Pt 14. LBCF Chapter 10 Of Effectual Calling

Effectual Calling as the Answer to Bondage of the Will

Chapter 10 is of effectual calling, okay? Effectual calling. This chapter has four paragraphs and it logically follows the chapter on free will, all right? And the fall of man, which was a couple of chapters ago.

But it logically, it's not just chronological in the confession, but it follows very logically. Because if man's will is in bondage to sin, how is anybody saved, right? I mean, just think about it. We just looked at a free will and we found out that in the state of sin, there's no possibility.

So how then is anyone sinned? How is anyone saved? This chapter tells us, okay? This chapter answers that question. And so here's the outline. First, paragraph one is the overview of what effectual calling is, okay?

And I'm not gonna read this, because it's too long and I would be reading it forever here. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna break it down. This paragraph, which is the overview of effectual calling, first tells us who is the author of effectual calling.

Well, that's no secret there, all right? Look how snazzy I'm getting here, huh? Then it tells us who are the recipients of the effectual calling. Those whom God has predestined unto life, okay? It's occasion, okay?

He is pleased in his appointed and accepted time. What's the occasion? The pleasure of God. Why is anybody effectually called? Because it pleases God in his time and his place to call somebody, all right?

Then we come on its efficacy. Is it efficient? Effectually to call. In other words, when God calls someone by his grace, it is effectual. This is sometimes linked with irresistible grace, all right? And the two are, they're like sister doctrines.

You can't separate them, really, right? Then it's means. How does God accomplish this? By his word and spirit, okay? By his word and spirit. That too is important, by his word and spirit. Both, not one or the other.

It's not column A or column B, but both. You cannot be saved apart from the preaching of the word and the Holy Spirit effecting that upon your heart, right? And it's become somewhat popular now, it's this resurgence of this theology that somebody can be saved apart from the preaching of the word.

Our confession completely blows that away. It's by his word and the Holy Spirit, right? It's transition. In other words, what does it do? Takes you out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.

It's that translation. You're in a kingdom of darkness and you're translated into the kingdom of God's dear son. Okay, this is all under the doctrine of effectual calling. Now it's operation. What does it do?

It enlightens the mind spiritually. Now notice, this all takes place in the call. This is how somebody is saved. Your mind is enlightened spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, all right?

Notice the understanding. That's important. Taking away their heart of stone, giving them a heart of flesh. How many times have we heard that from Ezekiel, right? Renewing their wills. There's the change of the will.

Bring in your will in conformance with the will of God. And by his almighty power, determining them to which is good, turning it, right? Now you want to do good, all right? And getting back to the Apostle Paul, notice what the Apostle Paul says.

When he's struggling, he says, I find myself the one who wants to do good. By the way, that's one of the reasons I believe that that is talking about Paul in his apostleship days, not prior to Christ, because who is the one who desires to do good?

The only person who desires to do good is the person who's been saved.

Okay.

To that which was good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ. Again, there we have the effectual call. Yet so as they come most freely being made willing by his grace. So now notice the way it says it, and this is important too.

Did you come freely to Christ?

Yes.

Was it all you were doing?

No.

No.

It was the work of the Holy Spirit on your heart that made you willing, and then you come willingly. Nobody is, and again, this is one of those complaints that you hear or straw men built up about the Calvinistic soteriology.

Oh yeah, your theology says, some men are dragged unwilling to Christ and others are shunned away and sent to hell even though they want to be saved.

No.

The Holy Spirit changes your will, changes the heart, giving you that heart of flesh so that you willingly come to Christ.

Okay.

That's actually, I believe that's right in our covenant, our church covenant as well. All right, so that's the overview. Now paragraphs two to four give us some of the specific issues because there are definitely issues in this.

Grace Alone and the Spirit's Work in Effectual Calling

Okay.

Paragraph two relates to the issue of its agency. Here's what I mean. This, well, here, let me see. This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone. There's no other way that this call is gonna come.

You can't manufacture this. You can't just read books. It's gotta come from God's grace alone. Now don't get me wrong. You can be reading books and that can help you, but unless God changes the heart, all right, you're not going to come to him.

All right.

Not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature, being wholly passive therein, being dead in sins and trespasses. Okay, this definitely refutes the Arminian, you know, who says that God looked down the corridor of time and saw that you were such a good guy and that if you were presented with the gospel, you would certainly choose him, so he elected you.

No, not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature, we are wholly passive therein, being dead in trespasses and sin, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit.

All right.

Then what happens? Then we're willing. We see God opens our eyes, you know. You know what I like to relate it to? If you're blind and you're walking and you're coming, right, you're right at the precipice of a cliff, okay, and somebody says, stop, you're going to fall off.

No, I'm not. Yeah, stop it. No, I don't believe you. All right, then what happens? Takes the blinders off. Whoa, yeah, I'm willing to step back. It's something similar to that, all right, because God opens your eyes.

You can see for the very first time. He is thereby enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it, and that by no less power than that which raised Christ from the dead.

In other words, every time someone is born again, it's the same power that raised Christ from that grave, okay, so do miracles happen today? Every time a sinner is converted, that's a miracle. All right, now we also have some other issues related to instrumentality, and this is a very interesting paragraph, which is highly, highly debated, and there are a lot of people who wish this was not in the Confession, okay, and I'll go through it, and I'll tell you, and hopefully you can see why.

The question is what about infants, all right? Here's what the Confession says. Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit who worketh when and where and how he pleases, okay?

