The Practical Application of the Effectual Calling

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The next couple of things he mentions are that God actually uses the examples in Scripture, and of course, you know, we could also say

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He uses the examples in history and the examples all around us, of how He has been merciful to other sinners.

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Has He not saved countless people just as bad as us? Will He not save us if we come to Him?

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You know, so the use of example to encourage our weak faith. And then finally, that God supernaturally strengthens the will, that God actually enables a man or a woman, a young person, to turn away from and to turn to and to lay hold of, to grab hold of, to take to yourself all that Christ describes

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Himself to be, to, in a sense, to hand over all that you know of yourself. Ultimately, if you take all those things that we've just mentioned, this is a good summary of what the effectual call does.

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If this is the effectual call, these things he's mentioned, bringing us to a place where we are willing in the day of His power, how do we know that it's

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His power, not the evangelists, not the individuals? I think this does go back to depravity and the fact that we are fallen in Adam and we've all inherited that.

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And because of that, we naturally choose self above everything else. It's not that we don't want a king, it's that we want to be king.

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And all the world should recognize that I'm significant and I'm king. And every other person seems to think that also, which is a problem, right?

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So Pemberton asked the question, who would deny himself? And who would?

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We may have some goal that we're shooting for that we'll make a small denial for, for the attainment of that goal.

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But even that goal, it's not the goal of godliness, it's personal something, personal achievement, whatever. But we're called to deny ourself everything.

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Deny ourself every pleasure, deny ourself, just deny ourself, take up our cross and to deny ourself.

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And who would do that and hand ourselves over to a king that we cannot see? And you know, the world mocks that, scorns.

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Who would go to God for righteousness and think that everything I do, all the, there's some bad stuff, but the good things

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I do, they're not good enough. And the very best things are done with the wrong motive. And all of that is offensive to him.

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Who would abandon all of that and turn to God for righteousness, except that God overcomes our pride and works in such a way that we gladly humble ourselves and turn to him.

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And it is that shift, our willingness to, to come with nothing in our hands, nothing in my hands,

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I bring simply to that cross, I cling that willingness that says something has occurred that is beyond myself.

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Pemberton says on page 166, we may then certainly conclude that nothing but the unconquerable arm of God can break the rocky hearts of sinners and bow their stubborn necks to the divine government.

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And, um, you, what else could you see people sitting under powerful sermons?

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You know, they hear lots of Bible verses. Maybe they've memorized lots of Bible verses and it has not affected them.

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If anything, maybe it's hardened them. And then some other person is converted. Yeah, I think that really is, you know, other than the fact that it ultimately does result in, in every person that is called in this way, or as Christ says in John chapter six, every person the father gives me will come to me and you cannot come to me without the father teaching you.

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So this, you know, John chapter six gives a good kind of full picture of that. The giving of the, of the sinner to the savior, uh, election.

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It's a mystery, but it's real. But on the other side, the teaching of God that effectively brings us to do what you said, to do what we would never do on our own, to just turn our back on us and hope completely in another person.

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Practically, this is very helpful in evangelism or in talking to someone else about Christ, because while I want to be careful and I want to use words as best

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I can and want my motives to be good, all those things, at the end of the day, I cannot change anyone. And if they walk away unchanged,

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I have the freedom, if you will, to look at myself and say, it wasn't me.

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I didn't. There's not one more thing I could have said or said it in a slightly different way that would have changed them, because I can't change them.

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Yeah. I think one test of our Reformed theology is knowing the depth of man's need, his helplessness, knowing the height of God's authority and his love and mercy to Adam's fallen race.

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Do we speak to the king about the rebel as much as we speak to the rebel about the king?

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We know that we have our theology in a biblical proportion, a biblical balance.

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If we are pleading with the king for the sinner as much as we plead with the sinner on behalf of the king, you know, just very simple test.

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And I find a very convicting test because I really I find that I spend more time pleading with the sinner.