So many people seem to think that, if God is sovereign, choosing people unconditionally before the creation of the world, then this negates the need and the motivation for evangelism and godliness. Far from this, the doctrines of grace give us our only hope in evangelism and our confidence that God will grant us the will to follow Him.
It should make us confident as we strive for godliness.
If it were not for God's election of us, we would be lost in our depravity- dead in sin. Calvin argues that if God chose us to be holy, it naturally follows that he would not have chosen us because he foresaw that we would be so(Inst. III, 22, 3). The fact that God chose the elect to be holy refutes the accusation and misrepresentation that predestination overthrows all exhortations to godly living(Inst. III, 23, 13). Calvin reminds his opponents that election has as its goal, holiness of life, "therefore, it ought to arouse us to eagerly set our mind upon it than to serve as a pretext for doing nothing"(Inst. III, 23, 12). If God's grace is the sole ground for our sanctification then we have every reason to take confidence from it that God will complete the good work he began in us, just as Paul said in Philippians 1:6 " being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." As God proclaims in Isaiah 46:-10, "I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, "My counsel shall stand that I will accomplish all my purpose'
George Mueller is famous for the orphanages he founded and the amazing faith he had to pray for God's provision. Not many people know the theology that undergirded that great ministry. In his mid-twenties (1829) he had an experience which he records later as follows:
"Before this period [when I came to prize the Bible alone as my standard of judgment] I had been much opposed to the doctrines of election, particular redemption (i.e. limited atonement), and final persevering grace. But now I was brought to examine these precious truths by the Word of God. Being made willing to have no glory of my own in the conversion of sinners, but to consider myself merely an instrument; and being made willing to receive what the Scriptures said, I went to the Word, reading the New Testament from the beginning, with a particular reference to these truths.To my great astonishment I found that the passages which speak decidedly for election and persevering grace, were about four times as many as those which speak apparently against these truths; and even those few, shortly after, when I had examined and understood them, served to confirm me in the above doctrines. As to the effect which my belief in these doctrines had on me, I am constrained to state for God's glory, that though I am still exceedingly weak, and by no means so dead to the lusts of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as I might be, and as I ought to be, yet, by the grace of God, I have walked more closely with Him since that period. My life has not been so variable, and I may say that I have lived much more for God than before." (Autobiography, pp. 33-34).
It should make us urgent.
Our calling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbour, irroscpective of whether he is elect or not. Now, the nature of love is to do good and to relieve need. If, then, our neighbour is unconverted, we are to show love to him as best we can by seeking to share with him the good news without which he must needs perish. God has revealed to us that no man can possibly be saved, no matter how remote, without hearing and putting their faith in the specific message of the gospel, of Jesus’ death on the cross for their sins. So Paul continues:
‘How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?’ (Romans 10:12)
It makes us discerning to false teaching.
In John Piper's book, The Pleasures of God (2000), pp. 144-145, He shows that in the 18th century in New England the slide from the sovereignty of God led to Arminianism and thence to universalism and thence to Unitarianism. The same thing happened in England in the 19th century after Spurgeon.
Iain Murray's Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), p. 454, documents the same thing: "Calvinistic convictions waned in North America. In the progress of the decline which Edwards had rightly anticipated, those Congregational churches of New England which had embraced Arminianism after the Great Awakening gradually moved into Unitarianism and universalism, led by Charles Chauncy." You can also read in J. I. Packer's Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), p. 160, how Richard Baxter forsook these teachings and how the following generations reaped a grim harvest in the Baxter church in Kidderminster.
These doctrines give discernment against man-centered teachings in many forms that gradually corrupt the church and make her weak from the inside, all the while looking strong or popular.
It should make us bold.
All mankind from birth in their natural condition are spiritually dead (Col. 2:13, Ephesians 2:1-5), have a hardened heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:25-27), are enemies of God and hostile towards God (Col. 1:21, Rom. 5:10, 8:7), are spiritually deaf ( John 5:25, 8:47, unable to believe in Christ (John 6:44, 1 cor. 2:14), unable to please God (John 15:5), in complete slavery and obedience to sin (John 8:34) along with being a child of the devil (John 8:34-45), under the influence of the devil (Eph. 2:3, 2 Cor. 4:4, 2 Tim. 2:26). Therefore our most clever persuasive arguments could never save a soul. However, God can give His truth an effectiveness that you and I cannot give. If God is sovereign over the election of people then there is assurance that God will be saving people through his word being preached. For this is what he promised.
