In this session, I want
to consider further what we call in theology
the divine initiative, referring to that first step
of salvation that is brought to pass in our
lives unilaterally and exclusively by
the power of God. And we see this in this
passage in Ephesians 2 that I have made
occasional reference to, and I'd like to spend a little
bit more time on it now. Let's look if we may at
chapter two of Ephesians and where Paul
says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and
sins, in which you formerly walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, of the spirit that
is now working in the sons of disobedience. And among them we too
all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of
the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, even as the rest." What we find in this
passage are descriptive terms of the radical
character of man's fallenness. We've talked about
moral inability. We have avoided the use of
the language of Calvinism, which describes man's situation
as that of "total depravity," a term that has become very,
very controversial in Christian circles and is part of the
famous acrostic that Calvinists use to delineate the so-called
five points of Calvinism - TULIP. T-U-L-I-P. "T" standing
for total depravity, "U" for unconditional election,
"L" for limited atonement, "I" for irresistible grace, and "P"
for perseverance of the saints. But usually you don't
get further than the "T" before the controversy
boils over. And here's one of
those occasions where acrostics, which
are little devices that function as aides for our
memory sometimes do more damage than they're worth because
"total depravity" is a very misleading term. People confuse "total
depravity" with what we would call "utter
depravity," that is that man is as bad
as he could possibly be. I don't know anybody
who believes that. No matter how sinful
we are, we can always conceive of ourselves as
having done worse sins than we have done and even sin
more often than we in fact do. So, there's none of us
who is utterly depraved. The term "total
depravity" was coined to mean that sin affects
the whole person, that the total essence of
our humanity is fallen. That is, our minds are
fallen, our wills our fallen, our bodies are fallen - the
whole person is caught up in this fallenness. I prefer to speak of
"radical corruption." The problem is that turns
"TULIP" into "RULIP," and ruins the acrostic. But I like the term
"radical corruption" because the meaning of
"radical" historically is that it comes from the Latin
word radix, which means "root." And the point of
radical corruption is that our fallenness is
not just a tangential thing, or a peripheral thing, an
accidental blemish that's merely on the surface
of our humanity, but sin is something that
goes to the very core of our existence. It penetrates to the
root of the tree. Now, here in this text, Paul
is giving some statements that indicate the seriousness of
our fallenness where he says, "You were dead in your
trespasses and sins." Elsewhere he speaks of being
under the power of sin, in bondage to sin, children of
wrath, children of the devil - that sort of thing. It's not a very pleasant
picture of natural fallen man. But again, he says that
this was our previous state, that we "were dead in trespasses
and sins, in which you formerly walked." How did we walk? We walked according to
the course of this world. We walked the way the world
walks, which is not in the way that God would have us to walk. Earlier Paul had
spoken of the fact that all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. There is none
righteous, no not one. There's none even who does good. There's none who
seeks after God. We are altogether
unprofitable; we have all gone out of the way. Do you remember that
Christians were first called people of the Way? But our natural way
is not God's way. We walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air. That is, we were being
obedient and loyal to whom? To Satan. He's the prince of
the power of the air. And we walked "according to
the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too
all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of
the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, even as the rest." That's a very, very grim
portrait of man's fallenness. Now the next word, I believe,
is the most important word in the New Testament with
respect to this doctrine of God's sovereign grace. I think it's so important
that I've harped on this theme so many times that in
one class I was teaching, a woman went to the
trouble and the bother to embroider a sign that
spelled out this word for me. This word - "but." The gospel's only good news
when we understand the bad news. The gospel's only
gospel when we first understand the law and our
situation under the law. Here we are, dead in
sin and trespasses, walking according to the
flesh, the lusts of the flesh, and so on, walking
like those who are under the spirit of
disobedience, children of wrath - BUT God. But God, who is
rich in mercy - not but we who still had an
island of righteousness finally lifted ourselves
