity against God, leading to defection from God, is the law of his nature. It is, so to speak, instinctive to him to suppress and evade and deny God�s truth, and to shrug off God�s authority and to flout God�s law�yes, and when he hears the gospel to disbelieve and disobey that too. This is the sort of person that he is. He is, says Paul, �dead in trespasses and sins[Eph ii.1]�wholly incapacitated for any positive reaction to God�s Word, deaf to God�s speech, blind to God�s revelation, impervious to God�s inducements. If you talk to a corpse, there is no response; the man is dead. When God�s Word is spoken to sinners, there is equally no response; they are �dead in trespasses and sins�.
Nor is this all. Paul also tells us that Satan (whose power and ill will he never underestimates) is constantly active to keep sinners in their natural state. Satan �now worketh in the children of disobedience[Eph ii.2] to ensure that they do not obey God�s law. And �the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ . . . should shine unto them.�[2Cor iv.4] So that there are two obstacles in the way of successful evangelism: the first, man�s natural and irresistible impulse to oppose God, and the second, Satan�s assiduity in shepherding man in the ways of unbelief and disobedience.
What does this mean for evangelism? It means, quite simply, that evangelism, described as we have described it, cannot possibly succeed. However clear and cogent we may be in presenting the gospel, we have no hope of convincing or converting anyone. Can you or I by our earnest talking break the power of Satan over a man�s life? No. Can you or I give life to the spiritually dead? No. Can we hope to convince sinners of the truth of the gospel by patient explanation? No. Can we hope to move men to obey the gospel by any words of entreaty that we may utter? No. Our approach to evangelism is not realistic till we have faced this shattering fact, and let it make its proper impact on us. When a schoolmaster is trying to teach children arithmetic, or grammar, and finds them slow to learn, he assures himself that the penny must drop sooner or later, and so encourages himself to keep on trying. We can most of us muster great reserves of patience if we think that there is some prospect of ultimate success in what we are attempting. But in the case of evangelism there is no such prospect. Regarded as a human enterprise, evangelism is a hopeless task. It cannot in principle produce the desired effect. We can preach, and preach clearly and fluently and attractively; we can talk to individuals in the most pointed and challenging way; we can organize special services, and distribute tracts, and put up posters, and flood the country with publicity�and there is not the slightest prospect that all this outlay of effort will bring a single soul home to God. Unless there is some other factor in the situation, over and above our own endeavors, all evangelistic action is foredoomed to failure. This is the fact, the brute, rock-bottom fact, that we have to face.
Here, I suspect, we find the canker that is really weakening evangelism in evangelical circles today. Everyone seems to agree that our evangelism is not in a healthy state, but there is no agreement as to the nature of the malady, or what should be done to cure it. Some, as we have indicated, appear to think that the basic trouble is the current revival in many places of faith in the sovereignty of divine grace�a faith which finds expression in a fresh emphasis on the doctrines of unconditional election and effectual calling. Their remedy, it seems, would be to try and refute, or suppress, these doctrines, and to discourage people from taking them seriously. Since, however, so many of the greatest evangelists and missionaries of past days have held precisely these doctrines, it is, to say the least, not obvious that the diagnosis is right, or the suggested remedy appropriate. Moreover, it seems clear that evangelism was languishing between the two world wars, long before this fresh emphasis began to be made. Others, as we have also hinted, appear to locate the trouble in the kind of evangelistic meetings that are commonly held, and to think that if we cut out the jollity and made them more sombre, and abolished appeals and counseling rooms and after-meetings, our evangelism would automatically be reinvigorated. But this also is not obvious. I suspect that the root of the trouble with our evangelism today lies deeper than either of these diagnoses goes. I suspect that what is responsible for this sense of evangelistic malaise is a widespread neurosis of disillusionment, an unacknowledged failure of nerve, springing from a long-standing failure to reckon with the fact that evangelism, regarded as a human enterprise, must be expected to fail. Let me explain. For about a century now, it has been characteristic of evangelical Christians (rightly or wrongly� we need not discuss that here) to think of evangelism as a specialized activity, best done in short sharp bursts (�missions� or �campaigns�), and needing for its successful practice a distinctive technique, both for preaching and for individual dealing. At an early stage in this period, Evangelicals fell into the way of assuming that evangelism was sure to succeed if it was regularly prayed for and correctly run (i.e., if the distinctive technique was used). This was because in those early days, under men like Moody, Torrey, Haslam and Hay Aitken, evangelistic campaigns usually were successful�not because they were always well planned and run (by twentieth century standards, they often were not), but because God was working in Britain in those days in a way in which He is evidently not working now. Even then, however, it was noticeable that the second mission in any place would rarely be as productive as the first, or the third as the second. But during the Past fifty years, as our country has drifted further and further from its Christian moorings, the law of diminishing returns has set in much more drastically. Evangelistic campaigns have become less and less fruitful. And this fact has unnerved us. Why has it unnerved us? Because we were not prepared for it. We had come to take it for granted that good organization and efficient technique, backed by a routine of prayers, was itself sufficient to guarantee results. We felt that there was an almost magical potency in the special meeting, the special choir and soloist, and the special preacher. We felt convinced that the thing that would always bring life into a dead church, or a dead town, was an intensive evangelistic mission. With the top of our minds, many of us still think that, or profess to think it. We tell each other that it is so, and make our plans on this basis. But with the bottom of our minds, in our heart of hearts, we have grown discouraged, and disillusioned, and apprehensive. Once we thought that well-planned evangelism was sure to succeed, but now we find ourselves afraid each time that it is going to fail, as it has failed so often before. Yet we are afraid to admit our fears to ourselves, for we do not know what to make of a situation in which our planned evangelism fails. So we repress our fears, and our disillusionment becomes a paralyzing neurosis, and our evangelistic practice be- comes a jaded and half-hearted routine. Basically, the trouble is our unconfessed doubts as to the worth whileness of what we are doing.
Why have we these doubts? Because we have been disillusioned. How have we been disillusioned? By the repeated failure of the evangelistic techniques in which we once reposed such confidence. What is the cure of our disillusionment? First, we must admit that we were silly ever to think that any evangelistic technique, however skilful, could of itself guarantee conversions; second, we must recognize that, because man�s heart is impervious to the word of God, it is no cause for surprise if at any time our evangelism fails to result in conversions; third, we must remember that the terms of our calling are that we should be faithful, not that we should be successful; fourth, we must learn to rest all our hopes of fruit in evangelism upon the omnipotent grace of God. For God does what man cannot do. God works by His Spirit through His Word in the hearts of sinful men to bring them to repentance and faith. Faith is a gift of God. �Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ . . . to believe on him,� writes Paul to the Philippians.[Phil i.29] �By grace are ye saved through faith,� he tells the Ephesians, �and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.�[Eph ii.8. Whether the gift of God in this text is the act of believing, or the fact of being-saved-through-believing (commentators divide), does not affect our point.] So, too, repentance is the gift of God. �Him (Christ) did God exalt,� Peter told the Sanhedrin, �.. . to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.�[Acts v.31, RV] When the Jerusalem church heard how Peter had been sent to evangelize Cornelius, and how Cornelius had come to faith, they said: �Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.�[Acts xi.18] You and I cannot make sinners repent and believe in Christ by our words alone; but God works faith and repentance in men�s hearts by His Holy Spirit.
