"Speak softly and carry a big stick." -- words of a former President of the United States
". . .but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice." -- an experience of one of God's prophets in 1 Kings 19
If the outward call of the gospel is all we need for people to come to faith in Christ, then we need to think of the most clever, ingenuous, innovative, convincing, dramatic, energetic and successful ways to get the Word out and be done with it.
But since there is something else and more besides the outward call of the gospel, then we should not rely upon the most clever, ingenuous, innovative, convincing, dramatic, energetic and successful ways to get the Word out and be done with it.
Why do we pray for lost folks as well as witness to lost folks? Is it not because--even though we may not have thought of it along these lines before--that we know there are two calls and not just one? We "share the gospel", because that is what God has told us to do. We pray, because that is what God has told us to do.
By praying are we not saying something like this--"Lord, convict my friend _________ of his sin, open his eyes to see the truth, open his heart to receive You into his life, humble him and help him to see his need of You, etc."? Notice how we frame all our prayers for the lost to be saved. How can we pray otherwise? With all our prayers for those lost friends, acquaintances, or family members, we are asking for God to regenerate their hearts, for God to call them irresistibly to Himself. Why else do we pray, if it is not because we know that all our outward calls will amount to nothing unless God provides the inner call of His Spirit?
So I guess those who want to fight against this precious biblical truth of irresistible grace need to quit praying at all for the lost to be saved, in order for their actions to match their words.
We read in Acts 16:14 about a woman named Lydia, "whose heart the Lord opened (that is the inner, irresistible call of God), that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul (that is the outward call of the gospel)." We never once read in the Bible of anyone "opening up their own hearts to receive Christ", nor do we read of any preacher of the gospel asking people "to open up their hearts." I guess we would expect to find those things in Scripture if there were only the outward call of the gospel and if people were really not dead in their sin.
Since we do not know whom our Lord is calling, we extend the call of the gospel to everyone. (Mark 16:15) It is not for us to pry into God's business; we are simply to do the Father's business.
Jesus is no wild, raving publcity seeker who must shout at the top of His lungs to get any attention. "He shall not strive, nor cry out, neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench, till He sends forth judgment unto victory." (Matthew 12:19-20) Since He is gentle and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29), this irresistible grace or effectual, inner call is not the call of the wild; it is the call of the mild.
God's call to those whom He has fore loved, predestined, justified and glorified (Romans 8:28-30) is not some detectable, dramatic, boisterous call that thunders from the heavens for all to hear. The call is not like an earthquake, a wind storm, or a fire. It is the precious, indescribable, unfathomable, discreet still small voice of a loving God in hot pursuit of a hell bound sinner.
How does God draw His own to Himself (John 6:44)? The Jews who heard Jesus' words in John 6 should have known the answer to that question. How did Yahweh God draw the Israelites to Himself in the Old Testament? "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love." (Hosea 11:4) God's call to any of us is irresistible because His love sweeps us off our feet. This is the call of the mild.
Concerning Teddy Roosevelt's advice, we don't have it said that Jesus carried a big stick around when He walked the earth. Maybe His big stick was the Resurrection. If He can raise Himself from the dead by His own power, then He does not need to raise His voice. He has spoken softly to millions upon millions of lost sinners, and that call of the mild works every time.
Called by God's grace,
Chris
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Gentle Mental
In a previous article I mentioned how I heard a definition for the doctrine of election when I was much younger, that at the time made much sense to me. "Election is when God casts a vote for you to be saved, the devil casts a vote for you not to be saved, and you have the tie-breaking vote." By using some gentle mental, though, one can begin to see that there are more holes in that statement than there are in a donut shop. Not as a way to brandish a sword against someone, nor to show arrogant one-up-manship over someone, you can use that above statement to get that someone to use some gentle mental on his or her own.
You can begin by quoting the definition and then asking the person if he or she agrees with that statement, and then ask him or her, Why or why not. Then after you listen thoughtfully to the reply given, without any sort of interruption or dead giveaway body language, you can gently point out what would be the only conclusion if that statement were indeed true. Either the devil is on the same level as God (each one has the same number of votes), or worse yet, you are more powerful and influential than both God and the devil, since you have the tie-breaking vote.
