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The Sovereignty of God and World Missions Original October 23, 2001 | PORTLAND, OR
My aim in this article is to show from Scripture that the historic faith as taught by Jesus (John ch. 6), Paul (Rom ch. 9), Augustine, and the Reformers that God sovereignty predetermines His chosen from among the nations (Revelation 5:9; Rev. 7:9-10), should be the greatest motivation to world missions. “A people for His Name” will be established from among every people. A corresponding aim is to show the harmful error of both Arminian (synergistic) theology and hypercalvinism and how they each disrupt the delicate balance of understanding God's sovereign will in the salvation of His elect. I cannot underscore the importance of understanding this enough as it should give us all great hope that we will be instruments in efficaciously bringing forth the harvest of those Christ purchased with his blood. I have heard it said that there are three things which are sure in this life: death, taxes and that God will infallibly bring His elect to salvation (John 6:37-39). Should this truth motivate us to world missions or rob us of our motivation? I would argue that, together with giving God glory, this should be the single most motivating factor in getting us to mobilize overseas to proclaim God's living word ... Why? Because God's word will not return unto Him void but accomplish that for which He purposed it (that more people would give Him glory). And here I stress that God's word is living because it is His word, the gospel, accompanied by the sovereign dispensing of grace by the Holy Spirit, is the "power of God" unto the salvation of His elect. People are not saved in a vacuum. God has ordained that He gather His flock worldwide through the preaching and proclamation of His word. That word alone has power unto salvation. At the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans in chapter 1:17 it reads
So why is Paul not ashamed of the gospel? Because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is also the message God chooses to bring to the world by human instruments. Although God is clearly sovereign in the salvation of men, He chooses to bring glory to Himself by utilizing weak human instruments to carry His word in order to accomplish His eternal, sovereign and preordained purposes (the gathering of His elect from the ends of the earth). This seemingly foolish message taken through a human medium is the power of God unto salvation. This clearly demonstrates that God saves His elect working through the power of the gospel message supernaturally, not by other means. And although other means are indeed possible for God, He has not chosen them, except for rare cases where God supernaturally intervened in history, as in the instance of the conversion of Paul. This passage does not teach that the gospel will unconditionally and efficaciously bring all men who hear unto salvation, but only those who believe. This demonstrates that God does not accomplish salvation irrespective of our faith. Faith is required, commanded and the ONLY means by which we are justified. Do not let the fact that God has preordained his elect unto salvation prejudice this central truth or keep any person from preaching the gospel. On the contrary, it should give us certain hope when we proclaim it that His chosen ones will come. The Bible clearly and unambiguously teaches that effectual calling and regeneration precede our faith (1 John 5:1, Rom 8:30, John 1:13). Regeneration is only causally prior to faith and those regenerated will always exercise faith (John 6:37-39). But salvation can never come about without faith. There is no such thing as a regenerate person who does not have salvation. Being united to Christ by the Spirit, the listener must hear, with faith, in order to be declared righteous in Christ; receiving God's justification. This, being true, should make us, all the more, desire to go out into the unreached corners of the earth to proclaim the gospel of salvation because we know God will infallibly bring His purpose about. All those the Father has given the Son, those who are written in the book of life, will believe. We indeed go not in vain because God will bring about His purposed will in gathering His elect unto salvation through the proclamation of the gospel, "wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe." (WCF 7.3) This should reveal the need to make ourselves available for world missions where the gospel has not been formerly preached. It is the Spirit who gives the new birth through the preaching of the word alone. It is because the Spirit of God accompanies it that the word carries in it the germ of life. The life is in God, yet it is communicated to us through the word, as evidenced in the following passages of scripture:
James says,