Paul terms this God�s work of �calling�. The old theologians named it �effectual calling�, to distinguish it from the ineffective summons that is given when the gospel is preached to a man in whose heart God is not at work. It is the operation whereby God causes sinners to understand and respond to the gospel invitation. It is a work of creative power: by it, God gives men new hearts, freeing them from slavery to sin, abolishing their inability to know and do God�s truth, and leading them actually to turn to God and trust Christ as their Savior. By it, also, God breaks Satan�s hold upon them, delivering them from the domain of darkness and transferring them into �the kingdom of his dear Son�.[Col i.13] It is thus a calling that creates the response which it seeks, and confers the blessing to which it invites. It is often termed the work of �prevenient grace�, because it precedes any motion God ward in the heart of sinful man. It has been described (perhaps misleadingly) as a work of �irresistible grace�, simply because it effectively dethrones the disposition to resist grace. The Westminster Confession analyses it as an activity of God in and upon fallen men, �enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace�[Westminster Confession, X.i; cf. 2Cor iv.6; 1Cor ii.10 ff.; Ezk xxxvi.26 f.; Jn vi.44 f.; Phil ii.13.]
Christ Himself taught the universal necessity of this calling by the Word and the Spirit. �No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.�[Jn vi.44] He also taught the universal efficacy of it. �Every man . . . that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.�[Verse 45] And with this He taught the universal certainty of it for all whom God has chosen. �All that the Father giveth me shall come to me:�[Verse 37] they shall hear of Me, and they shall be moved to trust Me. This is the Father�s purpose, and the Son�s promise.
Paul speaks of this �effectual calling� as the out working of God�s purpose of election. To the Romans, he says: �Whom (God) did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son . . . moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified�[Rom viii.29 f.] To the Thessalonians he writes : �God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth : where unto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the g1ory of our Lord Jesus Christ.�[2Thes ii.13 f.] The author of the call, the apostle tells us, is God; the mode of calling is by the gospel; and the issue of the call is a title to glory.
But if this is so, then we see at once why it was that Paul, who faced so realistically the fact of fallen man�s slavery to sin and Satan, was able to avoid the disillusionment and discouragement that we feel today as it dawns upon us more and more clearly that, humanly speaking, evangelism is a hopeless task. The reason was that Paul kept his eyes firmly fixed on the sovereignty of God in grace. He knew that God had long before declared that �my word . . . that goeth forth out of my mouth . . . shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing�[Is Lv.11] whereto I sent it. He knew that this was no less true of the gospel than of any other divine utterance. He knew, therefore, that his own preaching of the gospel would not in the long run prove fruitless. God would see to that. He knew that wherever the word of the gospel went, God would raise the dead. He knew that the word would prove a savoir of life to some of those who heard it. This knowledge made him confident, tireless, and expectant in his evangelism. And if there were on occasion hard spells, with much opposition and little visible fruit, he did not panic or lose heart. For he knew that if Christ had opened the door for him to make known the gospel in a place, that meant that it was Christ�s purpose to draw sinners to Himself in that place. The word would not return void. His business, therefore, was to be patient and faithful in spreading the good news till the time of harvest should come.
There was a time at Corinth when things were hard; there had been some converts, certainly, but opposition was mounting and even Paul, the dauntless, was wondering whether it was worth persevering there. �Then,� we are told, �spake the Lord (Jesus) to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace : for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee : for I have much people in this city.�[Acts xviii.9 f.] As if to say : go on preaching and teaching, Paul, and let nothing stop you; there are many here whom I mean to bring to Myself through your testimony to My gospel. �This confirms S. Luke�s emphasis upon the prevenient choice of God,� comments Rackham.[The Acts of the Apostles, p. 327; cf. Acts xiii.48.] And Luke�s emphasis reflects Paul�s conviction, based upon Christ�s own assurance to him. Thus the sovereignty of God in grace gave Paul hope of success as he preached to deaf ears, and held up Christ before blind eyes, and sought to move stony hearts. His confidence was that where Christ sends the gospel there Christ has His people�fast bound at present in the chains of sin, but due for release at the appointed moment through a mighty renewing of their hearts as the light of the gospel shines into their darkness, and the Savior draws them to Himself. In a great hymn which he wrote shortly after his conversion (possibly the day after), Charles Wesley spoke of what had happened like this :
�Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature�s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,�
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off , my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.�
[From And can it be (Christian Praise, 235).]
That is not only a vivid statement of experience; it is also a piece of excellent theology. This is precisely what happens to unconverted men and women wherever the gospel is preached. Paul knew that; hence his confidence and expectancy when evangelizing.
Paul�s confidence should be our confidence too. We may not trust in our methods of personal dealing or running evangelistic services, however excellent we may think them. There is no magic in methods, not even in theologically impeccable methods. When we evangelize, our trust must be in God who raises the dead. He is the almighty Lord who turns men�s hearts, and He will give conversions in His own time. Meanwhile, our part is to be faithful in making the gospel known, sure that such labor will never be in vain. This is how the truth of the sovereignty of God�s grace bears upon evangelism.
What effects should this confidence and certainty have upon our attitude when evangelizing? Three at least.
(1) It should make us bold.
It should keep us from daunted when we find, as we often do, that people�s first reaction to the gospel is to shrug it off in apathy or even contempt. Such a reaction should not surprise us; it is only to be expected from the bond slaves of sin and Satan. Nor should it discourage us; for no heart is too hard for the grace of God. Paul was a bitter opponent of the gospel, but Christ laid His hand on Paul, and Paul was broken down and born again. You yourself, since you became a Christian, have been learning constantly how corrupt and deceitful and perverse your own heart is; before you became a Christian, your heart was worse; yet Christ has saved you, and that should be enough to convince you that He can save anyone. So persevere in presenting Christ to unconverted people as you find opportunity. You are not on a fool�s errand. You are not wasting either your time or theirs. You have no reason to be ashamed of your message, or half-hearted and apologetic in delivering it. You have every reason to be bold, and free, and natural, and hopeful of success. For God can give His truth an effectiveness that you and I cannot give it. God can make His truth triumphant to the conversion of the most seemingly hardened unbeliever. You and I will never write off anyone as hopeless and beyond the reach of God if we believe in the sovereignty of His grace.
(2) This confidence should make us patient.
It should keep us from being daunted when we find that our evangelistic endeavors meet with no immediate response. God saves in His own time, and we ought not to suppose that He is in such a hurry as we are. We need to remember that we are all children of our age, and the spirit of our age is a spirit of tearing hurry. And it is a pragmatic spirit; it is a spirit that demands quick results. The modern ideal is to achieve more and more by doing less and less. This is the age of the labor-saving device, the efficiency chart, and automation. The attitude which all this breeds is one of impatience towards everything that takes time and demands sustained effort. Ours tends to be a slapdash age; we resent spending time doing things thoroughly. This spirit tends to infect our evangelism (not to speak of other departments of our Christianity), and with disastrous results. We are tempted to be in a great hurry with those whom we would win to Christ, and then, when we see no immediate response in them, to become impatient and downcast, and then to lose interest in them, and feel that it is useless to spend more time on them; and so we abandon our efforts forthwith, and let them drop out of our ken. But this is utterly wrong. It is a failure both of love for man and of faith in God.