up from our bootstraps, or inclined ourselves
to change our ways, but man who is
powerful morally said "No!" to this wicked course
and quickened himself from the dead. That's not what the Bible says. It says, "But God, who is rich
in mercy has made us alive, quickened us, even when we were
dead in our transgressions." Now when I hear evangelical
Christians talk about what happens in conversion, I hear
two analogies frequently, illustrations designed to
communicate to our minds what really happens. Maybe you've heard them. The first goes like this: That
fallen man is not healthy. He is very, very sick. Indeed, he is sick
unto death, and he is in the terminal illness
ward of the hospital. There is nothing that man can
possibly do to heal himself. He's almost comatose. Death is certain. Unless medicine is
administered to that man, he will surely die. So God provides the
medicine, and the nurse puts the medicine,
pours it out on a spoon. God has - or God Himself pours
the medicine on the spoon, and God Himself comes to that
man in his parched lips and his semi-comatose condition as
he's lying on his deathbed, and He puts that spoon right
at the lips of the man. But at that moment, the man
can either accept the medicine or refuse the medicine. And if he opens
his mouth, God will pour the medicine in his
mouth and it will save him. But if he keeps his lips
clenched tightly then he will not receive
the necessary cure. So that analogy shows that
man is in a very, very serious condition. But he's still alive. What I hear God saying
is He comes into the room after the doctor has
pronounced that man dead! What I hear Paul saying
here is that God quickens us when we are dead. A better analogy would
be that the man has gone under for the
third time, and he's at the bottom of the sea,
and God dives in the water, and He takes that dead man,
that corpse from the bottom of the sea and brings
him out onto the dry land and He leans over,
and He gives him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,
and He breathes His life into that man, and that
man is restored from the dead. That's what the Bible is saying
about the divine initiative, that that first step of
quickening from the dead, from the flesh unto
spirit, transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness
to the Kingdom of Light is accomplished by
God, not by man. And of course, after
God quickens us, then we choose, then we believe, then
we embrace Christ, we repent. We do all of those
things because we're alive now to the things of God. But the first step,
the initiative, the being made alive from
the dead, is the work of God and the work of God alone. "For by grace you have
been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God; not
as a result of works, that no one should boast. For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." All right, well one of
the deepest questions that this raises when we think
about this divine initiative: if God is the one
who has to rescue that dead man from
the bottom of the sea, if God is the one who has
to not merely administer medicine, but resurrect a
corpse then what in the world is the purpose of evangelism? Isn't that a question we
all think about and raise, that in light of
God's sovereignty, and in light of the whole
concept of predestination, if God has decreed
from all eternity that certain people
will be saved, then certainly those
people will be saved, with or without my
bearing witness, with or without my
preaching the gospel. Why then should we be
concerned about evangelism? My favorite story
about this took place when I was in seminary
when I was studying in a classroom with
Dr. John Gerstner at Pittsburgh Seminary,
who is the king of the predestinarians, and
there were about 20 of us in the class and we were
seated in a semi-circle. And he said, "All
right, gentlemen, if it's true that God
sovereignly predestines a certain fixed number
of people to be saved, and it's by an immutable
decree, then why should we be involved in evangelism?" And now he left that
question hanging in the air, and he started to
call on the students to answer the question. And I'll never
forget how relieved I was because I was
at the extreme right of that semi-circle, and he
started on the left side. And I thought, "Boy, am I glad
I don't have to answer that!" So he looks at
the first student, and he says, "Well, Mr.
So-and-so, what would you say?" And he said, "Gee, Dr. Gerstner,
you know, I don't know. I've always wondered
about that myself." And so he struck out. He goes to the next
fellow, and the next fellow says, "Beats me." He goes to the next, all
the way down the line, and they were getting
perilously close to me, and there was this sense
of expectation mounting in the classroom. I felt like Socrates in
one of Plato's dialogues where after all
these other people, these lesser
mortals give answers to these profound questions,
and they sound okay until Socrates speaks, and
then he blows everybody away. And I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm going
to be on the hot seat here. Well, sure enough, they went
all the way around the room. Nobody could answer Dr.
