Calvinism is Not Fatalism

Why Prayer Matters in Calvinism

Sometimes the worst things I see on the internet are from people who call themselves Calvinists. And that's what we're going to talk about today on.

Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now. And welcome back to.

Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. And today we're going to be talking about something that happened to me this week, and you'll notice I don't have a guest on the program today.

No, today I'm going to be having a conversation with you, the audience. And so this is conversation with you, with me, I'm the Calvinist. And so I do this from time to time. I don't always get to have a guest on the program, and I don't have a guest this week, and it kind of worked out because there's something that I really want to discuss.

Last night I was having dinner with my wife. I was just sitting there talking to the kids, having dinner with my wife, and I noticed on my phone that I had a message, and it was from a fellow pastor, a friend of mine, Pastor Kenny, who is a friend of the show.

Been on the program. I've been on his program a few times. And I noticed on my text messaging that it said, Pastor Keith is starting trouble on the internet, or something. That's not exactly what he said.

It was something like, you know, stir in the pot, I think maybe be the term that he mentioned. And I said, well, what have I done now? Because I know that I say things sometimes, and sometimes I post things that do get a little bit of attention.

I normally don't get a lot of responses, but I get some, and sometimes they're not altogether positive. So I was curious to see, well, what have I done now? You know, was it a sermon that I preached? Was it something that I posted on my social media page?

What have I done to incur a response? And when he sent it to me, I immediately noticed that it wasn't from my page. It was from a group page that had shared something that I had posted. And that got my attention.

I said, okay, so this isn't blowing up on my page. This is blowing up on a page that I know nothing about. I've never seen. So I went over to that page and began to look and see what was up. And I had him send me some additional screenshots.

And lo and behold, it was based on a meme that I had posted. Now, I brought the meme with me because I want to share it with you, my viewing audience. Those of you who are listening, you won't be able to see it, but I'll describe it to you.

This is what I posted on my social media page. It was a meme. It was a picture of what seems to be a quite elderly man. He's surrounded by what looks like a pastor. He's wearing a wireless microphone.

And then somebody else is standing with him, and they're standing in a baptismal pool. And they're all wearing a shirt that says, I believe, or something to that. I think that's what it says. And this was posted on April the 22nd, 2022, so just a little less than a month ago.

And it says at the top, after wife's prayers for 67 years, husband receives Christ, comma, gets baptized. So right away, I thought, well, that is precious. One, that his wife did not give up praying for him for all those years, but two, that she saw the hand of God work in her husband's life.

And that in that sense, her prayer was answered, all of those prayers, all those years. And I thought, what a precious thing to see. And so I shared that meme, and I added my own thought. Now I'm going to bring in what I wrote.

This was my thought. And I said this, never stop praying for your lost loved ones, especially those who think they are saved, but have no love for Christ, his word, or his church. They are in the most danger and don't even realize it.

Now when I wrote that, I was actually thinking of some people in my own life that I have prayed for for years, and will continue to pray for them, because I do know that I have some family members that are not saved, and I pray that the Lord will save them.

I have some family members that believe that they are saved, but have no outward indications that they love the Lord, they love the church, they love his word. And so I was hoping that by posting this, maybe some folks that I prayed for may even read it and say, wow, okay, Keith's praying for me.

You know, I kind of just jar their attention. You know, there was a lot that I was thinking about as I posted this, as I was thinking about it. But never in my wildest imagination did I think that this was going to get attention, because of all the stuff I say about other things.

And I do say some stuff sometimes that is somewhat controversial. I didn't think this was controversial. I really was just surprised that this, of all things, was what was going to drum up controversy.

And so I went to my page, and I noticed at the time, the last time I looked, it had been shared over 250 times, which again, you know, for big names, that's nothing. But for a guy like me, my stuff doesn't get shared around a lot of times.

So when I saw that this post of mine had been shared over 250 times in multiple groups and multiple pages, I thought, wow, this is really getting people's attention. And I thought, that's good. This is a good thing.

This is something we should be excited about. We should be praising the Lord. You know, the Bible says that there is joy among the angels when one sinner comes to repentance. This old man is standing here.

He's come to repentance. We should rejoice over that. But then come the Calvinists. And I keep saying, let me just clarify. I'm a Calvinist. The title of this program is Conversations with a Calvinist.

