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Η ομολογία Πίστεως του Κύριλλου Λούκαρι

http://www.gec.gr/dig_lib/minima8.htm

“The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox’s gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again.”—C. H. Spurgeon

IT IS A GREAT THING to begin the Christian life by believing good solid doctrine. Some people have received twenty different “gospels” in as many years; how many more they will accept before they get to their journey’s end, it would be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the gospel, and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not want to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a very large loft in which to store the apples. When people are always shifting their doctrinal principles, they are not likely to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God. It is good for young believers to begin with a firm hold upon those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord has taught in His Word. Why, if I believed what some preach about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts for a time, I would scarcely be at all grateful for it; but when I know that those whom God saves He saves with an everlasting salvation, when I know that He gives to them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He settles them on an everlasting foundation of everlasting love, and that He will bring them to His everlasting kingdom, oh, then I do wonder, and I am astonished that such a blessing as this should ever have been given to me!

“Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, ‘Oh, why such love to me?’
Grace hath put me in the number
Of the Saviour’s family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee!”
I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God; of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light the sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence my spiritual life—no, I rather kicked, and struggled against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of everything holy and good. Wooings were lost upon me—warnings were cast to the wind—thunders were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were rejected as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking on behalf of myself, “He only is my salvation.” It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady—

“Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o’erflow;”
and coming to this moment, I can add—

“‘Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go.”
Well can I remember the manner in which I learned the doctrines of grace in a single instant. Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul—when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man—that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, “I ascribe my change wholly to God.”
I once attended a service where the text happened to be, “He shall choose our inheritance for us;” and the good man who occupied the pulpit was more than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, “This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing whatever to do with our everlasting destiny, for,” said he, “we do not want Christ to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose Heaven, and any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need of any superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell for us. It is left to our own free-will, and we have enough wisdom given us, sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves,” and therefore, as he very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or anyone, to make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves without any assistance. “Ah!” I thought, “but, my good brother, it may be very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than common sense before we should choose aright.”
First, let me ask, must we not all of us admit an over-ruling Providence, and the appointment of Jehovah’s hand, as to the means whereby we came into this world? Those men who think that, afterwards, we are left to our own free-will to choose this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit that our entrance into the world was not of our own will, but that God had then to choose for us. What circumstances were those in our power which led us to elect certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything to do with it? Did not God Himself appoint our parents, native place, and friends? Could He not have caused me to be born with the skin of the Hottentot, brought forth by a filthy mother who would nurse me in her “kraal,” and teach me to bow down to Pagan gods, quite as easily as to have given me a pious mother, who would each morning and night bend her knee in prayer on my behalf? Or, might He not, if He had pleased, have given me some profligate to have been my parent, from whose lips I might have early heard fearful, filthy, and obscene language? Might He not have placed me where I should have had a drunken father, who would have immured me in a very dungeon of ignorance, and brought me up in the chains of crime? Was it not God’s Providence that I had so happy a lot, that both my parents were His children, and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the Lord?
John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, “Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards.” I am sure it is true in my case; I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an Arminian brother telling me that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more times, and could never find the doctrine of election in them. He added that he was sure he would have done so if it had been there, for he read the Word on his knees. I said to him, “I think you read the Bible in a very uncomfortable posture, and if you had read it in your easy chair, you would have been more likely to understand it. Pray, by all means, and the more, the better, but it is a piece of superstition to think there is anything in the posture in which a man puts himself for reading: and as to reading through the Bible twenty times without having found anything about the doctrine of election, the wonder is that you found anything at all: you must have galloped through it at such a rate that you were not likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of the Scriptures.”
If it would be marvelous to see one river leap up from the earth full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring from which all the rivers of the earth should at once come bubbling up, a million of them born at a birth? What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet the love of God is that fountain, from which all the rivers of mercy, which have ever gladdened our race—all the rivers of grace in time, and of glory hereafter—take their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred fountain-head, and adore and magnify, for ever and ever, God, even our Father, who hath loved us! In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there was any created being—when the ether was not fanned by an angel’s wing, when space itself had not an existence, when there was nothing save God alone—even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world—even from eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
Then, in the fulness of time, He purchased me with His blood; He let His heart run out in one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea, when He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He knocked at the door, and asked for entrance, did I not drive Him away, and do despite to His grace? Ah, I can remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the power of His effectual grace, He said, “I must, I will come in;” and then He turned my heart, and made me love Him. But even till now I should have resisted Him, had it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased me when I was dead in sins, does it not follow, as a consequence necessary and logical, that He must have loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me because I believed on Him? No; I was not then in existence; I had then no being. Could the Saviour, therefore, have died because I had faith, when I myself was not yet born? Could that have been possible? Could that have been the origin of the Saviour’s love towards me? Oh! no; my Saviour died for me long before I believed. “But,” says someone, “He foresaw that you would have faith; and, therefore, He loved you.” What did He foresee about my faith? Did He foresee that I should get that faith myself, and that I should believe on Him of myself? No; Christ could not foresee that, because no Christian man will ever say that faith came of itself without the gift and without the working of the Holy Spirit. I have met with a great many believers, and talked with them about this matter; but I never knew one who could put his hand on his heart, and say, “I believed in Jesus without the assistance of the Holy Spirit.”
I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. If God enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is so insignificant a creature that it must be an act of gracious condescension on the Lord’s part; but if God enters into covenant with sinful man, he is then so offensive a creature that it must be, on God’s part, an act of pure, free, rich, sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant with me, I am sure that it was all of grace, nothing else but grace. When I remember what a den of unclean beasts and birds my heart was, and how strong was my unrenewed will, how obstinate and rebellious against the sovereignty of the Divine rule, I always feel inclined to take the very lowest room in my Father’s house, and when I enter Heaven, it will be to go among the less than the least of all saints, and with the chief of sinners.
The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, “Salvation is of the Lord.” That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, “He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord.” I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. “He only is my rock and my salvation.” Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, “God is my rock and my salvation.” What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

“If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day.”
If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true, but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever. God has a master-mind; He arranged everything in His gigantic intellect long before He did it; and once having settled it, He never alters it, “This shall be done,” saith He, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and it is brought to pass. “This is My purpose,” and it stands, nor can earth or hell alter it. “This is My decree,” saith He, “promulgate it, ye holy angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye devils, if ye can; but ye cannot alter the decree, it shall stand for ever.” God altereth not His plans; why should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His pleasure. Why should He? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have planned wrongly. Why should He? He is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before His plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye worthless atoms of earth, ephemera of a day, ye creeping insects upon this bay-leaf of existence, ye may change your plans, but He shall never, never change His. Has He told me that His plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever safe.

