All Sermons

Inviting Men to Christ By Albert N. Martin

04/03/2006

this morning, as you'll see by your program, is given the title is Inviting Men to Christ.
I'm amazed to meet people in the ministry who still have great problems about this,
and we do pray that this hour our minds will be cleared of some of the fog and we will
be assisted in this great thing that you are called to do and we are called to do as laymen,
to speak, to bring men to Christ. So, Pastor Martin, we're glad to have you.
By the way, he's one of the organizers of the conference. I forgot to tell him that.
Who is? Oh.
Inviting Men to Christ. What does this title suggest to your mind? What did you think of
when you read that it was going to be part of our program? I called Pastor Chantry a
couple of weeks ago and I said, my dear brother, I was terribly naive when I accepted the assignment
of seeking to grapple with this subject with so broad a spectrum of background and theological
understanding and practical Christian experience. Perhaps to the minds of some of you, you thought
that this might be a workshop on 20 new ways to give altar calls. You know, booklets are
written on that and pastors' conferences are convened around the country, many of them
called soul-winning conferences, and almost invariably one of the, quote, experts will
give the latest techniques of inviting men to Christ, and by that they mean ways to get
people out of their seats and down to the front of a church or into an inquiry room.
Well, perhaps that's in the minds of some of you. Others of you who perhaps had that
as your background and in your new understanding of the Word of God have completely chucked
over that unscriptural methodology incorporated into evangelism. You looked at this title
and you just felt it oozed with Arminian overtones. And you've come rather suspicious this morning
because the whole idea of simply inviting to Christ seems rather anemic and weak to
you, for you've come to discover in God's Word that God does not merely invite men to
His dear Son, they are some whom He lays hold of in His effectual call and brings them,
so that indeed they do come most willingly and freely, but they come because they are
made willing by His grace. And so you've come, no doubt, with your fur bristled and baited
for bear, lest there be some of the leaven of Arminian activism in this sermon or lecture
this morning. So how does one handle a subject like this? It's difficult as to its substance,
and it's also difficult as to the manner in which one would handle it in one hour, give
or take a few minutes either direction. For this is an issue that has split churches,
has rent denominations, has caused the writing of great tomes of theological literature,
and so to simply expound some text of Scripture with no historical perspective would appear
simplistic and perhaps a bit arrogant, as though I had the last word on all of the texts
that are the point of controversy. I find myself very much at home with the words of
John Newton, who writing to someone on this subject said, it's a point on which many eminent
ministers have been and are not a little divided, and therefore becomes me to propose my sentiments
with modesty and caution, so far as I am constrained to differ from any from whom,
in general, I would be glad to learn. So on the one hand, to approach it simply from a
biblical standpoint would appear simplistic. On the other hand, to simply come at it from
a creedal and historical perspective, seek to quote those who have spoken with clarity
on the issue would appear to some others as though the case were resting on human authority.
And unlike the doctor who has the opportunity of enlarging from the historical perspective
in the next two nights and give us the biblical perspective, I've got to squeeze everything
into one hour. Now what I'm going to attempt to do is to come at the subject with a balance
of biblical and historical and biographical data that I trust will simply whet your appetite
for further investigation in those three areas. I'm hoping it will drive you into Scripture.
I'm hoping it will drive you to search out what the great masters in Israel have said
on the subject, and that as you read the biographies of men whose lives have been marked by usefulness
in bringing men to Christ, try to glean their sentiments and their experience in this area.
If I've got a sore foot, I don't go to an ear specialist. I go to a chiropodist who
will make me feel better by fixing my feet. And if I have a question about the free authors
of the gospel or inviting men to Christ, I believe it's the part of wisdom to go for
help to men who were eminently used of God in inviting men to Christ and who had the
seal of God upon their ministries in seeing souls brought to the Savior.
Now the way in which we're going to approach the subject, trying to fuse together the biblical
and the historical and biographical approach, is first of all to state the essence of the
problem. What is the problem involved in this matter of inviting men to Christ? Secondly,
I want to set forth the biblical perspective on that problem. And then in the third place,
I wish to draw some practical conclusions, applications, and exhortations drawn from
the biblical perspective. Very well then, what is the essence of the problem? Maybe
some of you are sitting there this morning and say, well, who has a problem? Well, it's
a good question. Who has a problem with this whole matter of inviting men to Christ? Well,
certainly it's not the person who takes lightly biblical theology, who simply picks and chooses
what he shall believe and incorporate into his ministry. He'll have no problem. And
certainly the person who disregards biblical methodology and simply conforms to the latest
modes of popular evangelistic gimmickry, he'll have no problem. But the person who takes
seriously all that he reads in Scripture, and in particular certain aspects of biblical
theology, and then at the same time takes seriously his duty to evangelize, this person
is going to have great problems. And he's going to wrestle with this whole issue of
inviting men to Christ. Upon what warrant do I invite men to Christ? How do I invite
men to Christ? What is the nature of gospel invitations? You see, the idea that is current
in our day, you've heard it often, be a Calvinist on your knees and an Arminian on your feet
sounds good. But woe, woe be unto you if that's true of you. For you see, when you're on your
feet evangelizing, your methods of evangelism and your message of evangelism is simply an
extension into life and experience of your theology. Your methodology is an extension
into life and practice of your theology. So you are not theologically one thing on your
knees in the presence of God and something other methodologically when you're out there
talking to men about Christ. And so the person who's willing to live with that clever little
evasion, he'll have no problem. But the person who takes seriously his Bible is going to
have problems. Now, what is that problem that comes to the mind of everyone who takes seriously
biblical theology? Well, he sees on the one hand his duty to evangelize and to press upon
all men the claims of Christ. But he also sees certain facets of truth that seem to
be incompatible with that duty of evangelism. Number one, he sees the fixity of the decree
of election. He's studied the word elect, chosen, choose and its derivatives, and he's
come to the conclusion that the whole idea that election is nothing more or less than
ratification by God of man's previous choice is just a butchering of the very words of
Scripture. And so he sees in Scripture statements like these, all that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. There is a people given to the Son who shall come. He has heard our
Lord praying and thanking his Father that authority has been given to him over all flesh
that he should give eternal life to as many as were given to him, indicating that not
all were given to him, and that a fixed number has been given to him. He hears Christ saying,
Other sheep I have already had them in my divine purpose, and in my eternal love I have
them, they're mine, and them also I must bring. So he sees there is a fixity in the decree
of election. God has chosen a people, and yet he says, I find in the same Scripture
a mandate to preach the Gospel to every preacher. These two things don't seem to fit. And
then as he studies his Bible, he sees that there is a definite design and intent in the
atoning work of Jesus Christ. He reads the words of our Lord, I lay down my life for
the sheep, and in the same chapter he says to certain people, You are not my sheep. The
inference being very clear, I'm not laying down my life with a distinct intent of bringing
you to myself. He reads in Ephesians 5, Christ loved the church and gave himself for the
church. He hears our Lord praying in the 17th of John, For their sakes I sanctify myself,
that is, set myself apart for the work of oblation and intercession as a great high
priest. For their sakes, not the world, but those whom thou hast given me. Now since inviting
men to Christ involves setting forth the provisions made for their forgiveness in the atoning
work of Christ, how can there be a definite design coupled with an indiscriminate offer?