But sometimes we are the worst, and we can definitely overanalyze what is being said, overstate or misrepresent what is being said, throw out things that are just not indicative of genuine Calvinism. All of those things are true.

This is why there's something called cage-staged Calvinism, and that is where, when someone first becomes Reformed in their theology or Calvinistic in their thinking, the joke is they ought to be put into a cage, because their thinking isn't exactly right in the very beginning, and they're starting to make connections they've never made before, and they can be dangerous.

And so put them in a cage for a while until they get this thing a little bit better figured out. So I actually did a video on cage-staged Calvinism a couple years ago, if anybody wants to go back and look that up, because I do think it's something to consider.

What does that mean, and why is it important? But I want to address specifically what caused this meme to blow up on one particular group. I'm not going to mention the name of the group. I'm not going to mention anybody's name who's involved.

Everything's been edited. I am going to bring up just a quick snapshot of the angry post. This is what this is what was sent to me from Pastor Kenny. He just sent me this, and it was pre-edited. He didn't do this editing, but somebody did it, circled things, and basically what the argument is, what's causing all of this consternation, is the issue of prayer and salvation.

And what is being argued is, that guy's going to get saved whether she prays or not. Therefore, her prayers don't need to be mentioned. And again, I don't want to misrepresent what they're saying, but essentially, that is, in fact, I can bring it back up for just a second.

I'll read exactly what we see here. I'm gonna make it a little bigger. It says, even if I ignore it, he will be saved. I may be disobedient and be accountable to the Lord, but he will be saved. My prayer has nothing to do with the salvation of...and it's cut off there at the bottom, but I'm sure that the end of that sentence has nothing to do with salvation of that person.

My prayer has nothing to do with the salvation of that person. So that's really what I wanted to deal with today on the program, because I am very concerned that, in the minds and hearts of many people, Calvinism is being equated with fatalism.

And that is not the way that we should think about our lives. It's not the way that we should think about the faith. It's not the way that we should think about even what Calvinism is teaching. And I have seen this very specifically in the lives of believers, and I'm thinking about a very specific instance, take someone to the point where they have basically given up in any meaningful contributions to the work of the faith, because God's just going to do what he's going to do.

And my contribution, or lack thereof, is not going to make a difference whatsoever. Therefore, why bother? Now, historically, that has a name, and the name of that historically is called Hyper-Calvinism.

Hyper-Calvinism is the teaching that, because God's going to do what God's going to do, my contributions are not going to have any effect. Therefore, I am not responsible for any contributions. And whatever I do, however I contribute, whatever part I seek to play, it's not going to matter whether I do it or whether I don't do it.

I'll give you a good example of this. Our church does a evangelism booth at a fair once a year. We go to the Callahan Fair. We put out, for ten days, we hand out gospel tracts, we meet people, we have wonderful conversations.

It is a great week, and I look forward to it every year, even though by the time the week is over, I am exhausted. But it is a wonderful time. And I remember very specifically, I think it was our first year, may have been the second year, but it was one of the first times we were out there.

I was standing there handing out gospel tracts, and a man approached me and began talking to me. So I didn't reach out to him, he reached out to me, and he began talking to me and essentially saying that his position was Calvinistic.

And I I'm not even sure if I remember back, it's been so many years ago, he may not have said Calvinistic. He may have said he believed in predestination, which is, you know, sometimes a shorthand way of saying I believe in, you know, Calvinistic soteriology.

But basically he asked me, I think he said, are you guys Calvinistic? And I said, yes. And he said, then why are you here? I said, well, we're we're handing out tracts, we're sharing the gospel. And he said, God's gonna save who he's gonna save, regardless of whether you're here or not.

So why even do that? And I thought that, okay, I've met my first real, live, hyper-Calvinist. You're real! You know, I'm like, can I put my hands on you? You're not an apparition. You're not fake. You actually believe this.

You believe that there are no positive contributions made, that basically the Lord's gonna do what he's gonna do, regardless, so it doesn't matter. And that's what this dude was. And he even tried to argue with me.

He said, you see that little girl walking by there? He said, she's either gonna be saved or she's not gonna be saved, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. She's either elect or she's not elect, and there's nothing you and I, you or I can do about it.