Although the Father ultimately determines who will come to the Son (John 6:44, Eph 1:4,5), He does so in conjunction (concurrantly) with the church as we proclaim His gospel. Hypothetically, if there were no elect and, as missionaries, we had to merely blindly hope that people would come to the faith of their own volition through our reasoning, then I believe that all hope would be lost and no one would be saved, because, left to his own will, natural man never willingly comes to Christ or accepts the humbling terms of the gospel. There is no inclination to holiness by man when left in his rebellious nature. He will always choose against God in the flesh (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 3:11, Romans 8:7). This is not merely a theoretical position for a few Presbyterians who are sitting around contemplating their navels. As a missionary myself for over ten years in a closed country I have seen up close the hardened hearts of men. Without believing that God had an eternal purpose to raise up His own from spiritual death I would have lost all hope in preaching the word. No one will come to God, apart from the Holy Spirit, on their own. By nature men are hostile to God, love the darkness, will not listen, are unable and unwilling since those in the flesh cannot understand the things of the Spirit (Rom 8:7, 1 Cor 2:14). You can reason with people all you want but they are dead in sin and have uncircumcized ears. God must graciously make them alive with Christ which He does through the prayers of His saints and through the preaching of the Gospel which the Spirit utilizes to change the disposition of men's hearts, the power of God unto salvation. This is the greatest comfort to a missionary since he knows that God's purpose in election will be carried out through his work. We plant and water, but God causes the growth. Otherwise all going would be in vain since the flesh profits nothing. Conversely, synergists (or Arminians) claim that God somehow cooperates with man in salvation. That God gives every human being a chance to chose or refuse him by revealing Himself as He works with man by grace. Man, however, makes the final decision, in this scenario, making it hard to avoid the question as to why one person accepts God while another does not. Besides being unbiblical, the problem with this view is that it still leaves man in his sinful, rebellious state. How can we expect natural man to believe on Christ while he still loves the darkness? He will not. "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.' (emphasis mine). In other words, man's nature and the disposition of his heart must be changed (wrought upon) by the Holy Spirit in regeneration first if he is to have the will to believe or ears to hear. God not only has to cooperate with man but give him the ability, open his blind eyes and resurrect him to a life of faith. Mere cooperation in salvation does not change man's nature or sinful inclinations. If grace is merely the extension of a gift to the sinner for him to take This cooperative theory of salvation leaves the missionary with only the potential for salvation among the lost. Here Christ's death only made them redeemable, but nothing sure and then it is only IF they will believe with their own will or effort. This is a hopeless cause and a profound source of discouragement for the fruitless missionary. Synergists will often bring out "proof texts" like John 3:16 which say "whosoever believes .. has eternal life" or Peter when he says "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation..." (emphasis Arminians) as if these were evidence against God's sovereignty in salvation. Yes, of course, we agree that EVERYONE who believes in God's Son has eternal life but this by no means suggests that God is not sovereign in the process of bringing them to that belief. God commanding what the natural man "ought" to do does not necessarily mean that he or she "can". Reformed biblical theologians and evangelists still tell men that God commands them to repent and believe the gospel. This is because they must believe the gospel in order to be saved. How is this? Because if they do believe we know that it happened as a result of the work of God. Remember the Scripture states that no one says 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit. It is God who enables the very desire and will to believe. It is God who irresistibly draws them (John 6:37, 65). This should stop no one from proclaiming salvation by grace through faith alone. The gospel call and responsibility of all Christians is to proclaim faith in God to every (human) creature under heaven but God still unconditionally determines where His message will be effectual, and we leave that to God. The Apostle Paul, in 1 Thess 1:4, 5 explains that God chose those who believe not simply with preaching itself but preaching which was empowered by the Holy Spirit:. "For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction." Apart from the Spirit the hearers would have remained hostile and spiritually impotent to come to Christ. It is important as missionaries that we preach the gospel biblically, but how do we do that? Ironically, on the mission field and in the Bible true saving faith occurs when the hearer comes to the point where they feel they have no hope at all to do anything at all for salvation, that God's law and the requirement of faith itself is too difficult. Well, in what seems contrary to reason, this is evidence that a true work of grace is taking place. For here, stripped of all hope, save His mercy alone, is when God has us where He wants us. C.H. Spurgeon explained this phenomena like this:
