It is not my desire to write long responses. But, I am persuaded that this needs to be said.
Amen. We need a fuller a revelation of Jesus Christ and not just a specific list of doctrines. But, that doesn't mean that we should push aside vital truths of the gospel which offend people. I agree with Paul Washer that we should keep fellowship with our Arminian and Weslyan brothers. But, I don't think that we should not gently correct a brother who is in error. I don't think Paul Washer is discouraging that either. Let us never forget that the Word of God is the means that God uses to bring a fuller revelation of Himself. The word of God is full of doctrine and if we are going to preach Christ through His Word, we can't help but preach doctrine.
Paul Washer calls himself a 5 point Spurgeonist. I admire that Paul Washer is linked close with Spurgeon's preaching. I don't know specifically what Washer means by 5 points. I don't want to assume anything. But, if we are going to follow Spurgeon's example... The Historic Calvinistic view of God and Man was an definitely an issue that needed to be addressed.
[url=http://abrahamjuliot.blogspot.com/2008/07/charles-spurgeon-quotes-on-calvinism.html]Charles Spurgeon's quotes on Calvinism[/url]
There are many who might say, "Let's not preach doctrine and theology, let's just preach Christ." I will then ask, "Who is Jesus Christ, what has He surely done, what is He surely doing, What will He most surely do in time and eternity? Why has Jesus Christ saved you and why do you love Him?" As soon as one answers these questions, I will reply, "You are declaring doctrine and theology. Paul spent 11 chapters of a whole epistle specifically doing the same thing."
If we are going to preach the gospel, we are commanded to preach the truth about God, the truth about man, and the truth about the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The gospel of God is not contrary to the truth of God. To depart from preaching and teaching truth, is to depart from preaching the whole counsel of the gospel.
Rolfe Barnard said this, "Today's gospel calls on men to stand up for God; the gospel commands men to bow the knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The two-fold message of evangelism is (1) all flesh is grass, and (2) behold your God! It is the message which strips man of all glory and gives all the glory to Christ. The result of preaching the gospel of God's glory will be a sense of the awful presence of God, breaking the hearts of sinners and bringing them to the feet of Christ for cleansing. Gone will be the voice of the proud sinner who stands in the church, beset on every side by soul winners, debating whether or not he will recognize the Lord and let God save him. Gone will be the voice of the self- righteous sinner who debates whether or not he will let Jesus come into his heart. Instead we will hear broken hearts and contrite spirits cry:"
"Depths of mercy can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?"
-Rolfe Barnard
Rolfe Barnard wrote a sermon on John 6:59-61 called "Does This Offend You?" In this sermon he expounded on these 3 points:
1. Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached the Sovereignty of God
2. Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached the Total Depravity of Man and Man's Inability
3. Our Lord Jesus Christ Preached the Blood Atonement
[url=http://www.sovereign-grace.com/2468.htm]Source[/url]
Sadly many people are offended at the Word of God and the implications of these 3 truths. Is it not also sad if we neglect the duty of correcting those who stray from these truths? Yes, we must correct error in an edifying manner that exalts Jesus Christ. Truth never separated the body Christ or brought disunity among those who love God. Error and confusion brings disunity. The Doctrines of Grace as taught be men like Spurgeon, Whitefield, Matthew Henry, Jonathan Edwards have brought edification to the body of Christ. It is the truth of the gospel that brings true God-centered unity.
It is men like these that had a burden for souls and a burden for God to be glorified in preaching and teaching truth. They got their doctrine from the bible and not from a system of beliefs. Thus, they never strayed from having a burden for souls and a passion for the glory of God. They never preached watered down messages like today's Disney Land gospel. They preached the wrath of God and the duty of repentance.
[url=http://www.sovereign-grace.com/2438.htm]A Burden for Souls[/url] by Rolfe Barnard
[url=http://www.sovereign-grace.com/2384.htm]Turn or Burn[/url] by Rolfe Barnard
[url=http://www.sovereign-grace.com/2378.htm]The sermon that cost a preacher his head[/url] by Rolfe Barnard
Rolfe Barnard wrote another sermon called "Why We Preach the Gospel and Particular Redemption" In the sermon he said this:
"Now will you follow me? The knowledge of being the object of God's eternal love, and the knowledge of being the object of Christ's redeeming death; this knowledge belongs to the assurance of one who has already believed. This knowledge that Christ died for me, that God loves me individually is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed. And it is not to be proposed as a reason why one should believe. These things are just not true. No man can know that God loves him until after he has believed.
Now salvation and assurance must not be separated, but they are not the same. Let me call your attention to two Scriptures – Romans 8:33, which says: "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.-Verse 34: "Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us."
