DO YOU THINK GOD IS LIKE MAN?

God the Judge of the Righteous and the Wicked.
PSALM 50
A Psalm of Asaph.

1 The Mighty One, God, the LORD, has spoken,

And summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.

2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

God has shone forth.

3 May our God come and not keep silence;

Fire devours before Him,

And it is very tempestuous around Him.

4 He summons the heavens above,

And the earth, to judge His people:

5 "Gather My godly ones to Me,

Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice."

6 And the heavens declare His righteousness,

For God Himself is judge. Selah.

7 "Hear, O My people, and I will speak;

O Israel, I will testify against you;

I am God, your God.

8 "I do not reprove you for your sacrifices,

And your burnt offerings are continually before Me.

9 "I shall take no young bull out of your house

Nor male goats out of your folds.

10 "For every beast of the forest is Mine,

The cattle on a thousand hills.

11 "I know every bird of the mountains,

And everything that moves in the field is Mine.

12 "If I were hungry I would not tell you,

For the world is Mine, and all it contains.

13 "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls

Or drink the blood of male goats?

14 "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving

And pay your vows to the Most High;

15 Call upon Me in the day of trouble;

I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me."

16 But to the wicked God says,

"What right have you to tell of My statutes

And to take My covenant in your mouth?

17 "For you hate discipline,

And you cast My words behind you.

18 "When you see a thief, you are pleased with him,

And you associate with adulterers.

19 "You let your mouth loose in evil

And your tongue frames deceit.

20 "You sit and speak against your brother;

You slander your own mother's son.

21 "These things you have done and I kept silence;

You thought that I was just like you;

I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.

22 "Now consider this, you who forget God,

Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.

23 "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me;

And to him who orders his way aright

I shall show the salvation of God."


Let us never forget when we look to the heavens and see the beauty in the earth and in all the universe that GOD created all this and more.I say let us never forget because that is exactly what the world does and when I say the world I'm talking to You, so this is personal.The wicked worship a god created in their imaginations one who never judges, one who doesn't have anger, one who never seems to have a problem with any sin.These false gods of the world let every type of evil and wickedness get a pass and have nothing to say about it but"it's okay I understand".These are misconceptions of who GOD really is,"Is there a heaven for a gangster?" or "only GOD can judge me" these are sayings we shout out and think them to be true and they in part are true no there is no entrance into heaven for the wicked but yes GOD will judge ACTS 17:31. Stop thinking the one True GOD is like us in regard to sin.He will not sow any leniency or mercy on that day He judges you.Your sin separates you from GOD, the LORD is holy totally sinless and no sin will enter into heaven.See your sin before a Holy and True GOD and repent.I did and continue to do so and follow CHRIST'S commands, let not this world's foolishness blind you any longer.Repent of your sins and believe on Christ Jesus,get a Bible and follow GOD's commands.This was directed at you and yes it was personal so that you know your sin against GOD is personal.Repent before it's too late GOD BLESS

"Puritan Evangelism" by J .I. Packer

Puritan Evangelism
How the Puritans evangelized in contrast tot he modern age we now live in. How did they accomplish their evangelistic efforts to win souls?



Puritan Evangelism
by Dr. J. I. Packer
M.A., Lecturer at Tyndale Hall, Bristol



In the report of the Archbishop’s Committee on Evangelism, published in 1945 under the title: Towards the Conversion of England, the work of evangelism is conveniently defined as follows: “so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Savior, and serve Him as their King in fellowship of His Church.”

Did the Puritans tackle the task of evangelism at all? At first sight, it might seem not. They agreed with Calvin in regarding the “evangelists” mentioned in the New Testament as all order of assistants to the apostles, now extinct; and as for “missions,” “crusades” and “campaigns,” they knew neither the name nor the thing. But we must not be misled into supposing that evangelism was not one of their chief concerns. It was. Many of them were outstandingly successful as preachers to the unconverted. Richard Baxter, the apostle of Kidderminster, is perhaps the only one of these that is widely remembered today; but in contemporary records it is common to read statements like this, of Hugh Clark: “he begat many Sons and Daughters unto God;” or this, of John Cotton, “the presence of the Lord…crowning his labors with the Conversion of many Souls” (S. Clarke, Lives of 52…Divines, pp.131, 222, etc.) Moreover, it was the Puritans who invented evangelistic literature. One has only to think of Baxter’s classic Call to the Unconverted, and Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted, which were pioneer works in this class of writing. And the elaborate practical “handling” of the subject of conversion in Puritan books was regarded by the rest of the seventeenth-century Protestant world as something of unique value. “It hath been one of the glories of the Protestant religion that it revived the doctrine of Saving Conversion, and of the New Creature brought forth thereby…But in a more eminent manner, God hath cast the honor hereof upon the Ministers and Preachers of this Nation, who are renowned abroad for their more accurate search into and discoveries hereof.” (T. Goodwin and P. Nye, Preface to T. Hooker, The Application of Redemption, 1656).

The truth is that two distinct conceptions and types of evangelism have been developed in Protestant Christendom during the course of its history. We may call them the “Puritan” type and the “modern” type. Today we are so accustomed to evangelism of the modern type that we scarcely recognize the other is evangelism at all. In order that we may fully grasp the character of the Puritan type of evangelism, I shall here set it in contrast with the modern type, which has so largely superseded it at the present time.

Let us begin, therefore, by characterizing evangelism of the modern type. It seems to presuppose a conception of the life of the local church as an alternating cycle of converting and edifying. Evangelism almost takes on the character of a periodical recruiting campaign. It is all extraordinary and occasional activity, additional and auxiliary to the regular functioning of the local congregation. Special gatherings of a special sort are arranged, and special preachers are commonly secured to conduct them. Often they are called “meetings” rather than “services;” in any case, they are thought of as something distinct in some way from the regular public worship of God. In the meetings, everything is directly aimed at securing from the unconverted all immediate, conscious, decisive act of faith in Christ. At the close of the meeting, those who have responded or wish to do so are asked to come to the front, or raise a hand, or something similar, as an act of public testimony to their new resolutions. This, it is claimed, is good for those who do it, since it helps to make their “decision” definite, and it has the further advantage of making them declare themselves, so that they may be contacted individually by “personal workers.” Such persons may then be advised and drafted forthwith into local churches as converts.

This type of evangelism was invented by Charles G. Finney in the 1820’s. He introduced the “protracted meeting,” or, as we should call it, the intensive evangelistic campaign, and the “anxious seat,” a front pew left vacant where at the end of the meeting “the anxious may come and be addressed particularly…and sometimes be conversed with individually.” At the end of his sermon, he would say, “There is the anxious seat; come out, and avow determination to be on the Lord’s side.” (See Revivals of Religion, especially chapter xiv). These were Finney’s much opposed “new measures.”

Now, Finney was a clear-headed and self-confessed Pelagian in his doctrine of man; and this is the reason why his “new measures” were evolved. Finney denied that fallen man is totally unable to repent, believe or do anything spiritually good without grace, and affirmed instead that all men have plenary ability to turn to God at any time. Man is a rebel, but is perfectly free at any time to lay down his arms in surrender. Accordingly, the whole work of the Spirit of God in conversion is to present vividly to man’s mind reasons for making this surrender - that is to say, the Spirit’s work is confined to moral persuasion. Man is always free to reject this persuasion: “Sinners can go to hell in spite of God.” But the stronger the persuasion is, the more likely it is to succeed in the breaking down of man’s resistance. Every means, therefore, of increasing the force and vividness with which truth impinged on the mind - the most frenzied excitement, the most narrowing emotionalism, the most nerve-racking commotion in evangelistic meetings - was a right and proper means of evangelism. Finney gave expression to this principle in the first of his lectures on Revivals of Religion. “To expect to promote religion without excitements is unphilosophical and absurd…until there is sufficient religious principle in the world to put down irreligious excitements, it is in vain to try to promote religion, except by counteracting excitements…There must be excitement sufficient to wake up the dormant moral powers…” And, since every man, if he will only rouse up his “dormant moral powers,” can at any time yield to God and become a Christian, it is the evangelist’s work and duty always to preach for immediate decision, to tell men that it is their duty to come to Christ that instant, and to use all means – such as the rousing appeal and the “anxious seat” - for persuading them to do so. “I tried to shut them up,” he says of a typical mission sermon, “to present faith and repentance, as the thing which God required of them: present and instant acceptance of His will, present and instant acceptance of Christ” (Autobiography, p. 64). It is hardly too much to say that Finney regarded evangelistic preaching as a battle of wills between himself and his hearers, in which it was his responsibility to bring them to breaking point.

Now, if Finney’s doctrine of the natural state of sinful man is right, then his evangelistic methods must be judged right also, for, as he often insisted, the “new measures” were means well adapted to what he held to be the end in view. “It is in such practices that a Pelagian system naturally expresses itself if it seeks to become aggressively evangelistic” (B. B. Warfield). But if his view of man is wrong, then his methods, as we shall see, must be judged disastrous. And this is an issue of the first importance at the present time; for it is Finney’s methods, modified and adapted, which characterize most evangelism today. We do not suggest that all who use them are Pelagians. But we do raise the question, whether the use of such methods is consistent with any other doctrine than Finney’s, and we shall try to show that, if Finney’s doctrine is rejected, then such methods must be judged inappropriate and, indeed, detrimental to the real work of evangelism. It may be said that results justify their use; but the truth is that the majority of Finney’s “converts” backslid and fell away, and so, it seems, have the majority of those since Finney’s day whose “decision” has been secured by the use of such methods. Most modern evangelists seem to have given up expecting more than a small percentage of their “converts” to survive. It is not at all obvious that results justify such methods. We shall suggest later that they have a natural tendency to produce such a crop of false converts as has in fact resulted from their use.

The Puritan type of evangelism, on the other hand, was the consistent expression in practice of the Puritans’ conviction that the conversion of a sinner is a gracious sovereign work of Divine power. We shall spend a little time elaborating this.