What may be the hardest assignment today is to get professing Christians, who are active church goers, to use the mind that God gave them, especially in a day when spiritual showbiz or postmodern thought may await them each Sunday. It can be done, though, in a one-on-one encounter with gentleness and patience, without trying to play "gotcha." Here are some gentle mental questions that you can insert into a conversation with a friend:
1. Must God have our permission before He can do anything? I have heard people say something along these lines, "You must allow God. . .", or "Permit God to. . ."
2. Can you give me all the times where "free will" is used in the Bible to describe the essential feature of every sinful man?
3. Did and does Jesus Himself have a free will? (Free will means the equal ability to choose to sin or to choose not to sin, to choose God or not to choose God, to decide to repent or to decide not to repent, etc.)
4. If Jesus died for all the sin (which naturally would include the sin of unbelief) of everyone everywhere, then why aren't all people saved?
5. How much life is there in a dead person? (See Ephesians 2:1f to get my drift.)
6. Why is man commanded to repent of sin and believe in Christ, but there is no commandment for us to be born again?
7. What does a dead person need before he can do anything?
8. Why do so many Christians love to quote Romans 8:28 and very few of them it seems will refer to the rest of the verses that follow?
It is to this last question we now turn as we work our way through the five points of salvation: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement (or better yet, Successful atonement), and now we arrive at Irresistible Grace (or the effectual call).
When I was a boy playing outside with my friends down the street, toward supper time my mom would step out on our front porch (sorry, kids of today, but this was before we had cell phones) and say as loud as she could in her typical warm voice, "Chris, you need to come in now. It's time for supper." There might be an occasion or two (or more, but who's counting?) when I failed to hear my mother's simple request. I was having too much fun with my friends, or I was up to bat at the time. If I failed to "hear" my mother's call to me, a couple of minutes might pass, and my dad would step out on the front porch and yell something in a very manly tone of voice, "William Chris Humphreys. You come in right now. It's time to eat."
The call of my mother was a resistible call. The call of my dad was an irresistible call. (There is probably a good number of people reading this who knows exactly what I am talking about from their own personal experience!)
I could probably cite an even better illustration. A young bride sees her new husband go off to Afghanistan. He is at a location he can not disclose and communication back home is non-existent most of the time. One day this young bride gets a telephone call from an annoying telemarketer in the middle of the day. After midnight when she has already gone to bed and has been asleep for a couple of hours, she gets an unexpected, surprised call from the love of her life. Now which one of those calls do you think would be properly classified as a resistible call, and which one would be correctly identified as an irresistible call?
Here's the deal. The Bible mentions both kind of calls we get. There is the resistible call. Left in our natural state, every time we hear the outward call of the gospel, we consider it along the lines of an annoying telemarketer. God is bothering me, and I wish He would leave me alone. Or like in my case as a boy, I refuse to hear God speaking to me just like I refused to hear my mom on occasions. I am having too much fun in my sin to hear God speak to me. Such is the plight of every lost person.
All calls to a dead person go unheeded. I tried calling my mom one evening, to be exact, on February 8, 2001, and she did not answer the phone at her apartment. My sister called and got no response. A good friend called as well. None of us got any response when we tried to call her. My mom had died of a cardiac arrest, and she was sitting in her favorite chair in her apartment when we got there. No wonder she did not answer any of our phone calls; she was dead.
That's how it is with all of us who are dead in our sin (Ephesians 2:1, Colossians 2:13). The phone could ring off the hook countless nights long, and my mom wouldn't hear them nor respond to them. All the screaming I could muster up in the ears of my deceased mom would do no good. All the outward calls we give to lost people will have the exact same effect, if all we have to go on are the outward calls of preaching, witnessing, the written Word, gospel tracts, testimonies or other good forms we have at our disposal.
All of us would resist God all the time if it were not for the second kind of call that God gives to many. It's the kind of call mentioned in Romans 8:28 and following. ". . .to those who are THE CALLED (literal Greek has "the called") according to His purpose." The Greek word for our English word "church" literally means "the called out ones." It is only those who love God who are the called out ones, according to Romans 8:28.
I know a lot of Christians read Romans 8:28 without thinking along these lines. I can relate, because I did that myself for a good number of years. We quote it in rapid-fire fashion, and we use it to console or encourage others or ourselves, but we fail to see that this promise is given to a very specific group of people that are specifically identified as "the called", those who have received an irresistible inward call of God which enables them to overcome their natural dead-in-sin-and-trespasses resistance to God so that now they love God. God is not some big annoyance that shows up in the middle of our lives; He has now become the adoring King over all areas of our lives.