“My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress’d on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace.”
I do not know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say, whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well-spring of water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison of an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir, which I had no reason to expect would always be full. I believe that the happiest of Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God, but who take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it, and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be so. I bear my willing testimony that I have no reason, nor even the shadow of a reason, to doubt my Lord, and I challenge Heaven, and earth, and hell, to bring any proof that God is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the fiends, and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted believers, and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge the long experience of the blood-washed host, and there is not to be found in the three realms a single person who can bear witness to one fact which can disprove the faithfulness of God, or weaken His claim to be trusted by His servants. There are many things that may or may not happen, but this I know shall happen—

“He shall present my soul,
Unblemish’d and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joys divinely great.”
All the purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The promises of man may be broken—many of them are made to be broken—but the promises of God shall all be fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was a promise-breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every one of His people shall prove it to be so. This is my grateful, personal confidence, “The Lordwill perfect that which concerneth me“—unworthy me, lost and ruined me. He will yet save me; and—

“I, among the blood-wash’d throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the crown,
And shout loud victory.”
I go to a land which the plough of earth hath never upturned, where it is greener than earth’s best pastures, and richer than her most abundant harvests ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous architecture than man hath ever builded; it is not of mortal design; it is “a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.” All I shall know and enjoy in Heaven, will be given to me by the Lord, and I shall say, when at last I appear before Him—

“Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise.”
I know there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to limit the merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind, it seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ’s finished work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no bottom, my eye discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their Maker’s law. Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the question. Having a Divine Person for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value; bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the Divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite work. Think of the numbers upon whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of the countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands of the sea, as to count the multitudes that are before the throne even now. They have come from the East, and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and they are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob in the Kingdom of God; and beside those in Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The Father’s love is not for a few only, but for an exceeding great company. “A great multitude, which no man could number,” will be found in Heaven. A man can reckon up to very high figures; set to work your Newtons, your mightiest calculators, and they can count great numbers, but God and God alone can tell the multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to “have the pre-eminence,” and I cannot conceive how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have never read that there is to be in hell a great multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them! Then there are already in Heaven unnumbered myriads of the spirits of just men made perfect—the redeemed of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues up till now; and there are better times coming, when the religion of Christ shall be universal; when—

“He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;”
when whole kingdoms shall bow down before Him, and nations shall be born in a day, and in the thousand years of the great millennial state there will be enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands of years that have gone before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and His praise shall be sounded in every land. Christ shall have the pre-eminence at last; His train shall be far larger than that which shall attend the chariot of the grim monarch of hell.
Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, “It is so beautiful. It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men; it commends itself,” they say, “to the instincts of humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty.” I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is much which I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involves. If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was Christ’s intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Saviour died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute, afterwards punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good!
There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer -I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common Christians, and was one “of whom the world was not worthy.” I believe there are multitudes of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ as their Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinist in or out of Heaven.
I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues 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.
It is often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that those high doctrines which we love, and which we find in the Scriptures, are licentious ones. I do not know who will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when they consider that the holiest of men have been believers in them. I ask the man who dares to say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of the character of Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield, who in successive ages were the great exponents of the system of grace; or what will he say of the Puritans, whose works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as the heretics, and they as the orthodox. We have gone back to the old school; we can trace our descent from the apostles. It is that vein of free-grace, running through the sermonizing of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were it not for that, we should not stand where we are today. We can run a golden line up to Jesus Christ Himself, through a holy succession of mighty fathers, who all held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning them, “Where will you find holier and better men in the world?” No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it “a licentious doctrine” did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the grace of God in truth, they would soon see that there was no preservative from lying like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the world. There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father’s affection, which can keep me near to Him from a motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other. Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe that they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should take heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an open shame.

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Each person is urged to prayerfully discern with the help of God what truth is found in this site and all following links:

LINKS    http://www.trinitarianbiblesociety.org/

http://www.sgat.org/

http://www.strictbaptisthistory.org.uk/

http://www.gospelstandard.org/

http://englishchurchman.moonfruit.com/

http://www.message4mormons.org/

http://www.collierswoodchurch.moonfruit.com/ [not Baptist but Reformed Evangelical Anglican, i.e. belief in "doctrines of grace"]

http://cgec.org.uk/ Evangelical Church in Covent Garden, London

http://receptus.home.sprynet.com/whoswho.htm AMERICAN PARTICULAR BAPTISTS

Directory of churches are found in the sites below [not all are Baptists, some are evangelical Anglican]

http://www.grace.org.uk/

http://www.fiec.org.uk/

http://www.co-mission.org/

http://www.continuingcofe.org/

An altar call is an appeal for an immediate public response to a sermon just preached. It is popularly called the invitation and as used in this context is an appeal for a public act of commitment and can involve hand raising, going to a counseling area or signing a commitment card. Most often it involves walking down the aisle to the front of a church auditorium. The altar call is tacked on to the end of a sermon and the invitation usually is to “come forward and accept Christ as your Savior.” Various emotional techniques such as telling sad, tear jerking stories and playing mood-creating music in the background are employed to encourage response to the altar call.

Like many of you I grew up in churches which used the invitation system and in the early years of my ministry I used it myself before finally seeing its implications and its inconsistency with God’s grace. In those years we sang verse after verse of invitation hymns like “Just As I Am” and we sometimes sang on for an hour or more trying to get people to come forward. I once had an evangelist in a church where I pastored and his entire program consisted of night after night telling sob story after sob story climaxing with the saddest one of all and then giving an invitation to come to the front and accept Christ.

So firmly entrenched has the altar call become in our modern churches that I have had people ask me on several occasions, How can people be saved if you don’t give an invitation? Preachers who do not give altar calls are often criticized as not being evangelistic.

We do not have an altar call in the services of our church! We do not extend an invitation at the close of our services for people to make some kind of physical demonstration that they are trusting Christ. What I shall do in this sermon is explain just why we don’t! First of all we do not do it

It is vitally important in this practice as in all others that we look closely at the scriptures to find what they teach about this practice. As we do we find that the invitation is never commanded in God’s word. Search the scriptures as you will, there is no command in any scripture for us to use this method. Not only this, there is no precedent in scripture for using the altar call. The Lord Jesus never in his earthly ministry gave an invitation. The apostles of our Lord never in all their ministries used the altar call.