And then capped off with a sincere invitation. I mean, isn't this sort of tongue-in-cheek?
It's a problem rooted in the decree of election, in the particular design of the atonement.
And then the person who takes his Bible seriously discovers that that same Bible teaches that
man is plagued with a moral and spiritual inability to savingly respond to the Gospel.
Not a physical inability, but a disinclination of the will and the affections, coupled with
a darkness of the mind. Doesn't the Word of God say, John 6.44, no man can. Can is a word
of ability. If we keep on butchering the English language, we won't be able to communicate
at that point much longer. My son comes up to me and says, Daddy, can I do this? And
I look at him and I say, yes, you look strong enough to. Oh, what I mean, Daddy, is may
I. I say, all right. Can is a word of ability. May is a word of permission. Scripture says
no man can come to me. A word of ability, except the Father which has sent me, draw
him. Is it not the clear teaching of Scripture that man is spiritually dead? Ephesians 2.
According to 1 Corinthians 2.14, he cannot perceive the things of the Spirit of God.
Ephesians 8 in verse 8, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now since
an integral part of the invitation to Christ is urging upon men the immediate duty of repentance
and faith, spiritual acts indeed, how can you urge upon men to do that which you know
they cannot? That's a problem. Have you ever wrestled with it? You lost any sleep over
it? Have you expended any mental sweat over it? If not, it's because you've been taking
a very surface reading of your Bible and a very shallow grappling with the truth contained
therein. And then another contributing factor to the problem is the clear statement of Scripture
that both faith and repentance are called God's gifts to men. In the face of passages
like Acts 5.31, 11.18, and 2 Timothy 2.26, in which Scripture clearly states that repentance
is granted as the gift of God, in the face of passages like Acts 18.27 where it speaks
of those who believed through grace, it was a faith which came through the instrumentality
of the operation of grace. Ephesians 2 verses 9 and 10, Philippians 1.29, unto you it is
granted or given to believe. How do you call upon men to do that which only God can give?
Now there's a problem. Now if you've been content to just gloss over what Scripture
teaches about the decree of election and the definite design of Christ's atonement and
man's moral and spiritual inability and the fact that repentance and faith are the gifts
of God, if you've been willing to gloss all of that over and just sweep it under the rug
or just tag it for consideration at a later date, then you have no problem. But if you've
taken those things seriously, I'm confident that this morning there is being conjured
up in the memory of many a man here, lonely hours of deep perplexity and restfulness,
in which these things just seem to haunt you. How can I bring them together? I dare not,
with the mandate of my Lord above me saying, preach the gospel to every creature. I dare
not move away from that. And yet no man can come. All that the Father giveth me shall
come. I lay down my life for the sheep. There's the problem. It's a problem which every person
taking seriously these aspects of Christian doctrine will sooner or later grapple with.
Having considered who has the problem, let's ask the question, what should we do with the
problem? Well, know what some do. Just dismiss the whole thing as irrelevant and unworthy
to be grappled with. If so, may God have mercy upon you. For He's committed His word to you
as a trust. 1 Thessalonians 2, 4, as we were approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel.
If you're made the trustee of a corporation, of a church, of any organization, it is your
duty to preserve all that is included in that trust. It is not up to you to sit as a judge
over that trust and say, well, this aspect is important and that isn't, and to throw
something. No, no. Whatever is put in your trust, you are to jealously guard and preserve
in discharging your obligation to the one who put you in that trust. And the Apostle
Paul says he looks upon the body of divine truth given to him as a trust from his God.