The truth is that the work of evangelizing demands more patience and sheer �stickability�, more reserves of persevering love and care, than most of us twentieth-century Christians have at command. It is a work in which quick results are not promised; it is a work, therefore, in which the non-appearance of quick results is no sign of failure; but it is a work in which we cannot hope for success unless we are prepared to persevere with people. The idea that a single evangelistic sermon, or a single serious conversation, ought to suffice for the conversion of anyone who is ever going to be converted is really silly. If you see someone whom you meet come to faith through a single such sermon or talk, you will normally find that his heart was already well prepared by a good deal of Christian teaching and exercise of spirit prior to your meeting with him. The law that operates in such cases is �one soweth, and another reapeth�.[Jn iv.37] If, on the other hand, you meet a person who is not thus prepared, a person who as yet has no conviction of the truth of the gospel and perhaps no idea, or even a false idea, of what the gospel actually is, it is worse than useless to try and stampede him into a snap �decision�. You may be able to bully him into a psychological crisis of some sort, but that will not be saving faith, and will do him no good. What you have to do is to take time with him, to make friends with him, to get alongside him, to find out where he is in terms of spiritual understanding, and to start dealing with him at that point. You have to explain the gospel to him, and be sure that he understands it and is convinced of its truth, before you start pressing him to an active response. You have to be ready to help him, if need be, through a spell of seeking to repent and believe before he knows within himself that he has received Christ, and Christ has received him. At each stage you have to be willing to go along with him at God�s speed, which may seem to you a strangely slow speed. But that is God�s business, not yours. Your business is simply to keep pace with what God is doing in his life. Your willingness to be patient with him in this way is the proof of your love to him no less than of your faith in God. If you are not willing thus to be patient, you need not expect that God will favor you by enabling you to win souls.
Whence comes the patience that is so indispensable for evangelistic work? From dwelling on the fact that God is sovereign in grace and that His word does not return to Him void; that it is He who gives us such opportunities as we find for sharing our knowledge of Christ with others, and that He is able in His own good time to enlighten them and bring them to faith. God often exercises our patience in this, as in other matters. As He kept Abraham waiting twenty-five years for the birth of his son, so He often keeps Christians waiting for things that they long to see, such as the conversion of their friends. We need patience, then, if we are to do our part in helping others towards faith. And the way for us to develop that patience is to learn to live in terms of our knowledge of the free and gracious sovereignty of God.
(3) Finally, this confidence should make us prayerful.
Prayer, as we said at the beginning, is a confessing of impotence and need, an acknowledging of helplessness and dependence, and an invoking of the mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. In evangelism, as we saw, we are impotent; we depend wholly upon God to make our witness effective; only because He is able to give men new hearts can we hope that through our preaching of the gospel sinners will be born again. These facts ought to drive us to prayer. It is God�s intention that they should drive us to prayer. God means us, in this as in other things, to recognize and confess our impotence, and to tell Him that we rely on Him alone, and to plead with Him to glorify His name. It is His way regularly to withhold His blessings until His people start to pray. �Ye have not, because ye ask not.�[Jas iv.2] �Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you : for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.�[Mt vii.7 f.] But if you and I are too proud or lazy to ask, we need not expect to receive. This is the universal rule, in evangelism as elsewhere. God will make us pray before He blesses our labors in order that we may constantly learn afresh that we depend on God for everything. And then, when God permits us to see conversions, we shall not be tempted to ascribe them to our own gifts, or skill, or wisdom, or persuasiveness, but to His work alone, and so we shall know whom we ought to thank for them.
The knowledge, then, that God is sovereign in grace, and that we are impotent to win souls, should make us pray, and keep us praying. What should be the burden of our prayers? We should pray for those whom we seek to win, that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts; and we should pray for ourselves in our own witness, and for all who preach the gospel, that the power and authority of the Holy Spirit may rest upon them. �Pray for us,� writes Paul to the Thessalonians, �that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified.�[2Thes iii.1, RV.] Paul was a great evangelist who had seen much fruit, but Paul knew that every particle of it had come from God, and that unless God continued to work both in him and in those to whom he preached he would never convert another soul. So he pleads for prayer, that his evangelism might still prove fruitful. Pray, he pleads, that the word of the gospel may be glorified through my preaching of it, and through its effect in human lives. Pray that it may be used constantly to the conversion of sinners. This, to Paul, is an urgent request, just because Paul sees so clearly that his preaching can save nobody unless God in sovereign mercy is pleased to bless it and use it to this end. Paul, you see, does not hold that, because God is sovereign in saving sinners, therefore prayer is needless, any more than he holds that, because God is sovereign in saving sinners, evangelistic preaching is needless. Rather, he holds that, just because the salvation of sinners depends wholly upon God, prayer for the fruitfulness of evangelistic preaching is all the more necessary. And those today who, with Paul, believe most strongly that it is the sovereign agency of God, and that alone, that leads sinners to Christ, should bear witness to their faith by showing themselves most constant and faithful and earnest and persistent in prayer that God�s blessing may rest on the preaching of His word, and that under it sinners may be born again. This is the final bearing of belief in the sovereignty of God�s grace upon evangelism.
We said earlier in this chapter that this doctrine does not in any way reduce or narrow the terms of our evangelistic commission. Now we see that, so far from contracting them, it actually expands them. For it faces us with the fact that there are two sides to the evangelistic commission. It is a commission, not only to preach, but also to pray; not only to talk to men about God, but also to talk to God about men. Preaching and prayer must go together; our evangelism will not be according to knowledge, nor will it be blessed, unless they do. We are to preach, because without knowledge of the gospel no man can be saved. We are to pray, because only the sovereign Holy Spirit in us and in men�s hearts can make our preaching effective to men�s salvation, and God will not send His Spirit where there is no prayer. Evangelicals are at present busy reforming their methods of evangelistic preaching, and that is good. But it will not lead to evangelistic fruitfulness unless God also reforms our praying, and pours out on us a new spirit of supplication for evangelistic work. The way ahead for us in evangelism is that we should be taught afresh to testify to our Lord and to His gospel, in public and in private, in preaching and in personal dealing, with boldness, patience, power, authority, and love; and that with this we should also be taught afresh to pray for God�s blessing on our witness with humility and importunity. It is as simple�and as difficult�as that. When all has been said that has to be said about the reformation of evangelistic methods, it still remains that there is no way ahead but this, and if we do not find this way, we shall not advance.
Thus the wheel of our argument comes full circle. We began by appealing to our practice of prayer as proof of our faith in divine sovereignty. We end by applying our faith in divine sovereignty as a motive to the practice of prayer.
What, then, are we to say about the suggestion that a hearty faith in the absolute sovereignty of God is inimical to evangelism? We are bound to say that anyone who makes this suggestion thereby shows that he has simply failed to understand what the doctrine of divine sovereignty means. Not only does it under gird evangelism, and uphold the evangelist, by creating a hope of success that could not otherwise be entertained; it also teaches us to bind together preaching and prayer; and as it makes us bold and confident before men, so it makes us humble and importunate before God. Is not this as it should be? We would not wish to say that man cannot evangelize at all without coming to terms with this doctrine; but we venture to think that, other things being equal, he will be able to evangelize better for believing it.