In Acts 2:36-37 we are told that at Pentecost 3,000 people were saved but no altar call was used. The saving of those 3,000 was the work of the Holy Spirit of God and not of clever emotional appeals to come to the front of the meeting place. Whatever reasons one may give for using the altar call, it is a fact that it cannot be supported from the word of God.

As we have already pointed out, some people believe and teach that if one does not give an invitation in connection with his sermon he is not evangelistic. But we cannot be more evangelistic than the New Testament and the altar call or invitation system is not to be found in the pages of the New Testament. Actually having an altar call is a departure from scriptural requirements and practice.

In the New Testament and in Christian history up until the year 1820 AD sinners were invited to Christ, not to decide at the end of a sermon whether to perform some physical action. You will search Christian history in vain for an altar call or invitation before about 1820. George Whitefield, the greatest evangelist perhaps of all time never used the altar call. Charles Spurgeon under whose preaching more people were saved than perhaps any other pastor over the centuries never gave an invitation.

Well, where did the altar call come from if God’s word doesn’t teach it? The answer is that the altar call is a human invention that is less than 200 years old.

It is generally recognized that the altar call was invented by a Presbyterian evangelist named Charles G. Finney who lived from 1792-1875. Finney referred to the altar call as coming to the anxious seat or to the inquiry room and began using it in his evangelistic services in about 1820. Did the churches do it all wrong in the matter of evangelism until Finney came along in 1820 with his new system? How were people saved during the 1800 years of Christian history before the advent of Charles G. Finney? Evangelist D.L. Moody took Finney’s altar call and refined it and in turn it was passed on to its modern champion, Billy Graham.

In a paper he wrote called “The Christian,” Billy Graham defends his use of the invitation system by resorting, not to the scriptures but to psychology when he says concerning the invitation, “Many psychologists would say it is psychologically sound.” Biblical practices do not need the endorsement of psychology! There is absolutely no biblical authority for this practice! Yet today virtually all evangelists and pastors and churches use the altar call or invitation system.

Second, our church does not use the altar call or invitation system

God’s word teaches that because of the fall of Adam into sin man is by nature spiritually dead. As Paul states it in Ephesians 2:1 man is “dead in trespasses and sins.” A man who is spiritually dead can do nothing spiritual. He can’t even will to repent of sin and trust in Christ. He is dead!

God’s word teaches that because of their depravity men are helpless to save or help save themselves. This means that there is absolutely nothing a sinner can do to save himself or prepare himself for salvation. Spiritually dead sinners can never come to Christ until God calls them with a special, powerful, effectual call. This is what the Lord Jesus is talking about in John 6:44 when He says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…” or literally, No man is able or has the power to come to me except the Father draw him.”

Charles Finney, the inventor of the altar call, was a Pelagian in theology. Pelagianism is a damnable heresy which teaches that the fall of man in sin did not actually make him dead in sin. It is true man was damaged by the fall but he was not ruined by it this heresy says. Finney’s idea was that man is just sick in sin but he still has within him the ability to obey God and be pleasing to Him.

In his book “Systematic Theology” Finney says that man can do anything God requires of him and that all he needs to do so is to be induced to do so. Thus according to Finney man has a free will and has within him the ability to repent and to believe. This thinking of course squarely contradicts the Bible doctrine of man’s inability.

The whole question of the altar call or invitation can be reduced to the order of salvation. The word of God teaches that in the order of salvation, regeneration precedes conversion. In John 3:3 for example the Lord Jesus says that only those who are born again can see or comprehend or understand or appreciate the kingdom of God or spiritual things. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” God’s word makes clear that the Holy Spirit in the new birth enables a sinner to trust in Christ.

Arminians on the other hand say that one must believe or be converted in order to be regenerated. In his great booklet “The Invitation System” Iain Murray quotes Billy Graham as saying that we are “made alive by trust in Christ.” This of course is just the opposite of what God’s word teaches about the order of salvation being regeneration and then faith and conversion.

In the same booklet Murray quotes Graham concerning Graham’s own conversion. “They were singing the last verse of the song when I went forward. That first step was the hardest I ever took in my life. But when I took it, God did the rest” and “the rest” in Graham’s thinking is the new birth! In this way of thinking poor God can’t do anything for a sinner until the sinner takes the first step!

If, as God’s word clearly teaches, regeneration must come before conversion in the order of salvation then the invitation system must be given up as contradictory to God’s word!

The gospel is not, do something physical and if you will, you will be saved! The gospel is, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!” The duty of sinners is not to come to the front of the building but to believe in Christ! To be saved sinners must come to Christ which means believe in Christ.

The Lord Jesus Himself says in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Think about it! No one can now come to Christ with his feet because Christ is no longer physically present on this earth. Christ is not down here at the front of this church auditorium anymore than he is back there in the pew or outside in the parking lot or out on your back porch. As someone else has said, the fountain of life is not in front of the pulpit in some church building. The fountain of life is Christ Himself!

We don’t have to move a muscle to totally commit ourselves to the safe keeping of Christ the Savior for salvation. The altar call implies at least and it is often specifically stated that by coming to the front of a church building or some other auditorium at some preacher’s invitation, the one who comes becomes a Christian.

To those who practice the altar call salvation is equated with getting people to occupy a certain piece of geography at the front of a building. In doing this they effectively limit the sphere of God’s saving activity to a few square feet at the front of some building. My friend John Hunter of Anniston, Alabama calls this locational salvation because it makes the front of the church auditorium the location where people must go to be saved.

At Billy Graham’s first London Crusade he said one night in giving the invitation, “Don’t let distance keep you from Christ. It’s a long way but Christ went all the way to the cross because he loved you. Certainly you can come these few steps and give your life to Him.” God’s word however does not teach that one is saved by changing his location but by believing in his heart!

