May 3, 2018

Have you ever experienced the Lord directing you to precisely what you needed? It might have been a job or a place to live or maybe even a spouse! Last week, I experienced a much less profound experience, but very encouraging nonetheless. I was looking for a certain book and found myself reaching for another book entitled “Good News for Bad Times.” In his study of 1 Peter, Richard W. De Haan writes: “One distinctive of all Christians is that they are the chosen of God. Peter says, ‘Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father’ (1 Peter 1:2). Whenever the term election is mentioned, it raises questions in the minds of many people. They wonder how the teaching that God has chosen some for eternal salvation can be reconciled with the biblical emphasis upon man’s responsibility and upon his free will.”

When I was with Operation Mobilization in Europe, I remember George Verwer saying that God used men like George Whitfield and John Wesley, who held different theological views, in mighty ways. I found Richard De Haan’s comments to be insightful as well: “One reason for the confusion is that people are inclined to take an extreme position. Some theologians might be called hyper-Calvinists. They say that God in eternity past chose some to be saved and at the same time decreed that others should be damned. Such theologians put all the emphasis on God’s sovereign choice and deny that man’s free will has any part in it. They contend that everyone is either predestined by God to be saved or predestined to be condemned.

Other theologians have taken the opposite view, and for all practical purposes deny God’s sovereignty. They say the Lord foreknew who would believe on Jesus, and that He chose them on that basis. According to this view, everything depends upon man’s will. This leads to the misconception that an individual can go through life with alternating periods of being saved and lost. Such believers do not possess the blessed assurance of having been chosen by God nor the confidence that He will keep them saved until they receive their inheritance in heaven.”

De Haan continues: “I believe that the truth regarding election and free will can be found somewhere between these two extreme positions. Both election and free will are taught in the Word of God. We must acknowledge that God has indeed chosen some to be saved, but we must also recognize that man has a will and that he is a responsible moral being. Having said that, we must admit that to our finite human comprehension this is a mystery beyond full understanding.”

Richard De Haan concludes: “Both the election of God and the free will of man are taught in the Scriptures. To top it all off, both ideas are put together in one sentence (John 6:37). There it is! Election and free will in the same statement. God does His part and we must do ours. He does the electing, but we must receive the salvation He offers by believing on Jesus Christ.” He then gives an illustration about a railroad track: “Let’s call one rail ‘election’ and the other ‘free will.’ The theological train of Bible truth needs both rails. If you remove the rail of man’s free will, you crash into the ditch of fatalism. If you remove the rail of sovereign election, you will find yourself in the mire of a works-salvation and fearful insecurity. Both sides of the truth must be accepted and believed. If we gaze down a railroad track to the horizon, we see that in the distance the two rails seem to merge into one. So these two great truths find real harmony in the mind of God.” Taken from Good News for Bad Times by Richard W. DeHaan, © 1975 by Radio Bible Class, and used by permission of Discovery House, Grand Rapids MI 49501.  All rights reserved.

Last night, Karen and I had the privilege of attending a tremendous show at the Bell Centre. Some of the best figure skaters in Canada performed with such agility and strength that they earned numerous standing ovations. This morning, I looked on the Internet to find out how old Elvis Stojko is (he is 46) and learned that he went through a very difficult time after skating with an injury at the Olympics in Nagano, Japan in 1998. For more about Elvis, please visit: https://skatecanada.ca/2015/07/stojko-returns-to-canada-healed/.

Scripture for the weekend: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” John 6:37 (NKJV) 

Thought for the weekend: “Revelation means ‘to make known’ or ‘to unveil.’ Revelation requires a ‘revealer,’ who in this case is God. It also requires ‘hearers’ – the chosen prophets and apostles who recorded in the Bible what He told them. Revelation is communication in which God is at one end and man is at the other. In the revelation that God established between Himself and us we can find a new dimension of living, but we must ‘tune in.’” – Billy Graham (from his book “How to Be Born Again”)  

Steve