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Transcript 570A — Can We Just Sit and Wait Until God Saves Us?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I have a question about predestination. If it's not up to your will to be saved, then anybody could say, "Well, I'll just do what I want until God chooses me. He'll draw me when it's His time."
HC: The question is, if indeed God is sovereign and He saves whom He wills, and it does not depend upon man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy, then why couldn't I as an unsaved person simply go along waiting for God to save me, if it is His will? After all, He is sovereign.
Well, let me ask a very practical question. If you were on a ship, and it was out in the middle of the ocean, and suddenly the word came that the ship had struck an iceberg and it was going to sink in the next two hours. And to the utter dismay of the captain and all of the passengers aboard (it was heavily laden with passengers), they found out that they only had life boats sufficient for ten percent of the passengers aboard. And there was no way to get help. That meant that in all likelihood ninety percent of the people would drown.
But then the captain, because he wanted to make sure that he would save the most important people aboard, radioed back to his homeland and said, "What is the passenger list? Will somebody tell me who are the preferred passengers, that have to be saved?" And quickly the whole passenger list was gone over, and ten percent of the names were selected that were to be saved. So now the captain announced to all of these passengers, "You know, we're going to sink. Many of us are going to drown. But there is a preferred list of ten percent of you who will be saved. Ant as I call your names, you get into the life boats."
Now you're one of these passengers. What are you going to do? Are you just going to stand there and wonder, "I wonder if I'm one of the ten percent?" Or are you going to be clamoring, "Oh, Captain! Am I one of them? What do I have to do to get on that list?" Aren't you going to do everything possible to make sure that your name also is on that list?
Well, that's a poor illustration, I admit. But this is a little bit the way it is. If indeed God means what He says, that we are going to hell for our sins, then I would be so upset, I would be so concerned, if I knew I was unsaved, I would be calling to God. I would be beseeching Him. I would say, "Oh, Lord, I don't know whether I'm elect or not. I don't know anything about that. But I know I don't want to go to hell. I know that the Bible is true when it says that the wages of sin is death, and the death God has in view is hell. And I don't want to go to hell. Oh, Lord, have mercy on me! Is it possible that I can be saved also?" And that's exactly the reaction that God wants of us. And the Bible promises that if we seek we shall find, if we knock the door will be opened. And so I will become saved.
But then after I become saved, and I begin to get acquainted with the Bible and I begin to reflect on this, "Now why is it that I had such a tremendous urgency to know that I was saved? I had no idea whether I was elect or not. And my friends couldn't care less. They don't even care about God's predestination or anything else. Why did I feel this way?" Then I'll find from the Bible that it's because the Father was drawing me. It was because God was doing a work of grace in my heart.
And so anyone who is just going to stand idly by with a fatalistic attitude is already giving evidence that he doesn't understand the command that we are to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he doesn't understand that God means what He says, that we're really going to hell.
CALLER: What if you really believe that you were predestinated, but you weren't chosen?
HC: The question is, is it possible that anybody who really wanted to be saved will be denied salvation because he was not chosen? In other words, will there be people at Judgment Day who can legitimately say to God, "Oh, God, you're judging me for my sins, and I know I deserve to go to hell. But oh, how I tried to be saved. But here I am because I'm not chosen." The fact is, that is an impossibility.
The Bible teaches emphatically, "There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that seeketh after God." There is no member of the human race on his own that is going to be concerned about salvation. The only ones who will begin to respond are the ones that God Himself is drawing and opening their eyes, and so they do that. Nobody will ever be able to say to God, "I tried to come to you but it wasn't possible, because I wasn't chosen."
And you can see this right in your own life. I've said this so many times, but it's so true. If you have become a born again believer, your neighbors on either side of you, who may be unsaved, they don't care about that. They don't envy you. They don't wish that they could be saved like you. They like their life. And at best they tolerate you, and at worst they think that you're a little bit odd, as you have become so zealous for this Christian Gospel.
CALLER: I know salvation doesn't depend on your works. But by going after it, that would involve your will, wouldn't it?
HC: Our caller is talking about our will. Where does that fit in? We like to believe that our will is our will, that we can do what we want to do. But the fact is that our will is surrendered to sin. Our will is sold out to Satan. We won't admit that, but that is the case. Left to ourselves, there isn't one of the human race, not one of us, that would will to come to Christ.
When the Bible says, "Whosoever will may come," the fact that if God leaves us alone, no one will come to Him, because we don't want to come to Him. We love our sin too much, and we are spiritually dead in our sins. We're corpses And we just would never come to Him.
And so God has to incline our will. When in our will we begin to respond, it's not me that can take the credit in any sense whatsoever. We're going to find that ultimately it was God who was inclining my will so that I would want to do this.
Thank you so much for calling. Good night.