It is a commonly held position in the church world that one either accepts or rejects God's efforts to save. In a small way from man’s position this would appear to be true. However, in the sovereign plan of salvation, God's grace is, irresistible. It is a tremendous reassurance to know that every sinner can be overcome by the power of God's grace, to know that the most hardened sinner can be like putty in the hands of the sovereign Potter.
We have spent two weeks looking at the full and total depravity of natural man’s heart. It was shown that in the sin filled state in which man finds himself, that he will never seek God nor understand his need for God in salvation, for man’s sin nature blinds him from the truth.
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In this state that natural man is born, God’s salvation plan is resistible. Not only is it true to say salvation is resistible to natural man, but it will always be resisted as we have seen the last two weeks.
What changes in man to make something often time despised and rejected into an object of love and desire? What brings a God cussing sinner to his knees in tears of repentance? Tis the grace of God, my friends, that will change man from a sinner to a saint. You see, I believe in a sovereign, irresistible grace.
This should give all believers courage in their witness for Christ. How often do you feel too weak for the task of sharing the Bible and God’s love? Grace is not left to our feeble efforts to cause the devil to flee from the non-believer in order that they may believe. Nor should we pick the best canadates to be saved. All of mankind needs God. How are we to know whose heart God will open?
Wow, how often have I fallen into such a trap. I see a fairly good person and think he or she would make a good church person and witness to them. Yet at times I will overlook the party hardy, profane, God hating groups, for I tell myself subconsciously, they are not close to salvation. The shame lies on me. No one can be saved without the grace of God. No unbelieving sinner is closer than the other sinner to salvation. All are blinded by sin. Yet, no one can stop the power of an almighty God.
There are some that do not believe in irresistible grace. They paint a picture of a sinner being saved against his will. As if they are being dragged down the hallway of salvation kicking and screaming with their fingers digging in to resist, and yet the power of God will not let them. This of course is a foolish picture and a poor understanding of the truth.
Now as I have said, and shown, there is a resistance to God’s salvation. This is seen in all of natural man and his sin nature. What is the difference?
Rev. Robert C. Harbach writes:
"God is always Almighty God! Therefore they who did resist the Spirit, did not resist the Spirit in them for they were devoid of the Spirit. That resistance is to the Spirit in the prophets and in the ministers of the Lord; it is resistance to the external calls and reproofs through the preaching of the Word. But when the Spirit is in men in His grace ... He thus makes them willing and turns them to Himself. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power" (Ps. 110:3). (Calvinism, the Truth.)
It is a truism that God does not save any man against his will. However, "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. 9:16).
Let’s remember that all mankind is so totally depraved that there is not one that doeth good, no not one (Rom. 3:10-12). No human, of himself, has a desire for the true God (Job 21:14) or a desire to be saved. If God had left mankind in this terrible state to go to "everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:46) it would have been most just and right.
All are depraved and yet all do not exercise the fullest extinct of sin. However grace is irresistible even to those that do exercise sin fully. Even to people like John Clayton.
John Clayton in “Why I Left Atheism” describes his life without God.
Clayton..
I also questioned, challenged, and rejected God because that was the kind of indoctrination that I received as a child. I can remember my mother saying to me as a child something like, "Do you really believe there is an old man, floating around in the sky, blasting things into existence here upon the earth? …… Do you really believe that there is a hole in the ground that I am going to be thrown into and burned eternally if I do not live just the way some preacher thinks I ought to?" ……Consequently, I came to believe that anybody who believed in God was just silly, superstitious, ignorant, and unlearned.
I have tried almost everything you can imagine to find pleasure and happiness. ………..I tried all kinds of things--things that were immoral, that were wrong, that hurt other people, and things that I would not even want to describe. I did those things because I was trying to find pleasure and happiness and, as I say, I found pleasure sometimes. However, I never went to bed at night satisfied or happy with my life and enjoying my living. I never got up in the morning looking forward to a new day. Life was just one long chain of misery.
Clayton went on to take up studies in physical science at Indiana University. Throughout his studies he maintained his atheism though huge questions begin to arise as he studied DNA and origins as in the big-bang theory, the quasistatal theory, the continuous generation theory, and the planetessimal theory. Because of poor answers given by his professors and because of a young Christian lady who had come into his life, Clayton began to read the Bible. He read it mainly to change the mind of the young lady. He had plans of writing a book called “All the Stupidity of the Bible.” This book was never written. Something happened to Clayton.
Clayton..
You may not be able to understand that, but I have sat on the edge of my bed with a .22-caliber rifle between my legs, trying to have enough guts to pull the trigger. I bottomed out that low; I got that emotionally disturbed and upset with my desire and attempt to find happiness. Please listen to me and profit by what I am saying. You can try every conceivable thing that this world has to offer. You can try sex, drugs, alcohol, stealing, and all kinds of things in a desperate attempt to find happiness. I can testify from experience that you may find pleasure, but you will not find happiness. …I can tell you from my own experience that we have learned that the only place you find happiness is in using God's system--in following God's way.
Now how can a man with no desire to know God, and brought up in such a way that he was trained to resist God, and educated in fine schools that said there is no God, find love in his heart to come to God? This is what happened to Clayton. This is what happens to all believers. Grace overpowers their will.
Sin has a controlling power on all of man to the point that he sees no need of God and salvation. Then Holy Spirit begins a work in the sinner’s heart. The blindness turns to light and for the first time the sinner sees himself as a sinner and God as a holy God. He sees Christ as his only hope to forgive those sins he now feels dirty from. He begins to understand and apply the gospel message. In this way, man’s will is not forced into salvation, but rather man’s will is changed into a desire to be saved. Where once we as non-beleivers, were unable to respond because we were dead in our sins, thanks to the work of Holy Spirit, the truth and light of the gospel becomes clear. The once rejection of the silliness seen in Christians is now the desire of our heart. We want salvation. We need salvation. We cannot resist God’s love in salvation.
Grace is the favor and love of God. The power of grace is the power of the favor and love of God Himself. Therefore, it is fitting to speak of "irresistible" grace, for God is an irresistible God to all that have been unblinded from the truth. To those who God has made alive they are alive indeed to the truth of the grace and goodness of God. Paul asked the rhetorical question, "Who hath resisted His will" (Rom. 9:19)? Therefore God has mercy "on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth" (Rom. 9:18).
This is where the new birth begins. This is where salvation changes a dead sinful man into the newness of life. This is where depravity meets irresistible grace.