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And that is the very reason why I preach the Gospel with both joy and fear. Emotions are not lacking. "Joy" because it is the message of hope for the sinner. There is nothing rote about proclaiming the words of life. "Fear" because God's penalty for unbelief is too horrible to contemplate. There are times I wish Finney's approach was right. If it truly was in the preacher's power to persuade some to eternal life perhaps more would believe. But the work of saving is done by the Spirit according to the will of God.

 

And he entered (A)the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them (B)about the kingdom of God. Acts 19:8

23 Then when he arrived and [a]witnessed (A)the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; Acts 11:23

Therefore, we are (A)ambassadors for Christ, (B)as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be (C)reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2 Timothy 4:2.

 

Perhaps I should rephrase my question...

Van, What is your interpretation of Jesus telling the disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers in the field...when the lord of the harvest knows full well the field needs workers, and where he needs to send them? WHY are those prayers NOT needless?

 

You are assuming that what God requires from the Calvinist preacher is to do the bare minimum. The Reformers considered the preaching of the word of God to be the most noble of callings. Anyone can proclaim a dry, boring sermon. I can take Spurgeon's greatest sermon and reduce it down to a passionless diatribe devoid of any vestige of the Spirit.

I suppose there are Calvinist preachers who are lazy and ill prepared. Worse yet they consider their preaching to be from duty as opposed to conviction. But if I grant you that then it necessarily follows that you must grant the same from the Arminian side; preachers who believe their oratory skills take preeminence over the Gospel. But I would hope you would view these as exceptions to the rule and not try to create a caricature of the Calvinist preacher.

 

I agree with that! Hard to argue with Scripture in context!

 

God has predetermined the end effect, that the particular siinner will indeed come to Jesus and be saved by the Will and grace of God, but he also ordained that would happen by/thru the preaching /teaching of the Gospel message, and since god ONLY knows whom he will elect and chose to save, the Church takes the message to whole earth so that all can hear, and some can be saved!

 

I'm glad Jesus doesn't agree with you. Are you a Roman Catholic? You need to read and believe ALL of the Gospel of John not just the parts you take out of context and build your house of sand on.

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father." From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

 

Calvinism teaches we were saved or damned from all eternity for all eternity and nothing we do will alter that outcome for ourselves or our loved ones. But what if the future is not fixed, what if there is an actual opportunity to help increase the flock, i.e. we plant, water, cultivate but trust in God to cause the increase - He puts those whose faith He credits as righteousness in Christ.

With that radically different view of the gospel, then we should pray for God to use us to reach the lost, hastening the day of our Lord's return.

In other words, what if we actually accepted what the Bible actually says. Just saying...

 

Sorry Van, but you are wrong. I don't know if you are ignorant of Calvinism or if you are deliberately misrepresenting the doctrine but I don't know any Calvinist who will tell you "nothing you do will alter the outcome" The point being that what you do is exactly what God uses to bring about his divine plan. To say the outcome is fixed no matter what you do clearly represents that you do not understand what Calvinists believe. I think you have a caricature in your mind about what Calvinists believe, either that or you want others to have that caricature. We ALL believe that what we do matters. We all pray earnestly that God would use us to reach the lost. If you continue to say this then I have no choice to conclude that you are deliberately misrepresenting what Calvinism teaches. How is that in anyway helpful or edifying in the debate?

Your misrepresentation is no better than if I said that Arminians believe God is up there anxiously and helplessly wringing his hands hoping somebody will believe so that he can save them, or that free will is their god and the LORD God is subject to it.

 

The above seems to confirm the conclusions I have been coming to about the differences between Calvinism and Non-Calvinism. Both believe basically the same thing; They just use different definitions and terminolgy. They misrepresent each other and then argue against those misrepresentations.

 

But there is value in persuasiveness and effective/interesting speech. I am sure there are Calvinists out there who would deny any kind of persuasive arguments but those are not the kind I know. Both Arminians and Calvinists believe that God prepares the ground of the heart and mind and uses various means to do this including persuasion, reason, emotion and fear.

Where I have a problem is with the idea that we can use psychological tricks to fool somebody into a profession of faith or a sinner's prayer and think that that person is in any way saved except possibly despite those tactics. I believe that God gives the increase and salvation is his work. That does not mean that he does not use the foolishness of preaching and persuasion etc. to accomplish his work: he does.

So I would say there is a problem with the premise of your proposition

 

I suspect all of us who embrace the DoG have asked ourselves the same question Skandelon has raised.

For me, the answer is found in I Corinthians 1:21

God has ordained the means as well as the ends. Our job is to present the gospel to whoever will listen. The Holy Spirit will do his job

 

You reject the Biblical basis for TULI; why do you accept the Biblical basis for P?

 

... "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." There is no life in God the Father for a sinner; there is no life in God the Spirit for a sinner apart from Jesus. The life of a sinner is in Christ. If you take the Father apart from the Son, though he loves his elect, and decrees that they shall live, yet life is only in his Son. If you take God the Spirit apart from Jesus Christ, though it is the Spirit that gives us spiritual life, yet it is life in Christ, life in the Son. We dare not, and cannot apply in the first place, either to God the Father, or to God the Holy Ghost for spiritual life. The first thing we are led to do when God brings us out of Egypt is to eat the Passover—the very first thing. The first means whereby we get life is by feeding upon the flesh and blood of the Son of God; living in him, trusting on him, believing in his grace and power. Our second thought was—there is life in Christ...

C. H. Spurgeon

Yet following a crowd does not mean you are drawn by the Father. The crowd was not drawn to Jesus by the Father they were following the crowd. Jesus tells us who they are those who listen and learn from the Father comes to me. They did not listen and learn they were following the crowd. Peter listened and learned and said where can we go, you have the words of eternal life.

When Jesus spoke the truth because they did not listen and learn they thought He was talking cannibalism. So is that the reason you say i am Roman Catholic?

At the passover they had to eat everything of the lamb and not let one morsel go to waste, but it was the blood on the door that saved their eldest son from death, not what they did.

We must be born again your old man will die you will perish and we are born again by the enduring word of God, the words of life eat and drink and be satisfied. The wise and learned God has hidden the truth from, we must come to Him as a child in the womb listen and learn and through His word we will be born again by. His word that is Spirit and life, His word is not His own but the Father who sent Him and the Father and Him is one. So when we are drawn by Jesus and His words of life we are drawn by the Father. We as Holy Spirit filled believers, the temple of the Holy Spirit is His messengers to the ends of the earth. The messenger is nothing, He can send a burning bush, a donkey, a worm as His messenger it is the one who sent the message and the message that is everything.

 

Skan, I understand your intent and I don't think your intention is to create a caricature, but your premise leads there.

The Calvinist preacher should take great care that he doesn't seek to be "interesting" at the expense of the Gospel. It's not about the man, it's about God's glory.

Let ask a question in return. Since the preacher is handling God's holy word, should he not desire to proclaim it well? The preacher is a herald of a heavenly message. How he executes his duty says a lot about his love for God.

Another thing, what of the Arminian preacher? Does he actually believe the manner in which he preaches improves the Gospel message? If so, then he denies Romans 1:16.

In short, God will call His elect no matter how much, or how little, passion is displayed by the preacher. It is the Gospel that is power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). Preaching the Gospel well glorifies God, and is there any downside to that?

 

Amen, Brother, amen. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: