Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

16 January, 2007   comments: (0) Sound Doctrine   If Election is True Why Worry About Bad Sermons? "If God elects people to salvation, why do we need to be concerned about fighting error, bad sermons, false teachers, etc. No matter what, God is going to save His elect, and his plan can't be spoiled, so we as Christians really don't have to be concerned with all of those things then." That's pretty common thinking, and it was asked of me again just recently, so let's address that right here. Diana was reading a post on Old Truth in which we were exposing error in the modern entertainment style church system. Afterwards she asked the question above, but in these words: "If God elects then how can wrong preaching lead others to their death? I am not for wrong preaching but it seems that if we are truly elect that God will find a way to call that person to himself even if they hear wrong teachings." The answer to that question is that God works through "means". He calls upon us to evangelize, and through our evangelism he often times saves people as we faithfully preach the Word. He calls upon us to pray, and He uses our prayer as a means towards saving people. An example in scripture of God using "means", is when Paul was told by an Angel in Acts 27 that everyone on the shipwreck would be saved, but "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved". So the ship, in that case, was the means by which God saved these men. Could God have snapped his fingers and plopped them all out on dry ground? Yes. But for reasons unknown to us, God normally chooses not to work that way. God also calls upon us to evangelize correctly. It does no good to stand on a street corner and just say the word "Jesus" to people. No, it is our responsibility to be thorough and accurate in our message. He has decided that He will not save people in the absence of truth. We are also commanded to speak out against falsehood and hate evil. God wants us to carry out church discipline, warn people of deceptive teachers, and judge those within His Church. As we do these things, God uses them as a "means" of keeping His church pure, and His Gospel message in tact. Perhaps some of the additional comments below will explain this in further depth. One comment below from "Sarah" that I'd like to address is this one: "I have found the doctrine of election to be inconsistent with God's character and contrary to the Biblical description of salvation and one's free will. If God elects people to salvation, then He must also elect them to hell -- such would be the antithesis of a loving God." Sarah, when you say that you find the "doctrine of election to be inconsistent with God's character", how do you explain the existence of the words "elect" and "election" in the bible? Are you just ignoring those, or do you have some explanation that re-defines those things in order to neutralize their biblical meaning? Also, there are no scriptures that talk about "election unto hell". Please remember that God elects to save people from a totally lost human race. From this lost humanity, He chooses to save some. I have seen so many people get off on the wrong foot when their salvation theology does not start with all of humanity in a lost state. Maybe Sarah will stick around and further explain her views. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.604   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism