Effectual Call

There are a number of practical applications that it gives. One of them is it does give us an honest view of the depth of sin's impact. That we don't embrace the sweetest of gifts and the invitations that come to us from so many different angles.

The Depth of Sin and Resistance to the Gospel

There is just no legitimate excuse for any sinner to despair and not embrace it. And yet every sinner refuses the invitation unless God does this great drawing.

Another is that it explains the variety of responses of the gospel or to the gospel in a group of people. So you hear, you have a group of people, they hear the same sermon from the same preacher at the same church.

And some walk away completely unaffected. Others hear it and it's a fine sermon. And others are changed, they're converted. I was talking to a fellow at Christ Church recently whose son recently believes he's been converted.

And the sermon he heard, he was just amazed by it. And the father said it was a fine sermon, but I didn't come away with what he came away with. It gripped him in a way.

Were you preaching?

It was not me this time.

Because my son, for those who don't know, my youngest son that was converted, when he embraced Christ around age 16, he came back and he said, you know what, during Chuck's sermon, it was so wonderful.

That was the greatest sermon we have ever heard at the church.

That was obviously a work of God.

There you go, like Paul Washer and Roberts and like, nah, Chuck. So I'm like, thanks. Thanks, Andrew.

But yeah, he didn't hear it the way the son heard it. And the difference was that God was at work in his son to bring him to Christ.

Yeah. Yeah. You can hear a thousand sermons and it's like, it's, you know, it's like, it's like rain on a window pane, you know, just a little mist and you know, it's there. And then God comes and in, you know, in a very plain way, maybe preached and he shakes us to the core.

And suddenly it's like everything makes sense. Another application is it's a good help for us in understanding the nature of true conversion. Our part in conversion is repentance and faith. But it is good for us to understand what God has revealed in Scripture about his part in conversion.

True Conversion as God’s Work in the Soul

And that is a real Christian has been so wonderfully altered by the powerful working of God, that the mind and the heart and the will have been free to embrace Christ. And if if we are calling people Christians who don't have some evidence of that, if we're calling ourselves a Christian and this has not occurred in some degree, you know, because we don't want to mistake the our ability to understand it with its existence.

So yes, it's there. It's happened. There's some evidence of it and it may not be what we want to see. But if there is no evidence of this kind of change in a person, then we are not biblically right. Not biblically, you know, validated in calling it conversion.

That's an important distinction because there are, it seems like there are many people who have a cerebral understanding. You know, it's like, OK, I get it now. I understand that now. And they think that's conversion.

Yeah, you getting it is not always the same as God getting you. You can't stop there. Yeah, and some people, you know, looking in the mirror spiritually, they say, well, if if this mighty work occurred in me, surely I would be further along by now.

You know, surely I wouldn't still be tempted by the old sins. Surely I wouldn't still stumble. And that's a lie of the enemy. The great work of God in the soul does produce changes, but it does not make us perfect.

And we are sadly still capable of great sin. So we don't want to give a wrong measurement of a Christian and bring despair.

The Difference Between Mere Understanding and Effectual Calling

The next help that he gives or improvement is this. If you recognize your own stubbornness and rebellion today, and you recognize that you are not a believer and desire to be rescued, then go to the one who can rescue you.

Appeal to the king. He has made promises. He makes invitations to you to come. So come and ask him, the one who has power, to make you willing.

Yeah, we go to Christ to be made willing, even when we have to say to him, I want to want. You know, so many times, even as a Christian, I've had to say to God, I'm afraid that I can't say to you, I want you or I want to obey.

But I can say, I want to want. And we go to him and we find him rescuing us, even in that weak expression, you know, that weak cry. Finally, he says, if you see that God has done this in your own soul, lay aside every aspect of pride and stir yourself to gratitude, which produces, you know, that happy life of consecration.

Gratitude, Consecration, and Childlike Obedience

Think, you know, don't just be vague, but think about the very wonderful particulars of you being made willing in his day of power. What has he done? How deep was the stain? How hopeless was your condition until God himself, the king, drew you with the bands of a man, with cords of love to embrace him, to conquer you, not just to conquer your enemies, and let gratitude, you know, flow out in a childlike obedience.