Biblical salvation is not of works. It is not by doing something, anything at all. Instead it is by grace through faith according to Ephesians 2:8-9. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Faith itself is the gift of God and not the accomplishment or contribution of man to salvation. Colossians 2:12 calls faith “the operation of God” and Philippians 1:29 calls it a gift given. “For unto you it is given…to believe on him…”

Under the invitation system the idea constantly presented by the preacher is that the step forward is of great spiritual importance. Faith is presented as something a

man does in order to be saved. Believing in Christ is identified with coming to the front of the church building in response to the preacher’s appeal. But making an outward response the same thing as receiving Christ adds a condition of salvation that Christ Jesus never appointed. Works is the necessary evidence of salvation, not the prior condition of it. The altar call satisfies man’s natural desire to do something to save or help save himself.

Sola Scriptura means the scriptures only and it recognizes that God’s written word gives us everything we need for all matters of faith and practice. There is nothing God wants us to know or to do that is not found in His written word. According to II Timothy 3:16-17 God’s word is sufficient or completely adequate for all our spiritual needs. The altar call is a way of promoting religious experience by other means than those clearly appointed in God’s word so it is a denial of Sola Scriptura and of the sufficiency of God’s word.

The third reason our church does not use the altar call is

What have been the results of 200 years of using this unbiblical method called the altar call or the invitation? I submit to you that the results of the use of the altar call have been disastrous! There are at least three things that the invitation system does that cause great damage to the cause of Christ:

I say obviously false because so many converts of this system refuse to do the very first thing that Christ the Lord demands of his people and that is submit to scriptural baptism. There is a vast difference in the number claiming to be saved and the number actually baptized in this type of evangelism.

The other day I came across some statistics put out by Jim Elliff, a professor at Southern Baptists’ Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Kansas City. By their own statistics Elliff says that among Southern Baptists out of every 100 professions of faith only 30 are later baptized and out of that 30 only 10 will show up at church on a given Sunday morning and of that 30 only 4 will show up on a given Sunday evening.

One well known altar call evangelist held a revival meeting in Oklahoma City in which 47 people professed to have been saved. A few weeks after that meeting I called the pastor of that church and asked him how many of those 47 he had baptized and he said, Three!

Walking the aisle and giving the pastor one’s hand often gives people doing so a false hope of salvation. These people believe that they are spiritually right with God simply because they have made the required step down the aisle though they have never truly come to Christ in faith trusting in Him as Lord and Savior. On any number of occasions I have asked people, when were you saved? only to have them respond, I went forward when I was 18 or when I was a child or at some other time.

Large numbers of those who have come into the churches with such counterfeit conversions have stayed there as formal, dead and deceived professors. I have known some such persons who have been awakened after years of such deception to realize that in their trips to the altar they did not come to Christ! How many people are in hell today because of this deception?

Many people who have sincerely and honestly gone through the invitation system have recognized that nothing actually happened to them. They tried it and it didn’t work and they know it is not real. They may also think that others who have tried it know that it doesn’t work and that they just don’t have the honesty to admit it to themselves. If their own experience is not real it is just natural for them to conclude that the experiences of others are false also.

Many converts of the invitation system feel that they have been tricked by the evangelist and their Christian friends into making such a move down the aisle. Ultimately this has produced skepticism and hostility toward the gospel and because of this realization many have fallen away from Christianity altogether.

In another city where I was pastor our church decided to knock on every door in our neighborhood and ask people if they were Christians. I was amazed to find that virtually all people responded that they were or used to be Christians but either were no longer so or did not now go to church. They all claimed to have been saved in some crusade or revival service.

Such results of the altar call can be seen in the two Southern Baptist churches I pastored in Oklahoma City. One had over 600 members, 300 of whom we could not find. The other had over 900 members, 750 of whom we could not find.

In his day Charles Spurgeon commented on the damage done to the cause of Christ by the use of the altar call. Iain Murray in his book “The Forgotten Spurgeon” quotes Spurgeon as saying, “I should like to go to the inquiry room. I dare say you would, but we are not willing to pander to popular superstition. We fear that in those rooms men are warmed into a fictitious confidence. Very few of the supposed converts of inquiry rooms turn out well. Go to your God at once, even where you are now. Cast yourself on Christ, at once, ere you stir an inch!”

Why do the churches keep on using this unscriptural practice of giving an altar call?

1. For one reason they fail to measure all things by God’s word. All of us have a tendency to accept things as being right without comparing them with God’s word to find out if they really are.

2. Another reason is the desire on the parts of many pastors and churches to report numbers because they see numbers as equal to success in the church. Counting large numbers of converts is irresistible to these pragmatists. Some of them don’t care if the invitation cannot be found in God’s word. It works and they say that is what is important in God’s work.

3. Thirdly the use of the altar call in a church indicates a failure to trust God to do His work in this world. These people do not really believe that God can do His saving work in this world without the wisdom and methods of man to help.

But how are people to be saved if we do not “give an invitation” at the close of the sermon? Christ’s invitation is found in Matthew 11:28 where he says to sinners, not, Come to the front of the church but “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

If we are to be true to God’s word we must direct sinners to Christ and not to the aisles in the church building. The messages of God’s preachers are filled with invitations for all men everywhere to come to Christ and be saved. We must be careful not to give the impression that a sinner’s eternal destiny hangs on the movement of his feet. Let us determine to stay with biblical methods of evangelism and plant, water and trust God for the increase in seeking the salvation of souls.

Adams, James E. Decisional Regeneration

Chantry, Walter Today’s Gospel, Authentic Or Synthetic?

Dabney, Robert L. An Exposition Of I Corinthians 3:10-15

Murray, Iain The Invitation System

Matthew 11:28-30; Revelation 22:17

by John A. Kohler, III

Altar Calls

The public invitation or post-sermonic altar call may be defined as an appeal made by a preacher at the conclusion of his message for people to leave their seats and come forward to an area near the pulpit in order to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. The question that must be asked about this common practice is as follows: Is it BIBLICAL?

I. The History of the Public Invitation

A. It was not used by the Old Testament patriarchs or prophets. B. It was not used by John the Baptist.

C. It was not used by the Lord Jesus Christ.

D. It was not used by the New Testament apostles.

E. As far as is known, it was not used by anyone, anywhere until it was spontaneously introduced by Eleazar Wheelock in 1745.

F. As far as is known, it was not used widely until it was popularized by Charles Finney during the 1830s.

II. The Heterodoxy of the Public Invitation

A. It makes “coming forward” and “coming to Christ” practically synonymous. B. It makes “coming forward” a condition for salvation.

