preach

Calvinists preach another god, I tell you...

LET'S GO AND HEAR AN ANTI CALVINIST PREACHER PREACH!

Obviously, the following story is imaginary, but not that far away from the truth. It is designed to have enough truth in it to maybe make a few people think. On the other hand, maybe not. We all do things without necessarily following through the obvious implications.

PICTURE THE SCENE: A Non Calvinist preacher goes into his pulpit on the Lord's Day morning. He is not just any Non Calvinist preacher, though. I have no axe to grind with any Christian who does not share my views on Calvinism, although I do believe that I can show him or her the way of God on these things more perfectly. No - this Non Calvinist preacher shares the views of many, although (thankfully) not all anti Calvinist preachers. His plan is simple. He is going to preach on John 3:16 and has devoted a few lines or so to denouncing Calvinists - even to the point of saying that their god is not the God of the Bible and that they preach another gospel and so will invoke Galatians 1:8-9 against them.

Let the (imaginary) service begin!

"Good morning everyone. Let us worship God by singing a grand old hymn of praise which I hope will help capture the theme of today's sermon. Please turn in your hymnbook please to Hymn number  ____  "Amazing Grace how sweet the sound" I want you to really sing it! How could you not sing these words without gratitude to God? Look at verse 2: " 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear/ And grace my fears relieved/ How precious did that grace appear/ The hour I first believed." Let's all stand to sing!"

After some good lusty singing, per the preacher's encouragement, of John Newton's great hymn, the congregation settles down to the opening prayer, during which the preacher quotes the words of William Cowper, 'What various hindrances we meet/ In coming to the mercy seat/ Yet who, that knows the worth of prayer/ But wishes often to be there!'
"Can you turn with me please in your Bibles please to John chaper 3? John 3, please. We will commence our reading at verse 1 and end at verse 21. {Clears throat for reading}

'There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.'

Amen! Wasn't that a great reading of a great passage? It's hard to beat the King James Bible for accuracy and style. We don't use the modern perversions in this church! Our King James Bible is a product from an age of faith! There were spiritual giants in the land in those days! Amen!  Spiritul giants - I'm glad some of them translated us the King James Bible. God really used them for His own glory. Amen."

"Now, let's sing again another great hymn while we're collecting the offering. Hymn number ______. "I once was a stranger to grace and to God." This was Robert Murray McCheyne's great hymn. Did you know I visited his church in Scotland? He was a godly preacher who saw revival in his church in Dundee. I stood in his pulpit.  What passion that man had as he wept for souls. He died young. He was only 29 when God took him home to glory, but he did more in his few short years on this earth than many of us do in a life time. We're going to sing this great hymn of Christian testimony. Hymn number _________. Let's all stand to sing...."

"OK - that was good singing again. Before I preach Sister ________ is going to sing two solo pieces."

Sister _________ stands up to sing.

She says, "Thank you, Mr ________ for the opportunity to sing tonight. I have two pieces. First of all, I want to sing "Rock of Ages, cleft for me"  and then sing: "Immortal honours rest on Jesus's head."
After a heartfelt rendering of these Christ exalting hymns, Sister _________ sits down and our Anti Calvinist preacher lays his Bible and sermon notes on the pulpit again. He opens his mouth and says: "Turn with me to that portion of the Scripture which we read in our Bibles. I want to take as my text today, these great words of John 3:16 (quote)"

"This is a favourite text for gospel preachers. All the great preachers and commentators speak highly of it. I looked up my Matthew Henry commentary on it. Do you have a Matthew Henry commentary? If not, then go first thing tomorrow morning and get one. We have sell them in our church's bookshop. They go flying off the shelves. Matthew Henry is the first commentary I lift when I come to a text of Scripture. Henry said, "Behold, and wonder, that the great God should love such a worthless world!" Then I looked up Spurgeon. I'm a Spurgeon man! I never look up Spurgeon without getting blessed! Spurgeon tells us in his sermon on John 3:16 that he was surprised to learn that, until that day, he had never preached upon the actual text of John 3;16. I think, though, we could excuse him the oversight when he continued: "This is all the more singular, because I can truly say that it might be put in the forefront of all my volumes of discourses as the sole topic of my life's ministry." So, even though he never formally took it as a text, yet his preaching was saturated with its message. You would know it! - You would know it from the fruit of his great ministry. O for a few more Spurgeons today!"

Soon our Anti Calvinist preacher came more to his text which he opened up rather well and expounded. But soon we come to these words:

"Do you see that? 'For God so loved the world...' Are you listening Calvinists! God so loved the WORLD! What part of that do you not understand? W-O-R-L-D! That means everybody! You know, Calvinists don't believe that.  I was looking at an internet forum this week that said that Calvinism portrays God as a liar! And when I read that, I said, 'That's right!' You say 'That's fightin' talk, preacher!' Well, I don't care who it offends. I am not one of these preachers like "Mr Look Both Ways" in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress!  I wouldn't have a Calvinist within a hundred feet of me. He worships another god - he believes another gospel and preaches another Jesus! Do you know what we should do with Calvinists? Let them be accursed! There must've been Calvinists in Paul's day, friend! Or if Paul was here with us in our day, and read what these Calvinists write and heard them preach, do you know what he would say? Let them be accursed! Read Galatians 1:8-9. They're just the same as the Jehovah Witnesses. What's the difference between a Mormon and a Calvinist? A Mormon rides a bicycle! Ha! Ha! Yes, that's just a little bit of a joke, but the bit that's not funny is that they're both going to Hell!