The voice of sovereignty: 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
�The officer had said to the man of God, �Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?� The man of God had replied, �You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!�� [2 Kings 7:19]
One wise man may deliver a whole city; one good man may be the means of safety to a thousand others. The holy ones are �the salt of the earth,� the means of the preservation of the wicked. Without the godly as a safeguard, the race would be utterly destroyed. In the city of Samaria there was one righteous man--Elisha, the servant of the Lord. Godliness and holiness was completely extinct in the court. The king was a sinner of the worst kind, his iniquity was glaring and notorious. Jehoram walked in the ways of his father Ahab, and worshipped false gods. The people of Samaria were wicked like their king; they had gone astray from Jehovah; they had forsaken the God of Israel: they did not remember the words of Jacob, �The Lord your God is one God;� and in wicked idolatry they bowed before the idols of the heathens, and therefore the Lord of Hosts allowed their enemies to oppress them until the curse of Ebal was fulfilled in the streets of Samaria, for �the most gentle and sensitive woman who would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot, will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter,� because of her of intense hunger (Deut 28:56-58). In this awful situation the one holy man was the means of salvation. The one grain of salt preserved the entire city; the one warrior for God was the means of the deliverance of the whole struggling multitude. For Elisha�s sake the Lord sent the promise that the next day, food which could not be obtained at any price, would be available at the cheapest possible price--at the very gates of Samaria. We may picture the joy of the multitude when the prophet first uttered this prediction. They knew him to be a prophet of the Lord; he had divine credentials; all his past prophecies had been fulfilled. They knew that he was a man sent from God, and was speaking Jehovah�s message. Surely the king�s eyes would glisten with delight, and the starving multitude would leap for joy at the prospects of so speedy a release from the famine. �Tomorrow, they would shout, �tomorrow our hunger will be over, and we will feast until we are full.
However, the officer on whom the king leaned expressed his disbelief. We don�t hear that any of the common people ever doubted; but one of noble position did. It is strange, that God has seldom chosen the great men of this world. Elevated positions in life and faith in Christ seldom agree. This great man said, �Impossible!� and, with an insult to the prophet, he added, �Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?� His sin lay in the fact, that after repeated evidences of Elisha�s ministry, yet he disbelieved the assurances uttered by the prophet on God�s behalf. He had, doubtless, seen the marvelous defeat of Moab; he had been startled at the testimony of the resurrection of the Shunamite�s son; he knew that Elisha had revealed Benhadad�s secrets and struck his marauding hosts with blindness; he had seen the army of Syria decoyed into the heart of Samaria; and he probably knew the story of the widow, whose oil filled all the vessels, and redeemed her sons. And the cure of Naaman was common conversation at all events in the court; and yet, in the face of all this accumulated evidence, in the teeth of all these credentials of the prophet�s mission, he still doubted, and scornfully told him that heaven must become an open floodgate, before the promise could be performed. Whereupon God pronounced his doom by the mouth of the man who had just now proclaimed the promise: �You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!� And providence--which always fulfills prophecy--destroyed the man. Trampled down in the streets of Samaria, he perished at its gates, seeing the bounty of food, but tasting none of it.
Perhaps he was arrogant in the way that he carried himself, and insulting to the people; or he tried to restrain their eager rush towards the food; or, as we would say, it might have been by mere accident that he was crushed to death; so that he saw the prophecy fulfilled, but never lived to enjoy it. In his case, seeing was believing, but it was not enjoying.
I will this morning invite your attention to two things--the man�s sin and his punishment. I will only say a little about this man, since I have already detailed the circumstances, but I will discuss the sin of unbelief and the punishment for that sin.
I. First, the SIN. His sin was unbelief. He doubted the promise of God.
In this particular case unbelief took the form of a doubt of the divine reality, or a mistrust of God�s power. Either he doubted whether God really meant what he said, or whether it was within the range of possibility that God would fulfill his promise. Unbelief has more phases than the moon, and more colors than the chameleon. Common people, when speaking of the devil, say, that he is sometimes seen in one shape, and sometimes in another. I am sure this is true of Satan�s first-born child--unbelief, for it has a multitude of forms.
At one time I see unbelief dressed up as an angel of light. It calls itself humility, and it says, �I would not be presumptuous; I dare not believe that God would pardon me; I am too great a sinner.� We call that humility, and thank God that our friend is in such a good condition. I don�t thank God for any such delusion. It is the devil dressed as an angel of light; it is unbelief after all.
At other times we detect unbelief in the shape of a doubt of God�s immutability: �The Lord has loved me, but perhaps he will cast me away tomorrow. He helped me yesterday, and under the shadows of his wings I trust; but perhaps I will receive no help in the next affliction. He may have thrown me away; he may not remember his covenant, and forget to be gracious.�
Sometimes this infidelity is embodied in a doubt of God�s power. Every day we see new problems, we are involved in a net of difficulties, and we think �surely the Lord cannot deliver us.� We strive to get rid of our burden, and finding that we can�t do it, we think God�s arm is as short as ours, and his power as little as human might.
A fearful form of unbelief is that doubt which keeps men from coming to Christ; which leads the sinner to distrust the ability of Christ to save him, to doubt the willingness of Jesus to accept such a great transgressor. But the most hideous of all is the traitor, in its true colors, blaspheming God, and madly denying his existence. Infidelity, deism, and atheism, are the ripe fruits of this deadly tree; they are the most massive eruptions of the volcano of unbelief. Unbelief has become full mature, when removing the mask and laying aside the disguise, it profanely stalks the earth, uttering the rebellious cry, �There is no God,� striving in vain to shake the throne of the divinity, by lifting up its arm against Jehovah, and in its arrogance would,
�Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice--be the god of God.�
Then truly unbelief has come to its full perfection, and then you see what it really is, for the least unbelief is of the same nature as the greatest.
I am astonished, and I am sure you will be too, when I tell you that there are some strange people in the world who do not believe that unbelief is a sin. I must call them strange people, because they are sound in their faith in every other respect, but they imagine and they deny that unbelief is sinful.
I remember a young man joining a circle of friends and ministers, who were disputing whether it was a sin for men and women not to believe the gospel. While they were discussing it, he said, �Gentlemen am I in the presence of Christians? Are you believers in the Bible, or are you not?� They said, �Of course we are Christians.� �Then,� he said, �doesn�t the Scripture record Jesus as saying, �When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin . . . . because men do not believe in me?� And isn�t it the damning sin of sinners, that they do not believe on Christ?� I could not have thought that persons should be so fool-hardy as to venture to assert that, �it is not a sin for a sinner not to believe in Christ.� I thought that, however far they might wish to push their sentiments, they would not tell a lie to uphold the truth, and, in my opinion this is what such men are really doing. Truth is a strong tower and never requires to be reinforced with error. God�s Word will stand against all man�s schemes. I would never invent such an illogical argument to try to prove that it is not a sin on the part of the ungodly not to believe, for I am sure it is, for I am taught in the Scriptures that, �This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light,� and when I read, �whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son,� I affirm, and the Word declares it, unbelief is a sin. Surely with rational and unbiased persons, it cannot require any reasoning to prove it. Is it not a sin for a creature to doubt the word of its Maker? Is it not a crime and an insult to the Divinity, for me, an atom, a particle of dust, to dare to deny his words? Is it not the very summit of arrogance and extremity of pride for a son of Adam to say, even in his heart, �God I doubt your grace; God I doubt your love, God I doubt your power?� Oh! dear friends believe me, if you could roll all sins into one mass--if you could take murder, and blasphemy, and lust, adultery, and fornication, and everything that is vile and unite them all into one vast ball of filthy corruption, they would not, even then, equal the sin of unbelief. This is the king of all sins, the epitome of guilt; the mixture of the venom of all crimes; the dregs of the wine of Gomorrah; it is the number one sin, the masterpiece of Satan, the chief work of the devil.