And that was the argument that he made. And I said, do you believe she, if she is elect, that she needs to believe the gospel to be saved? Because if she needs to believe the gospel, then she needs to hear the gospel.

If she needs to hear the gospel, then that's my job. The Bible says, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. So if I am to be God's instrument in giving her the gospel, how am I not a part of what God is doing in her life if, in fact, she is among the elect?

And he said, she doesn't need to hear the gospel, she doesn't need to believe the gospel, she's either elect or not. And that's when I really took issue. Now, I want to clarify. This man was not indicative of what I would say even hyper-Calvinists believe.

I think this guy was a hyper-Calvinist, because he was saying, she doesn't even need to believe. She's either elect or she's not. She doesn't need to come to faith, she's either elect or she's not. That was a unique position from my perspective.

I never even heard hyper-Calvinists say that a person doesn't need to believe, but that was the position he was taking, that she didn't even need to believe, because she was either going to go to heaven or not, based upon God's will, and there was no...not even faith was going to be necessary.

And so, when I say that I've seen this in action, this sort of hyper-Calvinistic fatalism, then that's what I'm talking about. I've seen this in the lives of people, taking them down the road of fatalism to the point where they basically give up any and all meaningful contributions to their growth and their faith.

I've seen it to where it causes people to give up meaningful contributions to evangelism or any of that, because they come to this conclusion, well, God's just gonna do what he's gonna do. My prayers don't mean anything, my evangelism doesn't mean anything, my Bible study doesn't mean anything, none of this means anything.

God's just gonna do what he's gonna do. And I'm here to try to express to you today that that is not what Calvinism is. Calvinism is not fatalism. And if you're out there and you're a Calvinist and you want to argue with me, let me just say, I believe I'm standing with the true Calvinists on this one.

Now, there are those who would say Calvinism is determinism, and we do have to discuss the differences between determinism and fatalism, or what I would call compatibilism, determinism, and fatalism, and we can discuss a little bit of that.

But ultimately, the idea that I make no meaningful contributions to anything is not what the Bible teaches. And ultimately, Calvinistic or not, what matters is whether or not we're doing and saying and believing what the Bible teaches.

But even the confessions of faith that are Calvinistic do not teach that brand of fatalism that would cause someone to say, okay, well, if that's the case, I'm either gonna be saved or not, so I don't need to participate in the Church, I don't need to participate in prayer, I don't need to do these things, because it's gonna be what it's gonna be regardless.

And why even produce a confession of faith? That doesn't make sense. It doesn't work that way. And so the idea that, okay, we're gonna produce a statement of faith, and it's just gonna be the one line, God's gonna do what he's gonna do.

Okay. Now, I want to take a step back. I want to try to clarify some things. When somebody asks me, and this question has been asked to me more times than I can remember, but when somebody asks me the question, okay, Pastor Keith, you're Calvinist.

You believe that the elect are chosen by God before the world was created. Yes, I do. You believe that ultimately God has already determined who is going to be saved. Yes, I do. All right. So why pray?

That's always the...or why evangelize? It'll either be why pray, why evangelize, why do these things? And the reason is very simple, even though a lot of people have trouble wrapping their minds around this concept.

The reason is that God is not just ordaining the ends of all things, but God also ordains the means by which those ends come about. So the idea that God has ordained my salvation from before I was created, from before the world was created, God ordained to save me, is very comforting.

But it does not mean that I am exempt from the necessity of faith. It does not mean that I am exempt from the importance of obedience. It doesn't mean that I don't have a responsibility to study my Bible, to pray, or to add just a thought to that, to go out and evangelize others.

And so the idea that my faith is ordained by God, therefore I just don't have to do anything, that is a non sequitur. One should not lead to the other. So let's... let me give it to you in a very simple way.

I've used this illustration before, maybe I've used it on the program, I don't remember, but I'll give you this illustration. There was a time when God ordained my birth. Okay. God ordained me to be born on April 2nd, 1980, and that ordination of God was, we could say, secure from eternity.

He determined that, and he knew because he had decreed it by his will, that Keith Foskey is going to be born on April 2nd, 1980. And I thank God for that, because I got to live in the 80s, which was obviously the best decade.

So anyway, I got to live through the 1980s, but nine months before my birth, there was an activity that took place that predicated my birth, and it was the action of my parents, and it was the act of procreation.