George Witefield pleaded with John Wesley not to oppose the doctrines of Calvinism stating that it was these beliefs that filled him with holy zeal for evangelism:
"The doctrines of our election, and free justification in Christ Jesus are daily more and more pressed upon my heart. They fill my soul with a holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Saviour. I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave freewill in man and make him, in part at least, a saviour to himself. My soul, come not thou near the secret of those who teach such things...I know Christ is all in all. Man Is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do his good pleasure. Oh, the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the saints' final perseverance! I am persuaded, til a man comes to believe and feel these important truths, he cannot come out of himself, but when convinced of these and assured of their application to his own heart, he then walks by faith indeed!" (Arnold Dalimore, GEORGE WHITEFIELD 1, p. 406).
It should make us patient.
Where does the patience that is so indispensable for evangelistic work? From dwelling on the fact that God is sovereign in grace and that His word does not return to Him void; that it is He who gives us such opportunities as we find for sharing our knowledge of Christ with others, and that He is able in His own good time to enlighten them and bring them to faith. And the way for us to develop this patience is to learn to live in terms of our knowledge of the free and gracious sovereignty of God.
It should make us thankful
We have had God’s eternal effection upon us. Having nothing but guilt, we were chosen to be holy in Christ and nothing can take this away. Paul says in Romans 9 that the Goal of predestination and reprobation is that “God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.” (Rom. 9:22-23) He saved us in Christ to know the riches of His mercy. And what are we supposed to do with this knowledge? Three times Paul says in Ephesians 1 Paul says that “in love he predestined us for adption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace”. (v 4-5) He saved us to praise Him!
It should make us marvel at our own Salvation.
"After laying out the great, God-wrought salvation in Ephesians 1, Paul prays, in the last part of that chapter, that the effect of that theology will be the enlightenment of our hearts so that we marvel at our hope, and at the riches of the glory of our inheritance, and at the power of God at work in us – that is, the power to raise the dead. Every ground of boasting is removed. Brokenhearted joy and gratitude abound." - John Piper
When God has given us a taste of his own majesty and our own wickedness, then the Christian life becomes a thing very different than conventional piety. Jonathan Edwards, the great New England preacher and theologian of the eighteenth century describes it beautifully when he says,
The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope, and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is humble, brokenhearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior (Religious Affections, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959, pp. 339f).
He wrote when he was 26 about the day he fell in love with the sovereignty of God:
"There has been a wonderful alteration in my mind, in respect to the doctrine of God's sovereignty, from that day to this...God's absolute sovereignty...is what my mind seems to rest assured of, as much as of any thing that I see with my eyes...The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God...God's sovereignty has ever appeared to me, a great part of his glory. It has often been my delight to approach God, and adore him as a sovereign God. "
Finally, this confidence should make us prayerful.
Rather he holds that, just because the salvation of sinners depends wholly upon God, prayer for the fruitlfulness of evangelistic preaching is all the more necessary. We are to preach because without knowledge of the gospel no man can be saved. We are to pray, because only the sovereign Holy Spirit in us and in men’s hearts can make our preaching effective to men’s salvation, and God will not send His Spirit where there is no prayer. We should take the New Covenant promises and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and in our neighbors and among all the mission fields of the world:
"God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give him a new heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19).
"Lord, circumcise their hearts so that they love you" (Deuteronomy 30:6).
"Father, put your spirit within them and cause them to walk in Your statutes" (Ezekiel 36:27).
"Lord, grant them repentance and the knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil" (2 Timothy 2:25-46).
"Father, open their hearts so that they believe the gospel" (Acts 16:14).
May God's sovereignty lead us to a greated thankfulness and dependence like Charles Spurgeon who prayed"
"Join with me in prayer at this moment, I entreat you. Join with me while I put words into your mouths, and speak them on your behalf— "Lord, I am guilty, I deserve thy wrath. Lord, I cannot save myself. Lord, I would have a new heart and a right spirit, but what can I do? Lord, I can do nothing, come and work in me to will and to do thy good pleasure.
Thou alone hast power, I know,
To save a wretch like me;
To whom, or whither should I go
If I should run from thee?
But I now do from my very soul call upon thy name. Trembling, yet believing, I cast myself wholly upon thee, O Lord. I trust the blood and righteousness of thy dear Son...Lord, save me tonight, for Jesus' sake." (From Iain Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1973], pp. 101f.)
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