I will attempt this morning, for a little while, to show the extremely evil nature of the sin of unbelief.
1. First the sin of unbelief will appear to be extremely heinous when we remember that it is the parent of every other iniquity.
There is no crime which unbelief will not produce. I think that the fall of man was surely a result of the sin of unbelief. It was at this point that the devil tempted Eve. He said to her, �Did God really say, �You must not eat from any tree in the garden�?� He whispered and insinuated a doubt, �Did God really say?� as much as to say, �Are you quite sure he said that?� It was by means of unbelief--that thin part of the wedge--that the other sin entered; curiosity and the rest followed; she touched the fruit, and destruction came into this world. Since that time, unbelief has been the prolific parent of all guilt. An unbeliever is capable of the vilest crime that ever was committed. Unbelief, friends! Unbelief! why it hardened the heart of Pharaoh--it has given liberty to many blaspheming tongues--yes, it even became a disciple, and murdered Jesus. Unbelief!--it has sharpened the knife of the suicide; it has mixed many a cup of poison; and many to a shameful grave, who have murdered themselves and rushed with bloody hands before their Creator�s tribunal, because of unbelief.
Give me an unbeliever--let me know that he doubts God�s word--let me know that he distrusts his promise and his threats; and with that for a premise, I will conclude that the man will, in time, unless there is amazing restraining power exerted on him, be guilty of the foulest and blackest crimes. Ah! this is a Beelzebub sin; like Beelzebub, it is the leader of all evil spirits. It is said of Jeroboam that he sinned and caused Israel to sin; and it may be said of unbelief that it not only sins itself, but makes others sin; it is the egg of all crime, the seed of every offence; in fact, everything that is evil and vile lies couched in that one word--unbelief.
And let me say here, that unbelief in the Christian is of the identical nature as unbelief in the sinner.
It is not the same in its final effect, for it will be pardoned in the Christian; yes, it is pardoned: it was laid on the scapegoat�s head; it was blotted out and atoned for; but it is of the same sinful nature. In fact, if there can be one sin more monstrous than the unbelief of a sinner, it is the unbelief of a saint. For a saint to doubt God�s word--for a saint to distrust God after innumerable instances of his love, after ten thousand proofs of his mercy, exceeds everything.
Furthermore, in a saint, unbelief is the root of other sins.
When I am perfect in faith, I will be perfect in everything else; I would always fulfill the principle if I always believed the promise. But it is because my faith is weak, that I sin. Put me in trouble, and if I can fold my arms and say, Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide, you will not find me using wrong means to escape from it. But let me be in earthly distress and difficulty; if I distrust God, what then? Perhaps I will steal, or do a dishonest act to get out of the hands of my creditors; or if kept from such a transgression, I may plunge into excess to drown my anxieties. Once faith is taken away, the reins are broken; and who can ride an wild horse without rein or bridle? Like the chariot of the sun, with Phaeton for its driver, such would be our case if we are without faith. Unbelief is the mother of vice; it is the parent of sin; and, therefore, I say it is a deadly evil--a master sin.
2. But secondly; unbelief not only gives birth to sin, but it also fosters sin.
How is it that men can continue in their sin under the thunders of the Sinai preacher? How is it that, when a thundering preacher stands in the pulpit, and, by the grace of God, cries aloud, �Cursed is every man that does not keep all the commands of the law,�--how is it that when the sinner hears of the coming day of God�s justice, he is still hardened, and continues on in his evil ways? I will tell you; it is because unbelief of the coming judgment of God prevents it from having any effect on him. There is a firing range nearby, where soldiers practice firing their weapons. Now when workers walk by there, they are always careful to stay behind the raised mounds of dirt, to ensure that they are not hit by the shots; so behind mounds of dirt they can do what they please. So it is with the ungodly man. The devil gives him unbelief; he thus puts up an great mound of dirt, and finds refuge behind it. Ah! sinners, when the Holy Spirit knocks down your unbelief--when he brings home the truth in a display of power, how the law will work upon your soul. If man would truly believe that the law is holy, that the commandments are holy, just, and good, how he would be shaken over hell�s mouth; there would be no sitting and sleeping in church any longer; no careless listeners; no going away and immediately forgetting what type of men you are. Oh! once you get rid of unbelief, then every shot from the canon of the law would fall upon the sinner, and the slain of the Lord would be many. Again, how is it that men can hear the wooing of the cross of Calvary, and yet not come to Christ? How is it that when we preach about the sufferings of Jesus, and conclude by saying, �yet there is room,�--how is it that when we dwell upon his cross and passion, men are not broken in their hearts? It is said,
Law and terrors only harden,
All the while they work alone:
But a sense of blood-bought pardon
Will dissolve a heart of stone.
I think the story of Calvary is enough to break a rock. Rocks did split over when they saw Jesus die. I think the tragedy of Golgotha is enough to make a rock gush with tears, and to make the most hardened wretch weep with tears of repentant love; but even though we often repeat to story of Calvary, yet who weeps over it? Who cares about it? Friends, you sit as unconcerned as if it did not mean anything to you. Oh! stop and look, all you that walk by Calvary. Is it nothing to you that Jesus died? You seem to say �It really is nothing.� What is the reason for your attitude? Because there is unbelief between you and the cross. If there were not that thick veil between you and the Savior�s eyes, his looks of love would melt you. But unbelief is the sin which keeps the power of the gospel from working in the sinner: and it is not until the Holy Spirit strikes that unbelief down--it is not till the Holy Spirit rips away that infidelity and takes it completely out, that we can find the sinner coming to put his trust in Jesus.
3. But there is a third point. Unbelief hinders a man from performing any good works.
�Everything that does not come from faith is sin,� is a great truth in more ways than one. �Without faith it is impossible to please God.� You will never hear me say a word against morality; you will never hear me say that honesty is not a good thing, or that sobriety is not a good thing; on the contrary, I would say they are commendable things; but I will tell you what I will say afterwards--I will tell you that they are just like the primitive currency of India; it may pass for money among the Indians, but it will never do in England; these virtues may have worth here below, but not above. If you don�t have something better than your own goodness, you will never get to heaven. Some of the Indian tribes use little strips of cloth instead of money, and I would not find fault with them if I lived there; but when I come to England, strips of cloth will not suffice. So honesty, sobriety, and such things, may be very good among men--and the more you have of them the better. I exhort you, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, have them--but they will not do up in heaven. All these things put together, without faith, do not please God. Virtues without faith are whitewashed sins. Obedience without faith, if it is possible, is simply gold plated disobedience. Not to believe, nullifies everything. It is the fly in the ointment; it is the poison in the pot. Without faith, with all the virtues of purity, with all the benevolence of charity, with all the kindness of disinterested sympathy, with all the talents of genius, with all the bravery of patriotism, and with all the decision of principle--�without faith it is impossible to please God.� Don�t you see then, how bad unbelief is, because it prevents men from performing good works. Yes, even in Christians themselves, unbelief disables them.
Let me just tell you a tale--a story of Christ�s life. A certain man had an afflicted son, possessed with an evil spirit. Jesus was up in Mount of Transfiguration; so the father brought his demon possessed son to the disciples. What did the disciples do? They said, �Oh, we will cast him out.� They put their hands on him, and they tried to do it; but they whispered among themselves and said, �We are afraid we will not be able to do this.� In time the possessed boy began to foam at the mouth; he foamed and scratched the earth, grabbing at it in his seizures. The demonic spirit within him was alive. The devil was still there. In vain they repeated their exorcism, yet the evil spirit remained like a lion in his den, and all their efforts could not dislodge him. �Go!� they said; but he would not leave. �Go to the pit!� they cried; but he remained immoveable. The lips of unbelief cannot frighten the evil one, who might well have said, �Faith I know, Jesus I know, but who are you? You have no faith.� If they had faith, as small as a grain of mustard seed, they might have been able to cast the devil out; but their faith was gone, and therefore they could do nothing.
Look at poor Peter�s case, too. While he had faith, Peter walked on the waves of the sea. That was a splendid walk; I almost envy him walking on the water. Why, if Peter�s faith had continued, he might have walked across the Atlantic to America. But suddenly there came a large wave up behind him, and he said, �That will sweep me away;� and then another in front of him, and he cried out, �That will overwhelm me;� and he thought--how could I be so presumptuous as to be walking on the top of these waves? Down goes Peter. Faith was Peter�s life preserver; faith was Peter�s charm--it kept him up; but unbelief sent him down. Do you know that you and I, all our lifetime, will have to walk on the water? A Christian�s life is always walking on water--mine is--and every wave could swallow and devour us, but faith makes us stand. The moment you cease to believe, that moment distress comes in, and down you go. Oh! why do you doubt, then?
Faith encourages every virtue; unbelief murders every one. Thousands of prayers have been strangled in their infancy by unbelief. Unbelief has been guilty of infanticide; it has murdered many an infant prayer; many songs of praise that would have swelled the chorus of the skies, have been stifled by an unbelieving murmur; many a noble enterprise conceived in the heart has been destroyed before it could come forth, by unbelief. Many men would have been a missionaries; would have stood and preached their Master�s gospel boldly; but they were filled with unbelief. Once a giant stops believing, he then becomes a dwarf. Faith is like Samson�s hair but on the Christian; cut it off, and you may put out his eyes--and he can do nothing.
4. Our next remark is--unbelief has been severely punished.
Turn to the Scriptures! I see a world all fair and beautiful; its mountains in the sun, and the fields rejoicing in the golden light. I see maidens dancing, and young men singing. How beautiful the vision! But look! a solemn and holy man lifts up his hand, and cries, �A flood is coming to drown the earth: the fountains of the great deep will be opened, and everything will be covered. Look at the ark! I have toiled one hundred and twenty years with these hands to build it; flee to it, and you will be safe.� �No!, you old man; away with your empty predictions! No! let us be happy while we can! when the flood comes, then we will build an ark; but there is no flood coming; tell that to fools; we don�t believe any such things.�
See the unbelievers pursue their merry dance. Listen! Unbeliever. Don�t you hear rumbling noise? The heart of the earth has begun to move, her rocky ribs are strained by dire convulsions from within; look! they have broke open with the enormous strain, and from the openings torrents of water rush out, water that has been hidden ever since God concealed them in the heart of our world. Heaven is split apart! it rains. Not drops, but clouds descend. A waterfall, just like the Niagara Falls, rolls from heaven with mighty noise. Both deeps--the deep below and deep above--both join their hands.
Now unbelievers, where are you now! There are the last two unbelievers left. A man--his wife holding onto him around the waist--he stands on the last summit that is above the water. See him there? The water is up to his hips even now. Hear his last shriek! He is floating--he is drowned. And as Noah looks from the ark he sees nothing. Nothing! It is a profound emptiness. �Sea monsters lay eggs and make their homes in the palaces of kings.� Everything is overthrown, covered, drowned. What did it? What brought the flood on the earth? Unbelief. By faith Noah escaped from the flood. By unbelief the rest were drowned.
And, oh! don�t you know that unbelief kept Moses and Aaron out of Canaan? They did not honor God; they struck the rock when they ought to have spoken to it. They disbelieved: and therefore the punishment came upon them, that they would not inherit that good land, for which they had toiled and labored.
Let me take you where Moses and Aaron lived--to the vast and howling wilderness. We will walk around it for a while; we will become like the wandering Bedouins, we will walk through the desert for a while. There lies a carcass whitened in the sun; there is another, and there is another. What do these bleached bones mean? What are these bodies--there a man, and there a woman? What are all these? How did these corpses get here? Surely some great military camp must have been here cut off in a single night by a blast, or by bloodshed. Ah; no, no. Those bones are the bones of Israel; those skeletons are the old tribes of Jacob. They could not enter because of unbelief. They did not trust in God. Spies said they could not conquer the land. Unbelief was the cause of their death. It was not the Anakites that destroyed Israel; it was not the howling wilderness which devoured them; it was not the Jordan which proved a barrier to Canaan; neither Hivite or Jebusite killed them; it was unbelief alone which kept them out of Canaan. What a doom to be pronounced on Israel, after forty years of journeying; they could not enter because of unbelief!
Not to multiply instances, but remember Zechariah. He doubted, and the angel struck so that he was silent and unable to speak. His mouth was closed because of unbelief. But oh! if you want to have the worst picture of the effects of unbelief--if you want to see how God has punished it, I must take you to the siege of Jerusalem, that worst massacre which time has ever seen; when the Romans leveled the walls to the ground, and put all the inhabitants to the sword, or sold them as slaves in the marketplace. Have you ever read of the destruction of Jerusalem, by Titus? Did you never turn to the tragedy of Masada, when the Jews stabbed each other rather than fall into the hands of the Romans? Don�t you know, that to this day the Jew walks through the earth a wanderer, without a home and without a land? He is cut off, as a branch is cut from a vine; and why? Because of unbelief. Each time you see a Jew with a sad and somber face--each time you mark him like a citizen of another land, treading as an exile in our country--each time you see him, pause and say, �Ah! it was unbelief which caused you to murder Christ, and now it has driven you to be a wanderer; and faith alone--faith in the crucified Nazarene--can bring you back to your country, and restore it to its ancient grandeur.� Unbelief, you see, has the mark of Cain on its forehead. God hates it; God has dealt hard blows on it: and God will ultimately crush it. Unbelief dishonors God. Every other crime touches God�s territory; but unbelief aims a blow at his divinity, impeaches his truth, denies his goodness, blasphemes his attributes, maligns his character; therefore, God of all things, hates first and chiefly, unbelief, wherever it is.
5. And now to close this point--for I have already been speaking too long this morning--let me say that you will observe the atrocious nature of unbelief in this--that it is the damning sin.