The two of them came together, and they had the action of intercourse, which produced a baby in my mother's womb. And I was in my mother's womb for nine months, which means I actually lived in the 70s, because I do believe that life begins at conception.

So my wife and I have a little debate going. She says she's a child of the 90s. We were both born the same year. She says she was a child of the 90s. I say I was a child of the 80s, and I was actually alive in the 70s, which is true, because I believe, again, life begins at conception.

But be that as it may, I was alive in the 70s because I was in my mother's womb. I was born on April 2nd, 1980. All of that was ordained by God. But the actions of my parents are still meaningful, because those actions were the means by which God brought about the necessary preconditions of my birth.

So if someone were to look at my mom and say, it doesn't matter what you would have done. Keith would have been born anyway. That's kooky talk. That doesn't make any sense, because God didn't just ordain me to be born.

He ordained me to be conceived. And so the conception is the means to the birth, and God was ordaining or did ordain. He decreed all of it. And so understanding that helps me to take a step back and say, OK, when somebody says something like, hey, man, people are going to be saved, however they're going to be saved, I say, but how are they going to be saved?

Because the Bible says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. If someone doesn't hear the word, how will they come to faith? And if your answer is, well, they're elect, they don't have to come to faith, they're elect regardless, then you don't understand Calvinism.

Because Calvinism says that God ordains the end, which is the salvation, but he also ordains the means to that end. And the means to that end begins with evangelism, hearing the word, coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, receiving the regeneration, which gives the new birth in the same way that I was born by the decree of God, I was born again by the decree of God.

All of those things are ordained of God. They are part of the decree of God for the individual. And guess what is included in that, beloved? Prayer. Prayer is included in the decree of God that we should pray for the salvation of others.

We are called to pray for those who are not saved. We're called to pray for our enemies. We are called to pray for those in authority over us. And to what end? What are we praying for? That God would give them the grace of regeneration and bring them to repentance and faith.

So if I pray for someone, if I pray fervently for years for a loved one, and then that person comes to faith, am I congratulating myself and tapping myself on the shoulder and say, look at me, how good I did.

I prayed for that person. No. I know that it is God who was the one who brought about that act of regeneration. But I do also know this, that God uses the means of evangelism and prayer in the salvation of his elect.

And so he calls us to pray for the unbeliever. He calls us to pray for their salvation. Now one thing I do pray when I am saved, or excuse me, when I'm when I'm praying for the unsaved, is I will say to God, I don't know this person's heart.

I don't know this person's condition. I just know that they are not they're not living for Christ. So I pray that God, one, I pray that they would be numbered among the elect. And if they are, that you would give them the gift of faith.

And Lord, that you would give me opportunities to share the gospel with them so that they have the content to believe. This is always where I really give my Armenian friends a hard time. Because I say Armenians, and I'm not the first to say this, many people have said this before me, but that Armenians pray like Calvinists.

Because they pray, God open their heart, God open their eyes, God give them the gift of faith. Armenians will say things like that. Maybe not the last one, but they'll say, God, you know, please open Jimmy's heart to believe the gospel.

And I hear them pray things like that. I'm like, wait a minute. If you believe in absolute free will, then you have to say to God, I know you're doing everything you can do. I need to just try to convince Jimmy.

I need to give him some more apologetics. I need to give him some more arguments. I need to browbeat him a little more. I need to do something to Jimmy. But no, you go to God. And why does the Armenian go to God?

Because the Armenian thinks he can convince God, maybe, or do something. But you're still believing God is doing the work. So again, there's inconsistencies on both sides. There's the hyper-Calvinist, who says, I don't need to pray for this person, is eliminating the idea of means, and they're misunderstanding the use of means to bring about salvation.

The Armenian on the other side is inconsistent, because they're saying that, I'm gonna pray that God opens their heart, but in their mind, God's already done all he can do. Now it's up to Jimmy. So, kind of went off the track there for a minute.

Let me reel it back in. And I want you to consider this. If someone says, as Calvinists, our prayers don't matter, they're not Calvinists. At best, they're hyper-Calvinists. They are misunderstanding all of this, because Calvinism is not fatalism.