C. It makes conversion to Christ an external, physical act.

D. It makes many people converts to a particular preacher or church without their becoming converts to Christ.

E. It makes the number of external, physical responses the measure of “success.”

F. It makes psychological manipulation more important than Biblical exposition and Holy Spirit conviction.

G. It makes “coming forward” a substitute for baptism.

H. It makes more mature Christians who know their Bibles well very uncomfortable, because they recognize the fact that tradition has replaced truth as the supreme and final authority in this matter. They know this can only be damaging.

“Men today need to be reminded that coming to Christ is not walking an aisle, but casting oneself on Christ for life or death. May God cause the church to return to the Scriptures for its methods of winning men to Christ. May sinners be charged not to come forward in a meeting, but to come to the Lord Jesus Christ.” James Adams

Matthew 22:1-14  And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,  ² The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,  ³ And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.  ⁴ Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.  ⁵ But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:  ⁶ And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.  ⁷ But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.  ⁸ Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.  ⁹ Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.  ¹⁰ So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.  ¹¹ And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:  ¹² And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.  ¹³ Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen. 

 Luke 14:12-24  ¹² Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee.  ¹³ But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:  ¹⁴ And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.  ¹⁵ And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.  ¹⁶Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many:  ¹⁷ And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.  ¹⁸ And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.  ¹⁹ And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.  ²⁰ And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.  ²¹ So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.  ²² And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.  ²³ And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.  ²⁴ For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

 English is a peculiar language which is difficult to master especially at an advanced level. Here are some problems that confuse foreigners learning English.

 Worth / worthless  Value / valueless  Price / priceless

 Priceless does not mean what foreigner thinks.

 Valid / invalid  correct / incorrect       valuable / invaluable   flammable / inflammable

Invaluable and inflammable don’t mean what most foreigners think.

British English confuses Americans eg public school is an expensive fee-paying private school.  American public school is a British state school.

In God’s providence English was not used as the original inspired language of the Bible. God chose Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Let’s not be like some ignorant people who say, “If King James’ English is good enough for Christ and his apostles, it’s good enough for me.”

We can always benefit a little more and gain extra insight by consulting the original languages of the Bible.

In God’s sovereignty and providence, he not only chose the languages of the Bible, he also chose the elect. In fact, elect means chosen. He chose who to save.

Christ said to his disciples, John 15:16   ¹⁶ Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit.

But there is a sense in which it is applied to all believers.

Ephesians 1:3-5  ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:  ⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:  ⁵ Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Revelation 17:14  ⁴ These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

 1 Peter 2:9  ⁹ But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 

[Below is shown in Greek using "Bwgrkl" font. It may not appear correctly unless you have this font.]

 1 Peter 2:9  ⁹  u`mei/j de. ge,noj evklekto,n( basi,leion i`era,teuma( e;qnoj a[gion( lao.j eivj peripoi,hsin( o[pwj ta.j avreta.j evxaggei,lhte tou/ evk sko,touj u`ma/j kale,santoj eivj to. qaumasto.n auvtou/ fw/j\

 This was, of course, applied to the nation of Israel  but is now applied to the believers in Christ. In other words, the Church. Greek Ekklesia. Literally, CALLED OUT. It is two words EK out of, and KALEW, to call or invite.

 If God chose who he was going to save, what about human free will and responsibility for our own choices and actions?

 Matthew 12:36  ³⁶ But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

 Romans 14:12   ¹² So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

 What about passages in the Bible that apparently show that Christ died for the whole world and man freely choosing and being invited?

 Revelation 22:17   ¹⁷ And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

 Matthew 11:28-30   ²⁸ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

John 1:9  ⁹ That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. … verse  ¹² But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

 John 3:16-17  ⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  ¹⁷ For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

 John 12:32  ³² And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. …verse  ⁴⁶ I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

 1 John 2:1-2  My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:  ² And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

We need to understand and reconcile seemingly contradictory scriptures. However, we must realize that our finite minds, at present, will never fully achieve this.

God is love. He loves his creation. Nevertheless, He is a holy and righteous God who hates evil and must punish sin.

Habakkuk 1:13  ¹³ Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.

We often think of the nations of Egypt and Assyria as enemies of God and that He hates them and enjoys punishing them. But listen to this:-

Isaiah 19:23-25  ²³ In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.  ²⁴ In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:  ²⁵ Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

 Jonah 4:10 ¹⁰ Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:  ¹¹ And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle.

 God is not a sadist who enjoys hurting people.

Ezekiel 33:11  As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

 Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-45  ⁴³ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  ⁴⁴ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;  ⁴⁵ That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Luke 6:35-36  ³⁵ But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.  ³⁶ Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

It is natural to love your friends and hate your enemies. What Christ commanded us to do was to love our enemies. Surely, this is a reflection on what God does. It is a reflection of his character. And we are to do likewise.

Matthew 5:48  ⁴⁸ Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

 Romans 5:8   ⁸ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

 God loves his creation and desires to save each one. Matthew 23:37   ³⁷ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

1 Timothy 2:3-4  ³ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;  ⁴ Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

It is the duty of Christians to present the gospel to sinners and to present it in the way the Bible shows us, not with gimmicks or tricks, not in trivial or worldly ways but in biblical ways and by using the same balanced approach. Sinners should be invited to come to Christ, as in Matthew 11:28-30   ²⁸ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

But we must never forget what comes before verse 28, that is verse 27  ²⁷ All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

When we ask people to receive Christ, we don’t need sentimental, emotional hymns and music to soften the hearts. We don’t need to ask people to raise their hands and come to the front. We must remember that it is God who is responsible for our spiritual birth. John 1:12-13  ¹² But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:  ¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

We can reason with people and prove the gospel using history, archaeology and science. Isaiah 1:18-20   ¹⁸ Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.  ¹⁹ If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:  ²⁰ But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Acts 17:2-4   ² And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,  ³ Opening and alleging [showing], that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.  ⁴ And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.

We need to persevere with people. Romans 10:21 – 11:1   ²¹ But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.  [Romans 10:21  ²¹But concerning Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."]

We must warn as Christ did. Luke 13:5  ⁵ I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

We should implore people to be reconciled to God as the Apostle Paul did. 2 Corinthians 5:20  ⁰ Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead [on Christ’s behalf], be ye reconciled to God.

And one other way, we must be bold enough to order people, to command them.

Acts 2:38  ³⁸ Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Peter uses the word “Repent” Acts 2:38  Metanoh,sate( which is in the imperative, 2^nd person plural. It is not “Please, I would make a polite request, if you don’t mind, I think it would be a good that you ought to repent.” It is a strong and direct command to all the people listening. The words “be baptized” are also in the imperative. But grammatically, this type of imperative, no longer exists in modern Greek, neither does it exist in English, so translations often don’t get it 100% correct. NT Greek also had a 3^rd person imperative.

