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Monday, January 12, 2015

STUMBLING OVER ELECTION…Comfort For The Elected

Christianity can be condensed into four words: Admit, Submit, Commit and Transmit. -Samuel Wilberforce

STUMBLING OVER ELECTION…Comfort For The Elected

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But there are some who say, “It is hard for God to choose some and leave others.” Now, I will ask you one question. Is there any of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave off sin and walk in holiness? “Yes, there is,” says some one, “I do.” Then God has elected you. But another says, “No; I don’t want to be holy; I don’t want to give up my lusts and my vices.” Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it? For if you were elected you would not like it, according to your own confession. 42.316

You cannot diminish, you cannot increase the number, why preach the gospel? Now, I thought my friend Mr. Bloomfield anticipated this difficulty well enough. There must be a harvest,—why sow, why plough? Simply because the harvest is ordained to save some. 387.312

I wish that any sinner who is troubled about election, for instance, would wait till God tells him he is not elected, or, if he has any misgiving about whether he may come to Christ, he would wait till he finds a passage which tells him that he may not
come. 1123.417

Man is made out to be a poor, weak creature, victimised by a law too rigid for his frailty. It is represented that he has a right to mercy, and a great uproar is made if we deny him any such right; and much anger is felt if we declare that mercy is the
sovereign prerogative of God, and may be exercised at his own absolute discretion. Rebellion against divine election is often founded on the idea that the sinner has a sort of right to be saved, and this is to deny the full desert of sin.1416.301

The other day when we preached the electing love of God, you grumbled and muttered that God was unjust to choose one rather than another. What did this mean? Did it not mean that you felt you had some claim upon God? 2012.136

 

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