Essential Baptist Principles™ ![]() |
3/1/2006
From the Bits and Pieces series (#517) by Elder Ralph Harris
WHY SHOULD THEY GRUMBLE?
Several years ago I came across this excellent and powerful argument by a old English preacher in favor of the justice of God in His unconditional and eternal election of His people, to the exclusion of others. No Primitive Baptist could have said it better. --R. E. H.
There are some who say, "It is hard (unjust) for God to choose some and leave others." Now, I will ask you one question. Is there any of you here who wishes to be holy, who wishes to leave off sin and walk in holiness?"
"Yes, there is," says someone, "I do."
Then God has elected you.
But another says, "No, I don't want to be holy; I don't want to give up my lusts and my vices."
Why then should you grumble that God has not elected you to holiness? For, according to your own confession, if you were elected you would not like it. If God had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it. Then do you not acknowledge that you prefer drunkenness to sobriety, dishonesty to honesty? You love this world's pleasures better than the things of the Spirit of God; why then should you grumble that God has not chosen you to those things? If you love those things, He has chosen you to them. If you desire them, He has chosen you to them. But if you do not love them, what right have you to say that God ought to have given you what you do not desire?