Let me explain: If a sergeant said to his men, “Fire!” He is ordering the men that are listening to him to fire at the enemy. This is a second person imperative. For a third person imperative, in English, we often use the word “let”. “Let him fire.” This might be said when the person referred to is not present. Notice that when you say, “Let him fire” it just doesn’t sound as strong. It’s as though he is given permission to fire but he doesn’t have to if he is unwilling to do so.

As we saw at the beginning, English is a peculiar language. The peculiar thing here, is that when 3^rd person imperative is expressed in a negative way, it is strong and unambiguous. Eg John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled:= Your heart must not be troubled.

Romans 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body= sin must not reign in your body.

Don’t allow it. It is forbidden.

The imperative in New Testament Greek, is still as strong in 3^rd person as it is in 2^nd person, whether expressed negatively or positively. Let us use an example from the Bible which can lead to a misunderstanding if we are not careful.

Revelation 22:17  ¹⁷ And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

The word “Come” in the first two cases is in the 2^nd person singular imperative. It is a command, an order to come. It means, “you must come”.  In the third occurrence of the word “come” i.e. “let him that is athirst come”, it is in the 3^rd person singular imperative. “He or she must come.” The one who is thirsty must come. The “water of life” is a gift. There is no need to pay. The water of life is free.

“And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” “Let him take” is also in the 3^rd person singular imperative.

“Whosoever will” whoever has the desire, whoever wants, feels the need to drink, to quench his thirst, then “let him take” better still, he MUST take. This verse has often been misused by those who put too much emphasis on man making the decision to allow Christ to enter our heart.

Another misused verse is Revelation 3:20   ²⁰ Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

I’ve heard it said that the door has no handle on the outside, so Christ cannot come in. The handle is on the inside only, [there is a famous painting showing this]. and can only be opened by the person inside. This makes a mockery of God’s sovereignty. Jesus spoke these words to the church of Laodicea, not to unbelievers. Many in the church had backslidden and needed to repent. ¹⁹ As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 

“Repent” is a command, it is in the imperative.

It is necessary for all sinners, believers and unbelievers, to repent. However, the lost unbeliever, in particular, is a slave to sin. He cannot repent. But he must repent. His only recourse is to look away from himself and look to Christ, the only one who can save. There is no help in himself. His only hope is to call on God for mercy. And a God of mercy will never cast out those who come to him in faith.

Ultimately, it is God who enables us to receive Christ. In the parable at the beginning, we saw in Matthew 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen.

How do we reconcile scriptures that say Christ died only for the elect with those that say he died for the world?

God loves all His creation but the Bible teaches he has a special love for his chosen. Jeremiah 31:3  ³ The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

We see that Christ came to die for those who he loved the most.

Matthew 1:21  ²¹ And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

Mark 10:45  ⁴⁵ For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransome for many.

Here it says “many” not all. Yet 1 Timothy 2:6 says He “gave himself a ransome for all”.

If Christ died for all, that is, every person that has been born and will be born, this means that there will be no one in hell. Everyone is saved. This is known as “Universal Salvation”. Many verses in the Bible clearly show this doctrine is false.

Well, let’s look at how “all” is used. Mark 1:4-5  ⁴ John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  ⁵ And there went out unto him all the land ofJudaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.

Does the “all” here mean every man, woman, child and newborn baby? What about “many of the Pharisees and Sadducees” who came that opposed John, the Baptist? Are they included in the “all”? Absolutely not!

One of the hardest things for the Jews and first Christians [who were Jewish] to understand and accept is that the God of Israel is also the God of all the nations. The Messiah was for all, not just for the Jews. Read Acts 10 to see what Peter’s attitude was and how Paul had to rebuke him (Gal 2:11).

Paul said in Romans 1:16 ¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to theGreek.

Of course, “Greek” is symbolic for the “Gentiles”. This really defines the Biblical meaning of “all”, “every one” and “world”.

The Apostle John, 2000 years ago, had a glimpse of heaven. He saw people of every nationality and language.

Revelation 5:9  ⁹ And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.

So when the Bible speaks of Christ dying for all, or dying for the whole world, it means that He died for sinners of all nationalities, not just for Israelites.

It is my prayer, that having brought all these scriptures to our attention, we may have a better understanding of God’s Sovereignty in salvation and witness the gospel to a dying sinful world in a much bolder manner.

Let us be obedient servants as in the parable. Rather, [Luke 14:23] we must be obedient servants. We must go into the public places and not just invite but compel them to come in, that His house may be filled. 

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John 12:20-50  ²⁰ And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast:  ²¹ The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.  ²² Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. ²³ And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.  ²⁴ Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.  ²⁵ He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.  ²⁶ If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.  ²⁷ Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.  ²⁸ Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.  ²⁹ The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.  ³⁰ Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.  ³¹ Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.  ³² And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. ³³ This he said, signifying what death he should die.  ³⁴ The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?  ³⁵ Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.  ³⁶ While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.  ³⁷ But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:  ³⁸ That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?  ³⁹ Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,  ⁴⁰ He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.  ⁴¹ These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.  ⁴² Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:  ⁴³ For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.  ⁴⁴ Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.  ⁴⁵ And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.  ⁴⁶ I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.  ⁴⁷ And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.  ⁴⁸ He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.  ⁴⁹ For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.  ⁵⁰ And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

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 PRAY

 Our subject this evening is very deep and dare I say, controversial. It’s a subject that we’ll never fully understand this side of eternity. I hope and pray that I will do it some justice. I read a book on sermon preparation which said you must start off with an interesting and relevant illustration that will help the listeners to understand your sermon. So here goes. [Give illustration of glass of water --- half empty or half full?]

 Three blind brothers went to the zoo. They had never seen an elephant. Not even a photo of one. They were blind from birth. Anyway they managed to get into the elephant enclosure without being spotted by the keepers. One of them went to the front of the elephant and felt its trunk. The other went to the side and felt its ear and the third who was quite short felt one of its back legs. When they got home they described to their youngest brother who had never seen an elephant what it was like.

The conversation went something like this: Oh, an elephant is like a snake, long and able to move and wrap around things.  No, it’s not, it’s flat, flappy and wide, rather like a leather fan. No, no, it’s like a tree trunk with huge toes.

 The youngest brother was really confused. Who was telling the truth. Surely, they can’t all be true.