The Puritans did not use “conversion” and “regeneration” as technical terms, and so there are slight variations in usage. Perhaps the majority treated the words as synonyms, each denoting the whole process whereby God brings the sinner to his first act of faith. Their technical term for the process was effectual calling; calling being the Scriptural word used to describe the process in Rom. 8:30, 2 Th. 2:14, 2 Tim. 1:9, etc., and the adjective effectual being added to distinguish it from the ineffectual, external calling mentioned in Mt. 20:16, 22:14. Westminster Confession, X. i., puts “calling,” into its theological perspective by an interpretative paraphrase of Rom. 8:30: “All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.” The Westminster Shorter Catechism analyses the concept of “calling” in its answer to Q. 31: “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.”

Concerning this effectual calling, three things must be said if we are to grasp the Puritan view:

(i) It is a work of Divine grace; it is not something a man can do for himself or for another. It is the first stage in the application of redemption to those for whom it was won; it is the time when, on the grounds of his eternal, federal, representative union with Christ, the elect sinner is brought by the Holy Ghost into a real, vital, personal union with his Covenant Head and Redeemer. It is thus a gift of free Divine grace.

(ii) It is a work of Divine power. It is effected by the Holy Ghost, who acts both mediately, by the Word, in the mind, giving understanding and conviction, and at the same time immediately, with the Word, in the hidden depths of the heart, implanting new life and power, effectively dethroning sin, and making the sinner both able and willing to respond to the gospel invitation. The Spirit’s work is thus both moral, by persuasion (which all Arminians and Pelagians would allow), and also physical, by power (which they would not).

Owen said, “There is not only a moral, but a physical immediate operation of the Spirit…upon the minds or souls of men in their regeneration…The work of grace in conversion is constantly expressed by words denoting a real internal efficacy; such as creating, quickening, forming, giving a new heart…Wherever this work is spoken of with respect unto an active efficacy, it is ascribed to God. He creates us anew, he quickens us, he begets us of His own will; but when it is spoken of with respect to us, there it is passively expressed; we are created in Christ Jesus, we are new creatures, we are born again, and the like; which one observation is sufficient to avert the whole hypothesis of Arminian grace.” (Works, ed. Russell 1,1, II. 369). “Ministers knock at the door of men’s hearts (persuasion), the Spirit comes with a key and opens the door” (T. Watson, Body of Div., 1869, p. 154). The Spirit’s regenerating action, Owen goes on, is “infallible, victorious, irresistable, or always efficacious” (loc cit.); it “removeth all obstacles, overcomes all oppositions, and infallibly produceth the effect intended.” Grace is irresistible, not because it drags man to Christ against his will, but because it changes men’s hearts so that they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.” (West. Conf. X. i). The Puritans loved to dwell on the Scriptural thought of the Divine power put forth in effectual calling, which Goodwin regularly described as the one “standing miracle” in the Church. They agreed that in the normal course of events conversion was not commonly a spectacular affair; but Goodwin notes that sometimes it is, and affirms that thereby God shows us how great an exercise of power every man’s effectual calling involves. “In the calling of some there shoots up very suddenly an election-conversion (I use to call it so). You shall, as it were, see election take hold of a man, pull him out with a mighty power, stamp upon him, the divine nature, stub up corrupt nature by the roots, root up self-love, put in a principle of love to God, and launch him forth a new creature the first day ... He did so with Paul, and it is not without example in others after him.” (Works, ed.. Miller IX. 279). Such dramatic conversions, says Goodwin, are “visible tokens of election by such a work of calling, as all the powers in heaven and earth could not have wrought upon a man’s soul so, nor changed a man so on a sudden, but only that divine power that created the world (and) raised Christ from the dead.”

The reason why the Puritans thus magnified the quickening power of God is plain from the passages quoted:it was because they took so seriously the Bible teaching that man is dead in sin, radically depraved, sin’s helpless bondslave. There is, they held, such a strength in sin that only omnipotence can break its bond; and only the Author of Life can raise the dead. Where Finney assumed plenary ability, the Puritans taught total inability in fallen man.

(iii) Effectual calling is and must be a work of Divine sovereignty. Only God can effect it, and He does so at His own pleasure. “It is not of him that willith, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Owen expounds this in a sermon on Acts 16:9, “A vision of unchangeable, free mercy in sending the means of grace to undeserving sinners” (XV, I ff.). He first states the following principle: “All events and effects, especially concerning the propagation of the gospel, and the Church of Christ, are in their greatest variety regulated by the eternal purpose and counsel of God,” He then illustrates it. Some are sent the gospel, some not. “In this chapter…the gospel is forbidden to be preached in Asia or Bithynia; which restraint, the Lord by His providence as yet continueth to many parts of the world;” while “to some nations the gospel is sent…as in my text, Macedonia; and England…” Now, asks Owen, why this discrimination? Why do some hear and others not? And when the gospel is heard, why do we see “various effects, some continuing in impenitency, others in sincerity closing with Jesus Christ?…In effectual working of grace…whence do you think it takes its rule and determination . . . that it should be directed to John, not Judas; Simon Peter, not Simon Magus? Why only from this discriminating counsel of God from eternity…Acts 13:48…The purpose of God’s election, is the rule of dispensing saving grace.”

Jonathan Edwards, a great Puritan evangelist, often makes the same point. In a typical passage from a sermon on Rom. 9:18, he lists the following ways in which God’s sovereignty (defined as “His absolute right of disposing of all creatures according to His own pleasure”) appears in the dispensations of grace:” (1) In calling one nation or people, and giving them the means of grace, and leaving others without them. (2) In the advantages He bestows upon particular persons” (e.g. a Christian home, a powerful ministry, direct spiritual influences, etc.); (4) In bestowing salvation on some who have had few advantages” (e.g. children of ungodly parents, while the children of the godly are not always saved); “(5) In calling some to salvation, who have been heinously wicked, and leaving others, who have been very moral and religious persons… (6) In saving some of those who seek salvation and not others (i.e., bringing some convicted sinners to saving faith while others never attain to sincerity) (Works, 1838, II, 849 f.).” This display of sovereignty by God, Edwards maintained, is glorious: “it is part of the glory of God’s mercy that it is sovereign mercy.”

It is probably true that no preacher in the Puritan tradition ever laid such sustained stress on the sovereignty of God as Edwards. It may come as a surprise to modern readers to discover that such preaching as his was evangelistically very fruitful; but such was the case. Revival swept through his church under his ministry, and in the revival (to quote his own testimony) “I think I have found that no discourses have been more remarkably blessed, than those in which the doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty, with regard to the salvation of sinners, and his just liberty, with regard to answering prayer, and succeeding the pains, of natural men, continuing such, have been insisted on” (I. 353). There is much food for thought here.

God’s sovereignty appears also in the time of conversion. Scripture and experience show that “the great God for holy and glorious ends, but more especially…to make appear His love and kindness, His mercy and grace, hath ordained it so” that many of His elect people “should for some time remain in a condition of sin and wrath, and then He renews them to Himself” (Goodwin, VI, 85). It is never man, but always God, who determines when an elect sinner shall believe. In the manner of conversion too, God is sovereign. The Puritans taught that, as a general rule, conviction of sin, induced by, the preaching of the Law, must precede faith, since no man will or can come to Christ to be saved from sin till he knows what sins he needs saving from. It is a distinctive feature of the Puritan doctrine of conversion that this point, the need for “preparation” for faith, is so stressed. Man’s first step toward conversion must be some knowledge, of God, of himself, of his duty and of his sin. The second step is conviction, both of sinfulness and of particular sins; and the wise minister, dealing with enquirers at this stage, will try to deepen conviction and make it specific, since true and sound conviction of sin is always to a greater or less degree particularised. This leads to contrition (sorrow for and hatred of sin), which begins to burn the love of sinning out of the heart and leads to real, though as yet ineffective, attempts to break off the practice of sin in the life. Meanwhile, the wise minister, seeing that the fallow ground is now ploughed up, urges the sinner to turn to Christ. This is the right advice to give to a man who has shown that with all his heart he desires to be saved from sin; for when a man wants to be saved from sin, then it is possible for him genuinely and sincerely to receive the One who presents Himself to man as the Saviour from sin. But it is not possible otherwise; and therefore the Puritans over and over again beg ministers not to short-circuit the essential preparatory process. They must not give false encouragement to those in whom the Law has not yet done its work. It is the worst advice possible to tell a man to stop worrying about his sins and trust Christ at once if he does not yet know his sins and does not yet desire to leave them. That is the way to encourage false peace and false hopes, and to produce “gospel- hypocrites.” Throughout the whole process of preparation, from the first awakening of concern to the ultimate dawning of faith, however, the sovereignty of God must be recognised. God converts no adult without preparing him; but “God breaketh not all men’s hearts alike” (Baxter). Some conversions, as Goodwin said, are sudden; the preparation is done in a moment. Some are long-drawn-out affairs; years may pass before the seeker finds Christ and peace, as in Bunyan’s case. Sometimes great sinners experience “great meltings” (Giles Firmin) at the outset of the work of grace, while upright persons spend long periods in agonies of guilt and terror. No rule can be given as to how long, or how intensely, God will flay each sinner with the lash of conviction. Thus the work of effectual calling proceeds as fast, or as slow, as God wills; and the minister’s part is that of the midwife, whose task it is to see what is happening and give appropriate help at each stage, but who cannot foretell, let alone fix, how rapid the process of birth will be.