Some people get the wrong notion when they hear the term, "irresistible grace." They imagine that there are people that are zapped into salvation, or that they go kicking and screaming against their wills into God's kingdom. They are saved when they don't want to be saved, because it is "irresistible", beyond their power to say "no." Nothing could be further from the truth. Do you think that the young bride who gets a call from her husband in Afghanistan has to be forced into talking to her husband, even if she wakes up with a splitting headache after a few hours sleep? Do you think she is kicking and screaming in protest in having to take this call from her love? Or is it more likely that a team of wild horses could not and would not keep her from talking to her husband?
This special kind of call from God is irresistible in the same sense, that when the new Love of our life calls us, nothing will stand in the way of our coming to Him. We are drawn to Christ just like a newborn is drawn to its mother. When a person is born again, or becomes a newborn spiritually (regeneration), God unilaterally and unconditionally gives life where there was death; He takes away the old "will" that would not and could not come to Christ (John 5:40, 6:44, 6:65), and He replaces it with a new "will" that will freely, readily, eagerly and lovingly come in faith and repentance to the new Love in his life (John 6:37). Whereas before God was nothing but like an annoying telemarketer or a disturbing figure who was intruding into the fun I was having in my life, now He has become my chief treasure and the One who instills me within life eternally and more abundantly. (I may not have liked it at the start, but I'm so glad I listened to my dad's irresistible calls at times, because my mom was a great cook, and I never left her table unsatisfied! I could live without an extra inning of baseball, but I could not live without my mom's cooking.)
This article has probably become too lengthy, such that some might find this piece too "resistible" by now. With that being so, I better wrap up things for now.
Just one final thought though--if a person will come to know the different calls mentioned in Scripture, so much of God's Word will fall into place now. For example, have you wondered what Jesus meant when He said on more than one occasion, "Many are called, but few are chosen"? (Matthew 20:16, 22:14) Many do receive the outward call of God through sermons, evangelism, missions, testimonies, written literature, etc., but only a few are chosen (the elect ones), who receive an additional type of call, an irresistible call, whereby one comes freely to Christ to be saved.
God commands us to do what we can do. We must call all sinners to come to Christ. We extend the outward call of the gospel to anyone and to everyone. But all of that is for naught if it were not for the inward effectual irresistible call of God. When and only when a person receives this special calling from God will that person call out to God to be saved. We find that in Acts 2 when in the same evangelistic sermon Peter said "whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (v.21) and later he said, "for the promise to unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call (v.39)." One can not level the charge that knowing and teaching all these truths will shut down our evangelistic efforts. It sure didn't stop Peter one bit. About three thousand were called by God that day, and that same three thousand called upon God.
"For our gospel came not to you in word only (the outward call of the gospel), but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. . .(the inner, irresistible call) 1 Thessalonians 1:5
I do thank the Lord for those loving parents and other faithful Christians who extended the gospel call to me when I was a boy, but I praise my sovereign, good Lord for that sweet, regenerating call of God's Spirit which enabled me to respond to those cumulative outward calls.
Called by God's grace,
Chris
You can begin by quoting the definition and then asking the person if he or she agrees with that statement, and then ask him or her, Why or why not. Then after you listen thoughtfully to the reply given, without any sort of interruption or dead giveaway body language, you can gently point out what would be the only conclusion if that statement were indeed true. Either the devil is on the same level as God (each one has the same number of votes), or worse yet, you are more powerful and influential than both God and the devil, since you have the tie-breaking vote.
What may be the hardest assignment today is to get professing Christians, who are active church goers, to use the mind that God gave them, especially in a day when spiritual showbiz or postmodern thought may await them each Sunday. It can be done, though, in a one-on-one encounter with gentleness and patience, without trying to play "gotcha." Here are some gentle mental questions that you can insert into a conversation with a friend:
1. Must God have our permission before He can do anything? I have heard people say something along these lines, "You must allow God. . .", or "Permit God to. . ."
2. Can you give me all the times where "free will" is used in the Bible to describe the essential feature of every sinful man?
