He Called You By Our Gospel

Q: What does the Bible say about effectual calling?

The Bible teaches that effectual calling is the work of God that brings the chosen to salvation through the preaching of the gospel. In 2 Thessalonians 2:14, the Apostle Paul states that God calls His chosen people to salvation 'by our gospel.' This call is effectual because it is through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth that individuals respond to the gospel. Effectual calling emphasizes God's initiative in salvation, as it is not merely a general invitation but a specific divine calling that successfully brings about faith and repentance in the hearts of the elect. This aligns with the sovereign grace theology that affirms God’s sovereign choice and the guaranteed outcome of His call upon His people.

Q: How do we know that God has chosen us for salvation?

We know God has chosen us for salvation through the indication of our faith and the work of the Holy Spirit within us. The assurance that God has chosen us comes from the fruits of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. As Paul asserts in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, God has loved and chosen His people for salvation 'through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.' This means that when we experience conviction of sin and a sincere belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can be assured that God's sovereign election is at work. This aligns with the Reformed understanding that saving faith is a gift from God, confirming our identity as His chosen ones.

Q: Why is preaching the gospel important for Christians?

Preaching the gospel is vital because it is the means by which God saves His people and reveals His truth. Preaching holds a central place in the Christian faith. According to Romans 1:16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. In the sermon, it is emphasized that the proclamation of God's Word is indispensable for spiritual health and growth within the church. The history of the church reveals that faithful preaching brings conviction, conversion, and comfort to believers. It glorifies God by making His truth known, and as Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians 1:17, it communicates the depth of Christ’s work, which is crucial for understanding salvation. For the Reformed believer, preaching is not merely an activity but the lifeblood of the church's mission.

