Blog and May Blog

When it comes to the playing out of God’s purpose of grace, in particularly when it comes to the miracles of regeneration and salvation, miracles only made possible by divine intervention, men are ever prone to distort the doctrine of election into some kind of divine discrimination by which deity desires to doom some souls to hell while destining others to heaven. To counter this predictable distortion of the doctrine of election, the Apostle Peter took his divinely inspired pen in hand. In 2 Peter 3:9, he wrote, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

The Greek word Peter uses for “willing” in this verse should be understood as God’s desired will not His decreed will. In other words, though God has not decreed that “none should perish” and “that all should come to repentance,” as the ever-growing number of “scoffers” in the world proves (see 2 Peter 3:3-4), no one should misinterpret this as God’s desire for some men to “perish” due to their own willful refusal to “come to repentance.”

God neither desires nor decrees the forfeiture of the immortal souls of the unrepentant. Man’s refusal to repent of his sin is spawned by his own desire and willful defiance of God. He needs neither divine decree nor divine intervention to deny his need of Christ. He is completely capable of doing so on his own, totally independent of God. Indeed, it is only possible apart from God, since it is, as Peter declares, foreign to God’s desired will for all men.

Have you ever met an unrepentant sinner who complained that God was not overriding his free will and forcing him to repent of his sins? Of course you haven’t; in fact, all unrepentant sinners would be resistant to and infuriated by the mere suggestion of them being forced by divine providence to do anything counter to their personal preference. It is this deifying of one’s self and defiance of the Almighty that epitomizes sin. It is the sinner shaking his fist in the face of divine sovereignty and installing himself as sovereign in his own life by obstinately insisting upon his will over God’s will.

It is true that one occasionally encounters a sinner caught in the throes of sin’s consequences who blames God for his present deployable situation. He protests that God could have prevented him from coming to so ignoble and horrible an end if only divine providence would have put its foot down. If only God would have forced him to desist from his debauchery he would not have ended up downtrodden, down-and-out, diseased, and dying. Still, this protest is prompted by an undesired end and is never made prior to reaping the consequences of one’s sinful desires. It is a complaint over God’s failure to relieve the sinner from sin’s consequences, not over the sinner’s own failure to have repented of his sin.

Contrary to popular opinion, the doctrine of election does not teach that the sinner is forced into hell by the hand of divine providence. Instead, sinners go to hell as a result of their own obstinance. Likewise, no saint is strong-armed into heaven. Instead, all saints must both receive Christ and believe in Christ for themselves (John 1:12; 3:16). Yet, it does take divine intervention in the lives of the saints to enable them to receive and believe.

It is this divine enabling that distinguishes God’s elect, results in the miracle of our salvation, and leaves us with nothing to boast about apart from the cross of Christ. As Paul teaches in Romans 3:27, there will be no strutting on heaven’s golden streets. None of us can take any credit for our salvation. All we can do is give God all of the glory!

The only way for you to deny the biblical doctrine of election and to interpret 2 Peter 3:9 as a declaration of God’s decreed will rather than His desired will is for you to preposterously propose that God is a failure. Think about it; if God has purposed, planned and decreed for all men to be saved, then, the fact that most men are perishing and only a relative few are coming to repentance proves that God’s predetermined plan is failing for the most part. In fact, denying the doctrine of election forces you to conclude that in the battle for men’s souls Satan wins out more often than God and God’s will is being constantly thwarted by fallen men and angels.

Believing the above to be balderdash rather than biblical, I’m a firm believer in the doctrine of election. All of God’s elect will be saved. I know this for sure and certain because my God cannot fail. No power in heaven, on earth, or underneath the earth can thwart His plans and purposes. God will unfailingly deliver on all He has decreed and bring to pass His immutable plans and purposes!

As we pointed out in our previous blog, only God’s elect will be saved. Our sovereign God will see to it that all of His elect are saved, but no one apart from God’s elect will be saved.

Unfortunately, many misinterpret this clear teaching of Scripture to mean that God predestines some men to go to heaven and others to go to hell. While it is true that no one will end up in heaven because of their choice, but only because of God’s choice, it is equally true that no one will end up in hell because of God’s choice, but only because of their own choice.

Men go to hell because they choose sin over the Savior for themselves. They are in need of no divine intervention to do so. The choice comes quite naturally to them, since they’re already sinners by birth and by nature.