From these principles the Puritans deduced their characteristic conception of the practice of evangelism. Since God enlightens, convicts, humbles and converts through the the Word, the task of His messengers is to communicate that word, preaching and applying law and gospel. Preachers are to declare God’s mind as set forth in the texts they expound, to show the way of salvation, to exhort the unconverted to learn the law, to meditate on the Word, to humble themselves, to pray that God will show them their sins, and enable them to come to Christ. They are to hold Christ forth as a perfect Saviour from sin to all who Heartily desire to be saved from sin, and to invite such (the weary and burdened souls whom Christ Himself invites, Mt. 11:28) to come to the Saviour who waits to receive them. But they are not to do as Finney did, and demand immediate repentance and faith of all and sundry. They are sent to tell all men that they must repent and believe to be saved, but it is no part of the word and message of God if they go further and tell all the unconverted that they ought to “decide for for Christ” (to use a common modern phrase) on the spot. God never sent any preacher to tell a congregation that they were under obligation to receive Christ at the close of the meeting. For in fact only those prepared by the Spirit can believe; and it is only such whom God summons to believe. There is a common confusion here. The gospel of God requires an immediate response from all; but it does not require the same response from all. The immediate duty of the unprepared sinner is not to try and believe on Christ, which he is not able to do, but to read, enquire, pray, use the means of grace and learn what he needs to be saved from. It is not in his power to accept Christ at any moment, as Finney supposed; and it is God’s prerogative, not the evangelist’s, to fix the time when men shall first savingly believe. For the latter to try and do so, by appealing to sinners to begin believing here and now, is for man to take to himself the sovereign right of the Holy Ghost. It is an act of presumption, however creditable the evangelist’s motive’s may be. Hereby he goes beyond his commission as God’s messenger; and hereby he risks doing incalculable damage to the souls of men. If he tells men they are under obligation to receive Christ on the spot, and demands in God’s name that they decide at once, some who are spiritually unprepared will try to do so; they will will come forward and accept directions and “go through the motions” and go away thinking they have received Christ, when all the time they have not done so because they were not yet able to do so. So a crop of false conversions will result from making such appeals, in the nature of the case. Bullying for “decisions” thus in fact impedes and thwarts the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Man takes it on himself to try to bring that work to a precipitate conclusion, to pick the fruit before it is ripe; and the result is “false conversions,” hypocrisy and hardening. “For the appeal for immediate decision presupposes that men are free to “decide for Christ” at any time; and this presupposition is the disastrous issue of a false, un-Scriptural view of sin.

What, then, were the principles that should govern evangelistic preaching? In the first place, the Puritans would insist, it must be clearly understood that evangelistic preaching is not a special kind of preaching, with its own distinctive technique. It is a part of the ordinary public ministry of God’s Word. This means, first, that the rules which govern it are the same rules which must govern all public preaching of God’s Word; and, second, that the person whose task it primarily is is the local pastor. It is his duty in the course of his public and private ministry of the Word, “diligently to labour for the conversion of souls to God” (Owen). What God requires of him is that he should be faithful to the content of the gospel, and diligent in imparting it. He is to seek by all means to make his sermon clear, memorable and relevant to the lives of his hearers; he is to pray earnestly for God’s blessing on his preaching, that it may be “in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power”; but it is no part of his business to study to “dress up” the gospel and make it “appeal” to the natural man. The preachers calling is very different from that of the commercial traveller, and the “quick sale” technique has no place in the Christian pulpit. The preacher is not sent of God to make a quick sale, but to deliver a message. When he has done that, his work in the pulpit is over. It is not his business to try and extort “decisions.” It is God’s own sovereign prerogative to make His Word effective, and the preachers’s behaviour must be governed by his recognition of, and subjection to, Divine sovereignty in this matter.

Does not the abjuring of appeals, and the other devices of high-pressure salesmanship which have intruded into the modern type of evangelism, make the preaching of the gospel a somewhat forlorn undertaking? Not at all, said the Puritan; those who argue so have reckoned without the sovereignty of God. The Puritan pastor had the same quiet confidence in the success of his evangelistic preaching as he had in the success of all his preaching. He was in no feverish panic about it. He knew that God’s Word does not return void; that God has His elect everywhere, and that through the preaching of His Word they will in due course be called out-not because of the preachers’s gifts and ingenuity, but by reason of God’s sovereign operation. He knew that God always has a remnant faithful to Himself, however bad the times-which means that in every age some men will come to faith through the preaching of the Word. This was the faith that sustained such Puritan pioneers as Richard Greenham, who after twenty years of faithful ministry, ploughing up the fallow ground in a Cambridgeshire country parish, could not point to any converts bar a single family. This was the faith that God honored in Richard Baxter’s Kidderminster ministry, during which, over a period of seventeen years, by the use of no other means but sermons twice a week and catechetical instruction from house to house, well over six hundred converts were gathered in; of whom Baxter wrote, six years after his ejection, that, despite constant exposure to ridicule and obloquy for their “Puritanism,” not one that I know of has fallen off from his sincerity. Soli Deo gloria!

The issue with which we are confronted by our study of Puritan evangelism is clear. Which way are we to take in our endeavours to spread the gospel to-day? Forward along the road of modern evangelism, the intensive big-scale, short-term “campaign,” with its sustained wheedling for decisions and its streamlined machinery for handling shoals of “converts?” Or back to the old paths of Puritan evangelism, the quieter, broader-based, long-term strategy based on the local church, according to which man seeks simply to be faithful in delivering God’s message and leaves it to the sovereign Spirit to draw men to faith through that message in His own way and at His own speed? Which is loyal to God’s Word? Which is consistant with the Bible doctrine of sin, and of conversion? Which glorifies God? These are questions which demand the most urgent consideration at the present time.




This is an article that gives great insight into the problem we have today in evangelism today concerning false conversions and their being often tied to trying to get immeidiate decisions for Christ.Please as Christians we need to look at what the Bible says about evangelism.We must preach the full Gospel of Christ and let God work in a person to bring conviction and then repentance of sins and a true love for GOD.This article also shows how "altar calls" and "decisions for Christ"got started and this method in the history of Christianity isn't really that old,meaning that this is not how are founding fathers of the faith did evangelism.Please read God Bless

Lecrae ft. Trip Lee "Jesus Muzik"

Paul Washer Deeper 2008

Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility

Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility




A Sermon
(No. 207)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 1, 1858, by the
REV. C. H. Spurgeon
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens



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"But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."—Romans 10:20-21.
OUBTLESS THESE WORDS primarily refer to the casting away of the Jews, and to the choosing of the Gentiles. The Gentiles were a people who sought not after God, but lived in idolatry; nevertheless, Jehovah was pleased in these latter times to send the gospel of his grace to them: while the Jews who had long enjoyed the privileges of the Word of God, on account of their disobedience and rebellion were cast away. I believe, however, that while this is the primary object of the words of our text, yet, as Calvin says, the truth taught in the text is a type of a universal fact. As God did choose the people who knew him not, so hath he chosen, in the abundance of his grace, to manifest his salvation to men who are out of the way; while, on the other hand, the men who are lost, after having heard the Word, are lost because of their wilful sin; for God doth all the day long "stretch forth his hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."
The system of truth is not one straight line, but two. No man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. I am taught in one book to believe that what I sow I shall reap: I am taught in another place, that "it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." I see in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions to his own will, in a great measure. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act, that there was no presidence of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to Atheism; and if, on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free enough to be responsible, I am driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.
Now, this morning I am about to consider the two doctrines. In the 20th verse, we have taught us the doctrines of sovereign grace—"But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." In the next verse, we have the doctrine of man's guilt in rejecting God. "To Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."
I. First, then, DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY AS EXEMPLIFIED IN SALVATION. If any man be saved, he is saved by Divine grace, and by Divine grace alone; and the reason of his salvation is not to be found in him, but in God. We are not saved as the result of anything that we do or that we will; but we will and do as the result of God's good pleasure, and the work of his grace in our hearts. No sinner can prevent God; that is, he cannot go before him, cannot anticipate him; God is always first in the matter of salvation. He is before our convictions, before our desires, before our fears, before our hopes. All that is good or ever will be good in us, is preceded by the grace of God, and is the effect of a Divine cause within.
Now in speaking of God's gracious acts of salvation, this morning, I notice first, that they are entirely unmerited. You will see that the people here mentioned certainly did not merit God's grace. They found him, but they never sought for him; he was made manifest to them, but they never asked for him. There never was a man saved yet who merited it. Ask all the saints of God, and they will tell you that their former life was spent in the lusts of the flesh; that in the days of their ignorance, they revolted against God and turned back from his ways, that when they were invited to come to him they despised the invitation, and, when warned, cast the warning behind their back. They will tell you that their being drawn by God, was not the result of any merit before conversion; for some of them, so far from having any merit, were the very vilest of the vile: they plunged into the very kennel of sin; they were not ashamed of all the things of which it would be a shame for us to speak; they were ringleaders in crime, very princes in the ranks of the enemy; and yet sovereign grace came to them, and they were brought to know the Lord. They will tell you that it was not the result of anything good in their disposition, for although they trust that there is now something excellent implanted in them, yet in the days of their flesh they could see no one quality which was not perverted to the service of Satan. Ask them whether they think they were chosen of God because of their courage; they will tell you, no; if they had courage it was defaced, for they were courageous to do evil. Question them whether they were chosen of God because of their talent; they will tell you, no; they had that talent, but they prostituted it to the service of Satan. Question them whether they were chosen because of the openness and generosity of their disposition; they will tell you that that very openness of temper, and that very generosity of disposition, led them to plunge deeper into the depths of sin, than they otherwise would have done, for they were "hail fellow, well met," with every evil man, and ready to drink and join every jovial party which should come in their way. There was in them no reason whatever why God should have mercy upon them, and the wonder to them is that he did not cut them down in the midst of their sins, blot out their names from the book of life, and sweep them into the gulf where the fire burneth. that shall devour the wicked. But some have said that God chooses his people because he foresees that after he chooses them, they will do this, that, and the other, which shall be meritorious and excellent. Refer again to the people of God, and they will tell you that since their conversion they have had much to weep over. Although they can rejoice that God has begun the good work in them, they often tremble lest it should not be God's work at all. They will tell you that if they are abundant in faith yet there are times when they are superabundant in unbelief; that if sometimes they are full of works of holiness, yet there are times when they weep many tears to think that those very acts of holiness were stained with sin. The Christian will tell you that he weeps over his very tears; he feels that there is filth even in the best of desires; that he has to pray to God to forgive his prayers, for there is sin in the midst of his supplications, and that he has to sprinkle even his best offerings with the atoning blood, for he never else can bring an offering without spot or blemish. You shall appeal to the brightest saint, to the man whose presence in the midst of society is like the presence of an angel, and he will tell you that he is still ashamed of himself. "Ah!" he will say, "you may praise me, but I cannot praise myself, you speak well of me, you applaud me, but if you knew my heart you would see abundant reason to think of me as a poor sinner saved by grace, who hath nothing whereof to glory, and must bow his head and confess his iniquities in the sight of God." Grace, then is entirely unmerited.
Again, the grace of God is sovereign. By that word we mean that God has an absolute right to give that grace where he chooses, and to withhold it when he pleases. He is not bound to give it to any man, much less to all men; and if he chooses to give it to one man and not to another, his answer is, "Is thine eye evil because mine eye is good? Can I not do as I will with mine own? I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Now, I want you to notice the sovereignty of Divine grace as illustrated in the text: "I was found of them that sought me not, I was made manifest to them that asked not after thee." You would imagine that if God gave his grace to any he would wait until he found them earnestly seeking him. You would imagine that God in the highest heavens would say, "I have mercies, but I will leave men alone, and when they feel their need of these mercies and seek me diligently with their whole heart, day and night, with tears, and vows, and supplications, then will I bless them, but not before." But, beloved, God saith no such thing. It is true he doth bless them that cry unto him, but he blesses them before they cry, for their cries are not their own cries, but cries which he has put into their lips; their desires are not of their own growth, but desires which he has cast like good seed into the soil of their hearts. God saves the men that do not seek him. Oh, wonder of wonders! It is mercy indeed when God saves a seeker; but how much greater mercy when he seeks the lost himself! Mark the parable of Jesus Christ concerning the lost sheep; it does not run thus: "A certain man had a hundred sheep, and one of them did go astray. And he tarried at home, and lo, the sheep came back, and he received it joyfully and said to his friends, rejoice, for the sheep that I have lost is come back." No; he went after the sheep: it never would have come after him; it would have wandered farther and farther away. He went after it; over hills of difficulty, down valleys of despondency he pursued its wandering feet, and at last he laid hold of it; he did not drive it before him, he did not lead it, but he carried it himself all the way, and when he brought it home he did not say, the sheep is come back," but, "I have found the sheep which was lost." Men do not seek God first; God seeks them first; and if any of you are seeking him to-day it is because he has first sought you. If you are desiring him he desired you first, and your good desires and earnest seeking will not be the cause of your salvation, but the effects of previous grace given to you. "Well," says another, "I should have thought that although the Saviour might not require an earnest seeking and sighing and groaning, and a continuous searching, after him, yet certainly he would have desired and demanded that every man, before he had grace, should ask for it." That, indeed, beloved, seems natural, and God will give grace to them that ask for it; but mark, the text says that he was manifested "to them that asked not for him." That is to say, before we ask, God gives us grace. The only reason why any man ever begins to pray is because God has put previous grace in his heart which leads him to pray. I remember, when I was converted to God, I was an Arminian thoroughly. I thought I had begun the good work myself, and I used sometimes to sit down and think, "Well, I sought the Lord four years before I found him," and I think I began to compliment myself upon the fact that I had perseveringly entreated of him in the midst of much discouragement. But one day the thought struck me, "How was it you came to seek God?" and in an instant the answer came from my soul, "Why, because he led me to do it; he must first have shown me my need of him, or else I should never have sought him; he must have shown me his preciousness, or I never should have thought him worth seeking;" and at once I saw the doctrines of grace as clear as possible. God must begin. Nature can never rise above itself. You put water into a reservoir, and it will rise as high as that, but no higher if let alone. Now, it is not in human nature to seek the Lord. Human nature is depraved, and therefore, there must be the extraordinary pressure of the Holy Spirit put upon the heart to lead us first to ask for mercy. But mark, we do not know an thing about that, while the Spirit is operating; we find that out afterwards. We ask as much as if we were asking all of ourselves. Our business is to seek the Lord as if there were no Holy Spirit at all. But although we do not know it, there must always be a previous motion of the Spirit in our heart, before there will be a motion of our heart towards him.


"No sinner can be beforehand with thee,
Thy grace is most sovereign, most rich, and most free."

Let me give you an illustration. You see that man on his horse surrounded by a body of troopers. How proud he is, and how he reins up his horse with conscious dignity. Sir, what have you got there? What are those despatches you treasure up with so much care? "Oh, sir, I have that in my hand that will vex the church of God in Damascus. I have dragged the fellows into the synagogue, both men and women; I have scourged them, and compelled them to blaspheme; and I have this commission from the high priest to drag them to Jerusalem, that I may put them to death." Saul! Saul! have you no love for Christ? "Love to him! No. When they stoned Stephen, I took care of the witnesses' clothes, and I rejoiced to do it. I wish I had had the crucifying of their Master, for I hate them with perfect hatred, and I breathe out threatenings and slaughter against them." What do you say of this man? If he be saved, will you not grant that it must be some Divine sovereignty that converts him? Look at poor Pilate, how much there was that was hopeful in him. He was willing to save the Master, but he feared and trembled. If we had had our choice, we should have said, "Lord, save Pilate, he does not want to kill Christ, he labours to let him escape; but slay the bloodthirsty Saul, he is, the very chief of sinners." "No," says God, "I will do as I will with mine own." The heavens open, and the brightness of glory descends—brighter than the noon-day sun. Stunned with the light he falls to the ground, and a voice is heard addressing him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." He rises up; God appears to him: "Lo, I have made thee a chosen vessel to bear my name among the Gentiles." Is not that sovereignty—sovereign grace, without any previous seeking? God was found of him that sought not for him; he manifested himself to one that asked him not. Some will say, that was it miracle; but it is one that is repeated every day in the week. I knew a man once, who had not been to the house of God for a long time; and one Sunday morning, having been to market to buy a pair of ducks for his Sunday dinner, he happened to see a house of God opened as he was passing by. "Well," he thought, "I will hear what these fellows are up to." He went inside; the hymn that was being sung struck his attention; he listened to the sermon, forgot his ducks, discovered his own character, went home, and threw himself upon his knees before God, and after a short time it pleased God to give him joy and peace in believing. That man had nothing in him to begin with, nothing that could have led you to imagine he ever would be saved, but simply because God would have it so, he struck the effectual blow of grace, and the man was brought to himself. But we are, each of us who are saved, the very people who are the best illustrations of the matter. To this day, my wonder is, that ever the Lord should have chosen thee. I cannot make it out; and my only answer to the question is, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
I have now, I think, stated the doctrine pretty plainly. Let me only say a few words about it. Some people are very much afraid of this truth. They say, "It is true, I dare say, but still you ought not to preach it before a mixed assembly; it is very well for the comfort of God's people, but it is to be very carefully handled, and not to be publicly preached upon." Very well, sir, I leave you to settle that matter with my Master. He gave me this great book to preach from, and I cannot preach from anything else. If he has put anything in it you think is not fit, go and complain to him, and not to me. I am simply his servant, and if his errand that I am to tell is objectionable, I cannot help it. If I send my servant to the door with a message, and he delivers it faithfully, he does not deserve to be scolded. Let me have the blame, not the servant. So I say; blame my Master, and not me, for I do but proclaim his message. "No," says one, "it is not to be preached." But it is to be preached. Every word of God is given by inspiration, and it is profitable for some good end. Does not the Bible say so? Let me tell you, the reason why many of our churches are declining is just because this doctrine has not been preached. Wherever this doctrine has been upheld. it has always been "Down with Popery." The first reformers held this doctrine and preached it. Well said it Church of England divine to some who railed at him, "Look at your own Luther. Do you not consider him to be the teacher of the Church of England? What Calvin and the other reformers taught is to be found in his book upon the freedom of the will." Besides, we can point you to a string of ministers from the beginning even until now. Talk of apostolic succession! The man who preaches the doctrines of grace has an apostolic succession indeed. Can we not trace our pedigree through a whole line of men like Newton, and Whitfield, and Owen, and Bunyan, straight away on till we come to Calvin, Luther, and Zwingle; and then we can go back from them to Savonarola, to Jerome of Prague, to Huss, and then back to Augustine, the mighty preacher of Christianity; and from St. Augustine to Paul is but one step. We need not be ashamed of our pedigree; although Calvinists are now considered to be heterodox, we are and ever must be orthodox. It is the old doctrine. Go and buy any puritanical book, and see if you can find Arminianism in it. Search all the book stalls over, and see if you can find one large folio book of olden times that anything in it but the doctrine of the free grace of God. Let this once be brought to bear upon the minds of men, and away go the doctrines of penance and confession, away goes paying for the pardon of your sin. If grace be free and sovereign in the hand of God, down goes the doctrine of priestcraft, away go buying and selling indulgences and such like things; they are swept to the four winds of heaven, and the efficacy of good works is dashed in pieces like Dagon before the ark of the Lord. "Well," says one, "I like the doctrine; still there are very few that preach it, and those that do are very high." Very likely; but I care little what anybody calls me. It signifies very little what men call you. Suppose they call you a "hyper," that does not make you anything wicked, does it? Suppose they call you an Antinomian, that will not make you one. I must confess, however, that there are some men who preach this doctrine who are doing ten thousand times more harm than good, because they don't preach the next doctrine I am going to proclaim, which is just as true. They have this to be the sail. but they have not the other to be the ballast. They can preach one side but not the other. They can go along with the high doctrine, but they will not preach the whole of the Word. Such men caricature the Word of God. And just let me say here, that it is the custom of a certain body of Ultra-Calvinists, to call those of us who teach that it is the duty of man to repent and believe, "Mongrel Calvinists." If you hear any of them say so, give them my most respectful compliments, and ask them whether they ever read Calvin's works in their lives. Not that I care what Calvin said or did not say; but ask them whether they, ever read his works; and if they say "No," as they must say, for there are forty-eight large voluines, you can tell them, that the man whom they call "a Mongrel Calvinist," though he has not read them all, has read a very good share of them, and knows their spirit; and he knows that he preaches substantially what Calvin preached—that every doctrine he preaches may be found in Calvin's Commentaries on some part of Scripture or other. We are TRUE Calvinists, however. Calvin is nobody to us. Jesus Christ and him crucified, and the old fashioned Bible, are our standards. Beloved, let us take God's Word as it stands. If we find high doctrine there, let it be high; if we find low doctrine, let it be low; let us set up no other standard than the Bible affords.
II. Now then for the second point. "There now," says my ultra friend, "he is going to contradict himself." No, my friend, I am not, I am only going to contradict you. The second point is MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY. "But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people." Now, these people whom God had cast away had been wooed, had been sought, had been entreated to be saved; but they would not, and inasmuch as they were not saved, it was the effect of their disobedience and their gainsaying. That lies clearly enough in the text. When God sent the prophets to Israel, and stretched forth his hands, what was it for? What did he wish, thein to come to him for? Why, to be saved. "No," says one, "it was for temporal mercies." Not so, my friend; the verse before is concerning spiritual mercies, and so is this one, for they refer to the same thing. Now, was God sincere in his offer? God forgive the man that dares to say he was not. God is undoubtedly sincere in every act he did. He sent his prophets, he entreated the people of Israel to lay hold on spiritual things, but they would not, and though he stretched out his hands all the day long, yet they were "a disobedient and gainsaying people," and would not have his love; and on their head rests their blood.
Now let me notice the wooing of God and of what sort it is. First, it was the most affectionate wooing in the world. Lost sinners who sit under the sound of the gospel are not lost for the want of the most affectionate invitation. God says he stretched out his hands. You know what that means. You have seen the child who is disobedient and will not come to his father. The father puts out his hands, and says, "Come, my child, come; I am ready to forgive you." The tear is in his eye, and his bowels move with compassion, and he says, "Come, come." God says this is what he did—"he stretched out his hands." That is what he has done to some of you. You that are not saved to-day are without excuse, for God stretched out his hands to you, and he said, "Come, come." Long have you sat beneath the sound of the ministry, and it has been a faithful one, I trust, and a weeping one. Your minister has not forgotten to pray for your souls in secret or to weep over you when no eye saw him, and he has endeavoured to persuade you as an ambassador from God. God is my witness, I have sometimes stood in this pulpit, and I could not have pleaded harder for my own life than I have pleaded with you. In Christ's name, I have cried, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I have wept over you as the Saviour did, and used his words on his behalf, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." And you know that your conscience has often been touched; you have often been moved; you could not resist it. God was so kind to you; he invited you so affectionately by the Word; he dealt so gently with you by his providence; his hands were stretched out, and you could hear his voice speaking in your ears, "Come unto me, come: come now, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as wool; though they be red like crimson they shall be whiter than snow." You have heard him cry, "Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." You have heard him say with all the affection of a father's heart, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and unto our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Oh! God does plead with men that they would be saved, and this day he says to every one of you, "Repent, and be converted for the remission of your sins. Turn ye unto me. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways." And with love divine he woos you as a father woos his child, putting out his hands and crying, "Come unto me, come unto me." "No," says one strong-doctrine man, "God never invites all men to himself; he invites none but certain characters." Stop, sir, that is all you know about it. Did you ever read that parable where it is said, My oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready; come unto the marriage." And they that were bidden would not come. And did you never read that they all began to make excuse, and that they were punished because they did not accept the invitations. Now, if the invitation is not to be made to anybody, but to the man who will accept it, how can that parable be true? The fact is, the oxen and fatlings are killed; the wedding feast is ready, and the trumpet sounds, "Ho every one that thirsteth, come and eat, come and drink." Here are the provisions spread, here is an all-sufficiency; the invitation is free; it is a great invitation. "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely." And that invitation is couched in tender words, "Come to me, my child, come to me." "All day long I have stretched forth my hands."
And note again, this invitation was very frequent. The words, "all the day long," may be translated "daily"—"Daily have I stretched forth my hands." Sinner, God has not called you once to come, and then let you alone, but every day has he been at you; every day has conscience spoken to you; every day has providence warned you, and every Sabbath has the Word of God wooed you. Oh! how much some of you will have to account for at God's great bar! I cannot now read your characters, but I know there are some of you who will have a terrible account at last. All the day long has God been wooing you. From the first dawn of your life, he wooed you through your mother, and she used to put your little hands together, and teach you to say,