3. Did and does Jesus Himself have a free will? (Free will means the equal ability to choose to sin or to choose not to sin, to choose God or not to choose God, to decide to repent or to decide not to repent, etc.)
4. If Jesus died for all the sin (which naturally would include the sin of unbelief) of everyone everywhere, then why aren't all people saved?
5. How much life is there in a dead person? (See Ephesians 2:1f to get my drift.)
6. Why is man commanded to repent of sin and believe in Christ, but there is no commandment for us to be born again?
7. What does a dead person need before he can do anything?
8. Why do so many Christians love to quote Romans 8:28 and very few of them it seems will refer to the rest of the verses that follow?
It is to this last question we now turn as we work our way through the five points of salvation: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement (or better yet, Successful atonement), and now we arrive at Irresistible Grace (or the effectual call).
When I was a boy playing outside with my friends down the street, toward supper time my mom would step out on our front porch (sorry, kids of today, but this was before we had cell phones) and say as loud as she could in her typical warm voice, "Chris, you need to come in now. It's time for supper." There might be an occasion or two (or more, but who's counting?) when I failed to hear my mother's simple request. I was having too much fun with my friends, or I was up to bat at the time. If I failed to "hear" my mother's call to me, a couple of minutes might pass, and my dad would step out on the front porch and yell something in a very manly tone of voice, "William Chris Humphreys. You come in right now. It's time to eat."
The call of my mother was a resistible call. The call of my dad was an irresistible call. (There is probably a good number of people reading this who knows exactly what I am talking about from their own personal experience!)
I could probably cite an even better illustration. A young bride sees her new husband go off to Afghanistan. He is at a location he can not disclose and communication back home is non-existent most of the time. One day this young bride gets a telephone call from an annoying telemarketer in the middle of the day. After midnight when she has already gone to bed and has been asleep for a couple of hours, she gets an unexpected, surprised call from the love of her life. Now which one of those calls do you think would be properly classified as a resistible call, and which one would be correctly identified as an irresistible call?
Here's the deal. The Bible mentions both kind of calls we get. There is the resistible call. Left in our natural state, every time we hear the outward call of the gospel, we consider it along the lines of an annoying telemarketer. God is bothering me, and I wish He would leave me alone. Or like in my case as a boy, I refuse to hear God speaking to me just like I refused to hear my mom on occasions. I am having too much fun in my sin to hear God speak to me. Such is the plight of every lost person.
All calls to a dead person go unheeded. I tried calling my mom one evening, to be exact, on February 8, 2001, and she did not answer the phone at her apartment. My sister called and got no response. A good friend called as well. None of us got any response when we tried to call her. My mom had died of a cardiac arrest, and she was sitting in her favorite chair in her apartment when we got there. No wonder she did not answer any of our phone calls; she was dead.
That's how it is with all of us who are dead in our sin (Ephesians 2:1, Colossians 2:13). The phone could ring off the hook countless nights long, and my mom wouldn't hear them nor respond to them. All the screaming I could muster up in the ears of my deceased mom would do no good. All the outward calls we give to lost people will have the exact same effect, if all we have to go on are the outward calls of preaching, witnessing, the written Word, gospel tracts, testimonies or other good forms we have at our disposal.
All of us would resist God all the time if it were not for the second kind of call that God gives to many. It's the kind of call mentioned in Romans 8:28 and following. ". . .to those who are THE CALLED (literal Greek has "the called") according to His purpose." The Greek word for our English word "church" literally means "the called out ones." It is only those who love God who are the called out ones, according to Romans 8:28.
I know a lot of Christians read Romans 8:28 without thinking along these lines. I can relate, because I did that myself for a good number of years. We quote it in rapid-fire fashion, and we use it to console or encourage others or ourselves, but we fail to see that this promise is given to a very specific group of people that are specifically identified as "the called", those who have received an irresistible inward call of God which enables them to overcome their natural dead-in-sin-and-trespasses resistance to God so that now they love God. God is not some big annoyance that shows up in the middle of our lives; He has now become the adoring King over all areas of our lives.
Some people get the wrong notion when they hear the term, "irresistible grace." They imagine that there are people that are zapped into salvation, or that they go kicking and screaming against their wills into God's kingdom. They are saved when they don't want to be saved, because it is "irresistible", beyond their power to say "no." Nothing could be further from the truth. Do you think that the young bride who gets a call from her husband in Afghanistan has to be forced into talking to her husband, even if she wakes up with a splitting headache after a few hours sleep? Do you think she is kicking and screaming in protest in having to take this call from her love? Or is it more likely that a team of wild horses could not and would not keep her from talking to her husband?
