ARTICLES FROM THE PERSUADER
VOLUME 1 (1987-1993)
SOVEREIGN GRACE
Hated by the Modern Religionist
Copied from the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 1891, p. 49.
If anything is hated bitterly, it is the out‑and‑out gospel of the grace of God, especially if that hateful word "sovereignty" is mentioned with it. Dare to say "He will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion," (Rom. 9:15), and furious critics will revile you without stint. The modern religionist not only hates the doctrine of sovereign grace, but he raves and rages at the mention of it. He would sooner hear you blaspheme than preach election by the Father, atonement by the Son, or regeneration by the Spirit. If you want to see a man worked up till the Satanic is clearly uppermost, let some of the new divines hear you preach a free‑grace sermon. A gospel which is after men will be welcomed by men; but it needs a divine operation upon the heart and mind to make a man willing to receive into his inmost soul this distasteful gospel of the grace of God.
My dear brethren, do not try to make it tasteful to carnal minds. Hide not the offense of the cross, lest you make it of none effect. The angles and corners of the gospel are its strength: to pare them off is to deprive it of power. Toning down is not the increase of strength, but the death of it. Why, even among the sects, you must have noticed that their distinguishing points are the horns of their power; and when these are practically omitted, the set if effete (no longer able to produce). Learn, then, that if you take Christ out of Christianity, Christianity is dead. If you remove grace out of the gospel, the gospel is gone. If the people do not like the doctrine of grace, give them all the more of it. Whenever its enemies rail at a certain kind of gun, a wise military power will provide more as such artillery. A great general, going in before his king, stumbled over his own sword. "I see," said the king, "your sword is in the way." The warrior answered, "Your majesty's enemies have often felt the same." That our gospel offends the King's enemies is no regret to us.
Postscript To The Previous Article
We cannot deny the truth of the previous article. Yet I am amazed at how many want to label you in certain schools of thought because you use certain words. "Sovereign" is a good word and simply means "chief, supreme, above all others" and that exactly describes God.
Even though God is sovereign that does not do away with man's responsibility and right to choose. God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4); this choice was based upon the foreknowledge of God (I Peter 1:2). God foreknows the exercise of faith which brings salvation (II Thess. 2:13), therefore He chooses to salvation.
This doctrine does not relieve us of the Great commission which He gave His church (Mat. 28:18‑20). What this doctrine does do is cause God to get all glory concerning salvation and that is what stirs men up; the fact that self cannot get any glory.
All we can do is water and plant but God gives the increase (I Cor. 3:6‑9). May we stick with the Bible and not follow tradition of men that tries to short‑circuit the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation by not letting the Sovereign Grace of God operate.
THE PERSUADER - April-May, 1990