Let's open our Bibles now to
2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. I'm going to be speaking this
morning on the subject, He Called You by Our Gospel. He called you by our gospel. Tonight, I'm going
to continue this message on the subject, that call, that effectual call. Now, let's read chapter 2, 2
Thessalonians, verse 13. But we're bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth, wherein, too, for that
reason to that end, he called you by
our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast
and hold the traditions which you've been taught, whether by
word or by our epistle. And now our Lord Jesus Christ
himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath
given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,
comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. There are some things I'm able
to see more clearly with the passing years. I had to go to the eye doctor
about ten months ago, eight, nine months ago for an eye examination
because my eyes were getting weaker. And he drastically changed
my prescription. and gave me an appointment to
come again in December. Well, I called him the other
day and I said, I can't wait till December. My eyes are getting
worse and I have to come in soon because I can't read the road
signs. So I went back again this week
And he said, yes, you've got cataracts, and they're getting
worse, and your prescriptions have to be changed again. So
my eyes are not getting better, they're getting worse as I get
older. But I trust and pray my spiritual eyes are getting better.
I'm seeing some things better inwardly, though I'm not seeing
things better outwardly, but I'm seeing things better by faith. and with spiritual side, and
one of the things that I'm seeing more clearly with every passing
year is this. Now listen, is the great importance of true anointed preaching of
the gospel. With all of the organization
and the hullabaloo and the entertainment and the promotion. I'm seeing
this more clearly, that nothing will ever replace the reading,
teaching, and preaching of God's Word. While I was reading that Psalm
103 a moment ago, you've read that before. That's nothing new
to you. I've read it here before. You've
read it before. how the Spirit of God and how
the peace of God and how the rest and comfort of God comes
upon a congregation and upon our hearts as His Word is read, as His Word is read and as it's
preached. Our Lord sent us out to preach the Word.
and to feed his sheep and to comfort his people. And it's
all done the same way. Preaching the word, teaching
the word, comforting the people, feeding the sheep is done through
preaching. Oh, nothing will ever take the
place of preaching. There's a young man who used
to be here in this church, a former pastor. And he pastored over in England years ago. And he left the church
over there and came over here to study in this church. He stayed here a year or so,
Brother Gunderson. And then he went back to England
to preach, and then back to this country, and then back to England
again. And I read a paper which he wrote in the form of a letter. in which he made this statement, the day of preaching as we know
it is over. The day when men stand in the
pulpit like Edwards Spurgeon, Whitfield, Bunyan, Knox, Luther,
Calvin, Zwingli, and all the others back to Ignatius
and Polycarp, Paul the Apostle, John the Baptist, and our Lord. The day of standing in the pulpit
and preaching the gospel to congregations is over. People will no longer, he said,
listen to preaching. You can't hold their attention.
You can't keep them interested. This is a day of sharing, he
wrote. This is a day of discussion. This is a day of input. This
is a day for us to sit around the table and express our opinions
and our thoughts and quit preaching. Now, my friends, listen to me.
Like I said, I don't see too good physically, but I'm seeing
better spiritually. Listen to me. Listen well. Let
me tell you, when the day of preaching the gospel is over,
you can sit down and weep, because the day of salvation is gone.
It's over. write it off. When the day of
preaching, the gospel, is over, when God says that's the last
message, that's the last time I'm ever going to put a man before
my people and before the folks out in the fields and on the
streets and in the churches, when God says preaching is gone,
then salvation is over. The gospel is no more. No more
salvation. That's right. Now let me show
you that. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter
1. Here it says the Apostle Paul
is speaking here. No greater authority or lesser
authority than the Apostle Paul. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse
17, he says this, Christ sent me not to baptize. Well, you
know baptism's important. I do too. It has a certain place. But that's not my primary duty.
That's not my primary calling. That's not why God sent me. He
sent me to preach the gospel. And not with wisdom of words,
eloquence, intellectualism. Lest the cross of Christ be made
of non-effect, for the preaching of the cross, of the gospel,
And when you say the preaching of the cross, you're not talking
about the preaching of an emblem or a symbol, you're talking about
the preaching of justification through the person and work of
Christ. All that's included in his divine work from eternity
to eternity is the preaching of the cross. It was culminated
and reached its peak in the death of the cross. But he was born
in order to be made die, and he died in order that he might
be bare, and he was bare in order that he might rise, and he rose
in order that he might reign. You see, everything is the preaching
of the cross if it has to do with Christ. For the preaching
of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness. This
is no new thing. Preaching has always been foolishness
to people who perish, especially the subject of it. What he's saying there, the word
foolishness, is sheer nonsense. So it doesn't matter who says
the day of preaching is over. They said that 2,000 years ago.
There's no place for preaching this nonsense, sheer nonsense,
foolishness. It's always been foolishness.
But, listen, unto us who are saved, or being saved, we're
being saved. Unto us who are being saved,
preaching, the preaching of the cross, That's the power of God. That's the power of God. Preaching
is the power of God. Read on. For it's written, I'll
destroy the wisdom of the wise, I'll bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the debater of this
world? And what he's talking about here