This special kind of call from God is irresistible in the same sense, that when the new Love of our life calls us, nothing will stand in the way of our coming to Him. We are drawn to Christ just like a newborn is drawn to its mother. When a person is born again, or becomes a newborn spiritually (regeneration), God unilaterally and unconditionally gives life where there was death; He takes away the old "will" that would not and could not come to Christ (John 5:40, 6:44, 6:65), and He replaces it with a new "will" that will freely, readily, eagerly and lovingly come in faith and repentance to the new Love in his life (John 6:37). Whereas before God was nothing but like an annoying telemarketer or a disturbing figure who was intruding into the fun I was having in my life, now He has become my chief treasure and the One who instills me within life eternally and more abundantly. (I may not have liked it at the start, but I'm so glad I listened to my dad's irresistible calls at times, because my mom was a great cook, and I never left her table unsatisfied! I could live without an extra inning of baseball, but I could not live without my mom's cooking.)
This article has probably become too lengthy, such that some might find this piece too "resistible" by now. With that being so, I better wrap up things for now.
Just one final thought though--if a person will come to know the different calls mentioned in Scripture, so much of God's Word will fall into place now. For example, have you wondered what Jesus meant when He said on more than one occasion, "Many are called, but few are chosen"? (Matthew 20:16, 22:14) Many do receive the outward call of God through sermons, evangelism, missions, testimonies, written literature, etc., but only a few are chosen (the elect ones), who receive an additional type of call, an irresistible call, whereby one comes freely to Christ to be saved.
God commands us to do what we can do. We must call all sinners to come to Christ. We extend the outward call of the gospel to anyone and to everyone. But all of that is for naught if it were not for the inward effectual irresistible call of God. When and only when a person receives this special calling from God will that person call out to God to be saved. We find that in Acts 2 when in the same evangelistic sermon Peter said "whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (v.21) and later he said, "for the promise to unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call (v.39)." One can not level the charge that knowing and teaching all these truths will shut down our evangelistic efforts. It sure didn't stop Peter one bit. About three thousand were called by God that day, and that same three thousand called upon God.
"For our gospel came not to you in word only (the outward call of the gospel), but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. . .(the inner, irresistible call) 1 Thessalonians 1:5
I do thank the Lord for those loving parents and other faithful Christians who extended the gospel call to me when I was a boy, but I praise my sovereign, good Lord for that sweet, regenerating call of God's Spirit which enabled me to respond to those cumulative outward calls.
Called by God's grace,
Chris
Friday, July 10, 2009
A Non-Typical "Dear John" Letter
Dear John,
I don't know why I am writing this to you, because I know it won't reach you. Since it is your birthday, I felt I had to do something to honor you. Five hundred years ago today, on July 10, 1509, the Lord blessed your parents with a little boy who was destined by God to become a great champion of the faith. Your legacy lives on today, although I am sad to report, many would deny your contributions, and others would love to rid your name altogether from the annals of history.
Much has changed since you walked on God's green earth. Sometimes I wish you were still around, but then again I am happy for you considering where you are. Then again, according to Methusaleh's calculations, if you were still alive today, you would have only reached mid-life by now.
I live in a new country that was not even born when you died. Our first President was a man by the name of George, and he is affectionately called the Father of our Country. While that is true, in reality you, John, deserve that title. Our country was birthed out of Europe, and in particular, the Protestant Reformation. Even many historians today see the direct link to what you espoused in your lifetime, such as a representative form of republic, free market capitalism, individual entrepreneurial spirit, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, among other things, and what we have enjoyed in our nation now for over two hundred years. (I must confess, though, that many of those cherished traditions are under attack from many corners.)
I read a book once on our nation's constitution, and the respected author freely admits that he was not a follower of all your ideas. In a footnote, though, he honestly acknowledges that most of what we find in our founding documents are borrowed from your understanding of Scripture. Of course, that understanding was not yours alone, but was shared by countless number of peoples who initially came to our country, namely the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Separatists, and other like-minded groups. For example, the biblical teaching on the total depravity of man had a huge role in our country's founding fathers when they drew up three branches of government with all the checks and balances that were needed to protect us against man's despotic sinful nature.
