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In Chapter IV of his 1961 book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God , J. I. Packer makes the following bold statement:

The sovereignty of God in grace gives us our only hope of success in evangelism.

He doesn’t just tell us that because God sovereignly administers grace we have ‘some’ hope of success in our evangelistic efforts, he boldly asserts that “The sovereignty of God in grace is our ‘only’ hope of success in evangelism.”  (emphasis mine). Now that might sound a bit peculiar to some of you, if not downright insulting, considering the amount of effort you devote to the task of evangelism!

Dear reader, I ask you to hear him out. What follows is Packer’s explanation of his assertion.

Some fear that belief in the sovereign grace of God leads to the conclusion that evangelism is pointless, since God will save His elect anyway, whether they hear the gospel or not. This, as we have seen, is a false conclusion based on a false assumption. But now we must go further, and point out that the truth is just the opposite. So far from making evangelism pointless, the sovereignty of God in grace is the one thing that prevents evangelism from being pointless. For it creates the possibility—indeed, the certainty—that evangelism will be fruitful. Apart from it, there is not even a possibility of evangelism being fruitful. Were it not for the sovereign grace of God, evangelism would be the most futile and useless enterprise that the world has ever seen, and there would be no more complete waste of time under the sun than to preach the Christian gospel.

Why is this? Because of the spiritual inability of man in sin. Let Paul, the greatest of all evangelists, explain this to us.

Fallen man, says Paul, has a blinded mind, and so is unable to grasp spiritual truth. ‘The natural (unspiritual, unregenerate) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’[1Cor 2:14] Again, he has a perverse and ungodly nature. ‘The carnal mind (the mind of the unregenerate man) is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.’ The consequence? ‘So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.’[Rom 8:7 f.] In both these passages Paul makes two distinct statements about fallen man in relation to God’s truth, and the progression of thought is parallel in both cases. First Paul asserts unregenerate man’s failure, as a matter of fact. He ‘receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’; he ‘is not subject to the law of God’. But then Paul goes on to interpret his first statement by a second, to the effect that this failure is a necessity of nature, some- thing certain and inevitable and universal and unalterable, just because it is not in man to do other- wise than fail in this way. ‘Neither can he know them.’ ‘Neither indeed can be.’ Man in Adam has not got it in him to apprehend spiritual realities, or to obey God’s law from his heart. Enmity against God, leading to defection from God, is the law of his nature. It is, so to speak, instinctive to him to suppress and evade and deny God’s truth, and to shrug off God’s authority and to flout God’s law—yes, and when he hears the gospel to disbelieve and disobey that too. This is the sort of person that he is. He is, says Paul, ‘dead in trespasses and sins[Eph 2:1]—wholly incapacitated for any positive reaction to God’s Word, deaf to God’s speech, blind to God’s revelation, impervious to God’s inducements. If you talk to a corpse, there is no response; the man is dead. When God’s Word is spoken to sinners, there is equally no response; they are ‘dead in trespasses and sins’.

Nor is this all. Paul also tells us that Satan (whose power and ill will he never underestimates) is constantly active to keep sinners in their natural state. Satan ‘now worketh in the children of disobedience[Eph 2:2] to ensure that they do not obey God’s law. And ‘the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ . . . should shine unto them.’[2Cor 4:4] So that there are two obstacles in the way of successful evangelism: the first, man’s natural and irresistible impulse to oppose God, and the second, Satan’s assiduity in shepherding man in the ways of unbelief and disobedience.

What does this mean for evangelism? It means, quite simply, that evangelism, described as we have described it, cannot possibly succeed. However clear and cogent we may be in presenting the gospel, we have no hope of convincing or converting anyone. Can you or I by our earnest talking break the power of Satan over a man’s life? No. Can you or I give life to the spiritually dead? No. Can we hope to convince sinners of the truth of the gospel by patient explanation? No. Can we hope to move men to obey the gospel by any words of entreaty that we may utter? No. Our approach to evangelism is not realistic till we have faced this shattering fact, and let it make its proper impact on us. When a schoolmaster is trying to teach children arithmetic, or grammar, and finds them slow to learn, he assures himself that the penny must drop sooner or later, and so encourages himself to keep on trying. We can most of us muster great reserves of patience if we think that there is some prospect of ultimate success in what we are attempting. But in the case of evangelism there is no such prospect. Regarded as a human enterprise, evangelism is a hopeless task. It cannot in principle produce the desired effect. We can preach, and preach clearly and fluently and attractively; we can talk to individuals in the most pointed and challenging way; we can organize special services, and distribute tracts, and put up posters, and flood the country with publicity—and there is not the slightest prospect that all this outlay of effort will bring a single soul home to God. Unless there is some other factor in the situation, over and above our own endeavours, all evangelistic action is foredoomed to failure. This is the fact, the brute, rock-bottom fact, that we have to face.

That other factor in the situation is the divine sovereignty of the creator and ruler of the universe, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:36)

‘

Rearranged pond scum, that is what we are;

Accidental tourists, wandering near and far.