And so there was no aspect that he felt he could just dismiss as irrelevant and unworthy
of being grappled with. In fact, you'll be guilty of the blood of the souls of men if
there's any aspect of the truth of God which you willfully and deliberately refuse to grapple
with and to make a part of your proclamation of the truth of God. For in the 20th chapter
of Acts, as the Apostle is vindicating his own ministry to the Ephesian elders, he says,
I take you to record this day I am pure from the blood of all men. Why? For I have not
shunned to declare unto you a minimum amount of truth. No, no. For I have not shunned to
declare unto you the whole counsel of God. I'm clear from your blood because I've declared
all that was committed to my trust. In other words, Paul recognized that God was wiser
in knowing what sinners needed than he. And this idea that we're wiser than God, all sinners
need to know is A, B, C. Wait a minute. God's got 26 letters in the alphabet of truth. Who
are you? Who am I? This A, B, C is all that's necessary. It's in the front of the wisdom
of Almighty God. And if we would be free from the blood of all men, we must be able to have
some measure of this witness to our conscience that we have sought to declare the whole counsel
of our God. In 2 Corinthians 4, 1, the apostle states it a little bit differently when he
says, having received this ministry as we've received mercy, we faint not, but we've renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty. A better translation, the hidden things of shame, things
that would cause shame in the presence of God are men. We've renounced them, not handling
the Word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation, the full display of truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. I hope this conference will send some
of you home with great problems. You say, you're a kind fellow. What they put you on
first thing in the morning for? Maybe the best thing that ever happened to some of you
to go away absolutely drained mentally, wrestling, grappling, because for the first time in your
life you're taking seriously the whole counsel of God. So how are you going to deal with
the problem? Some would dismiss it. I hope the Lord will deliver any from that. Well,
the second thing you can do is dismiss that aspect of the truth which causes the problem
in a feverish penchant for logical consistency. On the one hand, you see the doctrines of
grace, but you say, I cannot live with both, and you've grappled and wrestled, so you're
going to conceive a way to make election simply ratification by God of man's previous choice.
Well, isn't that wonderful? The word elect no longer means elect. It now means ratification.
Some have done this. I talked with a preacher at a conference a few months ago where I was
privileged to minister to a group of preachers, and it's obvious this fellow has spent hours
not wrestling with the biblical material and seeking by the Spirit of God to be brought
to the place where he's at home with what God says, no matter how it shangles on his
idea of what is logical, but he has spent hours working out a very ingenious way to
give lip service to these hard doctrines of election and the particular design of Christ's
atonement while in his heart and in reality he's completely bleeding them out of Scripture.
That's what some have done. We heard last night of Melanchthon's synergism. The Lutheran
position, as I understand it, that there is that moment when through the preaching of
the Gospel and the operations of the Spirit, when the sinner is suspended for just a moment
above all the downward drag of his darkened mind and his perverse way, at that moment
he's free to make a valid decision for or against, and the moment the mind, as it were,
turns in the direction of Christ, then the grace of God takes up the work again and carries
it on. It brings him up to here, suspends him for a moment, and if he'll twitch his
head in that direction, God will carry it on the rest of the way. Well, you see, that
twitch will end up eventually with the whole work being made, as the doctor so very clearly
set before us last night.
So that's one way you can handle the problem. Just dismiss those aspects of truth from the
side of election and the inability of man which cause the problem. Isn't that, in brief,
classic Arminianism? Or, on the other hand, you can say, No, sir, I'd rather sacrifice
man than God. I'm going to cling to the throne rights of God, to choose whom he will choose,
to set his love upon those whom he will set his love, and to bypass those whom he chooses
to bypass. I won't sacrifice the throne rights of God, but if God is truly sovereign, then
I can't see how I can urge upon men to do what they can't do, and to tell them in some
sense God desires their salvation when he never chose to save them. I can't live with
that inconsistency. So, they focus upon all those areas of truth that clearly teach God's
general desire, God's benevolence, God's sincere offer of mercy, and they begin to
manipulate them and hedge them up with conditions and with buts and ands and ifs and therefores.
They do what some of you read in one of the recent editions of The Banner. Spurgeon, quoting
a fellow preacher, gave him this illustration. A little schoolboy was out in the schoolyard
and he had a nice bright shiny apple and he shined it all up. There it was. And he held
it out to his buddies and said, See that apple? He says, Yeah. He said, That's all
you'll have of it. And he stuck it back in his pocket. One of his playmates was a bit
more generous. He said, Oh, take it out of your pocket and give him a smell of it. So
he took it out of the pocket and let him smell it and back in the pocket it went. God doesn't
just show the apple of his salvation, and I say it reverently, God doesn't just shine
it. He puts it to our lips and says, Eat. Ah, but if he does that and hasn't from eternity
determined to make me eat, to make me love apples, and I can't live with that. So I'm
going to be the fellow that holds up the apple back in the pocket. That's how you can solve
the problem. And this, of course, historically is the position of what has been called hyper-Calvinism.
And you see what they both have at the foundation that makes them very comfortable bedfellows?
Here it is. It is this penchant for logical consistency that will make a man sacrifice
the clear, obvious sense of Holy Scripture, an unwillingness to live with what to us seems
irreconcilable. A hard core of uncrucified rationality lies at the foundation of both.
Well, you can do the first with the problem. Dismiss it irrelevant, unworthy of being grappled
with theological tempest in a teapot. Forget it. Or in the second place, you can deny that
aspect of truth which creates the problem. Or in the third place, and I trust this will
be our reaction to the problem, we can embrace the clear declarations of the Word of God
and follow wherever the hand of Scripture leads us.
One servant of God said, and it's been a great help to me, faith is reason at rest in God.
Faith is reason at rest in God. Flabel said, reason is never more reasonable than when
it's willing—let me get it straight here now—reason is never, does never show itself
more reasonable than in ceasing to reason about things that are above reason. You got it?
And I trust by the grace of God that will be the position to which God will bring us,
that we will have consciences so held captive to the Word of God, its plain and obvious
meaning, consistent with the general testimony of Scripture. And there we will rest, and
from that position we will labor. All right, we've dealt with the question then, the problem.
Who has it? What is the essence of it? How shall we dispose of it? Now let's seek to
come to the answer of Scripture. As we do, I have two main subheadings. Number one, how
to approach that answer, and two, the substance of that answer as it's found in Scripture.