"Gentle Jesus meek and mild,
Look upon a little child,
Pity my simplicity;
Suffer me to come to thee."

And in your boyhood God was still stretching out his hands after you. How your Sunday-school teacher endeavoured to bring you to the Saviour! How often your youthful heart was affected; but you put all that away, and you are still untouched by it. How often did your mother speak to you, and your father warn you; and you have forgotten the prayer in that bed-room when you were sick, when your mother kissed your burning forehead, knelt down and prayed to God to spare your life, and then added that prayer, "Lord, save my boy's soul!" And you recollect the Bible she gave you, when you first went out apprentice, and the prayer she wrote on that yellow front leaf. When she gave it, you did not perhaps know, but you may now; how earnestly she longed after you, that you might be formed anew in Christ Jesus; how she followed you with her prayers, and how she entreated with her God for you. And you have not yet surely forgotten how many Sabbaths you have spent, and how many times you have been warned. Why you have had waggon-loads of sermons wasted on you. A hundred and four sermons you have heard every year, and some of you more, and yet you are still just what you were.
But sinners, sermon hearing is an awful thing unless it is blessed to our souls. If God has kept on stretching out his hands every day and all the day, it will be a hard thing for you when you shall be justly condemned not only for your breaches of the law, but for your wilful rejection of the gospel. It is probable that God will keep on stretching out his hands to you until your hairs grow grey, still continually inviting you: and perhaps when you are nearing death he will still say, "Come unto me, come unto me." But if you still persist in hardening your heart, if still you reject Christ, I beseech you let nothing make you imagine that you shall go unpunished. Oh! I do tremble sometimes when I think of that class of ministers who tell sinners that they are not guilty if they do not seek the Saviour. How they shall be found innocent at God's great day I do not know. It seems to be a fearful thing that they should be lulling poor souls into sleep by telling them it is not their duty to seek Christ and repent, but that they may do as they like about that, and that when they perish they will be none the more guilty for having heard the Word. My Master did not say that. Remember how he said, "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee." Jesus did not talk thus when he spoke to Chorazin and Bethsaida; for he said, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you." It was not the way Paul preached. He did not tell sinners that there was no guilt in despising the cross. Hear the apostle's words once more: "For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him." Sinner, at the great day of God thou must give an account for every warning thou hast ever had, for every time thou hast read thy Bible, ay, and for every time thou hast neglected to read it; for every Sunday when the house of God was open and thou didst neglect to avail thyself of the opportunity of hearing the Word, and for every time thou didst hear it and didst not improve it. Ye who are careless hearers, are tying faggots for your own burning for ever. Ye that hear and straightway forget, or hear with levity, are digging for yourselves a pit into which ye must be cast. Remember, no one will be responsible for your damnation but yourself, at the last great day. God will not be responsible for it. "As I live saith the Lord"—and that is a great oath—"I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. but had rather that he should turn unto me and live." God has done much for you. He sent you his Gospel. You are not born in a heathen land; he has given you the Book of Books; he has given you an enlightened conscience; and if you perish under the sound of the ministry, you perish more fearfully and terribly, than if you had perished anywhere else.
This doctrine is as much God's Word as the other. You ask me to reconcile the two. I answer, they do not want any reconcilement; I never tried to reconcile them to myself, because I could never see a discrepancy. If you begin to put fifty or sixty quibbles to me, I cannot give any answer. Both are true; no two truths can be inconsistent with each other; and what you have to do is to believe them both. With the first one, the saint has most to do. Let him praise the free and sovereign grace of God, and bless his name. With the second, the sinner has the most to do. O sinner, humble thyself under the mighty hand of God, when thou thinkest of how often he hath shown his love to thee, by bidding thee come to himself, and yet how often thou hast spurned his Word and refused his mercy, and turned a deaf ear to every invitation, and hast gone thy way to rebel against a God of love, and violate the commands of him that loved thee.
And now, how shall I conclude? My first exhortation shall be to Christian people. My dear friends, I beseech you do not in any way give yourselves lip to any system of faith apart from the Word of God. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants; I am the successor of the great and venerated Dr. Gill, whose theology is almost universally received among the stronger Calvinistic churches; but although I venerate his memory, and believe his teachings, yet he is not my Rabbi. What you find in God's Word is for you to believe and to receive. Never be frightened at a doctrine; and above all, never be frightened at a name. Some one said to me the other day, that he thought the truth lay somewhere between the two extremes. He meant right, but I think he was wrong, I do not think the truth lies between the two extremes, but in them both. I believe the higher a man goes the better, when he is preaching the matter of salvation. The reason why a man is saved is grace, grace, grace; and you may go as high as you like there. But when you come to the question as to why men are damned, then the Arminian is far more right than the Antinomian. I care not for any denomination or party, I am as high as Huntingdon upon the matter of salvation, but question me about damnation, and you will get a very different answer. By the grace of God I ask no man's applause, I preach the Bible as I find it. Where we get wrong is where the Calvinist begins to meddle with the question of damnation, and interferes with the justice of God; or when the Arminian denies the doctrine of grace.
My second exhortation is,—Sinners, I beseech every one of you who are unconverted and ungodly, this morning to put away every form and fashion of excuse that the devil would have you make concerning your being unconverted. Remember, that all the teaching in the world can never excuse you for being enemies to God by wicked works. When we beseech you to be reconciled to him, it is because we know you will never be in your proper place until you are reconciled. God has made you; can it be right that you should disobey him? God feeds you every day: can it be right that you should still live in disobedience to him? Remember, when the heavens shall be on a blaze, when Christ shall come to judge the earth in righteousness and his people with equity, there will not be one excuse that you can make which will be valid at the last great day. If you should attempt to say, "Lord, I have never heard the word;" his answer would be, "Thou didst hear it; thou heardest it plainly." "But Lord, I had an evil will." "Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee; thou hadst that evil will, and I condemn thee for it. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." "But Lord," some will say, "I was not predestinated." "What hadst thou to do with that? Thou didst; do according to thine own will when thou didst rebel. Thou wouldest not come unto me, and now I destroy thee for ever. Thou hast broken my law—on thine own head be the guilt." If a sinner could say at the great day, "Lord, I could not be saved anyhow his torment in hell would be mitigated by that thought: but this shall be the very edge of the sword, and the very burning of the fire"—Ye knew your duty and ye did it not: ye trampled on everything that was holy; ye neglected the Saviour, and how shall ye escape if ye neglect so great salvation?"
Now, with regard to myself; you may some of you go away and say, that I was Antinomian in the first part of the sermon and Arminian at the end. I care not. I beg of you to search the Bible for yourselves. To the law and to the testimony; if I speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in me. I am willing to come to that test. Have nothing to do with me where I have nothing to do with Christ. Where I separate from the truth, cast my words away. But if what I say be God's teaching, I charge you, by him that sent me, give these things your thoughts, and turn unto the Lord with all your hearts.