is you go backward, backward. See, the gospel's always the
same. The gospel we preach here in 1993, the word of God, the
gospel, the gospel of the grace of God, gospel of his divine
covenant, his everlasting covenant, the gospel of the patterns and
pictures and symbols of the Old Testament. the gospel of Christ crucified,
the gospel of Christ risen, Christ our high priest. That's the same
gospel as Phrygian preached, that Whitefield preached, that
Knox preached, that Luther preached, that Calvin preached. It's the
same, it hasn't changed one iota. My message is the same message,
and the message of all God's true preachers is the same message
that Moses preached, and Isaiah, hundreds of years before Christ
came. But the wisdom of this world changes. We were talking yesterday
about school books, you teachers here and young people. You're
not using the books I used. I'm using the same book Luther
used for spiritual questions. But you're not using the same
books I used fifty years ago when I was in high school. Now
listen to them. They're new books. Where's the
wise man of 1944? He'd have to go back to school
today to teach. Where is the physician of 1910?
He couldn't operate in this hospital. They wouldn't let him. His methods
and means would be ancient. Fifty years ago. Ninety years
ago. And the doctor that bled George
Washington to death, they'd sue him for malpractice today and
get two million dollars. That's right. George Washington
put leeches on him and bled him. till he died, because he thought
he had too much blood. Where is the wise man? Now what
it says here, where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? In 1993, in Science In all occupation, nearly, we
look back and call it the dark ages, medieval times. Foolishness. Columbus had to
do the best he could to convince them the world wasn't flat 500
years ago. But they were the wisest people
of their day. And that's what he's saying here now. Read on.
But I'm preaching the same thing that they preached then. Same
message, identically. Oh, I know there were different
periods of life that had different interpretations of different
laws and so forth, but the gospel is the same. The gospel is the
same. I'm reading from a book here
written 2,000 years ago. It says the same thing I said
then. The way to God, the way to God. Verse 21, For after that, in
the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, they
didn't know his wisdom. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believed. That's how it pleased
God to save men, to reveal himself to men, by preaching the gospel. And that's what Paul said. And
like I said, turn to Romans 1. Romans 1, listen to him over
here. Romans chapter 1. In verse 14. Romans 1, 14. Paul says, I'm
a debtor. I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor. I am too. I'm a
debtor to the Father who chose me. I'm a debtor to the Son who
redeemed me. I'm a debtor to the Spirit who
called me. I'm a debtor to Moses and Isaiah and Elijah and those
prophets who stood for the truth. I'm a debtor to those apostles
who wrote the New Testament. I'm a debtor to men like Luther
and Calvin and Zwingli and Huss. I'm a debtor to those men. I'm
a debtor. And I owe a debt to everybody
in this world today, the Greeks and the barbarians, the wise
and the unwise. Verse 15, so much, so as much
as in me is, I'm ready, Paul said, to preach the gospel to
you there at Rome also. I'm ready to preach the gospel. Listen, for I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. Now watch it. That gospel of
Christ which we preach, verse 16, is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to
the Christian. For therein, in that gospel,
that's what we preach. It's the gospel I'm preaching.
It's the gospel that my forefathers preached. It's the gospel that
the ancients, even in dark ages, in the dark ages, of scientific
research, they were not dark ages of spiritual revelation.
Some of the greatest preachers who ever lived, lived back in
1500 and 1600. That's when the great reformation,
when the miner's son, Luther, was born. That's right. For therein, verse 18, is the
righteousness of God revealed from one degree of faith to the
other. And the just shall live by faith.
The just have always lived by faith in every generation and
every age. It's always been by faith. Why
would it change? Why would it change? You know what Peter says? He
says Noah was a preacher. Noah was a preacher of righteousness.
You know what Solomon said, King Solomon? He said, I, the preacher,
was king over Israel. To him, his greatest calling
was not to be king of Israel, but to be a preacher. Solomon was a preacher. Noah
was a preacher. Listen to this. Matthew 1, in
those days came John the Baptist. Doing what? Preaching. And when I say preaching, I'm
not including this screaming and yelling and foaming at the
mouth and entertaining people and walking down and carrying
on all this foolishness. I'm talking about teaching the
Word of God. A preacher is a teacher. People
today say, well, you're a pretty good preacher, but you're not
a teacher. Now, wait a minute. This is where the world's got
this thing all messed up. Preaching is teaching. Let me
show you that in the Scriptures. Look, if you will, at Acts 5,
Acts chapter 5. Look at this Scripture here. You know, when our Lord, in Acts
chapter 5, look at verse 41. Acts 5, now they had arrested
the apostles. They had beaten them. They had
charged them not to pray. Gamaliel stood up. Gamaliel was
the greatest. There were two schools in that
day, the school of Gamaliel and the school of Shammah. Gamaliel
was a man of great renown, a great scholar. Paul, the apostle, sat
at the feet of Gamaliel. Well, when the rest of these
apostles, Gamaliel got up, let me look back and let you see
it, verse 34. Then stood there one in the council,
a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor of law, had him reputation among
all the people. And he commanded them to put
the apostles forth a little space. And he said, Now you men of Israel,
take heed to yourselves. What you intend to do is touching
these men. For before these days rose up
Thutis, boasting himself to be somebody, to whom a number of
men, about four hundred, joined themselves, who were slain, and
all his men as obeyed him were scattered and brought to naught.
And this man, after this man rose up, Judas of Galilee, now
that's not Judas, the one who betrayed the Lord, but another.
in the days of the taxing, he drew many away much people after
him. He also perished, and all, even