Now as we approach the answer of Scripture to this problem for its Scripture that raises
it, how shall we approach it? May I suggest two principles must be kept before our minds
continually. Number one, we must remember the basic distinction between the decrees
of God and the duty of His creatures. Now Scripture does set before us a doctrine of
the decrees of God, and it is set there for our profit. It will not do to say, well, over
there in the Old Testament somewhere it says the secret things belong to the Lord, but
the things that are revealed to us and our children, election, predestination, that's
a secret thing, forget it, believe it, but don't preach it. Wait a minute, no, no,
election and the decrees of God, that is not a secret thing, that's a revealed doctrine.
He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, for of Him and through Him and
to Him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. The children, having not been born
and having done neither good nor evil, that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, it will said, no, no, the decree of God is a revealed truth, but there is a difference
between the doctrine of God's decrees and the duty of His creatures. Now just as the
Word of God teaches a doctrine of the decrees of God, so it sets before us a doctrine of
the duty of the creature. Now, what is to frame our volitional choices, our conscious
planning, and our conscious efforts to extend the gospel of Christ? Is it to be the decrees
of God, or are duties set forth in the precepts of God? Now I think the answer is clear. If
I'm asking the question, how shall I preach the gospel? How shall I evangelize? How shall
I invite men to Christ? Those questions are not answered by prying into the decrees of
God, but by putting my nose to the book and finding the precepts of God. If you stand,
as it were, looking out upon life, saying, now I want to know my path of evangelistic
duty. How shall I preach Christ? How shall I invite men to Christ? And you're hoping
that that path will be marked by a shadow cast from the burning light of the throne
of God as that light passes over the form of His decrees. You'll look and look in vain.
For there is no light from the throne of God passing over the form of His decrees that
ever falls upon the path to show me my duty. My duty is marked out by the clear stakes
of His precepts. There it is! Stake one, two, three, four! And God says, walk down that
way. Now what keeps your spirit warm and confident as you do? You know that back behind that
impenetrable wall, all things are ordered and sure, and His purposes cannot fail. So
no matter what I face walking that path marked by the stake of the precept, I face it with
confidence that all things are working together for my good and to His glory because He has
decreed it. But whenever you start trying to get your duty determined by the shadows
of His decrees, confusion will enter. This is not just theoretical with me. I'll never
forget the first time when it was in the summer of 1954 and I was down in the little, what
would be called the white trash section of the South, the very poor section, ministering
there in a little mission church, and someone gave me a Westminster confession. Here it
is, I still have it, the one that was given to me then. They didn't give me Pilgrim's
Progress though or anything. They were only half saved. And someone gave me another book
that introduced for the first time the doctrine of predestination and the rest. And I'll
never forget as I read it through and looked at the proof text and I thought, well, what
am I doing here? Here I've given up a good paying job for the summer because the text
of Scripture wouldn't let me go home. I was going to school in the South and I had a construction
job waiting for me at home. I had no money to come back to school. I had to put myself
through. And the verse from Ezekiel kept coming back to me, Woe be to the shepherd that leaveth
the flock. My dad came down to pick me up at school and I said, Dad, I can't go home
because I've got to stay with those people. I said, that text is haunting me. I go to
sleep with it, I wake up with it. I've got to stay with it. And there I was, staying
with them out of, I trust, some genuine Christ imparted love for their souls, pleading with
them, holding home Bible studies, entreating them. Then all of a sudden I began to say,
wait a minute, if God has chosen us, how do I know? Well, maybe I'm spending all this
effort in vain. How do I know if the Lord has chosen a person in this place? And that
thought began to haunt me and I grappled with it until finally I said, no, this will just
drive me crazy. And I put it all on the shelf. I had nobody to guide me and help me. If only
someone had been around to say, my brother, your duty to these people is not determined
by, or delineated by my decree, but by my precepts. It would have solved the problem
and would have made a tremendous difference in the spirit with which I went about my lateness.
This is not a mere academic exercise. As we approach the answer of Scripture, continually
keep distinct the doctrine of the decree of God and the doctrine of the duty of man set
forth in the precepts. And then secondly, as we approach the answer of Scripture, remember
the inscrutability of the ways of God. Scripture says in Isaiah 55, 8 and 9, for my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, for as the heavens are high above
the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways. Now, let me make
very clear, this is not the irrationality of modern theology. No, no. God has revealed
Himself in propositional truth, but it is the supra-rationality of the disclosure of
the mind of God. Since God is telling us things that are true about Him, we should not be
surprised if we cannot understand and see the rationality of all that is clearly revealed.
My thoughts are not your thoughts.
In the classic work on this whole subject of the three authors of the Gospel, Andrew
Fuller, in introducing the subject, writes a paragraph that I wish to read at this time.
Were difficulty allowed to exist as to the reconciling of these subjects, the very things
that I've introduced, the command to evangelize, coupled with the particularity of God's
decree and the intent of the saving work of Christ, were a difficulty allowed to exist
as to the reconciling of these subjects, it would not warrant a rejection of either of
them. If I find two doctrines affirmed or implied in scriptures, which to my feeble
understanding may seem to clash, I ought not to embrace the one and reject the other because
of their supposed inconsistency, for on the same ground another person might embrace that
which I reject and reject that which I embrace and have equal scriptural authority for his
faith as I have for mine. Yet in this manner many have acted on both sides, some taking
the general precepts and invitations of scripture for their standard, have rejected the doctrine
of discriminating grace, precisely what I said earlier. Some embrace the one set and
reject the other. On the other hand, others taking the declaration of the salvation of
men being a fruit of electing love deny that sinners without distinction are called to
believe for the salvation of their souls. Hence it is that we hear of quote Calvinistic
and quote Arminian texts as though these leaders had agreed to divide the scriptures between
them. The truth is there are but two ways for us to take, now get this, there are but
two ways for us to take. One is to reject them both and the Bible with them on account
of its inconsistencies. The other is to embrace them both, concluding that as they are both
revealed in the scriptures and are both true and both consistent, and that it is owing
to the darkness of our understanding that they do not appear so to us. Those excellent
lines of Dr. Watson is him on election, one should think, must approve themselves to every
pious heart. But, O my soul, if truth so bright should dazzle and compound thy sight, yet
still his written will obey and wait the great decisive day. That says it, doesn't it?