Calvinism is not, I'm gonna sit on my hands, I'm gonna sit back, and God's gonna do what he's gonna do. No. Calvinism is a robust system of faith, which encourages the believer to charge forward in the trust of the sovereignty of God, not to sit back and say, God's gonna do what he's gonna do, and it doesn't matter.

That is not what we teach. That is not what we encourage other people to believe. And when I see somebody post things like that, it just really, it really unnerves me. Because I do believe, I do believe, I said this on a recent podcast, wasn't mine, I was invited on to another show, and I was talking in that program, and I said, I think a lot of people are Calvinist today, don't even, haven't even really thought through their positions.

They're Calvinist by convenience, because they like some preachers, and those preachers are Calvinists. They like Vody, or they like Washer, or they like James White, or they like Jeff Durbin, or they like these guys, and these guys are Calvinists, so therefore, you know, I'm a Calvinist.

But I'm not gonna think through the tough issues. And there are things to consider. You know, what does James mean when James says, you have not because you ask not? Okay, so do my prayers matter, or do my prayers not matter?

Now again, I would caution you to be careful and not begin to assume that God has not decreed all things, because I do believe that he has, and I do believe that when we think of his decree, we think of him not only ordaining what we have, but also our asking, so that's part of it.

But we are called to pray. We are called to ask. We are called to seek and knock. We are called to do these things. And we are called to pray for the salvation of people that we, that, well, I was gonna say people that we love, but honestly, we're called to pray, even people we are enemies with.

The Bible says to call for, to pray for them as well, all the while knowing, all the while knowing, that certainly God is sovereign over whether or not they're going to be saved. And this is what really bothers me, though.

Somebody would say, well, God has already determined whether they're gonna be saved, doesn't matter if I pray or not. No, we don't believe we're changing the mind of God. No, we don't believe we're telling God something that he doesn't already know.

That's not the point. The point is, we are to love others, and one of the ways that we show love to people is praying for them. Praying that the Lord would open their eyes, open their heart, open their understanding to the truth of the Word.

I just don't understand why someone would say, it just doesn't matter if we pray. That person's going to be saved regardless. Shouldn't we want to pray for someone who is an unbeliever? Shouldn't we want to pray that God would change their heart, and that we would get to see that on display, the work of God?

God, I want to see you work in Brother Jimmy's life. I want to see you work in Sister Carol's life. I want to see you work in this person's life, because Lord, that is the wonder of the miracle of regeneration, is seeing the sinner recognize his sin and come to salvation?

Beloved, we're not Stoics. We're not fatalists. We don't just sit on our hands and say God's going to do what he's going to do. We charge forward in faith, believing that God is sovereign, but he has called us to obedience in word and in deed, that we are to be obedient to him in prayer.

We are to be obedient to him in evangelism, knowing that God uses these means to bring about the end, and the end is the salvation of his elect. Well, the end ultimately is the glorifying of his name, whereby he will be glorified in the salvation of the elect and the judgment of the reprobate.

So, those are just thoughts. Like I said, I didn't write a script for today. I was just thinking about how important this particular subject is, because how easily do we get in a place of misunderstanding, especially when we haven't thought through all of the implications of what we are saying?

And so, I challenge you, if you call yourself a Calvinist, if you call yourself a person who believes in the sovereignty of God. Maybe you don't call yourself a Calvinist, but you say, I believe in the sovereignty of God and salvation of the elect.

That God is the one who chooses, and God is the one who saves. Okay, you believe that. All right, so how does that work itself out? Does that work itself out in you not evangelizing, because God's going to do what he's going to do?

Then repent of that, because that's not what the Bible says. Does that cause you to not pray for the salvation of others? Then I would say turn from that as well, because we are called to evangelize, we're called to pray, and again, we are not called to be fatalists.

And I have seen the dangers of it, and I'm warning you against it, I'm saying don't go that direction, don't go down that path, because it will not lead you to a closer walk with Christ. All right, so that's my thoughts for today.

Shorter program, of course I didn't have anybody to interview, I'm just giving you some thoughts. I do hope that this was thoughtful, and maybe this stirred up some questions in you. Maybe you want me to address this more deeply, or go into some more things about what I talked about.

So please feel free to leave me a comment down below, or if you are listening to this on Apple or Spotify or one of those, feel free to send in an email, calvinistpodcast at gmail .com. Again, that's calvinistpodcast at gmail .com.

Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. May God bless you.