Sadly, our country went through a big cultural shift in the first half of the 1800s, and we have not recovered from it. Early in our nation's history we had two great awakenings from God, heaven-sent revivals with thousands of conversions that swept across our land and preserved it from internal spiritual and moral collapse. While there were many men who God used in those two great movements from God, the two most prominent men were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, great preachers of the gospel that followed in your theological footsteps. Since our country has turned away from our doctrinal heritage as a nation, we have not seen a genuine mass movement of God in our country for over two hundred years now. What was generally held to be true by many at one time in our nation's history has been either swept under the rug or given the boot out the back door in most places of worship today.
What pains me more than anything is that those who profess the name of Christ do not know who you are, or what you stood for, or they don't care. We have moved on, and we are more into other things now. We have lots of religion, just like in your day, but as you wrote and preached about on so many occasions, many can have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Tares grow up with wheat. Wolves don sheep's clothing. An outward profession does not mean an inward possession.
As you taught so well and so consistently, God truly is sovereign in everything in the universe, and that includes the salvation of man. Today, we may give lip service to your sovereignty, so long your sovereignty does not interfere with man's sovereignty over some things. Today man must increase, even if it causes God to decrease some.
There are many today who go way beyond of just ignoring you and your contributions. There are those who revile you, who will curl up their nose and upper lip at the mention of your name, who accuse you of the most vilest things imaginable. Some will say that you were harsh, stern, unloving, judgmental, overly strict, Pharisaical, unevangelistic, and other things I dare not mention. After all, it is supposed to be your birthday. Those who knew you best and up close know those things were simply untrue. You were a loving family man and a gentle humble shepherd of God's flock under your care. You had an enduring and endearing passion for souls, for the Word of God, and for God's glory.
We have a leader in our country whom some think would make a great leader over all our country. She was a governor of one of our fifty states, and many believe she has been unfairly targeted with the most baseless attacks on her character. Whether she would be a great national leader or not is debatable, and that is beside the point. I just wish that those who criticize you most will step back and see that they are doing the same things against you that many say are being done against this governor, or anybody else who is being slandered and falsely attacked.
I have heard in my lifetime that people don't want to be associated with you in any way, because "we should not follow any one man, and that we should only follow the Lord." You would be the first one to agree with that statement. I guess people are really scared or irked when they hear people who basically agree with you as being called by your last name with an -ist tucked on at the end. Knowing your high commitment to the name of Christ you would be horrified and disgusted yourself if you knew that people are identified by your last name. You would do your best to put a stop to it, but with that being said, in our day we don't follow one man; we follow many men, we adore many men, we worship many men, and those men sometimes have very little in common with the biblical gospel.
The nature of Christianity today in our country is that we will identify ourselves with the latest anything that comes along. Several days ago we saw a very popular man by the name of Michael die. I can't go over all his life story, John, because you wouldn't understand it, and you especially couldn't understand how millions of people could watch his funeral service all over the world. A lot has changed, John, like I said. But after hearing with my own ears and after seeing things with my own eyes what has said and done at this man's funeral, I almost became convinced that they needed to keep his dead body under heavy guard where they had his funeral service for at least three days, lest his followers come steal his body. And then on the third day, everyone could come back to the same place and watch this Michael guy dance his way out of his coffin. It is ironic and contradictory, to say the least, when people accuse us of following you, just because we believe you on some key doctrinal points, when today there are people who fall down and worship all sorts of individuals all the time. That is done all the time in religious circles too.
John, I don't agree with you on every single point you taught, and I don't follow you in the sense I should follow Christ and Him alone. At the same time, the Bible says we ought to obey our leaders who spoke the Word of God to us, submit to them, consider the outcome of their lives, and imitate their faith. So, John, while others may spurn you, deny you, ignore you, ridicule you, and attack you, I want to thank you on your birthday, or more especially I want to thank the good Lord for giving you to us. Even though you are dead, you still speak. I have many of your writings in my personal library. That's not a bad legacy for someone who was born 500 years ago.