All men ultimately come to the age where they “know to do good,” but choose of their own free will to “do it not” (James 4:17). Such a choice is inevitable, since all of fallen humanity are sinners by birth (Psalm 51:5) and by nature (Romans 7:5). Once willfully made, this inevitable choice, proven to be inevitable by Romans 3:23, makes us not only accountable to God for our sin, but also leaves us in desperate need of a Savior.

Unlike our willful choice to sin, our choice of Christ involves the surrendering of our will to His. Far from natural, this is quite unnatural and necessitates the supernatural intervention of God. Only divine intervention can enable a willful sinner to surrender both his sin and will to the Savior. It is within this miracle of regeneration, a miracle the contemporary church is either ignorant of or ignoring, that the precious doctrine of election is played out.

Salvation is of God. It is totally divine; a work of God’s hand devoid of any human fingerprints. It is not, as is often said, “So simple that a little child can understand it.” Instead, it is so stupendous that only a miracle working God can perform it. All who carefully consider what the Scripture says about salvation will be forced to conclude that it is without question God’s most stupendous miracle. For instance, consider the following.

1. We cannot choose Christ unless He has chosen us (John 15:16; Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 1:4-5).
2. We cannot come to Christ unless we are divinely drawn (John 6:44; 12:32).
3. We cannot confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, unless He is divinely revealed to us (Matthew 16:15-17; Galatians 1:11-12).
4. We cannot confess Jesus as Lord unless enabled to do so by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).
5. We cannot believe in Christ unless God gives us the gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8).
6. We will not receive the gift of faith until we hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit speak the written Word of God directly and personally to our hearts (Romans 10:17).
7. We cannot repent of our sins unless God grants us repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25-26).
8. We will not be granted repentance until God breaks our hearts over our sin with a godly sorrow that leads to a repentance never to be repented of (2 Corinthians 7:8-11).

According to the doctrine of election, only God’s elect will be saved. Neither the eloquence of a preacher, the efficiency of a church outreach program, the ingenious composition of a gospel tract, or a Madison Avenue marketing technic will result in the salvation of a single soul whom God has not chosen. Although all of these things may result in the non-elect coming to our churches, none of them will result in the non-elect coming to Christ. We may use these things to add to our church, but only “the Lord” can add to His church “such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47).

As proof of this point, consider Abraham’s response to the rich man’s belief that his brothers would certainly repent if Lazarus rose from the dead to warn them (Luke 16:27-31). Abraham maintained that if the rich man’s brothers would not hear “Moses and the prophets, neither [would] they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Think about it; Jesus rose from the dead, but the vast majority of our world’s population is still unbelieving, unrepentant, and spiritually dead to God in trespasses and sins.

Contrary to popular opinion, the gospel is not a mere matter of human persuasion. It is not us persuading men to pray the “sinner’s prayer.” Many a person has been talked into reciting a prayer who never repented of their sin and became a follower of Christ.

The failure of the prodigious preponderance of present-day converts to be assimilated into the church speaks volumes about contemporary Christianity’s utter inability to make disciples of Christ. Most of those who make a decision for Christ in today’s church have dropped out of church within six to eight weeks. While we may brag about the number of people we are persuading to make “decisions” for Christ, most of those we persuade soon become dropouts rather than lifelong disciples.

According to the Apostle Paul, “the gospel of Christ… is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).  As Paul declared to the Corinthians, “For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:20). The gospel is not a mere matter of us persuading men with our words, but of God miraculously saving them from their sins by His power. Salvation is a miracle of God, not a mere matter of one human persuading and coercing another to make a personal choice or decision.

John Peterson certainly understood this, as proven by his penning of the following:

Unfortunately, we’re living in a day when words no longer convey clear meanings. Thanks to relativism, deconstructionism, and a host of other “isms,” words have become pliable, pliable enough to be molded into different meanings to suit the personal preferences of different people. A single word may be interpreted in various ways by various people, with the unfortunate result of its intended use being misunderstood for something entirely different.

The church is not immune to this modern-day breakdown in communication. And when we add to the vagueness of our present-day vernacular the biblical illiteracy and doctrinal ignorance so prevalent in contemporary congregations, it’s becoming more and more of a challenge to clearly communicate scriptural truths to today’s congregants.

The doctrine of election is one of the great doctrines (teachings) of the Bible that is often misunderstood today. The minute it is mentioned some people conjure up images of God rubbing His hands together as He assigns men’s immortal souls to heaven and hell. How far from such a fanciful and faulty image is the real truth of this incredible teaching of God’s holy Word.