So as we approach the subject, we must approach it from that perspective. And may I give just
a little interesting aside that will sort of make this contemporaneous to many of us?
This subject was assigned to me long before the running, I don't want to say feud, what's
a better word, running discussion in the sword and trowel. There is no planned arrangement
between the subject matter of the sword and trowel in this conference, unless, except
that there are plans made back there behind the veil that we're not aware of, but out
here where we work. And it's interesting, I went through and analyzed the sermons and
the articles, et cetera, and I found something that I think without exception appeared in
this discussion. Every article or sermon which dealt with the mainline position of
historic Christianity, saying that there is a particularity of intent coupled with general
exhortations and invitations and desire or whatever other word you want to use of the
salvation of all men, there was some sentence or paragraph admitting that the fusion of
these things lay in the realm of the supra-rational in our present state, and almost a proud confession
that they were glad to have it so. However, in the other article, I'm extracting a phrase
from one of them. It said, since God has not saved all men, we may therefore conclude
rightly that he does not desire the salvation of all men. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, no, we
may not therefore conclude. That's taking a premise of Scripture and forcing upon it
a conclusion of human rationality, which we are not warranted in doing. If I want to know
God's desire to all men, I go to Scripture. I don't bring the eternal God to the bar of
human life.
Now, if any who were involved in this are here, I wouldn't know if I'm looking out.
Please do not take this as a personal affront or slap. In no way is it that, but I do believe
it's a very valid observation. And as I read those articles and reread some of them and
discard them looking for this, it struck me that apparently those who have been willing
to live with this tension have acknowledged the problem and have taken the course that
Fuller sets before us. Live with both and wait that great, decisive day.
All right, now moving from the approach to the problem, what is the answer of Scripture
to the problem? What does Scripture say concerning this whole matter of the three authors of
the Gospel? I lost a sheet here somewhere. Here we are. The substance of the answer.
May I give it to you in several propositions? Number one, in Scripture all men are invited
without discrimination to the blessings of salvation through Jesus Christ. This invitation
comes in the form of entreaty, pleas, commands, exhortations, and gracious promises addressed
to all men indiscriminately. We see it, first of all, in the Prophets, and I am merely being
selective, by no means exhaustive. As I mentioned earlier, I hope this study this morning will
simply be a catalyst to spring loose some independent study and research.
In Isaiah 55, verses one to seven, we have a classic illustration of this in the ministry
of the Prophets.
O everyone that thirsteth, ah, but says the brother who would put conditions, it is only
to the thirsty, those who are hungering after salvation.
Let's not make the conclusion so quickly.
Come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come buy
wine and milk without money and without price.
Therefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
satisfieth not. Here are people wholly involved in what we call a materialistic pursuit, hoping
to find satisfaction in the expenditure of energy and money in the pursuit of things.
Their first thing, not for God, but for satisfaction, and they hope to find it in things, and the
prophecy says, hey, you're being foolish. You're thirsting and trying to quench your
thirst. There, here's the only place it can be quenched. Come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price.
Incline your ear, et cetera. Then verses six and seven, seek ye the Lord while he may be
found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Who? Only convinced sinners? Sinners greatly
disturbed and agitated? No, lest the wicked forsake his way. He's speaking to men who
are fixed in a course of wickedness, and he calls upon them to seek the Lord. Why should
they seek him? If there's no desire for their salvation, if there's no promise of mercy,
if there is no genuine offer of grace. Ah, but there is, for he has said, oh, everyone
that thirsts. Come, there are waters. There is wine. There is bread. Come, forsake your
way. Let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for
he will abundantly pardon.
We see essentially the same thing in the sixth chapter of Jeremiah. In the interest of time,
we'll not turn to it. Jeremiah six and verse sixteen, God calls men to seek the old paths
and to walk therein to find rest to the soul. What kind of people were they? Verses ten
and thirteen describe them. They were in a sad state spiritually, no evidence of even
the first dawnings of desire after God, and yet the offer and the call and the entreaty
comes in their state of impenitence. We find in the ministry of our Lord that same note
sounded. Mark one, verses fifteen and sixteen. From that time, Jesus began to preach, saying,
Repent ye and believe the gospel for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he went into places
where he had to abrade them for their unbelief, yet he exhorted and called them to immediate
repentance and faith. And if the Bible teaches anything, it teaches that repentance that
is genuine is always coupled with faith, and faith that is genuine always has reference
to the provisions of the gospel set before men. And so our Lord preached an indiscriminate
general offer of mercy. He said to those blinded, hardened Jews in John twelve, verses twenty-eight
to thirty-seven, another passage I commend for your serious study, he sets himself before
them as the one in whom there is all light and life. And he says to these very Jews with
whom he's debating, into whom he has entered in dialogue, to use our contemporary term,
verse thirty-six, While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be children
of the light. Verse thirty-seven, But though ye've done so many miracles before them,
they believe not on them. To a hardened people made hard by not only the words of Christ,
but even the amazing miracles of Christ, he says, Believe on me, no condition set before
these hardened sinners, and the duty of immediate faith and trust in the Savior.