OK - let's get back to our text. This Book says, God so loved the world. The Calvinist won't tell you that. John Calvin believed that God only loved the elect and nobody else. I have done a lot of research on this. I bought Dave Hunt's book and devoured it! But God so loved the world - despite what any hell populating Calvinist wolf in sheeps clothing tells you..."

Soon the sermon is over ....

"OK - we want to close by singing an invitation hymn. Let's sing, "I heard the voice of Jesus say/ Come unto me and rest/ Lay down, thou weary one, lay down/ Thy head upon my breast..."

During the singing of Horatius Bonar's great hymn, our Anti-Calvinist preacher is handed a note. So between the singing of the last hymn and the Benediction, he clears his throat again and says:

"I've been handed a note. I forgot during the announcements to mention a special meeting of the Missionary Society on Wednesday night. Brother __________ from the  ____________ Missionary Society is coming. He is going to show a PowerPoint presentation on the life and labourers of William Carey. That should be good meeting. Keep Wednesday night free and come and come along and catch the missionary spirit. Let's close the meeting with prayer."

During the closing prayer, the preacher earnestly beseeches God to save the lost souls in the meeting.

End of imaginary service.

COMMENT: I imagine by now that you have caught on what I'm getting at here. Maybe you don't, because the scene described above is a natural scene in any Evangelical setting. Where it is maybe just a wee bit overdone is the fact that every single hymn whether sang by the congregation or the soloist was written by a fervent Calvinist. John Newton, William Cowper, Robert Murray McCheyne, Augustus Toplady, William Gadsby and Horatius Bonar were all solid 5 point Calvinists. You know, the sort of ravening wolves in sheep's clothing which  the preacher said that would be devoted to destruction because they were believers in another god, preachers of  another gospel and proclaimers of another Jesus.  John Bunyan whose Pilgrim's Progress was invoked was another solid Calvinist. If you entertain any doubts on this, have a read through his treatise on Reprobation Asserted.

Furthermore, the preacher read from an excellent and faithful translation of the Bible (AV) which he said was translated by spiritual giants. Most of the AV translators were solid Calvinists who, in their translating work, made use of the great efforts of other Galatians 1:8-9 candidates like William Tyndale, the Geneva Bible translators (hardly cryptic, that one) and Theodore Beza who was Calvin's successor and supporter in Geneva.

Our preacher recommended Matthew Henry's commentary and the church store actually sells them. But Hell wouldn't be hot enough for Matthew Henry either, because you can read this Galatians 1:8-9 gospel in its pages.  And I've done the homework for you on this one here.

"I am a Spurgeon man!" did our preacher not say? Why, if any man did more to promote and popularise Calvinism, it was the 62 volume producing Spurgeon. Here's man who said; "Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else" (Read it all here in his famous work: "The Defense of Calvinism") or, if you really want to follow it all through, then see the fruit of many hours going through Spurgeon's online sermons and writings with a search engine here. I know whereof I speak. What saith the Calvinism-is-the-accurséd-gospel-of-Galatians 1:8-9  brigade now? If Galatians 1:8-9 is applicable to Calvinists, then Spurgeon must be in the lowest Hell imaginable.

I didn't name the Missionary Society I had it mind, as the nature of this article would forbid it. But it hardly stretches the imagination a little to suppose it was one of those many Missionary Societies who are quite happy about accepting Calvinists to serve under their auspices, so long as they can work quite happily with other non Calvinist Evangelical Christians. Obviously, these same Missionary Society's wouldn't admit Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons or Romanists etc., into their ranks. If pressed, they would say that these folk preach another gospel and are condemned by Galatians 1:8-9 but this sanction isn't used against Calvinists because it is not considered to be anywhere near a relevant application of this Scripture. In fact, some of their best missionaries might be Calvinists.  I did mention William Carey though on purpose. I suppose I could've made use of Henry Martyn or Adoriam Judson or David Brainerd or Mary Slessor etc., or any one of a host of Calvinistic missionaries - these "preachers of another gospel" and fit to be burned. But I took William Carey because this matter came up in another Calvinism related dispute and again, the homework is there to be inspected.

Just for the record, if our Anti Calvinist preacher had' looked up the dreaded Calvin on John 3:16, he would've come across the following words:

"16. For God so loved the world. Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Savior. Both points are distinctly stated to us: namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish." (John Calvin on John 3:16)

  BTW, as a Calvinist, I believe that the world in John 3:16 is every sinner without exception. I just hold, as the analogy of Ephesians 5:25 demands of me, that Christ loved His church with a deeper love than He loved those who will eventually perish in hell, because of their unbelief of the truth.

Also, reading David Cloud or Dave Hunt on Calvinism isn't doing your homework. It is just copying from someone else who hasn't done their homework. Follow through the links above and see for yourself.

I'm glad that our Anti Calvinist preacher earnestly prayed at the end of the meeting for God to save the lost. If my reader is the kind of Anti or Non Calvinist who goes down the road that "God has done all that He can do to save sinners and now it's up to them" (I did refrain from putting these words into our imaginary preacher's mouth) then you will probably wonder why on earth the preacher should earnestly pray to God on this point at all. He should've prayed to the wicked, stubborn sinner, who seems to have more power on this matter than God. However, the word inconsistency is "writ large" all over our imaginary preacher and he sings the hymns, reads the Bible translation (s), reads, quote and recommends the commentaries etc., of these very people whom he thinks, on the basis of Galatians 1:8-9, should be left to burn in the deepest hell!

Please not do view these words as a salvo against Non Calvinist Christians. I remind you of my first paragraph where I wrote that I have no axe to grind in those quarters. I am just following a natural line of thought through to its logical conclusion. It ain't pretty, but it might do some good and that is worth the effort.

THE END


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