To use a personal example, when the Lord opened my eyes to the beauty of Christ in the truth of the gospel, He did so in like manner to what Spurgeon is describing above. It was during my sophomore year in college when I was deeply into the occult and was hardened against the exclusive claims of Christianity. But while reading the word of God something unusual took place. The Lord led me to read Deuteronomy 18 and Romans 9:15, 16. It was the text in the NIV version which said "it does not depend on man's desire or effort but on God's mercy" (Rom 9:16) where at once I was stripped bare of any and all hope in myself, and yet, in my utter helplessness, the Spirit opened my heart to the beauty and excellency of Christ. This is what good preaching should do: it should bring people to understand the holiness, majesty, beauty and glory of God, in which they will see their own rebellion, sinfulness and nothingness. But in so doing, the Spirit has them in the place He wants the for true conversion. Then as the new birth occurs it is simply 'natural' to be believing. Jesus does this same thing when he tells Nicodemus that He cannot see or ether the kingdom of God unless he is born again. He does it again when, in John chapter 6, He explains to the Pharisees that they must believe, but that they won't believe unless God grants it (John 6:65). If one concludes that this would make someone despair of all hope, then their conclusion is correct because this is exactly what God wants us to conclude. It is only here that we are in a place to trust in Christ alone and the promises of the gospel become precious. John Calvin succinctly explained the same paradoxical truth when he said, "Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty". With the above truths about the work of the Spirit, the desperate condition of mankind and our need to come to an end of ourselves in mind, we then understand how it is that " the gospel is the power of God that is operative unto salvation" through faith. 1 Cor 1:21 says "... God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe." The gospel message, in other words, is the power of God unto salvation to those who have faith. Wherever we see this faith, we see God's power effective unto salvation. AND saving faith will only occur in a context where the gospel is being proclaimed. Those who never hear will have to face God and He will judge them according to their works while in the body (Rom 2:12). That is certainly not a happy prospect since God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Each man owes God a tremendous debt and the works they bring God will render them lost and without God for eternity. The church in rich countries like America will also be held responsible for its lack of action. In other words, lets get out there and proclaim God's message of reconciliation if any are to embrace the Savior. It appears, however, that since few believe in hell anymore that it doesn't really matter if we go out or not. This, my friends, is called unbelief. If hell is not true we might as well put our Bibles on the shelves and consider them an interesting look at primitive human beliefs but essentially useless and even harmful. The point is that God is holy and will not tolerate sin. If you don't believe this then you have no right to classify yourself as a follower of Christ. Mankind's sin will be judged by the harshest measure of God's wrath. I understand that the modern evangelical church is often guilty of overemphasizing God's love while simultaneously de-emphasizing, if not abandoning God's wrath. But folks, hell is more real than where you now sit since it will last eternally and God will carry out His wrath with perfect justice. And the ONLY reason Christians will not also suffer under God's wrath is that it has already been poured out on Jesus Christ, our substitute. We deserve God's wrath like the rest. We are no better in ANY way, but God, for purposes beyond our understanding, and by His good pleasure, chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. This is why we must get the gospel out to the parts of the world that have never heard. They are doomed if they do not hear...but thankfully, in Christ, He does not treat us as our sins deserve. But "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Rom 10:15) God, for reasons known only to Himself, has chosen to work only through the church and the foolishness of preaching - they work in perfect tandem, but not apart from one another. Those who never hear are lost my friends ...there are no innocents our there. Again, saving faith does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs only when the gospel is preached by those sent out by the church. The order is as follows: messengers sent out by the church, the preaching of the message, the hearing of the message and faith in the savior of the message. Romans 10:17 says "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Christ, by His Holy Spirit is speaking through our gospel presentations. God utilizes these weak and feeble vessels to bring about profound transformation in those He gave His Son from eternity. We bring God's infinite treasures into the world to redeem mankind which restores them to a rightful relationship with their Maker. AMAZING! I hope by application we do not just sit back in our resting chairs and say, "God will take care of His elect with or without me." That is what is called hypercalvinism, a fatal and heretical error. Likewise, an equally devastating error is to conclude that since "God is love" we don't really need to go reach those who haven't heard since God will give everyone a chance with or without us. Nor should we conclude, like the Arminian, that our prayers to God for men's salvation are worthless since God is forbidden from interfering with man's will. All these unbalanced views are unbiblical and damaging to the furthering of the gospel.
