criswell

 

W.A. Criswell

W.A. CRISWELL ON JOHN CALVIN, CALVINISM,  THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION AND ITS CALVINIST SUCCESSORS…

“That’s our God!  Now that’s what you call foreordination.  That’s what you call predestination!  That’s Calvinism!  And I am a Calvinist.  That’s good old Bible doctrine, and I believe the Bible!  These things are in God’s hands, and ultimately and finally, He purposed it and executeth all of it!” (Sermon on Isaiah 46:9-11)

“All of us, when we look back over our lives, are Calvinists; all of us.  A missionary on a foreign field, a preacher in the pulpit, when he looks back upon his life, he is an ardent Calvinist.  By the grace of God, am I here.  By God’s loving overtures did He seek me, and find me, and save me, and call me, and send me.  Any man of God, when he looks back over his life, is a Calvinist.  I am a product of the grace of the Lord.”(Ezekiel 18:30-32)

“That is Calvinism and I am a Calvinist.  God has a people and Christ shall not die for nothing.  God has given Him a people and He calls them and they come. Now, the other side of this.  Spurgeon is preaching this time, and all of his sermons end in a great appeal to the people: “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure” [2 Peter 1:10]—now he says—There are some of you who cannot make your calling and election sure, for you have not been called, and you have no right to believe that you are elected. But do not ask whether you are elected first, but ask whether you are called.  Go to God’s house; bend your knee in prayer.  And may God, in His infinite mercy, call you!  If any of you can say, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling,” if any of you, abjuring your self-righteousness, can now come to Christ and take Him to be your all-in-all, you are called and you are elected.  [From “Particular Election”; C. H. Spurgeon, March 22, 1857] (Sermon on Ezekiel 18:30-32)

“Zwingli, Calvin, Luther: that trio of the great Reformation.  Zwingli lived in Zurich, and there is the great church in which he preached.  And this is the city in which he lived.  And this is the heart of the birth of the great Reformation, the great revival.” (Sermon: 1 Corinthians 9:16-17)

“The question is still being asked, “What shall we do with Jesus?”  His disciples through the ages have influenced the world.  We think of John the Baptist, of John the Evangelist, of Augustine, of Savonarola, of John Huss, of John Calvin, of John Knox, of Charles Spurgeon, of Dwight L. Moody, of John A. Broadus, of B. H. Carroll, and a host of others who were bright and shining lights.” (Sermon on Lengthening Shadows)

"Our spirit is to be that of John Calvin, who placed on his coat of arms a hand lifting up a burning heart unto God.” (Radio: Acts 26:1-20)

“Now, all who have come after the Lord Jesus, but repeat His witness and His testimony, Ignatius, John Chrysostom, Savonarola, John Wycliffe, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, all of the preachers of the days past, who have followed after the Lord Jesus, they but repeat the testimony of Christ.  There’s not a one of them that have been sent a different message.  There’s not a one of them that have added to it.” (Sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:6)

“But if you believe that God lives and God has a reason and God has a purpose, and the glory of man is to give himself to that great purposiveness of God, then you have a raison d'être, a reason for being, and you are indomitable! Every one of the Reformers was a predestinarian—Luther as well as Calvin—and that's why they wrought as they did.  They believed that they were working in the will of God, and they were unstoppable, indomitable, unshakable, immovable!  It puts iron in a man, makes him stand up straight for God.  "This is God's will, and I have found it, and I've given my life to it." (Sermon on 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14)

“Two of the great, great, great Bible expositors of all time were Chrysostom and John Calvin.” (Sermon on 2 Timothy 2:15)

“The story of the great religious movements that have waxed and waned through the centuries since, and the great revivals that have accompanied them, is largely the story of the cities of the world.  John Chrysostom of Antioch and Byzantium; Augustine of Hippo; Savonarola of Florence; John Knox of Edinburgh; John Calvin of Geneva; the cities of England that listened to Wesley; the cities of America that listened to Whitefield; Charles Finney of New York and New England; and Moody of Chicago; and Sunday of Philadelphia and the great cities of America; just to think through the religious movements of the centuries since is to follow the story of the great cities of the world.  And now we come to our day and to our time.” (Sermon on Acts 18:9-10)

“Then there is a Sardian period in the church—the church of the Reformation, “There are some names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments” [Revelation 3:4].  Great names: Balthasar Hubmaier, our Baptist preacher; Felix Mantz, our Baptist preacher—besides Wesley, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Whitefield, Edwards—there’s a Sardian period in the church; great names, men who stand up and preach the gospel of the Son of God.” (Sermon on 7 churches)

“That's in the Bible. I don't manufacture these things. I'm not talking about anybody. I'm just telling you what the Book says; the Thyatiran period of the church. Then comes the Saurian period of the church, the church of the Great Reformation, where they have a few names that are standing out for God -- Balthasar Hubmaier and Felix Mantz and John Calvin and Martin Luther and John Knox, those great men, a few in Sardis who stand out for God.” (Sermon on Scarlet thread through the Scriptures)

“..this marvellous fellow Frenchman, John Calvin…” (Sermon on Matt 7:24-29)

