This is the second part of an article called “The Practical Implications of Calvinism” by A.N. Martin.
In the second place, these doctrines will lead to the sane biblical pursuit of practical godliness.
What is involved in such a pursuit? To be brief, three things:
1. A holy watchfulness and distrust of oneself. Do I really believe that by nature I am so undone that God must initiate the work, and that the remains of corruption in me, even after I have been regenerated and joined to Jesus Christ, are such that if God took his hand off me for a moment, they would lead me back into every form of wickedness possible to a human being? Such a belief will produce a holy watchfulness and a wholesome distrust of myself. If I recognize that the corruption that remains within me is like a dry tinderbox and that every temptation is like a live coal, I shall not dare to flirt with sin. If I have come out of perhaps a narrow fundamentalistic background with its checklist morality, and I discover the glorious truth of liberty in Christ, I shall not use my liberty as an opportunity for licence. I will recognize that I am free in Jesus Christ, and yet that I am one who has this terrible potential to wickedness within me, and I shall watch as well as pray.
2. A consistent prayerfulness. Is salvation the Lord’s work from beginning to end? Then he must help, and his help is given to those who cry out to him. He must work in me to will and to do of his good pleasure, and I must ask him to do it. The Word shows the beautiful fusion of those two things: God’s covenant promise to do something sovereignly and powerfully, joined with his command to his people to ask him for the very thing he has pledged to do. In Ezekiel 36; that expanded statement of the blessings of the new covenant, God makes great assertions [see verses 25 to 36] and yet in verse 37 we read: ‘Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them’; ‘I will do it’; ‘I will be inquired of’. In the economy of grace God awakens in the heart of those to whom he would dispense them the desire for the blessings which sovereignly and powerfully he engages to dispense. Matthew Henry, in his simple, homely, quaint way, says, ‘When God deigns to bless his people he sets them a-praying for the blessing which he desires to give them’. And so, if I believe the confession that God saves sinners, that he not only regenerates them, bringing them to repentance and faith, but that he keeps them and ultimately brings them into his presence — if that is his work then it will produce a consistent prayerfulness, not only a holy watchfulness and distrust of myself, but a constant application to him that he would perform in me that which he has promised. For what is prayer in the last analysis? It is a conscious spreading out of my helplessness before God. The true Calvinist is the man who confesses with his lips that grace must not only awaken him, regenerate him, but that grace must preserve him, and he Amens his confession by his prayer when on his knees he cries out, ‘Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil. I cannot even get my bread for today, Lord, unless you sustain my life and bless the labours of my hands: Give me this day my daily bread’. The doctrine of confession, God saves sinners, will produce in the heart of a true Christian the sane biblical pursuit of godliness, holy watchfulness, a consistent prayerfulness, and in the third place:
3. A trustful dependence on God to fulfil all that he has purposed. When I sin, am I cast away? No! The word of God is, ‘A just man falleth seven times and riseth up again’ [Prov 24:16]. And so I come acknowledging that my obedience is neither the basis for my justification nor the ground of my approach to God as a sinner who has been besmeared by sin, and I flee afresh to the Mediator of the New Covenant. Peter puts the matter of recourse to the Lord in the present tense, ‘To whom coming . . .’ not ‘to whom ye came’. So often in our day we hear it said that ‘somebody came to Christ’. A Christian is a man who is ever coming. We read in Hebrews 12; ‘Ye are not come. . .’ and then he describes some of the physical surroundings that we get in the Old Covenant, but he says, ‘Ye are come to . . .’ and he mentions all the blessings of the New Covenant, and one of them is this: ‘Ye are come . . . to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant’. ‘If any man sin we have [present tense] an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.’
Is not this why a true Christian does not cringe at the exposure of his sin? Every exposure of sin in the life of a true believer drives him afresh to his Saviour, and anything that drives him afresh to his Saviour makes his Saviour more precious. When is your life more fragrant than when the kiss of forgiveness is most fresh upon your cheek? Sin felt and mourned over drives a Christian afresh to the Mediator of the New Covenant who knew all about his failures when he called him, and in his grace and mercy as a suffering High Priest ever pleads the merits of his blood before the Father. And so there is a trusting dependence upon God to fulfil all his purposes. When I am weak I need to remember that he prays for me. He said to Peter, ‘Satan hath desired to have thee to sift thee as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. I did not pray that your courage fail not. Your courage will fail, Peter, but I have prayed that your faith fail not’. And even in Peter’s denial there was not a casting-off of his faith. For the work which God’s goodness began, the arm of his strength will complete. He will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ.
For a person to claim to be a Calvinist, confessing the soteriological creed that God saves sinners, without this holy watchfulness, some measure of consistent prayerfulness, and a trusting dependence upon God in Christ to fulfil all that he, in grace, has promised, is a contradiction of terms. One of the great cries that is raised today, and some of it has justification, is that people, especially young men, who get hold of Calvinism, and seem to view it as an unanswerable, unassailable philosophical system, become proud, go back now to their secular schools and in ten minutes shoot holes in the views of their Professor of Philosophy. They become proud, cocky. That is a caricature, that is not real Calvinism.
What is the personal practical effect of the confession of Calvinism in the life of a man? If he sees God, it will break him, and if he understands that God saves sinners, it will make him a trustful, prayerful, watchful person pursuing practical godliness. Is that what these doctrines are doing for you right where you sit this morning? Some, perhaps, to whom these things are new have feared them and said, ‘Oh, that stuff will just lead to spiritual barrenness and dryness’. It is not so! For these are the truths of God’s Word; I am convinced they are. In their totality they are the truth which is according to godliness, the truth that sanctifies us in answer to the prayer of our great High Priest. May God grant that the truth will do that in you and in me!
Author
Albert N. Martin concluded 46 years of ministry at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey, in June 2008, and he and his second wife Dorothy relocated to Michigan (he lost his first wife Marilyn in 2004 after 48 years of marriage and a six-year battle with cancer). A recognised evangelist, counsellor, pastor and preacher, Al Martin had his first experience of street preaching before the age of eighteen, under the guidance of elders at the Mission Hall he attended. He taught all the courses in Pastoral Theology in the Trinity Ministerial Academy for 20 years until it closed in 1998. In his ‘retirement’, he is now working to put these lectures into permanent DVD format, as well as having several writing projects in the pipeline.