I must end this "Dear John" letter on an encouraging note. Maybe we are seeing a reversal of trends in our country. Due to whole host of factors working together, more and more people are coming around to see and accept what you taught, preached and wrote during your lifetime. How shall I word it? There are many alternative ways of educating our young people today, and because of that, so many people are learning for the first time the glories of Reformation history. While at one time old books by these great saints of the past like the Puritans were buried under layers of dust in some remote library archives, they are now being printed and published the world over. People are reading what they have to say, and people's minds are being opened up to truths forgotten or buried under layers of dust in near and faraway pulpits.
Added to all that, numerous bold preachers have stepped forward to herald these great truths, and two of the most notable men carry your first name. One preacher John is from a state called California, and the other preacher John is from a state called Minnesota. Because we have ways of communication that are far numerous and superior than what you had in your day, John, these preachers, and others just like them, are getting the Word out to a massive worldwide audience. (You would be pleased to know a long time after you God raised up another John, this time in England, who wrote a book called Pilgrim's Progress. It is the most read and published religious book in the world, second only to the Bible.)
So maybe, just maybe, things are looking up, John, in our day. That is where we should be looking any way, since He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Happy birthday, John. I will see you one day in glory. I will know where to find you then. You will be at the feet of One who saved you by His grace, and that is where we all will be. Some or many may fight it now, but then at that time all must and will acknowledge that salvation was and is entirely from God. May that recognition come sooner, though, and not later. Thank you, dear Lord, for using your servant John for many to come to that recognition sooner, and may many more follow in those same paths.
Yours by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for God's glory alone,
Chris
I don't know why I am writing this to you, because I know it won't reach you. Since it is your birthday, I felt I had to do something to honor you. Five hundred years ago today, on July 10, 1509, the Lord blessed your parents with a little boy who was destined by God to become a great champion of the faith. Your legacy lives on today, although I am sad to report, many would deny your contributions, and others would love to rid your name altogether from the annals of history.
Much has changed since you walked on God's green earth. Sometimes I wish you were still around, but then again I am happy for you considering where you are. Then again, according to Methusaleh's calculations, if you were still alive today, you would have only reached mid-life by now.
I live in a new country that was not even born when you died. Our first President was a man by the name of George, and he is affectionately called the Father of our Country. While that is true, in reality you, John, deserve that title. Our country was birthed out of Europe, and in particular, the Protestant Reformation. Even many historians today see the direct link to what you espoused in your lifetime, such as a representative form of republic, free market capitalism, individual entrepreneurial spirit, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, among other things, and what we have enjoyed in our nation now for over two hundred years. (I must confess, though, that many of those cherished traditions are under attack from many corners.)
I read a book once on our nation's constitution, and the respected author freely admits that he was not a follower of all your ideas. In a footnote, though, he honestly acknowledges that most of what we find in our founding documents are borrowed from your understanding of Scripture. Of course, that understanding was not yours alone, but was shared by countless number of peoples who initially came to our country, namely the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Separatists, and other like-minded groups. For example, the biblical teaching on the total depravity of man had a huge role in our country's founding fathers when they drew up three branches of government with all the checks and balances that were needed to protect us against man's despotic sinful nature.
Sadly, our country went through a big cultural shift in the first half of the 1800s, and we have not recovered from it. Early in our nation's history we had two great awakenings from God, heaven-sent revivals with thousands of conversions that swept across our land and preserved it from internal spiritual and moral collapse. While there were many men who God used in those two great movements from God, the two most prominent men were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, great preachers of the gospel that followed in your theological footsteps. Since our country has turned away from our doctrinal heritage as a nation, we have not seen a genuine mass movement of God in our country for over two hundred years now. What was generally held to be true by many at one time in our nation's history has been either swept under the rug or given the boot out the back door in most places of worship today.
What pains me more than anything is that those who profess the name of Christ do not know who you are, or what you stood for, or they don't care. We have moved on, and we are more into other things now. We have lots of religion, just like in your day, but as you wrote and preached about on so many occasions, many can have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Tares grow up with wheat. Wolves don sheep's clothing. An outward profession does not mean an inward possession.
As you taught so well and so consistently, God truly is sovereign in everything in the universe, and that includes the salvation of man. Today, we may give lip service to your sovereignty, so long your sovereignty does not interfere with man's sovereignty over some things. Today man must increase, even if it causes God to decrease some.