There is assurance. And everybody who is listening to me now, who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you can say that, and you can rejoice in it, and the reason you can rejoice in it is you are not trusting in somebody who made salvation possible. You are trusting in God Who justifies; God justifies, so who can condemn? Why, nobody except Christ, because Christ was the One that died, and Christ was the One that was raised, and Christ is the One Who makes intercession for us." -Rolfe Barnard
[url=http://www.sovereign-grace.com/2313.htm]Source[/url]
Paul Washer preached a sermon on this subject also. May God grant grace and strength for Paul Washer to preach it again.
[url=http://media.sermonindex.net/15/SID15076.mp3]Particular Redemption, Mission[/url] by Paul Washer
Charles Spurgeon said this, "A redemption which pays a price, but does not ensure that which is purchased -- a redemption which calls Christ a substitute for the sinner, but yet which allows the person to suffer - is altogether unworthy of our apprehensions of Almighty God. It offers no homage to his wisdom, and does despite to his covenant faithfulness. We could not and would not receive such a travesty of divine truth as that would be. There is no ground for any comfort whatever in it." (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Sermons, Vol. 49, p. 39)
George Whitefield considered this doctrine an issue when he said this in a letter to John Wesley, "I would hint further, that you unjustly charge the doctrine of reprobation with blasphemy, whereas the doctrine of universal redemption, as you set it forth, is really the highest reproach upon the dignity of the Son of God, and the merit of his blood. Consider whether it be not rather blasphemy to say as you do, "Christ not only died for those that are saved, but also for those that perish." -George Whitefield
I plead with you not to discourage discussion of the doctrines of grace. I agree that we should avoid camp names that bring unnecessary division. The man of God is called to teach the scriptures and he is called to be a man filled with the compassion of Jesus Christ. We are commanded to preach the Word and to follow Paul's example to declare the whole counsel of God.
I used to follow Wesleyan and Anabaptist doctrine for almost 2 years of my beginning days with the Lord. For years I struggled with assurance in the promises of God and I often would fail to preach justification by the imputed everlasting righteousness of Christ. Rather, I would preach as though sinners had the ability to justify themselves by their will and running. Many times I would go through dark seasons of despair because I believed that God's wrath came back upon me in my failures in temptation. I used to listen to Ravenhill a lot and many times after listening to him, I was left in a place feeling condemned with no hope... primarily because of my own lack of Faith in future Grace and secondly because their was a lack of the exaltation of the Sovereign Grace of God in Ravenhill's preaching. I know other godly men who have had the same experiences. Ravenhill has been a blessing on his exhortations to pray. But, we will not be able to battle the real sin behind prayerlessness if we are not directed to trust in the future promises of God's Grace. Unbelief in the promises of God always results in a lack of God-centered prayer.
John Wesley Wrote a letter to His brother Charles about his lack of assurance. It was written nearly 28 years after John Wesley's conversion.
John Wesley wrote, “In one of my last [letters] I was saying that I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery), I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen … And yet, to be so employed of God! And so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there was never such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other evidence of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as faintly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. I have no direct witness (I do not say, that I am a child of God, but) of anything invisible or eternal.
...“And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a decrease of zeal for the whole work of God and every part of it. I am borne along, I know not how, that I can’t stand still. I want all the world to come to what I do not know.” (Quoted in Stephen Tomkins, 2003, John Wesley: A Biography, Eerdmans, p. 168.)
In addition to this Ravehill and others have highly recommended learning from Charles Finney. Many have taken heed to these books and time will only tell of the result of this.
Finney himself stated this,
"I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state" [cited in B. B. Warfield, Studies in Perfectionism, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1932), 2:24].
One of Finney's contemporaries registered a similar assessment, but more bluntly:
During ten years, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were annually reported to be converted on all hands; but now it is admitted, that real converts are comparatively few. It is declared, even by [Finney] himself, that "the great body of them are a disgrace to religion"[cited in Warfield, 2:23].
B. B. Warfield cited the testimony of Asa Mahan, one of Finney's close associates,
...who tells us—to put it briefly—that everyone who was concerned in these revivals suffered a sad subsequent lapse: the people were left like a dead coal which could not be reignited; the pastors were shorn of all their spiritual power; and the evangelists—"among them all," he says, "and I was personally acquainted with nearly every one of them—I cannot recall a single man, brother Finney and father Nash excepted, who did not after a few years lose his unction, and become equally disqualified for the office of evangelist and that of pastor."
Thus the great "Western Revivals" ran out into disaster. . . . Over and over again, when he proposed to revisit one of the churches, delegations were sent him or other means used, to prevent what was thought of as an affliction. . . . Even after a generation had passed by, these burnt children had no liking for the fire [Warfield, 2:26-28].
-Abraham
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