Acts two, thirty-seven and following, and Acts three, nineteen. In Acts two, while Peter's
preaching, men are pricked to the heart and they say, What shall we do? Peter says, Repent
in the last time. In Acts chapter three, the same Peter's preaching, there's no record
of any pricking of the heart, and yet he gives the same command to what we would call indifferent
sinners, Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Why has
God put the two so close together? I think to teach you something. We might infer from
the second chapter of Acts that until men say, What must we do? We have no warrant to
say, Repent. So right square off in the third chapter, no indication of a pricking of heart,
no indication of disturbance, he gives the same direction, Repent ye therefore.
An indiscriminate call, coupled with the promise of forgiveness and grace. We find that given
to an individual in the eighth chapter of Acts, verses twenty-one to twenty-three. This
man of whom Peter could say, I perceive that thou art still in the bond of iniquity and
the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. What does he say? Repent therefore and pray
to the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thine heart be forgiven. Acts seventeen-thirty on
Mars Hill, with these Athenian philosophers, God commanded all men everywhere to repent.
The Apostles own testimony in Acts twenty-twenty-one in twenty-six-twenty, he testified to Jews
and Greeks an indiscriminate message, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ. How do you preach repentance toward God and faith to Christ unless you set Christ
forth as a willing, able Savior who delights in the salvation of all who come unto him?
Impossible. And so we have these indications in the ministry of the Apostles, of the prophets,
and of our Lord himself, that there is a general indiscriminate offer of grace in the form
of commands, pleas, promises, and entreaties. In summing up, let me say, and I use here
now the simple five points that Ian Murray had in his article discussing the Marrow controversy,
that the offer that these men taught in Scripture was a free, unfettered offer. It was in the
second place a particular offer. To you is the word of this salvation sent. Thirdly,
it's a sincere offer. God doesn't have his tongue in his cheek. It's a commanding offer.
This is his commandment that we should believe in the name of his Son, First John three-twenty-three,
and it is an urgent and a solemn offer. It has those awful overtones, he that believeth
not shall be damned. And it's interesting that in a historical perspective, the seal
of God has been most obvious upon those men in movements that have held tenaciously to
the distinguishing doctrines of grace, but have preached powerfully an unfettered gospel.
The Holy Ghost is born witness with some of the most glorious periods in the history of
the Church. I'm merely seeking to set forth, I'm sure very inadequately, but I trust with
some degree of biblical accuracy the position espoused by the McShames and the Bonars and
the Spurgeons and the Whitfield, and you can go right down the line. Certainly no one would
question the strictness of the orthodoxy of the framers of the Confession. And listen
what they say, terms that shocked me when I first came to the doctrines of grace and
hadn't wrestled through in some of these areas.
Chapter 10 of the Confession. God in infinite and perfect love, having provided in the covenant
of grace through the mediation and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ the way of salvation,
sufficient for and adopted to the whole lost race of man, doth freely offer this salvation
to all men in the gospel. In the gospel, God declares His love for the world and His desire
that all men be saved reveals fully and clearly the only way of salvation, promises eternal
life to all who repent and believe in Christ. It is the duty and privilege of everyone who
hears the gospel immediately to accept its merciful, merciful provisions. They who continue
in impenitence and unbelief incur aggravated guilt and perish by their own fault. Well,
what then is the basis of this offer? If the answer of Scripture is that there is this
indiscriminate offer, what is the basis of it? What right do you have as a minister to
make this kind of offer? What warrant does a sinner have who comes to you and says, on
what basis can I expect that God will accept even me? May I suggest three things? Number
one, the clear command of God to all men without distinction. If there were no other
text, I should rest the whole case upon Acts 17, 30. But now God commandeth all men everywhere
to repent because He has appointed a day in which He'll judge the world in righteousness.
What a gracious command! If a group of people had rebelled against their sovereign and had
been corralled and were now under the sentence of death, if the king should send forth a
command and say, Cease from your rebellion! Come and dwell in my palace! What a gracious
command! The very command drips with grace! The king is disclosing his heart! I want you
in my palace. I don't want you under condemnation. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent!
We usually think of that as God in His righteous anger against men in their rebellion and in
penitence says, Come and bow! Oh no, don't say it that way. It's come and bow. All the
difference in the world. The command is diffused with, suffused with grace. In Jeremiah 7,
27, God told the prophet to go out and preach, and then He says, I've got good news for you.
They're not going to hear you, but tell them anyway. I was struck with that. We're reading
through Jeremiah in our prayer meeting, and here God commands him to go preach to the
people, and then He gives them a wonderful promise of success. They say they aren't going
to hear you. So Jeremiah's out there preaching, bleeding from his heart as he entreats the
people to repent in the light of impending judgment, and someone comes and says, Jeremiah,
you're preaching! I said, one reason. That God who laid hold of me as a young priest
in Anathoth, that God came to me and said, You preach. That's my reason. And if there
were no other warrant to preach a free, unfettered gospel, if God would somehow reveal to us
that not one more soul will be saved until His second coming, preach it we must! We have
a mandate from our God, and ours is to obey. The preacher needs no higher motive than this,
does he? And may I say, a sinner needs no greater encouragement. If God commands me
to repent, He's telling me to delight in repentance, and there's mercy for Vatican
sinners. I may come and venture on Him. The clear command of God is at the basis of the
free offers of mercy. Secondly, the expressed desire of God toward men. Does He sincerely
desire the salvation of all men? Does He delight in showing mercy? The text that I've not
seen used in any of the discussion of this, but to me is a very powerful one, is Romans
2 and verse 5. May we look at it for a moment? As Paul is seeking to break the consciences
of men with the holy law of God, to bring them to a sensibility of their need of the
salvation of Jesus Christ, he says in verse 4 and 5 of Romans 2, Or despises thou the
riches of His goodness, that is God's goodness, and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? He says you utterly misinterpreted God's
goodness. Here you are going on in this state of hypocrisy, preaching to others, don't
do this, but doing it yourself. You've got light in the conscience by virtue of truth,
but there is no affection for that light in the heart and no commensurate conformity to
that light in the life. The heavens are not split with judgment. You're not cut off
in your sins. And he says you're misinterpreting that longsuffering of God. You treat Him like
that and He still sends rain upon your crops. You treat Him like that and He still blesses
you with a sweet wife and normal healthy children who love you in spite of all your wretchedness.