 This illustration shows that due to the blind men’s limitations they could each understand a certain small aspect of what an elephant is. They weren’t really contradicting each other. All they had to do was combine their understanding to get a clearer picture.

 So it is with certain doctrines in the Bible. Man is finite, physical. He has a limited understanding of the infinite and spiritual. For example, we can never fully understand God.

 Psalm 139:1-6   O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.  ² Thou knowest my ¹ downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.  ³ Thou ¹ compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.  ⁴ For there is not a word in my ¹ tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.  ⁵ Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine¹ hand upon me.  ⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

 God is transcendent. By this we mean that God is above and beyond all of His creative works. God is not to be confused with anything that is created. When God is confused or identified with His creation this is the grossest form of idolatry.

 Romans 1:22-23  ²² Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,  ²³ And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

 In this life, we will never fully comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, the incarnation, the virgin birth of Christ. Some people have said, “I can’t believe in and worship something I cannot understand.” All I can say to them is, “Your god is very small – not worth worshipping.”

 Of course, God uses human language to communicate with us. The Bible is the word of God. It is written in human language but divinely inspired. In order to help us understand spiritual things, the Bible often uses human relationships.

 For example, God’s love for Israel is described in a husband – wife relationship, idolatry is equivalent to adultery. Similarly, the church is the bride and Christ is the bridegroom. Being unfaithful to God is like being unfaithful to your husband or wife.

 In describing the relationship between the first and second person of the Trinity, we have a Father and Son relationship. We must remember such comparisons and analogies break down, if we stretch them too far.

 Many years ago, I was arguing with someone who didn’t believe in the Trinity. He was a unitarian and downgraded Christ to a created being, one who was not eternally pre-existent. He said that if Jesus is the son, by definition he must be younger than the Father and inferior to him. But the Bible teaches Christ is eternal.

Micah 5

² But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be ¹ little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose ² goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. –[this verse is mistranslated in most modern versions]

 The fact is the father-son analogy breaks down when we consider time. It will also break down in that human sons need a mother. Christ is eternally the Son of God, without the need of a mother. Here is where the Mormons go wrong. They teach that God the Father has a wife. There are religions that can’t accept Jesus is the Son of God because God isn’t married and can’t have children. This is carnal thinking.

 I said to this Unitarian, “I am a Christian. So is my wife. She is my sister in Christ. I married my sister. Does this mean that the Bible teaches incest is OK?” he hesitated for a few seconds then said, “Yes.” His wife was so embarrassed, she didn’t know where to look.

 When it comes to salvation, the Bible again uses certain analogies. Debt is a picture of sin. Forgiveness is seen as the cancellation of the debt by the person to whom the money is owed. Salvation is pictured as a gift. Something that you do not have to pay for or work for. It is a free gift.

 Romans 6:23   For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 Ephesians 2:8-9  For by  grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  ⁹  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

 Do you know that there are Christians who believe that a person who has been saved can lose his or her salvation. Such people are afraid that they could lose their salvation. If they die during a period of backsliding they might go to hell. They reason a person can freely choose to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour and then years later to freely choose to reject him. I used to believe this a long time ago.

 Yes, if salvation is a gift, like a gift a friend gives you on your birthday, you happily and willingly accept it. But what if you fall out with that friend. You begin to hate him and decide to throw that gift away, so you are not reminded of him.

 This is the way I reasoned. If you believe, once saved – always saved, where’s the free will in that. You have free will before you become a believer, then after becoming a Christian you no longer have free will. You are a Calvinist, or at least a semi-Calvinist, if there’s such a word. I’m using the word “Calvinist” as a convenient label.

 It’s a convenient way of referring to someone who emphasizes God’s sovereignty and pre-destination whereas an Arminian emphasizes man’s free will. Instead of saying, Either of two very large herbivorous mammalian pachyderms, Elephas maximus of south-central Asia or Loxodonta africana of Africa, having thick, almost hairless skin, a long, flexible, prehensile trunk, upper incisors forming long curved tusks of ivory, and, in the African species, large fan-shaped ears. It’s more convenient just to say, elephant.

So I will use the labels Calvinist and Arminian for convenience.

 What does the Bible say about a saved person losing his salvation?

 John 10:27-29    ²⁸ And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.  ²⁹ My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and noman is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

 Hebrews 13:5  he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

In this verse, just to emphasize this point the original Greek has 5 negative words. Ouv mh, se avnw/( ouvdV ouv mh, se evgkatali,pwÅ

ou me se ano oud ou me egkatalipo

 1 John 2 speaks of a great apostasy, a falling away at the end times. Look at verse 19   They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, , they would no doubt have continued with us:: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

 This clearly shows that those who reject Christ, never really accepted him in the first place. Yes but what about the freedom to throw away the gift. Here again, the analogy breaks down. The Bible uses another analogy to describe salvation and that is being born. Everyone here has been born. We all have or had a mother and father. We did not choose to be born, neither did we choose who our parents would be. Even if we hate our parents because they are cruel to us, they are still our natural parents and nothing can ever change that. You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives.

 Accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour means being born, born again into his family.

 John 3:3   ³ Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

 John 1:11-13  ¹¹ He came unto his own, and his own received him not.  ¹² But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Let’s not forget verse 13.

 ¹³ Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

 Some of us here may be accidents [so to speak] not really wanted by our parents but that’s not the way God sees us, no human being is an accident in God’s eyes.

All believers are born of God. We are in his family. Nothing can change that. We should find comfort in that.

 Once you are saved, you will still fall into sin but you can never rebel against God and fall away completely. Almost everyone agrees that in heaven there will be no more danger of apostasy. Does this mean that in glory men will be deprived of that freedom of choice which constitutes the distinguishing character of humanity, the gift that stands so high that even the sovereign purpose of God must be viewed as subordinate to it? Surely not! But if in glory perseverance is not inconsistent with freedom, why should it be thought incompatible on earth?

 It’s a part of heaven that we can claim now while on earth.

 Jesus said in John 12:25   ²⁵ He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

 In Luke’s gospel, it’s put like this, Luke 9:24   ²⁴ For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

 Note those important words, “for my sake”. For the sake of Christ. Christ gave his life on the cross, Galatians 3:13  ¹³ Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.2 Corinthians 5:21  ²¹ For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin: that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Because of what he has done for us, we must give him our lives now to serve him.

