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Calvinism Gives Fire and Enthusiasm to True Evangelism
L. R. Shelton An audio file of this sermon is available at www.sermonaudio.com/vot So many people have said to me, "Brother Shelton, if I believed what you believe and teach, I'd just quit preaching, teaching, praying, and giving, because if God has a certain people elected to salvation in Christ, then they are going to be saved and what is the use to spend our effort in
trying to win them?" Now, do you know why you say that, my friend? I am going to give you two reasons in the way of introduction. It is because, in the first place, you may not know Christ as your Lord and Saviour. I say this after years of observation and also of experience in dealing with the
hearts of men and women all over this nation, and practically all over the world. I am not the final judge. You may think you know Him, when you don't. Let that great fact soak into your heart – Do you know Christ?
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I am a Calvinist to the core – not a Hypercalvinist. I cannot be still for preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that one of God's elect may be saved. During the year 1954 I averaged preaching twice daily for 365 days. First Baptist Church, Algiers, New Orleans, is preaching |
But you Arminian's – you just don't know whether anybody is going to be saved or not. You are hoping they will, you are hoping you will have a certain number of additions to the church, and you will go out and set a goal of so many that you are going to try to win to Christ this year. Well,
that is none of your business; it is within God's decree who is going to be saved. It is your responsibility and mine to preach the Gospel to every creature. Let me tell you something, saint, as you are sitting there in your home this morning, will you let me tell you something? You and I are
responsible for every individual, with whom we come in contact. May there burn in your heart a desire, first, to see your loved ones saved, and then to see others saved. My responsibility is to every creature, but I rest upon God's great decrees as the foundation of my hope. But you Arminian's don't
have anything to rest on. That is the reason you have to put in your little two cents – persuade them, manipulate invitations, put on decision days. You have to buttonhole them and use a thousand-and-one methods to get them out on a decision for Christ and into the church, and you call that salvation!
There is a book put out by a certain press, "A Thousand and One Ways of Giving an Invitation" (it may be a hundred – I don't remember). Man has ransacked his brain to produce every method under the sun to bring a person out on a decision for Christ and call it salvation. That is nothing in
the world but freewillism and showism, and you make men twofold more the children of Hell than they were before. Then you want to jump up and say that I am judging. No sir, I'm not judging; I am just stating a fact, as a physician would make a diagnosis of a case. I know.
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It may make you so mad until you will champ your bits, and you could bite tenpenny nails in two, but, brother, when you get mad and go to stamping, something is going to happen. You are either going to hit it to the briar patch like a cottontail to the broomsage, or you are going to get saved. We
are to walk in His will and way. He says, "My child, here is the path; walk ye in it, and blessing I will bless thee; I will prosper My word that I send forth through your mouth." We are too never take our eye off the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to preach His Word and leave the results with
Him. Listen! We are to preach His Word and leave the results with Him! If the average preacher did that, he would not have any results, would he? No, because the Gospel he preaches wouldn't move a flea. Do you believe the gospel you preach? Do you believe the gospel you teach in your Sunday School?
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