EVANGELISM, PASSION FOR THE LOST, AND THE ELECT
Some in the Fundamentalist group, (some) believe if you believe God saves people, you will not have the desire to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How silly is that? Some believe that God's doesn't know who is going to be saved. How silly is that? Some believe God knows who is going to be saved, but He doesn't interfer with what a man does in the matter of his salvation? How silly is that?
- Some believe if you believe God has an elect group of people who are going to be saved, that leaves out all the other people who would want to be saved? How silly that that?
A controversialist once said, “If I thought God had a chosen people, I should not preach>"
That is the very reason why I do preach. What would make him inactive is the mainspring of my earnestness. If the Lord had not a people to be saved, I should have little to cheer me in the ministry.
- I believe that God will save his own elect, and I also believe that, if I do not preach the gospel, the blood of men will be laid at my door.
Our Saviour has bidden us to preach the gospel to every creature; he has not said, “Preach it only to the elect;” and though that might seem to be the most logical thing for us to do, yet, since he has not been pleased to stamp the elect in their foreheads, or to put any distinctive mark upon them, it would be an impossible task for us to perform; whereas, when we preach the gospel to every creature, the gospel makes its own division, and Christ’s sheep hear his voice, and follow him.