All right, well, here's the question. Infants who die in infancy, all right, are any of them elect? Are all of them elect? Are none of them elect? How do we know? I don't like this paragraph, and I'll tell you why, because every verse of Scripture that is used to try to support the fact that God saves infants, apart from regeneration, apart from hearing the Word, et cetera, et cetera, is misused, it's misapplied.

On this particular subject, the Bible is 100 silent. You can't, there's not one explicit verse. There's implications, like David says about his baby when it died. He can't come to me, but I can go to him, all right?

It's just talking about the dead. It's not, you know, it's not talking about that he's in heaven. You can't make it say that. It doesn't say that. So, and every other verse is the same way. So, I would rather this paragraph be taken out of the confession.

Why? Because if the Bible is silent, we should be silent. Now, let me say, some people say, well, that's kind of harsh. Don't you want to give people hope about their infants? Well, let me say this. I don't want to give them false hope.

Now, let me say this, too. This is coming from a dad who lost a baby. So, this is not a theologian or a pastor up here who's just talking theoretical principles. This applied to me and my wife personally.

We lost a baby, okay? This is a question that was asked me on my ordination. One of the pastors. We got to this and somebody asked a question and I gave them the answer from the confession, which they didn't want to hear either, rightly so.

And they looked at me and said, pastor, what I want to know is how are you going to minister to a woman in your congregation, a man and a woman in your congregation, who lose an infant, what are you going to say to them?

And to me, that was probably the best question that could be asked on this topic. My answer was, do you trust God? Do you believe that God does everything perfectly for the good of his church? Then if you do, I don't know what happened to my baby, but I trust God that he has done exactly what is best and what is perfect.

I think that's where the rubber meets the road. That's why I would rather see this paragraph not in here. I think it causes too much debate that is unnecessary. But then it goes on again, what about the mentally incompetent?

And that's what this second half is. So also are all elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word. Again, to me, this is one of those mysteries. We don't know.

I've had many opportunities to minister to those who are mentally deficient in one way or another. I do the same thing. I give them the gospel. I don't know what they can understand and what they can't.

And it's not up to me to try to determine. I give them the gospel anyway. I've given the gospel to people in comas. And by the way, just let me say this too. If you're ever visiting somebody in a hospital who is in a coma, don't say, don't talk frivolously around them.

Talk to them as though they're there. Many times, very often, people come out of a coma and they say, you know, I was aware of what was going on around me. So I'm very cautious. I never talk frivolities or anything else.

I talk to the person just as though they could hear me. They just can't respond. Paragraph four, the word and non-elect hearers. Okay, all right. Now this is, remember, this is coming right on the heels of paragraph three, talking about infants and those who are mentally challenged, all right?

So it says, what about those? Oops, I thought I had, sorry about that. I thought I had underlines here. Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the word and may have some common operations of the spirit, yet not being fully, being effectually drawn by the father, they neither will nor can truly come to Christ and therefore cannot be saved.

There are people who will come to church, who will make a profession of faith, all right, and look and sound like a believer and turn out to be false professors. Now, we should not be shocked at that because that's exactly what Jesus told us in the parable of the sower.

That some will, from the words of Jesus himself, he says, there are those who will receive the word with joy and actually start to grow and look like they're producing, but they never produce fruit. And so this is something that we need to be careful about.

So if somebody comes in, they make a profession of faith, they walk away and then want nothing to do with it, it's not for us to judge, but we can say they probably were just not one of the elect. There are some things that Christianity offers that is appealing to people, all right?

Sense of community, but look, what's one of the things that we as a church are missing the most outside of gathering for corporate worship? Outside of that, what would you say would be the second thing that we are missing because of this pandemic?

Fellowship. We gather in that other building after service, we have a meal together, we talk together, we joke together, we put up with Jerry's jokes. And isn't that one of the things that you're longing for is when we can once again open up our fellowship hall and gather together in Koinonia, that beautiful Holy Spirit fellowship, all right?

That attracts people. People see that. So they want some of the fruits of Christianity, they just don't want the commitment.

Why?

Because they're still dead in the trespasses and sins. And so you can see how every word that Christ spoke is absolutely true, all right? And the confession, I think, has done a masterful job here in talking about it, all right?

So they may have some of the common operations of the Spirit. In other words, it looks like there's a counterfeit, okay? Yet not being effectually gone, they neither will nor can truly come to Christ and therefore cannot be saved, okay?

That answers that. Then we go to 4B, the word and the ignorant heathen. That would be offensive to many people. I would probably get letters on that or something. I'll get some. I can't get tweets or anything because I'm not on Twitter, so.

All right.

Much less can men that receive not the Christian religion be saved, in all deference to the Pope, all right? Be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of that religion they do profess.

In other words, you can be a nice person. But in fact, one of the people that I deal with on a regular basis is my pharmacist. He's of Indian descent. One of the nicest men that I've ever met, anywhere at any time, always engaged me in conversation and always says, as I'm ready to leave, he'll always say something like, pastor.

I go, yeah. He says, praise the Lord, you know? I mean, he's just, he's a genuinely nice man who wants to do what is right. But if he rejects the Christian religion, there's no hope for him. And I've shared that with him.

That's the word in ignorant heathen. That's the old phraseology, ignorant heathen, but it's not meant to be derogatory, just descriptive. Questions. So we went over of free will and of effectual calling, two very related topics.