It's been three years. Three years since God gave me new life, and granted me faith and repentance. Three years of battle...with my flesh, with my mind, with my pride. And time and time again God conquers, His Truth prevails upon me and His grace endures.
God himself and his External Word are becoming more dear to me than relationships, school, soccer, even my family. I'm only begining to taste what Paul meant when he wrote, "I count ALL THINGS loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord."
Salvation, I had thought, was my choice. "When I chose to believe in Jesus, His death on the cross became effective for my case. " This is wrong thinking. 1 Peter 1:3 says, "According to His great mercy, he has caused us to be born again..."
Ephesians says we were "dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked" (2:1). A dead person doesn't ask for someone to save him."God...made us alive together with Christ" (2:4,5).
John chapter 6 continually shatters my pride. Jesus is talking. Listen to what he says:
"All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (v37). "...that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day" (v44).
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail" (v63).
"No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father" (v65).
and John chapter 10 encourages me more deeply than almost any other passage. Listen to what Jesus says:
"The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out" (v3).
"I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice" (v 16).
"You do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, I and the Father are one" (v26-30).
God alone is the author and perfector of my faith, or anyone's faith (Eph 2:8-10). Because in eternity past, he chose in Christ---before the foundation of the world--individuals that he would redeem (Eph 1:4-6), whose names were written in "the Book of Life of the Lamb that was slain" before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8, 17:8). Jesus died for His sheep...Jesus himself said that those who do not believe do so because they are not His sheep. He KNOWS His sheep, and He calls them by name...and NO ONE, not even that sheep himself, can pluck them from the Father's hand. God will bring His good work to completion (Phil 1:6). Those whom he knew, personally, he predestined---and those same ones he WILL glorify.
Romans 8:29-30, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."
Praise be to God's glorious grace that He accomplishes His purposes... and that not one soul falls from this chain of redemption, but are upheld moment by moment by God's grace in Christ. Jesus is my only hope!
God has appointed this summer to be a brain-wracking, pride-shattering, joy-producing time in the depths of the Bible for me...learning from the Creator of the universe...sitting at His feet and having my man-centered, self-exalting mind humbled, and shaped, and conformed to Truth instead of opinion or what I "feel" God is like.
God is all Sovereign. He declares the end from the begining. His purposes stand. He is never changing. He is glorious. Do you know Him?
He sent His Son Jesus to be crushed. We have sinned and fallen short of his glory, none are righteous the Bible says! But Christ, lived the perfect life--without sin, and yet became sin for us...bearing the Father's wrath and fury...and then conquered death! That WHOEVER trusts in Him will have eternal life--because when God looks at those who trust in Jesus, he sees not our sin, but the righteousness of Christ.
Do you know Him? You can.
Below are exerpts from something C.H. Spurgeon wrote... these words resonate with my soul so deeply that I would dare say I may even die for these truths--or pray that if the opportunity came about, that in that moment I would choose to. Calvinism is merely a nickname for the Gospel, Sprugeon says. It is nothing else. This is what I would give up my life for, The Gospel. Because the Gospel did not change my life, it gave birth to my life--all because of Jesus Christ.
A DEFENSE OF CALVINISM (C.H. Spurgeon)
"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 at this moment with 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...
"I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this...
"I believe the doctrine of election because I am quite certain that if God had not chosen me I should never have chosen Him...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—
"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...
"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 istrue—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 were 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 burns 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...
"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...
"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 foreordained—that is true. And if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions—that is true. 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, where all of His Truths spring...
"We believe that God has predestinated all things from the beginning, but there is a difference between the predestination of an intelligent, All-wise, All-bounteous God and that blind fatalism which simply says, “It is because it is to be.” Between the predestination of Scripture and the fate of the Koran every sensible man must perceive a difference of the most essential character...
"But we are next met by some who tell us that we preach the wicked and horrible doctrine of sovereign and unmerited reprobation. “Oh,” say they, “you teach that men are damned because God made them to be damned and that they go to Hell, not because of sin, not because of unbelief—but because of some dark decree with which God has stamped their destiny.” Brethren, this is an another unfair charge. Election does not involve reprobation. There may be some who hold unconditional reprobation. I stand not here as their defender—let them defend themselves as best they can. I hold God’s election, but I testify just as clearly that if any man is lost he is lost for sin. This has been the uniform statement of Calvinistic ministers.
"If he is lost, damnation is all of men. But, if he is saved, still salvation is all of God.