Gerstner's question, and so he came to me. And I'm squirming. So I tried to answer
it, and I said, "Well, you know I'm sure this isn't
what you're looking for, Dr. Gerstner. I'm know that there's something
far more profound than this that must be the answer
to this question, but one small reason
why, you know, we ought to be
involved in evangelism is that, well you know, Jesus
commands us to do evangelism, doesn't He?" And Gerstner started to
laugh in his diabolical way, and He said, "Of
course, Mr. Sproul. What could possibly be a more
insignificant reason to do evangelism, than that Jesus
commands you to, than that the Savior of your soul and the
Lord God Almighty should utter a command, and you think that
that may be possibly one small reason why we should be..." And the more he
went on, you know, the smaller I was
growing in that chair. And I said, "Whoa,
wait a minute." But I never forgot the point. He said, "The chief reason
why we do evangelism, in light of the
sovereignty of God is because God is sovereign,
and God has not only sovereignly decreed
the end, that is, the goal of the
redemption of people, but He also has
sovereignly decreed the means toward that end. He has chosen the
foolishness of preaching as the means by which He will
bring people to salvation, and He has commanded
His church to carry out that program of evangelism. And He said, "Look, I'll
take care of the election, but you do the preaching. You do the witnessing. That is your responsibility." Now, does He need me? No, He doesn't need me. No, He doesn't need me. God doesn't need me
to fulfill His plan. He could do it without me. He has the power to do
it without me, okay? But He has chosen to do it with
me and by me and through me, and with you and by
you and through you. So we see here that evangelism
is first of all a duty. But second of all, and we
need to understand this: evangelism is an
unspeakable privilege. What a privilege
to be - I mean, I was once reading a
book on fundraising. (I need to read books like
that every now and then, they're dreadfully
dull and boring). And this fellow who
was writing the book had been head of the
fundraising campaign for Harvard University,
and he said, "There's some
fundamental principles you need to understand
about fundraising." He said, "The first
law is this: You have to be aware of the fact
that every human being wants to have a significant part
in a significant enterprise, so if you give the people the
vision for what you are doing, and let them become
a part of it, then they will
respond because they want to be a part of
a significant cause, if you will." And so he, of course,
the author of the book was saying, "Exploit
that," you know. "Use that, keep that in mind." Well, I think it's
true, though, isn't it, that we want our lives to count? We don't want to be meaningless
ciphers in this world. We want to participate
in significant things. Wouldn't it be
something if we could say, if I could look at my left
hand and say, "See that ring? That ring indicates that I
played for the Super Bowl champions in 1975." People would look at
me and say, "Really? Isn't that - Wow! Now that's significant!" I don't have a ring like that. All I do in my life - I
don't play for the Pittsburgh Steelers, I'm not a member
of the President's Cabinet - all I do is work everyday
for the King of Kings. That's all I do. Now what could be more
insignificant than that? All I get to do in my work,
and I get paid to do this, is to work in the most
significant enterprise that God has ever
created; and to work for the building of
the Kingdom of God, for the preaching of the gospel,
for the nurturing of the saints is the highest calling
in the universe. That's why I was rankled one
day when some student said to me after I had worked in
the church for a couple years, and then was spending more
time, was teaching in seminary and running around the country
doing conferences and all of this, and this student looked
at me with stars in his eyes. He was awestruck. He got to meet in
the flesh somebody that he'd heard speaking
at a conference somewhere, and his picture on a book
or something like that, and it was like his card
catalogue came to life, and he was just thunderstruck,
and he said, "Gee, what was it like for you
when you were just a pastor?" I got, I said, "What do
you mean, JUST a pastor? Do you know why
I'm not a pastor? Because I don't have what
it takes to be a pastor. It's a whole lot easier to
run around from town to town and preach and then
run than to stand there with the same people year
after year after year and going from the first
level to the second level to the third level,
nurturing, holding their hands when they die, and
all of that, and have them be cutting you apart every
week and you have to bear it." I said, "I just
couldn't handle that. I have nothing but profound
respect and admiration for the pastor because I believe
that's the highest calling that there is in this world. It's a privilege;
it's not just a duty. It's a privilege to
be able to spend one's life in the service of Christ." Notice what Paul says
in chapter 10 of Romans. It says in verse 11,
"For the Scripture says, 'Whoever believes in Him will
not be disappointed.'" Man, what a statement. When we come to faith,
and we place our faith, we place our trust, we
place our confidence in Christ as our
Savior - everyone knows what it means to
have placed their trust or confidence in something or
someone that let them down. That's devastating. But whoever places their
faith or confidence in Christ will never be disappointed! "For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord
is Lord over all, abounding in riches for
all who call upon Him." Verse 13, "For, "Whoever will
call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.'" Now we've
labored throughout this series that no one, the point that