------------------------------------------------ PCA Mission to the World We believe that God's grace, demonstrated to us in the radical love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, has the power to transform our world. Our mission is to build church-planting movements, whose energy continues to grow far into the future, long after we may be gone. Vibrant, nationally-led churches around the world will grow and multiply, transforming the culture around them. Chaim A Reformed missions endeavor to Jews which is backed by the PCA. We promote the gospel among the Jewish people through direct evangelism, motivating and equipping churches, and discipling Jewish believers. It is our desire to help rebuild the Reformed witness to the Jewish people in the USA. The Movement: Global City Church Planting - Redeemer PCA Church Manhattan Westminster Biblical Missions Westminster Biblical Missions (WBM) was born in 1973 in answer to a "Macedonian call" from Reformed believers in Korea and Pakistan. These believerswere not asking for more missionaries, but for training for themselves so that they might finish the work of reaching their countrymen for Christ. Reformed Presbyterian Missions This short-term mission agency is under the authority of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. Short-term mission endeavors are open to young people from all Reformed denominations and are carried out according to historic Reformation principles. The Reformed Baptist Fellowship — The RBF is a network of churches adhering to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. RBF encourages mutual cooperation for missions, church planting, edification and fellowship. Sovereign Grace Ministries — A growing family of more than 55 local Christian churches in the U.S. and several foreign countries. Reformed theology combined with charismatic passion (see their statement of faith for a full explanation). Heavily involved in church planting. The Bethlehem Institute for Bible, Theology, and Missions Reformed Missions in Latin America Our purpose is to glorify God in obedience to Christ’s command to "disciple the nations" (Matthew 28:19). Specifically we have answered God’s call by serving the edification of His Church in Latin America. We do this out of a commitment to the historic Christian faith as summarized by the early creeds of Christendom, and further clarified by the Reformed confessions of the 16th century. Our objectives are to see God’s Church in Latin America built and strengthened upon Christ the Rock, and His infallible Word. Missions of the Protestant Reformed Churches Missionary activity includes the work of church extension and church reformation, as well as the task of carrying out the gospel to the unchurched and heathen. Middle East Reformed Fellowship Committed to proclaim the historic Christian faith as expressed in the early ecumenical creeds and the confessions of the Reformation. Grace Church Planting Ministries is a missions network created to promote the work of planting God-centered evangelical churches throughout the nations. It is our hope to explore ways that we can work together under the banner of truth—the doctrines of grace—regardless of our particular convictions on secondary issues. As a missions network, GCPM desires to connect embryonic core groups with men whom God has called into the ministry of planting new churches. Are you looking for God's leadership concerning where to plant a new work? We have listed several "doors of opportunity" where at least one family has contacted us regarding their desire to see a new church planted in their location. Christian Reformed World Missions Salvation to the ends of the earth" is the vision that compels and propels us to go with the gospel to other lands. FPC India Mission This is the mission to India of the Free Presbyterian Church in Andhra Pradesh! Mr.Ravi Pasupuleti, c/o Dr P Lakshmi, 30-15-106 Dabagardens, Cisakhapatanam-20, Andhra Pradesh, India Let The Bible Speak Mission - Jamaica Mission Missionary Mark Telford - PO Box 87, Station Road, Little London, Westmoreland, Jamaica. West Indies. Phone: Country Code = 876, Number = 955-7694 FPC Kenya Mission This is the Free Presbyterian Church Mission located in Gillian, Gillespie, Kitale! PO Box 3449, Kitale, Kenya, East Africa Presbyterian Border Ministry Presbyterian Border Ministry is a cooperative endeavor of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico and the Presbyterian Church (USA). It's mission is to share the gospel in Mexican cities along the 2000 mile border with the United States. Council for World Mission Missionary exchanges are a key part of CWM's work. As a community of churches from diverse countries and cultures, CWM has a wealth of experience to draw from to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. By sharing people in mission, churches are able to witness for Christ together, and learn, assist and challenge each other in mission, reflecting the universality of the Church. Myatt Missions Home Page Southern Baptist Missionaries to Brazil, Alan and Kathy Myatt share info about Missions, apologetics, theology and Christian life. We include our regular newsletters. Join our team of prayer partners. Deaf Reformed Ministries Deaf Reformed Ministries is a non-profit organization dependent upon the generosity of those who share our vision of exposing reformation to the deaf community and to have their hearts burning with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 24:32). Friendship Christian Reformed Missionaries Friendship Christian Reformed World Missions supported by FCRC in Philippines, Ecuador, and Nigeria. Disaster Response Services for CRWRC also. Cornerstone Bible Institute A Reformed Prison Mission reaching inmates with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a registered charitable organization which provides Bible correspondence courses for inmates, and materials and training for local churches to develop a prison ministry in their community. Mission Network News Mission Network News is a mission news service dedicated to keeping Christians informed on evangelical mission activity around the world; in doing so we hope to educate and motivate Christians to prayer, participation, and support of missionary work to help further the Great Commission. World Harvest Missions The primary instrument to accomplish both renewal and missions is the gospel of the grace of God. Therefore. the means by which we will carry out our vision is testifying to that gospel, believing that the power of God is unleashed as the gospel goes forth. |