as many as obeyed him, were dispersed." Now I say to you, this is Gamaliel
speaking. Leave these men alone. Refrain
from these men. Leave them alone. For if this
counsel or this work be of men, it'll come to naught. But gentlemen,
if it be of God, you can't overthrow lest haply you be found even
to fight against God." So they listened to Gamaliel, to him
they agreed, and when they had called the apostles and beaten
them, he didn't tell them to do that, they commanded that
they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let him go.
Now here's what I want you to see. And these apostles departed
from the presence of that counsel. But rejoicing, they had been
counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the
temple and in every house they ceased not to what? Teach. Teach and preach. Jesus Christ. Preaching is teaching. Teaching
the Word. And our Lord called his men,
postures teachers. Postures and teachers. And our
Lord was a preacher. All right, turn over here to
my text again, 2 Thessalonians. Let me move along here. I want
to show you something here. Now, you in this congregation,
it says here, verse 13, we're bound to give thanks always to
God for you. I give thanks to God for you.
Because beloved of the Lord, God has from the beginning chosen
you. God chose you. God loved you,
you're beloved of the Lord, and God chose you. God chose you
to salvation. We didn't choose him, he chose
us. It is not that I didn't choose thee, for Lord, that could not
be. This heart would still refuse
thee, but thou hast chosen me. Praise my soul, adore and wonder. Ask, oh, why such love to me?
God has put me in the number of the Savior's family. Thanks,
eternal thanks to thee. God loved me. That's what he
said. I'm bound to thank God, always
to God. Always thank God for you, beloved
of the Lord. God chose you. When did he choose
you? From the beginning. known unto
God all his works from the beginning. He chose you to salvation, eternal
life. What you have, he gave you. Who
maketh thee to differ? What do you have God didn't give
you? Now watch this. Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth. Now here's my question. How did
God raise you from death to life? We know he did. But Paul is writing
to these people, and he says that God, from the beginning,
chose you to life, to life, to eternal life, to salvation. He
loved you, he chose you, and he gave you life. How did he
do it? Here's the answer. Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth. Belief of the truth. Here's another
question. How did God convict you of sin? How did God bring you to repentance?
How did you come to this realization that you were a sinner? The publican
in the temple, the people who cried for mercy, how did they
come to that place? Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief in the truth. How did God bring me to believe
on Christ? We say we believe on the Son
of God. We believe God loved us and Christ died for us. We
believe that. How did you come to that place?
Through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth. How did you come to rest in Christ
and find peace? How did you come to this good
hope? Through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief in the truth. Look at the next verse. He called
you by our gospel. God loved you. God chose you. God redeemed you. God called
you. And that calling was through
my gospel, Paul said, preaching of the gospel. Old Brother Barnard,
I heard him tell this story so many times. when he pastored a church in
Texas back in the late 1920s. Brother Barnes was born in 1905,
and he pastored a church in Texas in the late 1920s and early 1930s. And there was an old man in that
church, an elderly man then named Brother Burke, and Sometimes in the prayer meeting
service, before Rock dismissed, he would say, anybody got anything
to say? And he said, Brother Burke, every
once in a while I would stand up and he'd say, Pastor, did I ever tell you how God saved
me? And Brother Barnard said, I loved
the story so much, I always said no. Why don't you tell us? He said, he'd say, well, Pastor,
he said, he'd say, my wife and I lived out in the
country. I was, always made me live in
farming. And he said my wife loved the
gospel. She was a Christian. I wasn't. She was a believer. I wasn't. And he said, they didn't
have much preaching then. There was a little church a few
miles from where we lived, but the preacher only came once a
month. He was a circuit rider, and he'd come to where we lived
once a month. He'd preach on Saturday night,
Sunday morning, and Sunday night. And then he'd go on, and the
next month he'd come on at weekend, Saturday night, Sunday morning,
and Sunday night, and leave. My wife would always go. And
I never would go, he said. But he said something got to
working on me and troubling me, and he said, I knew when the
preacher was coming, and said that Saturday afternoon I told
her, I said, I think I'll go to church with you tonight. She
said, you? He said, yeah, yeah, don't make
anything of it. I'll go with you, me and R. I'll
go with you tonight. So he said, I hitched up the
buggy and we rode in and I sat down back in the back with my
wife and said, that preacher got up and started preaching
and said, somebody must have been telling him about me because
he read my title clear. He just told them all about me.
He said everything he said applied to me and me alone. And he said,
the more praise the matter I got. Because he said, I thought it
wasn't fair for him to get up in front of all those people
and talk to me. There were other people there he could have talked
to, but he just preached to me. That's all, just to me. He said,
I got mad. I got mad. The longer I sat there,
the madder I got. And after it was over, I just
got up and stomped out and went out there and sat in the boogie
and held the reins of the horse. And my wife visited with the
ladies, and that's why she came out and sat down beside me. We
started driving the buggy home, and she said, what's wrong with
you? He said, well, I ain't going back to church no more, I can
tell you that. That's my last time. He said, I don't think
it's right for that man to get up there and talk to me, preach
to me, and nobody else. And I'm not going back. She said,
she didn't say anything. I know what's going on, you do
too. See, preaching, the Word, the Word convicts. It's the Word
of God. Don't go in people's homes and
argue religion with them. You're wasting your time. God
is chosen by the foolishness of preaching to save people from