You misinterpret all that goodness. You think that goodness is a leniency and an indifference
on the part of God to your sin. No! God is showering that goodness upon you that it might
move you to repentance. Now if He doesn't sincerely desire the repentance of men, why
does He shower them with that which has as its very intent to mourn them to repentance?
It's like my inviting you to my table and spreading it with good things and saying,
but I don't really desire it if you be full and enjoy them. No, no, the whole intent of
spreading the table is, I delight, in having you fed to the fall. I believe this is the
strain of the apostles' argument here at this point. And the same with Acts 17, 30,
as I mentioned a moment ago, and that text that's been bandied about in the sword and
trowel. All of you know it from memory by now. I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but I want to rest the case again on one key text. In Luke the 19th chapter
and the 41st verse, we read the record of our Lord coming into Jerusalem, and as He
beheld that city, it says that He wept over it, and He said, Oh, if only you knew the
things that belong to your peace. Luke 19 and verse 41, He wept over it. Now remember
what He said of our Lord. It is said in the first place that He has revealed the Father.
No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has revealed Him. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. I do always the things
that please My Father. May I suggest we are far more biblical when we seek to read the
heart of God in the life of Christ than in the abstract declarations of His attributes.
I'm not despising the latter. I've preached on the attributes of God. But the whole drift
of the scriptural revelation is that God has spoken with greatest clarity in His Son in
the enfleshment of the second person of the Trinity. Now I ask this very simple question.
If you were to see the Lord Jesus as one of His disciples, and whether they were there
to behold this, I don't know if the context indicates very clearly. It would seem to indicate
that they saw Him. And you beheld the Son of God without a trace of Solomon's head
of Christ's effeminacy. If you've got one of those pictures around, get it off your
wall. It'll ruin your appreciation to worship Christ in the totality of the beauty of His
person. All that is truly pure and beautiful in what is feminine is in Christ, yes. But
all that is beautiful in that which is masculine is in Christ, and Solomon just captures the
feminine. And I think it's done much to give the anemic, bloodless kind of a concept. But
that's neither here nor there. I don't know how I got on that. But now you picture the
Lord Jesus coming into Jerusalem. And as He looks over the city, you see Him dropping
His head. You watch His back begin to heave with sighs of brokenness. And you hear the
muffled restrained sobs. And you see the tears coursing down His holy face. And you hear
Him murmur these words, Oh, if only you knew the things that belong to you. What would
you conceive of the heart of God towards Jerusalem? If you had any spiritual sensitivity,
you'd understand that there was a genuine expressed desire of God for the salvation
of all that were in that place. And you'd be reading rightly the revelation of God made
in Jesus Christ. Because God has expressed His desire for the salvation of all men, we
may in treatment come to the Savior, look to the Lamb of God. But you say, Brother Martin,
you're so inconsistent here. Forty-five minutes ago you talked about that there is a decree
of election. Yes, Scripture teaches it. But the same Scripture that teaches Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated, the purpose of election shall stand. That's the picture
of the sobbing, heaving breast of the Son of God weeping over a city that rejected the
old virtues of grace. And faith lays hold of faith, and reason rests in God.
And then there's one other text, Revelation 3.20. If God does not have a genuine expressed
desire for the salvation of men, this text is not understandable. Behold, I stand at
the door and knock. And what is that knocking? That knocking is the overtures of grace and
mercy that come in the preaching of the Gospel. The Lord doesn't say, I stand outside for
you to admire me, to look at the apple. I knock. And what does anyone knock at your
door for? Not for exercise. He wants in. He wants in. I stand at the door and knock. Granted,
the subject that I'll deal with the Lord willing Friday morning, Scripture teaches
there are some to whom the Lord does more than knock in the overtures of grace. By His
mighty irresistible power, He so disposes the sinner against everything that He is by
nature to fling wide the door and say, Lord Jesus, come. But His knock is nonetheless
genuine and sincere in those for whom He never does that extra work of effectual calling.
And then in the third place, the basis of this general offering, the clear command of
God, the express desire of God. Thirdly, the adequate provision of God. If men are to be
sincere in preaching a free and full Gospel, they must be convinced there's an adequate,
suitable, available remedy for all to whom He preaches. I can't preach to all indiscriminately
unless I'm convinced there's a remedy, adequate, suitable and available for all to whom I preach.
And if sinners are to believe, they must likewise be convinced of the same. This was the thrust
of the apostolic preaching. They didn't set forth the secret design of the atonement in
preaching the Gospel. They believed it. And in the Epistles, the apostle writes very clearly
of it. But when they're preaching, what do they say in evangelism? Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. There He is, an able, willing, suitable, available
Savior. Cast yourself upon Him. We must be convinced that the particularity of the atonement
lies not in its insufficiency to save more, but in the sovereignty of its application
in the purpose of God. So we may say to all that Christ offers Himself as a perfect, able,
and willing Savior. And whether men believe or not, that's still true. If nobody believes,
He's still a willing, able, perfect Savior.
I submit that these three things are beautifully seen in the parable of the marriage feast.
And again, in the interest of time, we can't turn and look at all the factors. May I just
suggest them? Luke 14, 15 and following. The feast was prepared, then the command went
out, Come, for all things are ready. Come. There's the command. Come. There's an expressed
desire in the part of the ruler of the feast that you be there. If he didn't want you there,
he wouldn't say, Come. And then there's an adequate provision. All things are ready.
The tables spread. You have those factors involved in that great section of our Lord's
parable.
