“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me…No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him…It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” (John 6:37, 44-45).
Anytime and anywhere you find a person who has experienced the power of God, you find one that was elected by God the Father, given to God the Son to redeem, and then quickened into spiritual life by God the Holy Spirit. Election is the Golden Charter of salvation, the basis on which grace does its perfect work. None are saved but those chosen in Christ — “Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you” (John 15:16). None are redeemed and called but the elect only. We know nothing of an ineffectual, halfway “redemption” nor of a “calling” that fails to secure its object. Christ standing at a heart’s door, failing to gain entrance and turning away in defeat is not a picture of the salvation experienced by Paul the Apostle, for it is a caricature, a cheap and unscriptural deception. God’s salvation of God’s elect is the surest thing in all the world.
In preaching, we do not know the elect from others, and we publicly proclaim the word of salvation within the hearing of all. But the message discriminates, reaches only those whose hearts God opens to receive it, as Lydia’s in Acts 16:14. Say, my hearer: Has God opened your heart to His great, effectual and fully successful work of salvation? Or, do you still fancy that God’s merely “tries” to save sinners and that you have the power to defeat Him, to turn Him down? My soul! If such be your position and experience, you know nothing of the salvation Paul had.
submitted by Wylie W Fulton