sin. Get them to hear the gospel. Well, Sunday morning came around,
and he said, I got the milking done and fed the chickens and
took care of the chores, and I came in and said, about time
to go to church, ain't it? She said, you going back? He
said, one more time. But I tell you, if he gets on
me again, I'm going to whip him. Me and that preacher are going
to have it, because that's not right." She didn't say anything. He said, I rode to church and
said, you know, Sunday morning I went back there and sat down,
and he took up where he left off the night before. And I was
the only one he perched to. He said, I sat there and squirmed
and squirmed while he talked to me in front of all those And
he said, I kept saying, he's telling the truth, but I'm not
coming back to him no more. No more! And we went out, and
he said, I was mad that morning than I was the night before.
And I drove her home, and I said, that's it? That's it? He just
said, I got so upset, I took it out on her. He said, that
afternoon, she got to feeling bad. About 4, 30, or 5, he said, I
said, I said, are you going to church? She said, no, I don't
feel like it. He said, well, I think I'll go. Of course, she
couldn't miss out on that. She said, I thought she wasn't
going back anymore. He said, one more time. He said,
you know, Father Barnard, I went and sat down. And the preacher didn't get halfway
through his message. And I stood up and said, that's
enough. I know who you're talking to and I know who you're talking
about me." And he said, I want you all to pray for me that God
do something for me. Show mercy to me. The preaching
of the gospel broke his heart. Preaching the gospel revealed
Christ. The preaching of the gospel brought
him down. And he said, you know, God did
something for me. God did something for me through
his word. And he said, on the way home
that night, riding by myself in the buggy, he said, I was
riding along and the old stream flowing over the rocks seemed
to say, well, glad God saved you, Brother Burke. And he said,
the wind whistling through the pine trees seemed to say, glad
God saved you, Brother Burke. And he said, I got home and took
the horse, bridle off, and put the buggy up, put the horse up,
rubbed him down. walked up the path to the house,
and walked up on the porch, and opened the door, and said, my
wife said, well, said the Lord did a work of grace for you,
didn't he? He said, I came in, I said, how'd you know that?
She said, I heard you singing Amazing Grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me when you came up the wall. Brethren, listen to me. And some
of you can tell this same story. It's the preaching of the gospel
that brings men to Christ. You get all the choirs you want
to up here, and Mike, I love your singing, and it does bless
the heart and comfort the believer. And you can get all the young
people, socials. They say, what do you do for
young people at 13th Street? Preach the gospel to them. I
don't know anything better to do for anybody. And I'm going
to hold this tradition as long as God lets me breathe and lets
us meet here. I know there are various parts
of worship service, there's praise and there's prayer and there's
reading of the word, but that important part of the worship
service is to preach God's word, tell who he is, who we are, what
we need, what Christ did, where Christ is. The gospel, it's the
same gospel. I stood in John Newton's pulpit,
back down to two or three hundred years ago. I've got Newton's
works. He preached the same thing I'm
preaching to you today. Identical, same message. I've
read Luther's writings. He preached this. I love his
preaching. Six hundred years ago, the same
message. And I tell you this, if God Almighty
is still calling people to himself, uh, when your children grow up,
it'll be the same, it'll be somebody, some faithful man, maybe one
of these young men sitting right here, will be standing right
here, telling the same thing I'm telling right now. And he'll
be saying, you know what, old brother man, is that? That's
what he'll be saying, because that's what he'll be preaching.
God will honor And he said here, one more verse, verse 15, Therefore,
brethren, verse 14 said, he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren,
stand fast and hold these traditions which you've been taught, whether
by word or our epistle. We've got to change as we progress
and learn new methods I'm glad I'm driving a car, not a bogey
like Brother Burke. I'm thankful for you fellas that
built automobiles. And Richard, keep improving your
windows, because that wind gets cold in the wintertime. Keep
working on these things, all you fellas. Keep improving the
service down at the store, John. Make it better than it was a
year ago. But don't try to improve on this. Leave this alone. Leave
the preaching alone. Don't try to streamline me. I
tell Steve Gunderson, now don't do that. Don't tamper with it. Don't put your hands on that
which God has ordained. Leave it at be, because it's
the power of God in salvation. And you love it, don't you? And
I do, too. And one of these young men from
New Jersey was here last week. He told Brother Jim Eccles, he
said, do you people realize what you have? Do you realize? Jim said, yes, some of us do.
The presence and power of God in the preaching of the gospel
and the fellowship of the gospel. Hold on to it. Stand fast to
it. Can't improve on it, can you?
It's the children's bread. And as you, all these different
walks of life here and all the, you're under so much pressure.
I know, I worked, I was in the Navy and I worked in a steel
mill and so forth. I know a little bit, but I know
the pressure you're under. You don't need it here. You just
need that warmth and fellowship and comfort of the world. You
need the preaching of the word. You don't need me to be, try
to be intellectual or clever. You just need me to tell you
who God is and tell your children. All right, Mike, come lead us
in that hymn, if you will.

He Called You By Our Gospel

What does the Bible say about effectual calling?

How do we know that God has chosen us for salvation?

Why is preaching the gospel important for Christians?

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He Called You By Our Gospel

What does the Bible say about effectual calling?

How do we know that God has chosen us for salvation?

Why is preaching the gospel important for Christians?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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