WHEN DOES A BABY DESERVE HUMAN RIGHTS?

Ps 22:10
Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother's womb

I don't want the viewing of this video to be about Obama stuttering but about the fact he didn't answer the question!And McCain does

Preaching in New York by Leon Brown

This is an awesome short preaching by "Downtown" Leon Brown God Bless you Leon check his blog http://www.preachlikejeremiah.blogspot.com/

THE CROSS OF CHRIST by Paul Washer

1
One of my greatest burdens is that the Cross of Christ is rarely
explained. It is not enough to say that “He died” - for all men
die. It is not enough to say that “He died a noble death” - for
martyrs do the same. We must understand that we have not
fully proclaimed the death of Christ with saving power until
we have cleared away the confusion that surrounds it and
expounded its true meaning to our hearers - He died bearing
the transgressions of His people and suffering the divine penalty
for their sins: He was forsaken of God and crushed under
the wrath of God in their place.
Forsaken of God
One of the most disturbing, even haunting, passages in the
Scriptures is Mark’s record of the great cry of the Messiah as
He hung upon a Roman Cross. In a loud voice He cried out:
“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”1
In light of what we know about the impeccable nature of
the Son of God and His perfect fellowship with the Father,
it is difficult to comprehend Christ’s words, yet in them, the
meaning of the Cross is laid bare, and we find the reason for
which Christ died. The fact that His words are also recorded
in the original Hebrew tongue tells us something of their great
importance. The author did not want us to misunderstand or
to miss a thing!
In these words, Jesus is not only crying out to God, but as
the consummate teacher, He is also directing His onlookers
and all future readers to one of the most important Messianic
prophecies of the Old Testament - Psalm 22. Though the entire
Psalm abounds with detailed prophecies of the Cross, we
will concern ourselves with only the first six verses:
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from
my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I
cry by day, but You do not answer; and by night, but I have
no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the
praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and
You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered;
in You they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a
worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the
people.”
In Christ’s day, the Hebrew Scriptures were not laid out in
numbered chapters and verses as they are today. Therefore,
when a rabbi sought to direct his hearers to a certain Psalm or
portion of Scripture, he would do so by reciting the first lines
of the text. In this cry from the Cross, Jesus directs us to Psalm
22 and reveals to us something of the character and purpose
of His sufferings.
In the first and second verses, we hear the Messiah’s complaint
- He considers Himself forsaken of God. Mark uses
the Greek word egkataleípo, which means to forsake, abandon,
or desert.2 The Psalmist uses the Hebrew word azab, which
means to leave, loose, or forsake.3 In both cases, the intention
is clear. The Messiah Himself is aware that God has forsaken
Him and turned a deaf ear to His cry. This is not a symbolic
or poetic forsakenness. It is real! If ever a creature felt the
forsakenness of God, it was the Son of God on the cross of
Calvary!
In the fourth and fifth verses of this Psalm, the anguish suffered
by the Messiah becomes more acute as He recalls the
covenant faithfulness of God towards His people. He declares:
“In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered
them. To You they cried out and were delivered; in You they
trusted and were not disappointed.”
The apparent contradiction is clear. There had never been
one instance in the history of God’s covenant people that a
righteous man cried out to God and was not delivered. However,
now the sinless Messiah hangs on a tree utterly forsaken.
What could be the reason for God’s withdrawal? Why did He
turn away from His only begotten Son?
Woven into the Messiah’s complaint is found the answer to
these disturbing questions. In verse three, He makes the unwavering
declaration that God is holy, and then in verse six,
He admits the unspeakable - He had become a worm and
was no longer a man. Why would the Messiah direct such demeaning
and derogatory language toward Himself? Did He
see Himself as a worm because He had become “a reproach
of men and despised by the people”4 or was there a greater
and more awful reason for His self-deprecation? After all, He
did not cry out, “My God, my God, why have the people forsaken
me,” but rather He endeavored to know why God had
done so! The answer can be found in one bitter truth alone
- the Lord had caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him, and
like a worm, He was forsaken and crushed in our stead.5
This dark metaphor of the dying Messiah is not alone in
The Cross of Christ
By Paul Washer
The Cross of Christ By Paul Washer
2
Scripture. There are others that take us even deeper into the
heart of the Cross and lay open for us what “He must suffer”6
in order to win the redemption of His people. If we shutter
at the words of the Psalmist, we will be further taken back
to hear of the thrice-holy7 Son of God becoming the serpent
lifted up in the wilderness, and then, the sin bearing scapegoat
left to die alone.
The first metaphor is found in the book of Numbers. Because
of Israel’s near constant rebellion against the Lord and their
rejection of His gracious provisions, God sent “fiery serpents”
among the people and many died.8 However, as a result of
the people’s repentance and Moses’ intercession, God once
again made provision for their salvation. He commanded
Moses to “make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard.” He
then promised that “everyone who is bitten, when he looks
at it, he will live.”
At first, it seems contrary to reason that “the cure was shaped
in the likeness of that which wounded.”9 However, it provides
a powerful picture of the cross. The Israelites were dying
from the venom of the fiery serpents. Men die from the
venom of their own sin. Moses was commanded to place the
cause of death high upon a pole. God placed the cause of our
death upon His own Son as He hung high upon a cross. He
had come “in the likeness of sinful flesh,”10 and was “made to
be sin on our behalf.”11 The Israelite who believed God and
looked upon the brazen serpent would live. The man who
believes God’s testimony concerning His Son and looks upon
Him with faith will be saved.12 As it is written, “Look unto
me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God,
and there is none else.”13
The second metaphor is found in the priestly book of Leviticus.
Since it was impossible for one single offering to fully
typify or illustrate the Messiah’s atoning death, an offering involving
two sacrificial goats was put before the people.14 The
first goat was slain as a sin offering before the Lord, and its
blood was sprinkled on and in front of the Mercy Seat behind
the veil in the Holy of Holies.15 It typified Christ who shed
His blood on the Cross to make atonement for the sins of His
people. The second goat was presented before the Lord as
the scapegoat.16 Upon the head of this animal, the High Priest
laid “both of his hands and confessed over it all the iniquities
of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all
their sins.”17 The scapegoat was then sent away into the wilderness
bearing on itself all the iniquities of the people into a
solitary land.18 There, it would wander alone, forsaken of God
and cut off from His people. It typified Christ who “bore our
sins in His body on the cross,”19 and suffered and died alone
“outside the camp.”20 What was only symbolic in the Law
became an excruciating reality for the Messiah.
Is it not astounding that a worm, a venomous serpent, and
goat should be put forth as types of Christ? To identify the
Son of God with such “loathsome” things would be blasphemous
had it not come from Old Testament saints “moved by
the Holy Spirit,”21 and then confirmed by the authors of the
New Testament who go even further in their dark depictions.
Under the inspiration of the same Spirit, they are bold enough
to say that He who knew no sin, was “made sin,”22 and He,
who was the beloved of the Father, “became a curse”23 before
Him. We have heard these truths before, but have we ever
considered them enough to be broken by them?
On the Cross, the One declared “holy, holy, holy” by the
Seraphim choir,24 was “made” to be sin. The journey into the
meaning of this phrase seems almost too dangerous to take.
We balk even at the first step. What does it mean that He,
in whom “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,”
was “made sin?” We must not explain the truth away in an
attempt to protect the reputation of the Son of God, and yet,
we must be careful not to speak terrible things against His
impeccable and immutable25 character.
According to the Scriptures, Christ was “made sin” in the
same way that the believer “becomes the righteousness of
God” in Him.26 In his second letter to the church in Corinth,
the Apostle Paul writes:
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”27
The believer is not the “righteousness of God” because of
some perfecting or purifying work upon his character that
makes him like God and without sin, but rather as a result of
imputation by which he is considered righteous before God
through the work of Christ on his behalf. In the same way,
Christ was not made sin by having His character marred or
soiled, thus actually becoming depraved, but as a result of imputation
by which He was considered guilty before the judgment
seat of God on our behalf. This truth however, must not
cause us to think any less of Paul’s declaration that Christ was
“made sin.” Although it was an imputed guilt, it was real guilt,
bringing unspeakable anguish to His soul. He took our guilt
as His own, stood in our place, and died forsaken of God.
That Christ was “made sin,” is a truth as terrible as it is incomprehensible,
and yet, just when we think that no darker words
can be uttered against Him, the Apostle Paul lights a lamp
and takes us further down into the abyss of Christ’s humiliation
and forsakenness. We enter the deepest cavern to find
the Son of God hanging from the Cross and bearing His most
infamous title - the Accursed of God!
The Scriptures declare that all humankind lay under the
curse. As it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide
by all the things written in the Book of the Law, to perform
The Cross of Christ By Paul Washer
3
them.”28 From heaven’s perspective, those who break God’s
Law are vile and worthy of all loathing. They are a wretched
lot, justly exposed to divine vengeance, and rightly devoted
to eternal destruction. It is not an exaggeration to say that the
last thing that the accursed sinner should and will hear when
he takes his first step into hell is all of creation standing to
its feet and applauding God because He has rid the earth of
him. Such is the vileness of those who break God’s law, and
such is the disdain of the holy towards the unholy. Yet, the
Gospel teaches us that, “Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the Law, having become a curse for us -- for it is written,
‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’”29 Christ became
what we were in order to redeem us from what we deserved.
He became a worm and no man, the serpent lifted up in the
wilderness, the scapegoat driven outside the camp, the bearer
of sin, and the One upon whom the curse of God did fall. It
is for this reason the Father turned away from Him and all
heaven hid its face.
It is a great travesty that the true meaning of the Christ’s “cry
from the cross” has often been lost in romantic cliché. It is not
uncommon to hear a preacher declare that the Father turned
away from His Son because He could no longer bear to witness
the suffering inflicted upon Him by the hands of wicked
men. Such interpretations are a complete distortion of the text
and of what actually transpired on the Cross. The Father did
not turn away from His Son because He lacked the fortitude
to witness His sufferings, but because “He made Him who
knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become
the righteousness of God in Him.”30 He laid our sins upon
Him and turned away, for His eyes are too pure to approve
evil and cannot look upon wickedness with favor.31
It is not without reason that many Gospel tracts picture an
infinite abyss between a holy God and sinful man. With such
an illustration, the Scriptures fully agree. As the Prophet Isaiah
cried out:
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save,
nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities
have made a separation between you and your God, and your
sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear”
(Isaiah 59:1-2)
It is because of this that all men would have lived and died
separated from the favorable presence of God and under divine
wrath unless the Son of God had stood in their place,
bore their sin, and died “forsaken of God” on their behalf. For
the breach to be closed and fellowship restored, “Was it not
necessary for the Christ to suffer these things?”32
Christ Dies under the Wrath of God
To obtain the salvation of His people, Christ not only suffered
the terrifying abandonment of God, but He drank down the
bitter cup of God’s wrath and died a bloody death in the
place of His people. Only then could divine justice be satisfied,
the wrath of God be appeased, and reconciliation be
made possible.
In the garden, Christ prayed three times for “the cup” to be
removed from Him, but each time His will gave into that
of His Father.33 We must ask ourselves, what was in the cup
that caused Him to pray so fervently? What did it contain
that caused Him such anguish that His sweat was mingled
with blood? It is often said that the cup represented the cruel
Roman cross and the physical torture that awaited Him; that
Christ foresaw the cat of nine tails coming down across His
back, the crown of thorns piercing His brow, and the primitive
nails driven through His hands and feet. Yet those who
see these things as the source of His anguish do not understand
the Cross, nor what happened there. Although the tortures
heaped upon Him by the hands of men were all part
of God’s redemptive plan, there was something much more
ominous that evoked the Messiah’s cry for deliverance.
In the first centuries of the primitive church, thousands of
Christians died on crosses. It is said that Nero crucified them
upside down, covered them with tar, and set them aflame to
provide street lights for the city of Rome. Throughout the
ages since then, a countless stream of Christians have been
led off to the most unspeakable tortures, and yet it is the testimony
of friend and foe alike that many of them went to their
death with great boldness. Are we to believe that the followers
of the Messiah met such cruel physical death with joy unspeakable,
while the Captain of their Salvation34 cowered in a
garden, feigning the same torture? Did the Christ of God fear
whips and thorns, crosses and spears, or did the cup represent
a terror infinitely beyond the greatest cruelty of men?
To understand the ominous contents of the cup, we must refer
to the Scriptures. There are two passages in particular that we
must consider - one from the Psalms and the other from the
Prophets:
“For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams;
It is well mixed, and He pours out of this; surely all the wicked
of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs.”35
“For thus the LORD, the God of Israel says to me, ‘Take
this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all
the nations to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink
and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send
among them.’”36
As a result of the unceasing rebellion of the wicked, the justice
of God had decreed judgment against them. He would rightly
The Cross of Christ By Paul Washer
4
pour forth His indignation upon the nations. He would put
the cup of the wine of His wrath to their mouth and force
them to drink it down to the dregs.37 The mere thought of
such a fate awaiting the world is absolutely terrifying, yet this
would have been the fate of all, except that the mercy of God
sought for the salvation of a people, and the wisdom of God
devised a plan of redemption even before the foundation of
the world. The Son of God would become a man and walk
upon the earth in perfect obedience to the Law of God. He
would be like us in all things,38 and tempted in all ways like us
but without sin.39 He would live a perfectly righteous life for
the glory of God and in the stead of His people. Then in the
appointed time, He would be crucified by the hands of wicked
men, and on that Cross, He would bear His people’s guilt,
and suffer the wrath of God against them. The perfect Son of
God and a true Son of Adam together in one glorious person
would take the bitter cup of wrath from the very hand of God
and drink it down to the dregs. He would drink until “it was
finished”40 and the justice of God was fully satisfied. The divine
wrath that should have been ours would be exhausted
upon the Son, and by Him, it would be extinguished.
Imagine an immense dam that is filled to the brim and straining
against the weight behind it. All at once, the protective
wall is pulled away and the massive destructive power of the
deluge is unleashed. As certain destruction races toward a
small village in the nearby valley, the ground suddenly opens
up before it and drinks down that which would have carried
it away. In similar fashion, the judgment of God was rightly
racing toward every man. Escape could not be found on the
highest hill or in the deepest abyss. The fleetest of foot could
not outrun it, nor could the strongest swimmer endure its torrents.
The dam was breached and nothing could repair its
ruin. But when every human hope was exhausted, at the appointed
time, the Son of God interposed. He stood between
divine justice and His people. He drank down the wrath that
they themselves had kindled and the punishment they deserved.
When He died, not one drop of the former deluge
remained. He drank it all!
Imagine two giant millstones, one turning on top of the other.
Imagine that caught between the two is a single grain of
wheat that is pulled under the massive weight. First, its hull
is crushed beyond recognition, and then its inwards parts are
poured out and ground into dust. There is no hope of retrieval
or reconstruction. All is lost and beyond repair. Thus, in a
similar fashion, “it pleased the Lord” to crush His only Son
and put Him to grief unspeakable.41 Thus, it pleased the Son
to submit to such suffering in order that God might be glorified
and a people might be redeemed. It is not that God found
some gleeful pleasure in the suffering of His beloved Son, but
through His death, the will of God was accomplished. No
other means had the power to put away sin, satisfy divine
justice, and appease the wrath of God against us. Unless that
divine grain of wheat had fallen to the ground and died, it
would have abided alone without a people or a bride.42 The
pleasure was not found in the suffering, but in all that such
suffering would accomplish: God would be revealed in a
glory yet unknown to men or angels, and a people would be
brought into unhindered fellowship with their God.
In one of the most epic stories in the Old Testament, the patriarch
Abraham is commanded to carry his son Isaac to Mount
Moriah, and there, to offer him as a sacrifice to God.
“Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and
go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering
on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”43
What a burden was laid upon Abraham! We cannot even
begin to imagine the sadness that filled the old man’s heart
and tortured him every step of his journey. The Scriptures
are careful to tell us that he was commanded to offer “his son,
his only son, whom he loved.” The specificity seems designed
to catch our attention and make us think that there is more
meaning hidden in these words than we can yet tell.
On the third day, the two reached the appointed place, and
the father himself bound his beloved son with his own hand.
Finally, in submission to what must be done, he laid his hand
upon his son’s brow and “took the knife to slay him.”44 At that
very moment, the mercy and grace of God interposed, and
the old man’s hand was stayed. God called out to him from
heaven and said:
“Abraham, Abraham! ...Do not stretch out your hand against
the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear
God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son,
from Me.”45
At the voice of the Lord, Abraham raised his eyes, and found
a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. He took the ram
and offered him up in the place of his son.46 He then named
that place YHWH-jireh or “The Lord will provide.” It is a
faithful saying that remains until this day, “In the mount of
the Lord it will be provided.”47 As the curtains draw to a
close on this epic moment in history, not only Abraham, but
also everyone who has ever read this account breathes a sigh
of relief that the boy is spared. We think to ourselves what a
beautiful end to the story, but it was not the end, it was a mere
intermission!
Two thousand years later, the curtain opens again. The background
is dark and ominous. At center stage is the Son of
God on Mount Calvary. He is bound by obedience to the will
of His Father. He hangs there bearing the sin of His people.
The Cross of Christ By Paul Washer
5
He is accursed - betrayed by His creation48 and forsaken of
God. Then, the silence is broken with the horrifying thunder
of God’s wrath. The Father takes the knife, draws back His
arm, and slays “His Son, His only Son, whom He loves.” And
the words of Isaiah the prophet are fulfilled:
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried;
yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God,
and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for
our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are
healed... But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting
Him to grief.”49
The curtain is drawn to a close on a slain Son and a crucified
Messiah. Unlike Isaac there was no ram to die in His place.
He was the Lamb who would die for the sins of the world.50
He is God’s provision for the redemption of His people. He is
the fulfillment of which Isaac and the ram were only shadows.
In Him, Mount Calvary is renamed “YHWH-jireh” or “The
Lord will provide.” And it is a faithful saying that remains
until this day, “In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.”51
Calvary was the mount and salvation was provided. Thus, the
discerning believer cries out, “God, God, I know you love me
since you have not withheld your Son, your only Son, whom
You love, from me.”52
It is an injustice to Calvary that the true pain of the Cross
is often overlooked by a more romantic, but less powerful
theme. It is often thought and even preached that the Father
looked down from heaven and witnessed the suffering that
was heaped upon His Son by the hands of men, and that He
counted such affliction as payment for our sins. This is heresy
of the worst kind. Christ satisfied divine justice not merely
by enduring the affliction of men, but by enduring and dying
under the wrath of God. It takes more than crosses, nails,
crowns of thorns, and lances, to pay for sin. The believer is
saved, not merely because of what men did to Christ on the
Cross, but because of what God did to Him - He crushed
Him under the full force of His wrath against us. Rarely is this
truth made clear enough in the abundance of all our Gospel
preaching!
For more resources, sermon downloads, and information,
visit www.heartcrymissionary.com
© 2008 HeartCry Missionary Society
From HeartCry Magazine, Volume 55, Published
October 2007.