“We feel the influence of these who have gone on before:  a Martin Luther, or a John Knox, or a Calvin, or a Jonathan Edwards, or a George W. Truett.” (Sermon on Ephesians 3:14-15)

“Look at the witness of the men of God through the centuries.  Great theologians like John Calvin expounding and exegeting these words.” (Sermon on 2 Timothy 2:1-2)

“How rich did Jesus endow the people of God through those centuries!  Then, the grace gifts, the ministers of the pre-Reformation:  Peter Waldo, Savonarola, John Huss, Cranmer, Ridley, Hugh Latimer, Samuel Rutherford, William Guthrie, all those flaming ministers of Christ.  Then the days of the Reformation:  Martin Luther, and John Calvin, and John Knox, and Melanchthon, and Balthazar Hüttemeier, and Felix Mantz, the whole constellation of God’s grace gifts.” (Sermon on the Ascension Gifts of Christ – Ephesians 4)

“And those great marvelous reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin and Philip Melanchthon commended those troupes that curried Europe, speaking and dramatizing, and speaking, and singing, and presenting the glorious story of the coming of Christ into this world.” (Sermon on Facing the future with God – Exodus 33)

“In the sixth verse of the first chapter of the gospel, it is written, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”  And, that word, John, identifying a man of God, has been characteristic of so many in those centuries since.  John the Baptist; John Chrysostom—John the Golden Mouth—the most incomparable preacher who ever lived, pastor in Antioch, and later in Constantinople, John Hus, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wycliffe, John Milton, John Bunyan.  When the Baptist World Alliance was organized they chose as first president a wonderful London preacher, John Clifford.  There are more babies, children, named for John than for any other man in the history of the human race.” (Sermon on Mark 3;13-17)

“The Puritan came in a quest for God.  History has called them Puritans.  They were Puritan separatists.  They were trained in the school of John Calvin, they were Calvinists.  They pledged allegiance to God alone and not to a king or a hierarchy.  They believed in the priesthood of the believer.  They believed in the right of every man and every church to worship God without interference from an ecclesiastical authority or a monarchical head of government.  They believed in salvation by grace alone.  After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, James I came to the throne and in a bitter rage, he said, "I will make these Puritans conform or I will harry them out of the land."  Some of them he hanged.  Some of them he burned at the stake.  Some of them rotted in loathsome prisons, such as our Baptist, Thomas Helwys.” (Sermon on Joshua 24:24-25)

“Nor did any of the great, mighty leaders of the church, not one of them ever spoke in a tongue, not one of them ever claimed to be able to do miraculous healings. I'm talking about Augustine, I'm talking about Luther, I'm talking about Calvin, I'm talking about Edwards, I'm talking about Spurgeon, I'm talking about Moody..” (Sermon on John 4:46-54)

“But I don't care who you are, as you grow in grace and the days multiply, you'll become a Calvinist.  Calvin flourished in 1550 and was the great exponent of the elective purposes of God in the earth.  And as you grow older and as you experience His love and mercy in your life, the day will come when you avow, “God did it.  He touched my heart.  He wooed me, and sought me, and bought me, and brought me.  God did it.  All praise to the glory of the Father for the grace that He showed to me, all the love.”  Didn't you just sing that? Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. Oh, the grace that brought it down to man. Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span.At Calvary. [“At Calvary”; William Reed Newell]” (Sermon on John 6:37)

“I stand every morning and sit every morning and many times late at night in my library; there at the parsonage I have several thousand volumes in my library.  And as I stand there or sit there, all of those testimonies by men of God who through the centuries have written concerning the living Lord—Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Tertullian, Pyrenaeus, in the passing of time, Savonarola, Hubmaier, Huss, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and up to our present day these great commentaries, Joseph Parker, Alexander McClaren, the marvelous sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon—I live in that world of the testimony of these great men of God to the living Christ.” (Sermon on Acts 25:19)

**OTHER INTERESTING QUOTES FROM W.A. CRISWELL:

“And it was then that the great preacher, Augustine, picked up his pen and wrote one of the great books of all time and all eternity.  He wrote The City of God.  The City of God. And the thesis of the book is this: turning the eye of the people away from destroyed and decaying and dying Rome, he lifted up their hearts and their eyes and their spirits to the great holy city, the New Jerusalem that is yet to come, coming down from God out of heaven.  And his people were encouraged, and their hearts were lifted up, and they began once again to sing the songs of victory and of Zion. That’s our faith.  That’s our faith.  That’s our persuasion.  That’s our commitment in the holy, heavenly, saving name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Sermon on Isaiah 28:11)

Compare however with this:

“And in the year about 400, Augustine who was one of the greatest intellects of all time, but descended from colossal apostasy to another, Augustine promoted the doctrine that a child that died unbaptized went immediately to the fires of hell and eternity.  Such a monstrous doctrine was taken by the state and the edict was made that every child in the empire should be baptized in order to save it from eternal damnation if it should die as an infant.” (Sermon on Our Baptist Heritage)

THE END


INDEXES:

* CALVINIST INDEX
* PROTESTANT INDEX
* CH SPURGEON INDEX
* EVANGELISM INDEX
* HERE AND THERE INDEX