no one will call upon the Lord unless the Lord
first quickens him, but what does God
quicken us for? But to cry out to Christ,
to call upon the Lord. And whoever does
that, whoever calls, and you don't know whether
you're elect or not elect. But do you want Christ? Huh? You call upon Him. Let the question of
the mystery of election hang up in the
clouds for a minute. What's the status of
your heart right now? If in your heart you want
a Savior, if in your heart you want Christ, if you
want Him, call upon Him, and if you call
upon Him, there's nothing more certain
under the sun, than that He will hear your call
and that He will respond to it, and you will be saved. But then Paul asks
this question, "How will they call upon Him in
whom they have not believed?" Before you call upon
somebody to redeem you, you have to first have
some degree of confidence that the person's able
to perform the task. I'm not going to ask
Archie Bunker to save my soul because I don't
think he has the ability to save my soul. I have to first believe
that he is able. "How will they call upon Him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him whom they've not heard?" Now this is pretty
simple logic here, isn't it? "And how shall they
hear without a preacher?" You don't call on a savior
to save you if you don't believe that he is the Savior. And you can't believe that He
is the Savior if you've never even heard about Him! And you're not going to hear
about Him unless somebody tells you about Him. And then he goes on to say,
"And there's no preacher unless somebody
sends the preacher." And you may not be able to
be gifted in evangelism, but you're able to contribute to
the sending of the evangelist. (Just in parentheses, only
four percent of Christians, evangelical Christians in
the United States of America, tithe). And you wonder why the
Great Commission has not been taking place, not because
it's blocked or thwarted by predestination. It's blocked and thwarted
by crass disobedience among the people of
God with their money. Four percent, four out of a
hundred professing evangelicals tithe to get the job done. But the point I
want you to see here is Paul's quotation
from the Old Testament. It says, "Faith comes"
where it says, "How shall they preach unless
they are sent? Just as it is written, 'How
beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of
good things!'" Strange, strange thing. I've heard people
listening to Billy Graham or listening to
other great preachers and saying, "What a
marvelous voice he has." Or people are worse than that. I mean, I get more
letters about my hairdo than I do about my
theology, and people will say, "Well why are
you wearing those glasses?" or "Why do you wear that
tie?" or "Why do you wear the same pair of pants
everyday in this series?" I'm striking a nerve here, huh? Okay. So why - people
notice those things. But have you ever heard
somebody in the congregation look up at the minister
and say, "My, doesn't he have beautiful feet?" Anybody ever talk about
Billy Graham's feet? He's the greatest
evangelist in our day, and I've never heard a single
person refer to his feet. But in the ancient world,
the word "gospel" first meant "good message"
or "good news," and communications
of critical events was a very, very serious
matter to the ancient person, where the armies would
go out into battle and not come back for
two years, and the people would wait for two years and not
know whether they won or lost. So anytime there was a pivotal
battle, if the forces won or if they lost,
they would dispatch a messenger, a
marathon runner, who would run back to the hometown. And as he would
run into the town, then he would announce the
outcome of this decisive battle to the people. And the townspeople would have
lookouts posted at high points to scan the horizon to watch
for the coming messenger. And they would
see the dust start to fly long before they
would see a person. And they would, that
would get their attention, and they'd stare
into the distance and watch the configurations
of the dust clouds. And they would watch, and the
first thing they would see would be the way the feet were
pumping up and down as they ran up the mountain and down
the other side of the mountain. And those who were
good at being lookouts could tell before
the messenger arrived whether it was good news or
bad news because the man that was running to declare victory
would run with his chest out, and his arms pumping,
and a smile on his face, and his feet really going. How many of you are joggers? Do you know what the
"survival shuffle" is? That's when you're
going, jogging like this, and the feet aren't even
getting of the ground, right? He said, "Yeah, I'm running. I'm still running." It's the "survival shuffle" is
what it's called, all right? And I have experienced
that more than once. And that's they way guys
who came with bad news would approach the city
gates - forlorn, discouraged, cast down. But then, you see somebody
whose feet were flying and his socks were on fire
from a distance with good news, and the lookout would
throw his hat into the air and say, "We won!" And so, the prophet says,
"How beautiful on the mountain are the feet of him who
brings good tidings, who publishes peace." I know that it was God
who brought me to Christ, but He used a man who
told me the gospel, and I will never
forget that man. And no matter what
that man ever does, I will always love him
because humanly, he cared enough to
be the instrument that God was pleased to use
to bring me to Jesus Christ. How would you like
to know that God used your testimony,
your act of charity, your bearing of witness
to your neighbor as the catalyst for that
person's eternal salvation? Why evangelize? Because it's a command and
it's the highest privilege that God can give to us.