GOD IS SOVEREIGN

The Absolute Sovereignty of God: What Is Romans Nine About?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By John Piper November 3, 2002


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Romans 9:1-5

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, 5 whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

There are two experiences in my life that make Romans 9 one of the most important chapters in shaping the way I think about everything, and the way I have been led in ministry. One happened in seminary and turned my mental world upside down. The other happened in the fall of 1979 and led to my coming to serve this church.

When I entered seminary I believed in the freedom of my will, in the sense that it was ultimately self-determining. I had not learned this from the Bible; I absorbed it from the independent, self-sufficient, self-esteeming, self-exalting air that you and I breathe every day of our lives in America. The sovereignty of God meant that he can do anything with me that I give him permission to do. With this frame of mind I entered a class on Philippians with Daniel Fuller and class on the doctrine of salvation with James Morgan.

In Philippians I was confronted with the intractable ground clause of chapter 2 verse 13: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure," which made God the will beneath my will and the worker beneath my work. The question was not whether I had a will; the question was why I willed what I willed. And the ultimate answer – not the only answer – was God.

In the class on salvation we dealt head on with the doctrines of unconditional election and irresistible grace. Romans 9 was the watershed text and the one that changed my life forever. Romans 9:11-12 said, "Though they [Jacob and Esau] were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call – she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’" And when Paul raised the question in verse 14, "Is there injustice on God's part?" He says, no, and quotes Moses (in verse 15): "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." And when he raises the question in verse 19, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" He answers in verse 21, "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?"

Emotions run high when you feel your man-centered world crumbling around you. I met Dr. Morgan in the hall one day. After a few minutes of heated argument about the freedom of my will, I held a pen in front of his face and dropped it to the floor. Then I said, with not as much respect as a student ought to have, "I [!] dropped it." Somehow that was supposed to prove that my choice to drop the pen was not governed by anything but my sovereign self.

But thanks be to God’s mercy and patience, at the end of the semester I wrote in my blue book for the final exam, "Romans 9 is like a tiger going about devouring free-willers like me." That was the end of my love affair with human autonomy and the ultimate self-determination of my will. My worldview simply could not stand against the scriptures, especially Romans 9. And it was the beginning of a lifelong passion to see and savor the supremacy of God in absolutely everything.

The Fall of 1979
Then, about ten years later, came the fall of 1979. I was on sabbatical from teaching at Bethel College. My one aim on this leave was to study Romans 9 and write a book on it that would settle, in my own mind, the meaning of these verses. After six years of teaching and finding many students in every class ready to discount my interpretation of this chapter for one reason or another, I decided I had to give eight months to it. The upshot of that sabbatical was the book, The Justification of God. I tried to answer every important exegetical objection to God’s absolute sovereignty in Romans 9.

But the result of that sabbatical was utterly unexpected—at least by me. My aim was to analyze God’s words so closely and construe them so carefully that I could write a book that would be compelling and stand the test of time. What I did not expect was that six months into this analysis of Romans 9 God himself would speak to me so powerfully that I resigned my job at Bethel and made myself available to the Minnesota Baptist Conference if there were a church who would have me as a pastor.

In essence it happened like this: I was 34 years old. I had two children and a third on the way. As I studied Romans 9 day after day, I began to see a God so majestic and so free and so absolutely sovereign that my analysis merged into worship and the Lord said, in effect, "I will not simply be analyzed, I will be adored. I will not simply be pondered, I will be proclaimed. My sovereignty is not simply to be scrutinized, it is to be heralded. It is not grist for the mill of controversy, it is gospel for sinners who know that their only hope is the sovereign triumph of God’s grace over their rebellious will." This is when Bethlehem contacted me near the end of 1979. And I do not hesitate to say that because of Romans 9 I left teaching and became a pastor. The God of Romans 9 has been the Rock-solid foundation of all I have said and all I have done in the last 22 years..

Jonathan Edwards’ Testimony to God’s Absolute Sovereignty
I feel about the truth of God’s absolute sovereignty over my will and over this church and over the nations the way Jonathan Edwards did – even if I don’t have his powers to see and savor God’s truth. I read the following story because it may have been the story of many in this church, and may yet be, I pray, the story of many:

From childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, in choosing whom he would to eternal life, and rejecting whom he pleased; leaving them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God, and his justice in thus eternally disposing of [dealing with] men, according to his sovereign pleasure. But never could give an account, how, or by what means, I was, thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God’s Spirit in it but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. However, my mind rested in it; and it put an end to all those cavils and objections. And there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God's sovereignty, from that day to this; so that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it, in the most absolute sense, in God’s shewing mercy to whom he will show mercy, and hardening whom he will. God’s absolute sovereignty and justice, with respect to salvation and damnation, is what my mind seems to rest assured of, as much as of any thing that I see with my eyes, at least it is so at times. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. (Jonathan Edwards, Selections [New York: Hill and Wang, 1962], pp. 58-59).

A Brief Overview of Romans 9
Now all of this is a bit misleading as an introduction to Romans 9. But only a bit. It might give the impression that Romans 9 is a treatise on the sovereignty of God. It’s not. Romans 9 is an explanation for why the word of God has not failed even though God’s chosen people, Israel, as a whole, are not turning to Christ and being saved. The sovereignty of God’s grace is brought in as the final ground of God’s faithfulness in spite of Israel’s failure, and therefore as the deepest foundation for the precious promises of Romans 8. For if God is not faithful to his word, we can’t count on Romans 8 either.

Consider this brief overview. Verse 3 shows us that Israel as a whole is accursed and cut off from Christ, "I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." We will deal with Paul’s arguments next week. Only notice now that this is the plight of Israel: "accursed and cut off from Christ." Now that raises a huge problem! What about the word of God – the word of promise to Israel and covenant: "I will be your God, and you will be my people!" (Jer. 31:33).

So Paul answers this question in verse 6: "But it is not as though the word of God has failed." You can see what was at stake. It looks as though the word of God has failed! But Paul says no. Then he gives the explanation that launches him into the doctrines of unconditional election and divine sovereignty over human willing. His explanation in verse 6b is: "For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel." Not all physical Israel is true Israel. In other words, the word of God has not failed because the promises were not made to all ethnic Israel in such a way that secured the salvation of every individual Israelite.

Verse 8 says it again: "It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants." In other words, not all the physical descendants of Abraham are the beneficiaries of the covenant promises. Who then is? And here Paul goes right to the bottom of the explanation. He says, The beneficiaries of the promise are the children of promise. But, we ask, who are these? What are the conditions they must meet to be the "children of promise"?

Paul’s answer to this in verse 11, with the illustrations of Jacob and Esau, confronts us with the ultimate sovereignty of God in choosing who the beneficiaries of the promise will be. In referring to Jacob (who became the heir) and Esau (who did not) Paul says: "for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad [there’s the unconditionality, and here’s the reason for it], so that God's purpose according to election would stand [there’s the explanation deeper than human conditions – God’s sovereign purpose], not because of works but because of Him who calls [notice: he did not contrast works with faith, but with "Him who calls" – not even faith is in view here as a condition], Rebecca was told, "The older will serve the younger."

All this raises the question of God’s justice. Paul is hiding nothing here. He is putting it all out in the open. In verse 14 he says, "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part?" Paul’s answer is no. And after quoting Moses about God’s freedom to have mercy on who he has mercy (v. 15) he repeats the absolute unconditionality of being chosen by God to be a child of promise. Verse 16: "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy."

Which leads, then, to the question in verse 19, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" Those are the questions we are confronted with in this chapter. Are all Israel the "children of promise" or only some? If only some, what makes one person a child of promise and another not? If it is ultimately God’s unconditional, free, sovereign electing mercy, then is he unjust? If he is that free to have mercy on whom he wills and harden whom he wills (v. 18), and if it does not depend on man who wills or man who runs (v. 16) then, why does he still find fault?

The Point of Romans 9: An Explanation and Defense That the Word of God Has Not Failed
So you can see that the issue of divine election, and human will, and God’s justice, and human blame, and God’s sovereignty are all here in this chapter. But they are not here for their own sake. They are here to explain this burning question: How can God’s elect people, Israel, be accursed and cut off from Christ if the word of God is reliable? How can verse 6a be true: "But it is not as though the word of God has failed." That’s the issue in this chapter.

Will the Promises of Romans 8 Stand?
And it is utterly crucial for us as we move to the Lord’s table. Will the promises of Romans 8 stand? Will the blood-bought promises that we Gentiles and Jews are staking our lives on stand? Will God stand by his commitments, sealed with the blood of his Son? Will he work all things together for our good? Will the predestined be called and the called be justified and the justified be glorified? Will he give us all things with him? Will nothing separate us from the love of God in Christ? Is there really now no condemnation, and will there be none tomorrow?

Romans 9 comes after Romans 8 for this utterly crucial reason: It shows that the word of God’s covenant with Israel has not failed, because it is grounded in God’s sovereign, electing mercy. Therefore the promises to the true Israel and the promises of Romans 8 will stand! That is the gospel of Romans 9. The promises purchased by the blood of Christ will be performed by the sovereign power of God.

Oh, how thankful, how humble, and how confident we should be as we worship the Lord at his table.


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