I started the final draft of this sermon during the wonderful life giving rain in the Biscuits ballpark last night. That experience teaches what God’s free and prevenient grace must be like. It rained on the just and the unjust last night. It rained on everyone inside and outside that stadium. I was writing under a flimsy umbrella on a small spiral notepad that was no more dignified than the tablets that the Wesley’s and Methodist circuit riders used to write on as they traveled by horse back and received divine inspiration for a message to their next charge and congregation. Our task today is a far more practical theology than the very cerebral Presbyterian explanation of predestination.
In fact, when John Wesley preached Sermon 128 by the same title as this one at Bristol in 1740, he used his “strongest conviction” in opposing the Puritan Calvinists’ doctrine of predestination. I am preaching this to a bunch of Methodists or at least those who are curious about what the United Methodists believe.
Well, we believe that our mission is to win souls for Christ, to help make true disciples of Jesus, then to send them out to win others for Christ. But some of us (even Methodists) are practicing predestination, because our actions (or non-actions) speak louder than words. We don’t seem to think that God protects some folk – those that we are afraid of – those whom we don’t like or feel uncomfortable with – those with whom we don’t want to spend eternity with. Luke 13:22-30 shows Jesus chiding us when we try to be the ones deciding who will be in the Kingdom of God. The first will be last and the last will be first.
Wesley says that God freely loves the world! While we were yet sinners, "Christ died for the ungodly." While we were "dead in our sin," God "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." And how freely with him does he "give us all things!" FREE GRACE is all in all! Our salvation is FREE IN ALL, and FREE FOR ALL.
I. It is free in all to whom it is given.
II. The doctrine of predestination is not a doctrine of God.
III. Predestination destroys the comfort of religion, the happiness of Christianity.
IV. This uncomfortable doctrine also destroys our zeal for good works.
V. Furthermore, the doctrine of predestination has a direct and manifest tendency to overthrow the whole Christian Revelation.
VI. And at the same time, makes that Revelation contradict itself.
VII. Predestination is a doctrine full of blasphemy, because it is often used as a stumbling block for many non-believers and unchurched believers who have stopped going to church because they accept its damning postulate that they are going to hell anyway.
Free grace does not depend on any power outside of God. But we may compare how God provides free grace, by the way a parent or grandparent loves a child long before he or she is born.
If there are only certain people predetermined to go to heaven and others predetermined to go to hell, then all this preaching about Jesus Christ is vain and foolish, because the elect will be saved with or without preaching. Philip Yancey’s friend tried to witness to a desperate prostitute who had been farming out her two year old daughter to men for profit. But when he asked her whether she had gone to the church for help, she scowled and retorted with “why would I want to go there and just feel more guilty and more lost?”
Some of went to the Biscuit ballgame last night because we didn’t know who was going to win and we wanted to find out. But a staunch believer in predestination could stop going to games because the winners and losers are already predetermined. Fatalism is the belief that says that certain results will happen anyway and there is no use trying to change what is inevitable. But this would have stopped the Wright Brothers, if they accepted the naysayers jibe “If God wanted man to fly, he would have given us wings.” Progress is futile in a world of predestined outcomes. There is no motive to do anything, if God already wants things to be done a certain way and doesn’t expect us to team up with Him.
If a sick man knows that he must unavoidably die, or unavoidably recover, though he knows not which, it is unreasonable for him to take any medical care. And some people say this about their spiritual sickness, "If I am going to live, I’ll live; if I’m going to die, then let it happen; so I don’t need to trouble myself about it. No need to try to be holy, when holiness only belongs to God and I don’t seem to belong to God.”
Some smug Christians close out other people’s joy in Christ by claim a far superior assurance. This is psychological abuse and bullying. All the great and precious promises through Christ are lost to the victim. For they are not the elect of God according to the Pharisaical Christian. The “I know that I know” bragging before an unbeliever or less assured believer is not a comfort and it only creates a weakened spiritual life for others who see no hope in worshiping the God in that other person’s haughty soul. Just because you have a full assurance that all your past sins are forgiven, and that you are now a child of God – this does not necessarily imply a full assurance of our future perseverance. Feigning comfort of future assurance denies the power and comfort from the Holy Spirit, which in turn denies the continued saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Predestination proposes that God is without steadfast loving kindness. It cuts off one of the strongest motives to show mercy, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, and especially introduce others to Christ. Why share your faith in Jesus, if grace is not free to all. Proverbs 11:30 promises that you are wise when you save a soul. God promises to send ministering spirits (angels) to lead people to salvation (Hebrews 1:14). So why would God send angels to save souls, if our salvation were already a “done deal?” These are all part of how God preveniently loves and saves us.
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8) "The Lord is loving unto every man; and his mercy is over all his works." (Psalm 114:9) And "the same Lord over all is rich" in mercy "to all that call upon him:" (Romans 10:12) Christ died, not only for those that are saved, but also for them that perish: He is "the Savior of the world" (John 4:42). He is "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29). "He is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). "He," the living God, "is the Savior of all men;" (1 Timothy 4:10) "He gave himself a ransom for all;" (1 Timothy 2:6) "He tasted death for every man." (Hebrews 2:9)
Dear Heaven Father, thank you for your grace that gives us hope of being healthy, even when we are ill with the fevers of this world. Thank you for risking Your abundant love, protection and forgiveness each on of us – even for our unknown sins. Your safety is no accident. We are much more than lucky auction winners in a game of chance. You are love and You love us in and through Your Son in whose name we pray, Amen.
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