Election Complaints

Yesterday I read a sermon of Spurgeon on the subject of Election, and he made a good point concerning the nature of man to complain and find fault with God--even when God allows man to have his own way.  People who hate God always try to pin the blame on God when He is only righteous, just and good.  We have observed this in politics:  when people despise and oppose a leader personally, he cannot do anything right in their eyes.  We observe the same in God's people miraculously delivered from slavery in Egypt who murmured against God and Moses, complained about God's provision and refused to enter the land God promised to give them.  Praise the LORD even when people malign and misunderstand God completely, He continues to draw all people to Himself so they might know Him and be saved.  He does not prevent a single soul from entering into eternal glory (for Christ loves all and died for the sins of the world), but all must come His way by faith in Jesus Christ.

"But there are some who say, "It is hard for God to choose some and leave others."  Now, I will ask you one question.  Is there any one of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave off sin and walk in holiness?  "Yes, there is," says some one, "I do."  Then God has elected you.  But another says, "No:  I don't want to be holy; I don't want to give up my lusts and my vices."  Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it?  For if you were elected you would not like it, according to your own confession.  If God, this morning, had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it.  Do you not acknowledge that you prefer drunkenness to sobriety, dishonesty to honesty?  You love this world's pleasures better than religion; then why should you grumble that God has not chosen you to religion?  If you love religion, he has chosen you to it.  If you desire it, he has chosen you to it.  If you do not, what right have you to say that God ought to have given you what you do not wish for?  Supposing I had in my hand something which you do not value, and I said I shall give it to such-and-such a person, you would have no right to grumble that I did not give it to you.  You could not be so foolish as to grumble that the other has got what you do not care about.  According to your own confession, many of you do not want religion, do not want a new heart and a right spirit, do not want the forgiveness of sins, do not want sanctification, you do not want to be elected to these things; then why should you grumble?  You count these things but as husks, and why should you complain of God who has given them to those whom he has chosen?  If you believe them to be good, and desire them, they are there for thee.  God gives liberally to all those who desire; and first of all, he makes them desire, otherwise they never would.  If you love these things, he has elected you to them, and you may have them; but if you do not, who are you that you should find fault with God, when it is your own desperate will that keeps you from loving these things--your own simple self that makes you hate them?  Suppose a man in the street should say, "What a shame it is I cannot have a seat in the chapel to hear what this man has to say."  And suppose he says, " I hate the preacher; I can't bear his doctrine; but still it's a shame I have not a seat."  Would you expect a man to say so?  No:  you would at once say, "That man does not care for it.  Why should he trouble himself about other people having what they value and he despises?"  You do not like holiness, you do not like righteousness:  if God has elected me to these things, has he hurt you by it?  "Ah, but," say some, "I thought it meant that God elected some to heaven and some to hell."  That is a very different matter from the gospel doctrine.  He has elected men to holiness and to righteousness, and through that to heaven.  You must not say that he has elected them simply to heaven, and other only to hell.  He has elected you to holiness, if you love holiness.  If any of you love to be saved by Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ elected you to be saved.  If any of you desire to have salvation, you are elected to have it, if you desire it sincerely and earnestly.  But if you don't desire it, why on earth should you be so preposterously foolish as to grumble because God gives that which you do not like to other people?" (Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. Spurgeon’s Sermons: V. 2. Baker Books, 2004. pages 75-76)

Call to God

What a wonderful privilege and opportunity we have to bring our requests to the LORD in prayer!  Speaking to God has none of the hindrances we experience with modern phones.  We can call but it does not mean anyone is available to talk.  They may not receive or hear a notification, and when we leave a message it can go unread and unanswered.  Our phones can run out of battery or be out of the range of networks which renders communication using them impossible.  Communication with God depends upon the LORD who knows and does all things, God who does not slumber or sleep, and His ears are always open to our cries.  The God who appeared Solomon and said, "Ask!  What shall I give you?" is just as eager and willing to respond to our praying.

The Bible has many examples of people who were locked up and prevented from contacting others yet had continuous communion with God--and sometimes it was God who initiated the call!  Jeremiah 33:1-3 says, "Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the prison, saying, ² "Thus says the LORD who made it, the LORD who formed it to establish it (the LORD is His name): ³ 'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'"  While Jeremiah was imprisoned, the God who created all things spoke to Jeremiah and invited him to call.  He did not need a mobile phone, data plan, remember the country code and to input a correct sequence of numbers:  Jeremiah only needed faith in the LORD God and willingness to pray.  He was not given the right to a single call but could speak with God continuously night and day by God's grace.  God promised to show him "...great and mighty things, which you do not know."  We can be swept up with wanting to know what to do, God's plans, or details concerning the future, but there is nothing greater or mightier than God Himself.  In learning to pray and calling to God in obedience we come to know God in ways we hadn't before.