Well, very briefly then, some practical conclusions and exhortations, and I can only mention them.
Number one, holding the balance of truth in this area is essential for the life and being
and well-being of our churches. If it's all inviting and urging without clear preaching
on the source of God's, excuse me, without tracing the source of God's saving work to
election and to the definite design of the purchase of Christ, you'll end up with the
impression that man holds his destiny in his own hands. And eventually it leads to the
activism and free-ringed circus-ism that's so much prevalent in our evangelical circles.
On the other hand, if we declare the distinguishing doctrines of grace without pressing upon man
immediate repentance, I challenge you to find anything in the New Testament where our Lord
of the Apostles exhorted man to use the means. The immediate duty of repentance and faith
will be pressed upon them. You'll lead people to the place where they squirm out from under
the guilt of their unbelief, and they say, well, I'm a sincere seeker. Oh, you are?
In unbelief, in penitence, you're a sincere seeker. God says you're under the wrath of
an unbeliever. He that believeth not shall be damned. We lessen the guilt of unbelief.
As Flabel said so clearly, we are impotent and cannot come because we're rebellious and
we will not come. You say, well, that'll drive a man to despair. Hallelujah. Christ
is before you. He commands you to repent and you say, I must, but I can't. What'll that
do? That'll throw you on him to seek grace.
I shall never forget when a girl in her early twenties has since gone to be with the Lord
all the way from Guyana. The Lord had to bring her into our area to save her, and then she
came before our elders to give her testimony as a candidate for baptism. At one point,
I'll never forget, she said, I sat under the preaching of the word. She said, at that time
I was in the Sermon on the Mount. She said, the law of God began to plow my heart and
I saw myself lost and undone. And she said, I knew I had to repent, but I couldn't. And
I began to call on God for mercy. I had to, but I couldn't. I called for mercy. Like that
one beggar, Jesus is passing by, Son of David, have mercy. To maintain the balance of truth
then is essential to the life and well-being of our churches. Holding the balance of truth
will make your ministry a mystery to many. Make you a mystery. Romans 9, Paul starts
out with a broken heart. He said, oh, if only all my Israelites, people would be saved.
And he said, but wait a minute, God's not frustrated. Jacob and I love Israel, I hate
it, and then he ends up in the chapter blaming their unbelief, not on God's decree, but
on them. They shot it not by faith, but by unbelief. Will you scratch your head and say
what kind of double-talk is this? He's got a broken heart because they aren't all saved,
and then he says all that God purposed to be saved are saved because of the decree of
election, but those who don't believe, it's their fault. He seemed deliberate. Our Lord
was a mystery. If you were one of the disciples and saw him that day coming into Jerusalem
sobbing with a broken heart, and then you were happened to be listening in John 17 and
he says, I thank you, God, I've done everything you've sent me to do. I've saved every last
one that you gave to me. Sobbing, rejoicing. So, if you get the accusation, I will preach
that terrible doctrine of election. And they come the next week and they scratch their
head and say, there you are with tears, pleading with sinners. How in the world do you put
those two things together? If your mystery isn't a mystery to men, there's something
lopsided about it. The apostles' ministry and our Lord's ministry were mysteries.
I say then in the third place, grasping this balance is not a matter of merely academic
exercise. I quote John Newton, if while you're in the pulpit the Lord favors you with a lively
sense of the greatness of the trust, the worth of the souls committed to your charge, and
fills your heart with constraining love, many little curious distinctions which amused you
at other times will be forgotten. Your soul will go forth with your words and while your
heart yearns for poor sinners, you'll not hesitate a moment whether you ought to warn
them of their danger or not. Maybe this is the problem some of you have had. You're hiding
your calloused heart behind some theological tiptoe. If you have a broken heart for sinners,
your reflex action in the presence of sinners will be to warn, entreat, please exhort, invite
them to the Savior. And then I conclude with one last exhortation. Please don't confuse
inviting men to Christ with inviting them to any place in the church or any physical
act. I was preaching at a conference last summer and I sensed if I have any measure
of discernment, or did have at that time, that God was pleased to draw near in the preaching
of the Word. I was preaching on the law and trying to apply it to the consciences of sinners,
knowing that though the warrant of faith is the command of God, the way to faith, men
must see their lostness. And I was trying to bring them along the way to faith. And
as I came to a conclusion in my message, I was exhorting sinners to look to Christ who
bore in himself the awful brunt of the wrath of God against a broken law. And then I happened
to say this. I said, now as I plead with you to look to Christ, come to Christ, if he were
at the end of your fingers, I'd ask you to raise your hand. If he was at the front
of this tabernacle, I'd ask you to come. But he's not here and he's not there. He's
as near as the hand of faith that lays hold of him. You'd think I'd denied the deity
of Christ. Everything else I said went down apparently smoothly, but I like to cause a
whole split in that conference for the next two weeks, because I dared to assert that
inviting men to Christ has nothing to do with spiritual gymnastics. Nothing to do whatsoever.
You're warranted to invite men to Christ, but my dear brethren, I challenge you to find
one principle or precept in Scripture that warrants you to ever equate coming to Christ
with a physical overt act. I don't care who does it, chapter and verse. For the day
shall try every man's work of what sort it is, and your methodology will undergo the
scrutiny of the eye of the Son of God in the light of his word, as well as your theology.
May God help us to scripturally invite men to the Son of God. And if we say we believe
in the free invitations and offers, brethren, what an awful responsibility is upon us to
entreat men with tears. The hyper-Calvinist who says, I don't believe in it, and is a
cold, heartless preacher, is at least consistent with his theology. But if we who claim to
believe these things, God's command, God's desire, God's provision, if we aren't warm
and earnest and clear and entreating and using every motive to press upon the minds of men,
God have mercy upon us for the inconsistency of our life and our doctrine.