"A yet further charge against us is that we dare not preach the Gospel to the unregenerate! That, in fact, our theology is so narrow and cramped that we cannot preach to sinners! Gentlemen, if you dare to say this, I would take you to any library in the world where the old Puritan fathers are stored up and I would let you take down any one volume and tell me if you ever read more telling exhortations and addresses to sinners in any of your own books. Did not Bunyan plead with sinners and whoever classed him with any but the Calvinists? Did not Charnock, Goodwin and Howe agonize for souls and what were they but Calvinists? Did not Jonathan Edwards preach to sinners and who more clear and explicit on these doctrinal matters?
"It is an indisputable fact that we have labored more than they all for the winning of souls. Was George Whitefield any the less seraphic? Did his eyes weep the fewer tears or his heart move with less compassion because he believed in God’s electing love and preached the sovereignty of the Most High? It is an unfounded calumny.
"Our souls are not stony.
"Our hearts are not withdrawn from the compassion which we ought to feel for our fellow men. We can hold all our views and yet can weep as Christ did over a Jerusalem which was certainly to be destroyed. Again I must say I am not defending certain Brethren who have exaggerated Calvinism. I speak of Calvinism proper—not that which has run to seed and outgrown its beauty and verdure. I speak of it as I find it in Calvin’s Institutes and especially in his Expositions. I have read them carefully. I take not my views of Calvinism from common repute but from his books. Nor do I, in thus speaking, even vindicate Calvinism as if I cared for the name, but I mean that glorious system which teaches that salvation is of Grace from first to last. And again, then, I say it is an utterly unfounded charge that we dare not preach to sinners.
"What was the Reformation itself but the waking up of men’s minds to those old truths? However far modern Lutherans may have turned aside from their ancient doctrines—and I must confess some of them would not agree with what I now say, yet, at any rate—Luther and Calvin had no dispute about Predestination. Their views were identical and Luther’s “On the Bondage of the Will” is as strong a book upon the free Grace of God as Calvin himself could have written. Hear that great thunder while he cries in that book, 'Let the Christian reader know, then, that God foresees nothing in a contingent manner—but that He foresees, proposes and acts from His eternal and unchangeable will. This is the thunder- stroke which breaks and overturns Free Will.'
"And then it has another virtue. I take it that the last is no mean one, but it has another—that when it is preached there is a something in it which excites thought. A man may hear sermons upon the other theory which shall glance over him as the swallow’s wing gently sweeps the brook—but these old doctrines either make a man so angry that he goes home and cannot sleep for very hatred—or else they bring him down into lowliness of thought feeling the immensity of the things which he has heard. Either way, it excites and stirs him up not temporarily, but in a most lasting manner. These doctrines haunt him. He kicks against the pricks and full often the Word forces a way into his soul. And I think this is no small thing for any doctrine to do—in an age given to slumber and with human hearts so indifferent to the Truth of God. I know that many men have gained more good by being made angry under a sermon than by being pleased by it—for being angry they have turned the Truth of God over and over again and at last that Truth has burned its way right into their hearts.
"Some by putting the strain upon their judgments may manage to hold two or three points and not the rest. But sound logic, I take it, requires a man to hold the whole or reject the whole. The doctrines stand like soldiers in a square, presenting on every side a line of defense which is hazardous to attack, but easy to maintain. And mark you—in these times when error is so rife and neology strives to be so rampant, it is no little thing to put into the hands of a young man a weapon which can slay his foe. A weapon he can easily learn to handle—which he may grasp tenaciously, wield readily and carry without fatigue. A weapon, I may add, which no rust can corrode and no blows can break—trenchant and well annealed—a true Jerusalem blade of a temper fit for deeds of renown. The coherency of the parts, though it is, of course, but a trifle in comparison with other things, is not unimportant.
"...be more prayerful, more watchful, more holy, more active than we have ever been before and by so doing, we shall put to silence the gainsaying of foolish men. A living argument is an argument which tells upon every man. We cannot deny what we see and feel. Be it ours, if aspersed and calumniated, to disprove it by a blameless life and it shall yet come to pass that our Church and its sentiments, too, shall come forth, “Fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners.”
So here is my weak prayer...that I might know Christ, and do so in such a way as to make Him look like the TREASURE that He actually is. He is not a name to be thrown around. He is the Lamb that was slain, the centerpiece of worship for all eternity. Do you know him?
Grace Abounds,
Sara Grace