It is faith in God that gives urgency in praying, confident God's will shall be done.  Though our lives on earth are a brief moment in time in the light of eternity, have you considered how your prayers do not have a shelf life?  They will not pass away with us.  Though we may not see the fulfillment of our request in person, we can know God will hear and answer as we pray according to His will.  There were Hebrews for hundreds of years born into slavery in Egypt who died there, yet their prayers for God to deliver his people were heard by Him.  The voices of those who perished under their burdens were in God's good time answered in the affirmative when He led the children of Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand by Moses.  Pleas of intercession on behalf of God's people continued unabated even after voices were silenced by the grave until God did His wonders.  If it is worthwhile praying once, we are to pray without ceasing to God who invites us to call to Him and is inclined to show favour and goodness for thousands of generations.

God is longsuffering, but He is never slack.  God who sends lightning hurtling to earth faster than our eyes can perceive is able to answer our prayers in an instant; before we ask He is ready to answer.  David prayed in Psalm 86:6-7:  "Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. ⁷ In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me."  The same God who promised to reveal to His servants what to say in their hour of need (Matthew 10:19) is able to hear us in the day of trouble, answer and save.  Praise the LORD our sins which once separated us from God have been atoned for and purged by Jesus whose hands are extended to save and has ears that hear our prayers (Isaiah 59:1-2).

A New Name

Conceiving a child proved difficult for Rachel, and at one stage she said to her husband Jacob:  "Give me children or I die!"  He was angry with her request, for she demanded children from him that can only be given by God.  Jacob had done his part best he could, but Rachel's conception was beyond his power.  In time she did bring her request to God who responded to her in Genesis 30:22:  "Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb."  Rachel's firstborn son was Joseph, and she was confident God would give her another son.  He was birthed into the world in sorrowful circumstances.

Genesis 35:16-19 says, "Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labour. ¹⁷ Now it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, "Do not fear; you will have this son also." ¹⁸ And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin. ¹⁹ So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)."  Rachel could not have known the last thing she would do as she was losing consciousness was name her son Ben-Oni which means, "son of sorrow."  Perhaps she realised she was not long for the world and sorrowed to leave her sons.

Though Rachel called her son Ben-Oni, Jacob overruled her and called him Benjamin--son of the right hand.  He did not allow Rachel's sorrowful passing overshadow his newborn son's life and future.  Jacob himself had been given a new name by God.  Jacob means "supplanter" or "heel-catcher" but he was called Israel by God he had wrestled with and prevailed with his tearful pleas to be blessed.  He became "one who struggles with God" and prevailed because of God's grace and goodness.  The remainder of his life Israel (Jacob) walked with a limp because of his encounter with God, and Benjamin embarked on the rest of his life without a mother and a new name because his father loved him.

This tragic and endearing passage reminds me how God brings life out of death, for while we were dead in sins, Christ demonstrated His love to die for us.  Because of who Jesus is and all He has done we can be born again and receive eternal life--something better than a name change.  Our sin only brought sorrow to God, us and the world, yet God has looked upon us favourably and adopted us as His own children by the Gospel.  We even read Jesus has a new name yet to be revealed for each one who overcomes through faith in Him in Revelation 2:17:  "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it."  Aren't we blessed beyond measure God has overruled sorrow and death and given us a new life and identity in Him?  Our new birth comes with fullness of joy and peace forever.

Jesus Has Overcome

"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

John 16:33

When Jesus told His disciples on the night He was betrayed they would not seem Him for a little while, and they would each be scattered to their own.  In a little while they would again see Him, and Jesus revealed He was going to the Father.  He spoke to them in proverbs they did not understand fully at the time, but they could bank on their sorrow being turned to joy that could not be taken from them.

From a human perspective there was not much comfort in what Jesus said because they could not comprehend what Jesus meant or how their lives would be impacted.  They expected and hoped Jesus would remain with them, so to hear He would soon be leaving was an impediment to peace and joy.  Yet in His wisdom Jesus summed up His long conversation with His disciples by saying, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace."  This is a principle that remains in force today and forever for all Christians regardless of our circumstances of life.  In Jesus the disciples would have peace by faith in Him even when He was arrested, crucified and breathed His last.  They would have peace in Jesus after He ascended to heaven and they were hauled before magistrates who wanted to silence and kill them.

In the midst of tribulation God's people can be of good cheer because Jesus has overcome the world.  Notice Jesus said this in past tense before His crucifixion.  If Jesus said, "I will overcome," current tribulation and trials Christians face might prompt us not to believe having peace in not yet possible.  Jesus overcoming the world was not due to His crucifixion or anything He would do but on the basis of who He is, all He has promised and accomplished.  I am reminded of the word of God spoken to Baruch by the prophet Jeremiah who thought God had added grief to his sorrow and rest proved elusive.  The LORD spoke to Baruch in Jeremiah 45:5 with words that align with Jesus' words to His disciples:  "And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh," says the LORD. "But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go."  When we seek great things for ourselves, our perspective can be distorted to lose sight of Christ who is greatest and grants eternal life to all who trust Him.

Those who hear Jesus and obey His word He likens to a wise man who built his house upon the rock that could withstand all storms.  The winds will lash and the waters churn, yet in Jesus we have peace because He has overcome the world.  Jesus bids all come to Him, and just because we are familiar with the verses or have them memorised does not mean we faithfully do our part to trust and daily come to Him with our troubles.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."  When life is all too much, in Jesus we continually find peace and rest for our souls.