The Bible plainly teaches us that we do not choose God, but God chooses (elects) us. In John 15:16, Jesus said, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you…” According to the Bible, we were chosen by God before we were conceived or born (Jeremiah 1:5). Furthermore, as the Apostle Paul declares in Ephesians 1:4-5, we were chosen by God in Christ before the creation of the world.

Why did God choose us to be His children? Paul says it was simply because God wanted to and was pleased to do so! It had nothing to do with God’s foreknowledge of the lives we would live or the things we would do. If it did, then, our conduct, not God’s choosing would be the determinative factor in our salvation. Our salvation would be a matter of God’s foreknowledge rather than His favor.

The Scripture makes it unmistakably clear that we are saved by God’s grace (favor) not by any works of our own (Ephesians 2:8-9). In fact, it goes on to teach that our “good works” are preordained by God for us to perform (Ephesians 2:10). They are not just divinely foreknown, but also divinely foreordained.

Despite the clear teachings of Scripture, some still argue that God’s election is based upon His foreknowledge of our choosing of Christ. In other words, God chooses us because He knows we’re going to choose Christ. However, this can’t be the case, since this would predicate His choice of us on our choice of Christ, rendering the words of Jesus in John 15:16 untrue. The truth of the Scripture is actually the opposite of this fallacious argument. God’s choice of us is not predicated by God’s foreknowledge of our future choice of Christ; instead, our choice of Christ is predicated by God’s favor and prior choice of us!

I believe erroneously attributing God’s election of us to His foreknowledge of our reception of Christ is the primary reason for the shallow conception of salvation so prevalent in the contemporary church. We have reduced salvation to a matter of our choice rather than God’s. By doing so we have made ourselves “Almighty” in the process, as though our personal salvation is totally up to us. It’s nothing more than a mere matter of our choosing.

Tragically, the prevalent belief and teaching in today’s church is that salvation can be had whenever we choose. Rather than being a matter of God’s will and His good pleasure, as the Bible plainly teaches (John 1:13; Ephesians 1:5), we teach that anyone can be saved whenever they take the notion. It’s as though we believe the Savior is standing by ever ready to save the sinner at the sinner’s good pleasure.

Far from teaching that we can be saved anytime we say so, the Bible teaches that we can only be saved when God says so. This explains why the Bible warns us, “Today if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:8, 15; 4:7). You can only come to Christ when the Spirit calls. It is imperative therefore that you come whenever you hear the still, small voice of the Spirit, lest your heart become calloused and you never again hear the Spirit’s call.

One cannot help but wonder where today’s evangelicals are getting their rosy view of things to come. Where on the pages of sacred Scripture do they find an earth-shaking church bringing the world’s masses to their knees before the Master? I don’t know about you, but my Bible speaks of a spiritually deceived, unrepentant, and blasphemous end-time world that worships “the beast,” hates the truth, and rejoices over the demise of the church, Christ’s witnesses in the world (2 Thessalonians 2:7-12; Revelation 16:9, 11; 13:3-4; 11:10). Even our Lord asked if He would “find faith on the earth” when He returns (Luke 18:8).

Though few will acknowledge it and most will hear nothing of it, we are living in dark times. Furthermore, the times are growing ever darker. The church’s potential for impacting this world for Christ is waning, as Christ’s Himself predicted it would (John 9:4). Still, this doesn’t provide us with an excuse for compromise or unfaithfulness.

As Paul taught in Romans 11:4-5, God always has a faithful remnant. Contrary to popular opinion, “We the people” have always been opposed to God. It is never the majority but always a very small minority in any given age that decides: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

As part of God’s present-day faithful remnant it is contingent upon us to ever be true. Victory is not found in our winning over this Christ-rejecting world, which the Bible decidedly declares we’ll never do, but in us remaining faithful witnesses of Christ within it.

If we prove ourselves faithful to the end, then Christ has a victor’s crown laid up for us (2 Timothy 4:8). If not, we must content ourselves with the temporal laurels of a reprobate world, something the contemporary church appears to be gratified by and determined to pursue.

Though many modern-day evangelicals are either blind to it or intentionally shutting their eyes to it, the harsh reality of our times is that the church is being painted into an inescapable corner by the unseen hand of divine providence. Yes, I said “divine providence.” As the Almighty puts the finishing touches on this fallen world’s biblically predicted end-time scenario, He is forcing His church to decide whether to cave in and compromise or courageously stand for Christ in spite of cost and consequence. Unfortunately, it currently appears that Christendom is overwhelmingly opting for the former rather than the latter, which may be seen as the rising specter of the Scripture’s predicted end-time apostate church.