There are many today who go way beyond of just ignoring you and your contributions. There are those who revile you, who will curl up their nose and upper lip at the mention of your name, who accuse you of the most vilest things imaginable. Some will say that you were harsh, stern, unloving, judgmental, overly strict, Pharisaical, unevangelistic, and other things I dare not mention. After all, it is supposed to be your birthday. Those who knew you best and up close know those things were simply untrue. You were a loving family man and a gentle humble shepherd of God's flock under your care. You had an enduring and endearing passion for souls, for the Word of God, and for God's glory.
We have a leader in our country whom some think would make a great leader over all our country. She was a governor of one of our fifty states, and many believe she has been unfairly targeted with the most baseless attacks on her character. Whether she would be a great national leader or not is debatable, and that is beside the point. I just wish that those who criticize you most will step back and see that they are doing the same things against you that many say are being done against this governor, or anybody else who is being slandered and falsely attacked.
I have heard in my lifetime that people don't want to be associated with you in any way, because "we should not follow any one man, and that we should only follow the Lord." You would be the first one to agree with that statement. I guess people are really scared or irked when they hear people who basically agree with you as being called by your last name with an -ist tucked on at the end. Knowing your high commitment to the name of Christ you would be horrified and disgusted yourself if you knew that people are identified by your last name. You would do your best to put a stop to it, but with that being said, in our day we don't follow one man; we follow many men, we adore many men, we worship many men, and those men sometimes have very little in common with the biblical gospel.
The nature of Christianity today in our country is that we will identify ourselves with the latest anything that comes along. Several days ago we saw a very popular man by the name of Michael die. I can't go over all his life story, John, because you wouldn't understand it, and you especially couldn't understand how millions of people could watch his funeral service all over the world. A lot has changed, John, like I said. But after hearing with my own ears and after seeing things with my own eyes what has said and done at this man's funeral, I almost became convinced that they needed to keep his dead body under heavy guard where they had his funeral service for at least three days, lest his followers come steal his body. And then on the third day, everyone could come back to the same place and watch this Michael guy dance his way out of his coffin. It is ironic and contradictory, to say the least, when people accuse us of following you, just because we believe you on some key doctrinal points, when today there are people who fall down and worship all sorts of individuals all the time. That is done all the time in religious circles too.
John, I don't agree with you on every single point you taught, and I don't follow you in the sense I should follow Christ and Him alone. At the same time, the Bible says we ought to obey our leaders who spoke the Word of God to us, submit to them, consider the outcome of their lives, and imitate their faith. So, John, while others may spurn you, deny you, ignore you, ridicule you, and attack you, I want to thank you on your birthday, or more especially I want to thank the good Lord for giving you to us. Even though you are dead, you still speak. I have many of your writings in my personal library. That's not a bad legacy for someone who was born 500 years ago.
I must end this "Dear John" letter on an encouraging note. Maybe we are seeing a reversal of trends in our country. Due to whole host of factors working together, more and more people are coming around to see and accept what you taught, preached and wrote during your lifetime. How shall I word it? There are many alternative ways of educating our young people today, and because of that, so many people are learning for the first time the glories of Reformation history. While at one time old books by these great saints of the past like the Puritans were buried under layers of dust in some remote library archives, they are now being printed and published the world over. People are reading what they have to say, and people's minds are being opened up to truths forgotten or buried under layers of dust in near and faraway pulpits.
Added to all that, numerous bold preachers have stepped forward to herald these great truths, and two of the most notable men carry your first name. One preacher John is from a state called California, and the other preacher John is from a state called Minnesota. Because we have ways of communication that are far numerous and superior than what you had in your day, John, these preachers, and others just like them, are getting the Word out to a massive worldwide audience. (You would be pleased to know a long time after you God raised up another John, this time in England, who wrote a book called Pilgrim's Progress. It is the most read and published religious book in the world, second only to the Bible.)
So maybe, just maybe, things are looking up, John, in our day. That is where we should be looking any way, since He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Happy birthday, John. I will see you one day in glory. I will know where to find you then. You will be at the feet of One who saved you by His grace, and that is where we all will be. Some or many may fight it now, but then at that time all must and will acknowledge that salvation was and is entirely from God. May that recognition come sooner, though, and not later. Thank you, dear Lord, for using your servant John for many to come to that recognition sooner, and may many more follow in those same paths.
Yours by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for God's glory alone,
Chris
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