There is one sin for which Christ never died; it is the sin against the Holy Spirit. There is one other sin for which Christ never made atonement. Mention every crime in the book of evil, and I will show you persons who have found forgiveness for it. But ask me whether the man who died in unbelief can be saved, and I reply there is no atonement for that man. There is an atonement made for the unbelief of a Christian, because it is temporary; but the final unbelief--the unbelief with which men die--never was atoned for. You may look throughout the entire Bible, and you will find that there is no atonement for the man or woman who died in unbelief; there is no mercy for them. Had they been guilty of every other sin, if they had only believed, they would have been pardoned; but this is the damning exception--they had no faith. Devils seize them! O fiends of the pit, drag them downward to their doom! They are faithless and unbelieving, and such are the persons for whom hell was built. It is their place, their prison, they are the chief prisoners, the chains are engraved with their names, and they will forever know that, �he that does not believe will be damned.�
II. This brings us now to conclude with the PUNISHMENT. �You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!�
Listen unbelievers! you have heard this morning about your sin; now listen to your doom: �You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!� It is so often true with God�s saints. When they are unbelieving, they see the mercy with their eyes, but do not eat it. Now, here is food in this land of Egypt; but there are some of God�s saints who come here on Sunday, and say, �I don�t know whether the Lord will be with me or not.� Some of them say, �Well, the gospel is preached, but I don�t know whether it will be successful.� They are always doubting and fearing. Listen to them when they leave the church, �Well, did you get a good meal this morning?� �Nothing for me.� Of course not. You could see it with your eyes, but did not eat it, because you had no faith. If you had come here with faith, you would have had a meal. I have found Christians, who have grown so very critical, that if the whole portion of the meat they are to have, in due season, is not cut up exactly into square pieces, and put on some special porcelain plate, they cannot eat it. Then they ought to go without; and they will have to go without, until they are brought to their appetites. They will have some affliction, which will act like quinine on them: they will be made to eat by means of bitters in their mouths; they will be put in prison for a day or two until their appetite returns, and then they will be glad to eat the most ordinary food, off the most common platter, or no platter at all. But the real reason why God�s people do not feed under a gospel ministry, is, because they don�t have faith. If you believed, if you only listened to one promise, that would be enough; if you only heard one good thing from the pulpit here it would be food for your soul, for it is not the quantity we hear, but the quantity we believe, that does us good--it is that which we receive into our hearts with true and lively faith, that is to our profit.
But, let me apply this chiefly to the unconverted. They often see great works of God done with their eyes, but they don�t eat of it. A crowd of people have come here this morning to see with their eyes, but I doubt whether all of them will eat. Men cannot eat with their eyes, for if they could, most would be well fed. And, spiritually, persons cannot feed simply with their ears, nor simply with looking at the preacher; and so we find the majority of our congregations come just to see and say; �Ah, let us hear what this babbler would say, this reed shaken in the wind.� But they have no faith; they come, and they see, and see, and see, and never eat. There is some one down in the front here, who gets converted; and some one else over there, who is called by sovereign grace; some poor sinner is weeping under a sense of his blood-guiltiness; another is crying for mercy to God: and another is saying, �Have mercy on me, a sinner.� A great work is going on in this church, but some of you do not know anything about it; you have no work going on in your hearts, and why? Because you think it is impossible; you think God is not at work. He has not promised to work for you who do not honor him. Unbelief makes you sit here in times of revival and of the outpouring of God�s grace, unmoved, uncalled, unsaved.
But, the worst fulfillment of this doom is yet to come! That great and godly preacher of the past, George Whitefield, used to sometimes lift up both his hands and shout, as I wish I could shout, but my voice fails me, he would shout, �The wrath to come! the wrath to come!� It is not the wrath now you have to fear, but the wrath to come; and there will be a doom to come, when �you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!�
I think I see the last great day. The last hour of time has struck. I heard the funeral bell toll its mournful summon of death--time was, eternity is ushered in; the sea is boiling; the waves are lit up with supernatural splendor. I see a rainbow--a flying cloud, and on it there is a throne, and on that throne sits one like the Son of Man. I know him. In his hand he holds a pair of scales; just before him are the books--the book of life, the book of death, the book of remembrance. I see his splendor, and I rejoice at it; I behold his magnificent appearance, and I smile with gladness that he is come to be �admired by all his saints.� But there stands a throng of miserable wretches, crouching in horror to conceal themselves, and yet looking, for their eyes must look on him whom they have pierced; but when they look they cry, �Hide me from the face.� What face? �Rocks, hide me from the face.� What face? �The face of Jesus, the man who died, but now has come in judgment.� But you cannot be hidden from his face; you must see it with your eyes: but you will not sit on the right hand, dressed in robes of splendor; and when the victorious procession of Jesus in the clouds comes, you will not march in it; you will see it, but you will not be there. Oh! I think I see it now, the mighty Savior in his chariot, riding on the rainbow to heaven. See how his mighty horses make the sky rattle while he drives them up heaven�s hill. A procession dressed in white follow behind him, and dragging from his chariot is the devil, death, and hell. Listen, how they clap their hands. Listen, how they shout. �You have ascended up on high; you have led captives in your procession.� Listen, how they chant the solemn song, �Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigns.� See the splendor of their appearance; note the crown upon their heads; see their pure-white robes; note the look of rapture on their faces; listen how their song rise up to heaven while the Eternal God joins in their song, saying, �I will rejoice over them with joy, I will rejoice over them with singing, for I have taken them to be mine in everlasting loving kindness.� But where are you all the while? You can see them up there, but where are you? You see it with your eyes, but you cannot eat of it. The marriage banquet is spread; the good old wines of eternity are brought out; they sit down to the feast of the king; but there you are, miserable, and starving, and you cannot eat of it. Oh! how you wring your hands. Oh that you might have just one morsel from the table--oh that you would be like a dog under the table. You will be a dog, a dog in hell, but not a dog in heaven.
But to conclude. I think I see you in some part of hell, tied to a rock, the vulture of remorse gnawing at your heart; and up there is the former beggar Lazarus sitting next to Abraham. You lift up your eyes and you see who it is. �That is the poor man who used to sit by my gate and beg, and the dogs used to licked his sores; there he is in heaven, while I am cast down into hell. Lazarus--yes, it is Lazarus; and I who was rich in the world of time am here in hell. Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue.� But no! it cannot be; it cannot be. And while you lie there, if there is one thing in hell worse than another, it will be seeing the saints in heaven. Oh, to think of seeing my mother in heaven while I am cast out! Oh, sinner, only think, to see your brother in heaven--he who was rocked in the same cradle as you, and played in the same house--yet you are cast out. And, husband, there is your wife in heaven, and you are among the damned. And father, look there, see your child is before the throne; and you! accursed of God and accursed of man, are in hell. Oh, the hell of hells will be to see our friends in heaven, and ourselves lost. I beg you, my listeners, by the death of Christ--by his agony and bloody sweat--by his cross and passion--by all that is holy--by all that is sacred in heaven and earth--by all that is solemn in time or eternity--by all that is horrible in hell, or glorious in heaven--by that awful thought, �forever,�--I beg you to take these to heart, and remember that if you are damned, it will be unbelief that damns you. If you are lost, it will be because you did not believe in Christ; and if you perish, this will be the bitterest part of it all--that you did not trust in the Savior. Amen.
