Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

The Divine Call

Romans 8:30  NKJV

³⁰ Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

People who hear the gospel resist it.  This is nothing less than resisting grace.  It is in Acts 7:51 that Stephen accused the Jewish leaders of resisting the Holy Spirit.  This, explained in the context both by what comes before and what comes after, is being disobedient to the prophetic word and abusing the prophets who spoke it.

 

It is clear from the Scriptures that people resist the word of God in both reading it and hearing it preached.  Some may be converted later.  Some never are converted.  But the fact that they have resisted the inspired Word of God remains.

This is not the issue for the believer in “Irrestible Grace”.  The issue at point is can the Holy Spirit, in His regenerating influence, be resisted? 

John writes in chapter 6:37 that there will, without exception, be those who come to Him.

³⁷ All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.

Then in Vs.44 he further states the reason they come, “they are drawn to Him.  As Sproul so aptly states the word “draws” is literally “drag”, cf John 21:6, “draw or drag the net”.  Isaiah, in chapter 26:10, states clearly that God’s kindness is not sufficient to teach the lost righteousness.

¹⁰ Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the Lord.

 He further states in Vs. 12 this requires an internal activity of God to provide the peace man needs.

In Romans 8:28 there is a twofold limitation placed on those who receive God’s favor. 

²⁸ And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

There is the present objective description which is absolute, “those who love God.”  But this is limited to those with an eternal qualification, “to those who are called according to His purpose”.  In 8:29-30 he explains this purpose and places the Divine call as God’s time-related approach to the predestined one.  What God has purposed in eternity is realized in the earthly call of His elect. 

Can this called be effectively resisted?  The answer of those who disagree with the position stated here say “Yes, it can.  If it can’t then man does not have free will”.  But in response it must be asked, “where does the Bible say man has free will?”

It doesn’t.  The Bible says the lost man is a slave, Romans 6:17,   But God be thanked that though

you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you

were delivered.  The result of this is as Paul writes in Romans 3:11 “There is none who seeks after

God”. 

Peter also confronts man’s bondage but in a slightly different way.  In II Peter 2:22 he sets the conduct of false teachers in the light of the principle taught in Proverbs 26:11.  ²² But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”  Any and every person will act according to their nature.  The lost person has a fallen and depraved nature and will always without exception or until changed by regenerating grace act according to that nature. 

God has saved everyone who is saved in spite of himself.  In II Timothy 1:9 Paul looks at God and His power and states, ⁹ who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,