 Romans 6:18-22    ¹⁸ Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.  ¹⁹ I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.  ²⁰ For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. {from…: Gr. to righteousness}  ²¹ What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.  ²² But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

Romans 12:1    I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

 This is what Christ means by “losing your life.” Dedicating your life to God, no longer being a slave to sin.

 We, Christians, were once slaves to sin, but now we are servants of Christ. We still sin, we aren’t perfect yet, but we are no longer slaves, we can resist temptation and say NO to sin.           You know what the difference is between a Christian who sins and an unbeliever who sins. The Holy Spirit convicts the Christian. He feels guilty and dirty. He is sad that he has failed his Saviour. He wants to repent and give up the sin he is struggling with. On the other hand, the unbeliever revels in it. He delights in doing it. He sees nothing wrong in it. He continues doing sins.

 Do we have a choice whether to sin or not?  If  you believe you have complete free will, let me give you a challenge, I won’t say a bet, but a challenge. We all know God’s laws, the ten commandments, and we know how Christ magnified the law in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, lusting is equivalent to adultery, hating is equivalent to murder, we know God commands us to be perfect and obey him,  well here’s the challenge to all those that want to choose to obey God.

 For the following 7 days, obey all of the laws of God perfectly. Report to us next Sunday. I wonder if there’ll be anyone who will honestly be able to say, “Yes, for one whole week I managed to obey all of God’s laws perfectly.”

Do we really have a free choice?

Let’s not allow our own personal preferences obscure or ignore those verses on free will and pre-destination which express a fact that appears contrary to our opinion. Some would even rewrite the Bible and twist what the original languages say. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known for mistranslating the Bible to fall into line with their own false theology. Many scriptures that clearly show the deity of Christ are twisted in their bible. But let’s stick to our theme and examine how they translate one particular verse. I’ll read it to you from their version.

 “When the nations heard this, they began to rejoice and to glorify the word of Jehovah, and all those who were rightly disposed for everlasting life became believers.”

 One modern Greek Bible translates it this way, [I’ve accurately retranslated it in English so you can understand]

“And the nations on hearing rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord, and all the ones that had appointed themselves to eternal life believed.” A footnote to this verses stresses THEMSELVES and informs us the verb in the original Greek is reflexive. Now let’s see how the KJV translates it.

 Acts 13:47-48  And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

 Note “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” The modern Greek translator was wrong, the verb is not reflexive, it is passive. This extreme Arminian mistranslated the Bible to fit his theology. The true sense is that the believers had been ordained by God, not by themselves. And it is in the past tense.

 I decided to look up the word “choose” in the Bible using my computer and found the following: From Genesis to Deuteronomy it appears 26 times. 23 times it refers to God choosing and 3 times to man choosing. From Joshua to Malachi it appears 31 times about half of which refer to God and the other half to man. In the NT it only appears once, where Paul says, in Philippians 1:20-22   ²¹ For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  ²² But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. I don’t know what to choose.

 I looked up the word “chosen”. In almost all cases, the context shows that what is chosen is chosen by God, the Father or Jesus Christ. In the NT it appears 28 times. Only in 4 cases it refers men or women doing the choosing. For example, in Luke 10:42  ⁴² But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. And in Acts there are three cases of  churches choosing men to be missionaries to send out.

 So who does the choosing? Did you choose Christ or did Christ choose you? Well there is a sense in which, if you are a believer, you did choose Christ but it is also true that Christ chose you. Both are true. Remember our illustration of the elephant and blind men at the beginning. The big question is who chose first and what emphasis does the Bible give on one over the other. What is the biblical balance?

 One of the main Greek words translated by the verb “to choose” is “eklogomai”. The noun “choice” is only found once in the KJV of the NT.

 Acts 15:7   ⁷ And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.

 In Greek, the noun that is related to the verb “to choose” is “eklektos” and is translated as “the elect”. Look at Mark 13:20 where we have verb and noun together.  ²⁰ And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.

 The word “elect” is found 4 times in the OT, all in Isaiah. On one occasion it refers to Christ and the other 3 refer to the nation of Israel. In the NT it is found 16 times. Once it is applied to Christ, once to angels and all the rest apply to the church or Israel.

 Who chose first? Well we know who loved first. According to John, 1 John 4:19   We love him, because he first loved us. 

 Ephesians 1:3-7   ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: {places: or, things}  ⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:  ⁵ Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,  ⁶ To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.  ⁷ In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Who chose first?

Paul wrote, “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.”

Peter in his epistle writes to…. 1 Peter 1:2  the ² Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

 John 15:16-19   ¹⁶ Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.  ¹⁷ These things I command you, that ye love one another.  ¹⁸ If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.  ¹⁹ If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

 It may seem unfair, that God chooses some but not others but let scripture speak for itself.

Romans 9:9-31   ⁹ For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son.  ¹⁰ And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;  ¹¹ (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)  ¹² It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

Romans 9:13-21   ¹³ As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.  ¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.  ¹⁵ For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  ¹⁶ So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.  ¹⁷For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.  ¹⁸Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.  ¹⁹ Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?  ²⁰ Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?  ²¹ Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

 The amazing thing is not why God hated Esau but why God loved Jacob, who was a liar and a cheat.

 Even though God has chosen, the Bible shows that men are still responsible for their actions.

It has been said that God is a gentleman and won’t force you to do anything. Speak to Jonah about that who didn’t want to go to Ninevah but did in the end. Speak to Moses who didn’t want to lead Israel but did. Speak to Balaam who wanted to curse Israel but couldn’t. [He was forced not to curse]

 I cannot understand it all. I cannot explain it all.  BUT  Shouldn’t we love God all the more because He chose us when we did not deserve to be chosen?

 Finally a quote from Spurgeon. [WHO HELPED TO ESTABLISH BETHEL, WIMBLEDON]

 ”Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. … I recollect an Arminian brother telling me that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more times, and he could never find the doctrine of election in them. … There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer – I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from me to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitefield [a Calvinist] and John Wesley [an Arminian]. The character of John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common Christians, and was one of whom the world was not worthy. I believe there are multitudes of men who cannot see the truths, or at least, cannot see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ as their Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinists in or out of heaven.”

 Charles H. Spurgeon, from “A Defense of Calvinism”

Spurgeon realized that great men who were used by God were divided on this issue. Your salvation does not depend on whether you believe in one or the other. We should be mature enough to show love and respect to brothers and sisters in Christ who hold a different view from us on this matter. May God help us do this.