The unbelief of this central bible topic is based upon fear as is all unbelief, wicked faith by the God of this worlld.
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How Does Doctrine Affect Evangelism?
Posted : 17 Aug, 2011 03:35 PM
The voice of sovereignty: 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
It is he that believeth that shall not perish!!
Every word in these scriptures is full of faith and will bring faith to any who has an ear to hear what the father has said and believe that he hears.believe what is written.
No matter how long of and article you post will change that.
The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls,1 is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts,2 and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word;3 by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.4
Proof text: 1. Heb. x. 39.
2. 2 Cor. iv. 13; Eph. i. 17�19; ii. 8.
3. Rom. x. 14, 17.
4. 1 Pet. ii. 2; Acts xx. 32; Rom. iv. 11; Luke xvii. 5; Rom. i. 16, 17.
By this faith a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein;1 and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands,2 trembling at the threatenings,3 and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come.4 But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.5
Proof Text: 1. John iv. 42; 1 Thess. ii. 13; 1 John v. 10; Acts xxiv. 14.
2. Rom. xvi. 26.
3. Isa. lxvi. 2.
4. Heb. xi. 13; 1 Tim. iv. 8.
5. John i. 12; Acts xvi. 31; Gal. ii. 20; Acts xv. 11
The unbelief of this central bible topic is based upon fear as is all unbelief, wicked faith by the God of this worlld.
View Profile
History
How Does Doctrine Affect Evangelism?
Posted : 17 Aug, 2011 03:35 PM
The voice of sovereignty: 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
It is he that believeth that shall not perish!!
Every word in these scriptures is full of faith and will bring faith to any who has an ear to hear what the father has said and believe that he hears.believe what is written.
No matter how long of and article you post will change that.
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is." (1 John 3:1-3)
The mark of knowing God is that you see God's love for you as a miracle. Notice this [text]: it says "how great". In the old King James it says "behold, what manner of love." Here it says, "how great a love" [NAS]. There is a Greek word that is used here that they are translating as "great" and the problem with the word is that it is an idiom. Idiomatic expressions are very hard to translate literally. We have an idiomatic expression: "its raining cats and dogs." Ok so if you are trying to translate that into Cantonese, German or into Japanese -- if you just say literally in those languages "it's raining cats and dogs" they will look at you: "what are you talking about?" You will have to find an idiomatic expression that is parallel or coordinate to that. Literally it says "behold, what country this love comes from" What this statement is really saying is "from what planet... how unreal...off the scale".
Remember there was a movie called "The Fisher King"? You wouldn't since hardly anybody saw this. Amanda Plummer plays this really klutzy, mousy, wallflower who has no friends. Robin Williams takes her out. At the end of the day he takes her in and says "I want to talk to you". She says "no, no, if you got to know me you would not like me. I am tired of rejection ... it was nice to go out. But everyone who gets to know me doesn't like me, so thanks." And Robin Williams says, "I do know you. I know that you think you are awkward. I know that you think you are clumsy. I know that you are kind of clumsy but I want you to know that I know who you are and I love you, and I will never leave you and I will never or forsake you." And she looks at him and its as if she is looking into the heart of what she thought was an enemy and she sees there understanding and love and she says, "Are you real?". This is a miracle that you love me.
[like this movie] This is saying, here is the way you can tell whether you are a Christian or just a moral person ... a Christian or a religious person. A real Christian is a person who says, "it is an absolute miracle that God's loves me. "It's just a miracle that I am a Christian." This is actually an acid test; let me just lay it on you here at the end. There are two kinds of people that go to church: there's religious people and real Christians. And the way you can tell the difference is that a Real Christian is somebody who sees everything that comes as a gift. In other words a real Christian sees that you are totally in debt to God, but a religious person is someone who is working hard and making an effort and trying to be good, going to Bible studies and just saying "no" everywhere, and denying themselves a lot of pleasures, and so forth, and a religious person is someone who is trying to put God in their debt. That is the difference. A religious person is someone who is trying to save themselves through their good works. A religious person is somebody who thinks they are putting God in their debt since they have tried so hard. A Christian is somebody who sees themselves as in God's debt.
Here is the acid test: If you are a Christian you have a spirit of wonder that permeates your life. You are always saying "how miraculous", "how interplanetary", "how unreal". You are always looking at yourself and saying, "me a Christian ... incredible, miraculous, unbelievable, a joke!!! " but a person who is trying to put God in their debt - there is none of that spirit of wonder at all. For example, when you show up to get your paycheck. I am assuming that most of you work hard for your money. When you show up for your paycheck do you say "Ah, BEHOLD!!!, you've paid me, you've given me money!!! Oh!! Are you real?." No, you don't do that, you say "of course you paid me, I worked." If you ask a religious person who does not understand the grace of God. you say, "Are you a Christian?" They say "Of course I am a Christian, I have always been a Christian. Sure I am a Christian. " My friends, if you are a Christian there is no "sure" about it and there is no "of courseness" about it, not a bit.
The acid test is your spirit of wonder stays there even when things go bad. You see when things go bad, when problems happen, here you can tell the difference between a moralist and a Christian. A moralist says, "what good is all my religion, what good is going to God, I have tried hard to be a Christian, I am trying hard to be obedient to God, and what good is it? God owes me." And you see you get mad. You say, "I have been trying hard and look what's going on in my love life, look what's going on in my career", and you get bitter. Why? because God owes you. But A Christian keeps that spirit of wonder. A Christian may say "my career has not gone too well, my love life has not gone too well, it's astonishing... Its amazing that God is as good as He is to me. Its all grace. Its all grace. That spirit of wonder. That sense of being a miracle. That everything that comes to you being an absolute mercy. That is an acid test. In fact, in some ways I have made a dichotomy that is unrealistic. Christians, to the degree that you behold the free grace of God, to the degree that you meditate on it and you let it become a holy fire in your heart, to the degree you experience and behold the love of God, to that degree you are going to find that to difficulties you will be able to say "oh well, my Father must have a purpose here because He loves me, and besides that, He does not owe me a good life. He owes me a far worse life than I've got." You can handle anything. And when good things come you will say "Behold! what a miracle" And the very fact you can get up in the morning and say, "I am a Christian. Who would have thought it?" There is a spirit of wonder about you, and if you have lost that you are slipping back into moralism, you are slipping back into thinking "well I guess what it means to be a Christian is just to do." Here is Christianity:
And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood!
Died he for me? who caused his pain!
For me? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
The wonder is a mark that you know the Lord. The ability to handle anything with that sense of almost childlike wonder. That sense of being a miracle. That tells you that you know him.
in the sun, and the fields rejoicing in the golden light. I see maidens dancing, and young men singing. How beautiful the vision! But look! a solemn and holy man lifts up his hand, and cries, �A flood is coming to drown the earth: the fountains of the great deep will be opened, and everything will be covered. Look at the ark! I have toiled one hundred and twenty years with these hands to build it; flee to it, and you will be safe.� �No!, you old man; away with your empty predictions! No! let us be happy while we can! when the flood comes, then we will build an ark; but there is no flood coming; tell that to fools; we don�t believe any such things.