A.W. Pink

Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and Thou art exalted as Head above all

1 Chronicles 29:11

The Sovereignty of God is an expression that once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature. It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought comfort to many hearts, and gave virility and stability to Christian character. But, today, to make mention of God’s Sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak in an unknown tongue. Were we to announce from the average pulpit that the subject of our discourse would be the Sovereignty of God, it would sound very much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas! that it should be so. Alas! that the doctrine which is the key to history, the interpreter of Providence, the warp and woof of Scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology should be so sadly neglected and so little understood.

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An email from a good brother, Coram Deo, about his visit to a Christian bookstore in the U.S. while on vacation prompted me to share my experience with such bookstores in Singapore.

Now, I love books and am someone who loves browsing through a bookstore for hours on end. Borders at Wheelock Place used to be a favorite haunt of mine. Ultimately, the fact that they are a secular bookstore just means that I have not much interest in what they had to offer.

So I spend much of my time in bookstores in Christian establishments. There used to be one at Jurong Point, the nearest mall to where I stay, but the small shop has since closed down and given way to some store selling items that have a wider consumer appeal.

Ah, the wonders of free enterprise!

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This article at Apprising Ministries really got me thinking. Much of today’s evangelism methods involve what I call the “John 3:16 Approach”, telling sinners that “God loves you, Jesus loves you, accept Him into the ‘hole in your heart’ and you shall be saved!”.

Ugh!

Yet, if we look closer at how the Apostles went about preaching the Gospel, we find that (while we acknowledge that God is love and concur with what John wrote in John 3:16 not a single mention of the “feel-good” message of “God loves you, Jesus loves you” is found, but what they preached was how lost people were, bound as slaves to sin, emphasizing on forgiveness of sin by Jesus Christ the Messiah.

Reading the article also reminds me of a great quote by A.W. Pink on present-day evangelism which I very much agree with:

The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day “evangelist”.

He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin.

And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire, who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness!

The very first thing said of Christ in the New Testament is — “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” (not from the wrath to come)

Christ is a Savior for those realizing something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, who feel the awful burden of it on their conscience, who loathe themselves for it, who long to be freed from its terrible dominion. And He is a Savior for no others.

Were He to “save from hell” those still in love with sin, He would be a minister of sin, condoning their wickedness and siding with them against God.

What an unspeakably horrible and blasphemous thing with which to charge the Holy One!

A.W. Pink

To read the full article, visit Apprising Ministries.