Many will vehemently protest and readily dismiss everything I’m saying as the mere musings of an incorrigible defeatist. Shrugging me off as an incurable cynic, they will continue to believe that the ends justify the means and that results are the true standard by which spiritual success is to be gauged. To them it all boils down to church growth, not church purity. It’s a simple matter of nickels and noses, of budgets, buildings and baptisms. The bottom line is filling pews and offering plates. Little do they realize that such a philosophy is prostituting the contemporary church to the world and turning it into the biblically predicted mother of all harlots.

Spiritual success is not, nor has it ever been, determined by worldly results. The results are out of our hands; they are totally up to God. As the Scripture teaches, God adds to the church those who “should be saved” (Acts 2:47). All we can do is be faithful to God in hopes of being used by Him to bring those predestined for salvation to the Savior.

Faithfulness alone serves as the true standard by which spiritual success is to be gauged. We are not answerable to God for the results. God will personally see to it that His plans and purposes are unfailingly fulfilled. Thus, we need not worry about the results. Our only responsibility is to be faithful to God so that He might use us in bringing to pass within this world His predetermined ends.

Throughout the Scripture we are taught that the distinguishing mark of “the just” is their “faith” (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38). It is not worldly success. In fact, very few of the faithful have ever enjoyed much of it, including our Lord, who was crucified rather than crowned. The sole criteria by which our spiritual success is to be determined is our faith in God and faithfulness to Him.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to be spiritually successful in a church with few parishioners in its pews and a paltry sum in its coffers. One might even conclude, in light of our world’s growing hostility toward Christ, that it will become increasingly unlikely in the days ahead to find the spiritually successful (faithful) in any other kind of church. Since big crowds and bulging coffers are becoming more and more contingent upon compromise, packed pews and padded offering plates may become more emblematic in the future of churches who are selling out rather than standing firm.

So far in this series of blogs we’ve learned the following.

❶ The lostness of our world cannot be easily explained away by the poor marketing and unpolished sales-pitches of an unsophisticated church bereft of public relations skills.

❷ The spirit of our age—the hostility of today’s profane culture toward all things Christian—cannot sweep us out the door of the local church and into spiritual “Reawakening,” as pollster George Barna contends.

❸ The preaching of the cross is unavoidably offensive to a world populated by men who believe in their own innate goodness.

In light of these lessons learned, it appears to me that we should be able to dispense once and for all with the novel notion of spoon-feeding a palatable gospel to a truth regurgitating world.

There’s simply no way for the church to carry out the ministry of reconciliation, a ministry entrusted to it by Christ, in a way that will accommodate our modern-day reprobate world. Today’s reprobates insist upon their personal beliefs not being questioned, their consciences not being pricked, and their sinful lifestyles being confirmed. If the church fails to acclimate itself to these universal demands of today’s politically correct culture it will definitely be vilified and marginalized in the eyes of this planet’s profane populace.

Make no mistake about it; the uncompromising church is and will continue to be universally and unquestionably condemned as the lone perpetrator of the sole unpardonable sin of our time. What is this single intolerable transgression? It is simply the belief in absolute truth!

In our current relativistic age, all “truths” are acceptable as long as they are seen as comparable and compatible with all others. In other words, everyone’s beliefs must be seen as equally valid and no one’s belief as superior or inferior to another. You’re free to believe whatever you like, just as long as you don’t really believe it. It doesn’t matter if it is absolutely false or absurdly foolish, all that matters is that you’re not ardent about it.

The only forbidden belief today is true belief in what is absolutely true, which automatically relegates all other beliefs to the realm of untruth, even sweeping some into the dustbin of sheer lunacy. To bravely cross this line of fervently held personal convictions in today’s politically correct culture is to be instantly branded and banished, branded as intolerant and therefore banished from public discourse.

For us to tell the Muslim of his need of Christ, as Christ’s commissioned us to do, is for us to be condemned as Islamophobes. For us to tell the homosexual of his need of repentance, as Christ’s commissioned us to do, is for us to be condemned as homophobes. For us to confront the cultist’s beliefs, as Christ’s commissioned us to do, is for us to be condemned as intolerant of the beliefs of others. And for us to preach an unadulterated gospel, which is now roundly condemned as hate speech, is for us to be condemned as hatemongers.

There’s simply no way around it; we either fulfill Christ’s Great Commission or conform ourselves to a reprobate world. We either concern ourselves with preaching or polls, with people’s feelings or souls. We can’t do both. The choice is ours.