Is It Really True?

So, the other day I was looking at the sermonaudio website (excellent and essential if you have never checked it out!), when I saw another diatribe against that system of theology known as Calvinism.  In this message we are told how the “TULIP” will be wilted by the Son!  We are informed again that this is Deformed Theology and that it turns the Great Commission into the Great Omission!  The dread expressed in the message is that which is often raised against the doctrines of grace (if we may take our critics at face value) is the fear that if we really believe that God is sovereign we will slacken in our zeal for missions and evangelism.   Often the great defense issued against such an accusation is to remind these brothers that the greatest evangelist of the past actually embraced such theology and that modern missionary movement was birthed through those who closely adhered to such things.  We are quick to bring out the names of Whitefield, Carey, and Judson, and of course, our ace in the hole, CH Spurgeon!  Now, I will not at this time quibble with our playing the history card rather than an exegetical card (pointing out how sovereignty and responsibility go side by side in the scriptures, who earnest pleadings follow the articulation of sovereignty-see Matt. 11 and Romans 9, 10 for instance), I will instead quibble with our lack of  personal defense.

What do I mean by that?  I mean that too often we quote from figures that lived hundreds of years ago rather than pointing to current reality.  Instead of saying, “Oh, yeah!  I’ll prove that Calvinism does not squash evangelism-look at what happened two hundred years ago buddy!”  Why don’t we instead say, “I can only tell you that I have never been more earnest, more involved, and more compassionate with souls than I am right now!”    The sad reality is that many times our critics have a point.  While Calvinism should not extinguish the fires of evangelism, the fact of that matter is that many of us who embrace the doctrines where once more passionate, more prayerful and more involved in personal witnessing when we were less “enlightened”.   While we do well to criticize the use of tracts like the Four Spiritual Laws (which I used to always carry with me and used with a fair amount of frequency), do we have a suitable replacement?  Has our confidence in God’s sovereign plan to bring all of His elect to Himself, in fact made us practically more like William Carey or more like the man who told him that if God wants to save the heathen he will do so without our help?   My question is not whether the doctrines of grace are true and biblical (of course they are!), the question is not whether they should dampen or enflame evangelism and missions (of course, they should enflame!), the question is, what have we allowed them to do in our own lives?   Why is it that in many of our churches, we see the saints grow that are birthed in other contexts?  Yes, I know God is sovereign!  But I also know that those who are wise win souls!    May it increasingly be said of our churches, in the words of Psalm 87:6 The LORD will record, When He registers the peoples: “This one was born there!”

James Savastio