No matter how we think, no matter what we do,

We can’t be held responsible, ‘cause we just came from goo!

So when I burn your house down, or maybe shoot you dead,

My neurons are to blame; I can’t help what’s in my head!

Open up the prison doors, and turn the inmates loose,

No one’s really right or wrong in Darwin’s universe.

You do what’s right for you; I’ll do what’s right for me,

We can tiptoe through the tulips, or go on a killing spree.

When the day is over, and when this life is done,

All that really matters is that everyone had fun!

If you think this ditty silly, or somehow I’ve gone dense,

If we’re really only pond scum, good and evil don’t make sense!

       – Anonymous

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1Jn 1:8)

Notwithstanding believers are cleansed from their sins by the blood of Christ, yet they are not without sin; no man is without sin.

This is not only true of all men, as they come into the world, being conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity, and of all that are in a state of unregeneracy, and of God’s elect, while in such a state, but even of all regenerated and sanctified persons in this life; as appears by the ingenuous confessions of sin made by the saints in all ages;

by their complaints concerning it,

and groans under it;

by the continual war in them between flesh and spirit;

and by their prayers for the discoveries of pardoning grace,

and for the fresh application of Christ’s blood for cleansing;

by their remissness in the discharge of duty,

and by their frequent slips and falls, and often backslidings:

Though their sins are all pardoned, and they are justified from all things by the righteousness of Christ, yet they are not without sin. Though they are freed from the guilt of sin, and are under no obligation to punishment on account of it, yet not from the being of it.

Their sins were indeed transferred from them to Christ,

and he has bore them,

and took them and put them away,

and they are redeemed from them,

and are acquitted,

discharged,

and pardoned,

so that sin is not imputed to them,

and God sees no iniquity in them in the article of justification;

and also, their iniquities are caused to pass from them, as to the guilt of them, and are taken out of their sight,

and they have no more conscience of them, having their hearts sprinkled and purged by the blood of Jesus,

and are clear of all condemnation,

the curse of the law,

the wrath of God,

or the second death, by reason of them;

Yet pardon of sin, and justification from it, though they take away the guilt of sin, and free from obligation to punishment, yet they do not take out the being of sin, or cause it to cease to act, or do not make sins cease to be sins, or change the nature of actions, of sinful ones, to make them harmless, innocent, or indifferent.

The sins of believers are equally sins with other persons, are of the same kind and nature, and equally transgressions of the law, and many of them are attended with more aggravating circumstances, and are taken notice of by God, and resented by him, and for which he chastises his people in love.

Now though a believer may say that he has not this or that particular sin, or is not guilty of this or that sin, for he has the seeds of all sin in him, yet he cannot say he has no sin; and though he may truly say he shall have no sin, for in the other state the being and principle of sin will be removed, and the saints will be perfectly holy in themselves, yet he cannot, in this present life, say that he is without it. If any of us who profess to be cleansed from sin by the blood of Christ should affirm this, we deceive ourselves. Such persons must be ignorant of themselves, and put a cheat upon themselves, thinking themselves to be something when they are nothing; flattering themselves what pure and holy creatures they are, when there is a fountain of sin and wickedness in them. These are self-deceptions, sad delusions, and gross impositions upon themselves.

If there was a real work of God upon their souls, they would know and discern

the plague of their own hearts,

the impurity of their nature,

and the imperfection of their obedience.

Nor is the word of truth in them, for if that had an entrance into them, and worked effectually in them, they would in the light of it discover much sin and iniquity in them; and indeed there is no principle of truth, no veracity in them; there is no sincerity nor ingenuity in them; they do not speak honestly and uprightly, but contrary to the dictates of their own conscience.

________________________________

John Gill (23 November 1697 – 14 October 1771) was an English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian.  Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, he attended Kettering Grammar School where he mastered the Latin classics and learned Greek by age 11. He continued self-study in everything from logic to Hebrew, his love for the latter remaining throughout his life.

His first pastoral work was as an intern assisting John Davis at Higham Ferrers in 1718 at age 21. He became pastor at the Strict Baptist church at Goat Yard Chapel, Horsleydown, Southwark in 1719. His pastorate lasted 51 years. In 1757 his congregation needed larger premises and moved to a Carter Lane, St. Olave’s Street, Southwark. This Baptist church was once pastored by Benjamin Keach and would later become the New Park Street Chapel and then the Metropolitan Tabernacle pastored by Charles Spurgeon.

“The time has come for Christians to stir: The house is being robbed, its very walls are being digged down, but the good people who are in the bed are too fond of the warmth, and too much afraid of getting broken heads, to go downstairs and meet the burglars …Inspiration and speculation cannot long abide in peace. Compromise there can be none. We cannot hold the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement and deny it; we cannot talk of the doctrine of the fall and yet talk of the evolution of spiritual life from human nature … One way or another we must go. Decision is the virtue of the hour.” – Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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