Salvation Belongs to The LORD - Psalm 3:8

[Kingdom1]

This is taken from John Piper's book The Pleasures of God: Meditations of God's Delight in Being God. (Pg. 205-209)

And at this chapter John Piper opposes about people who believe their ultimate salvation depended or depends on them. That they somehow had a part in their conversion. Let's take a look:

"Until we embrace the sovereignty of God in election (and, therefore, in conversion), we cannot really pray consistently that God would actually save lost sinners. We cannot pray the way Paul describes his own praying in Romans 10:1. "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they might be saved." Paul's heart's desire is for the salvation of his fellow Jews. And when our hearts ache for something, we pray for it. And so he says that his prayer to God is that they be saved. He wants something accomplished in his mission---the salvation of Jews as he preaches in the synagogues. So he prays to God that this would happen. He asks God to save them. "O God, that they might be saved! Do it, God! Do what You need to do to save my kinsmen!"

But that kind of praying is inconsistent if you do not believe in the sovereignty of God in election and conversion. The sovereignty of God is his right and power to save unbelieving, unrepentant, hardened sinners. There are a lot of people who do not believe God has that right. They do not believe that God has the right to intrude upon a person's rebellion, and overcome it, and draw that person effectually to faith and salvation. They do not believe that God has the right to exert Himself so powerfully in grace as to overcome all the resistance of a hardened sinner. Instead they believe that man himself has the sole right of final determination in the choices and affections of his heart toward God. Every person, they say, has final self-determination in whether they will overcome the hardness of their hearts and come to Christ. And so it is finally in the hands of man, not God, who will be saved and how many will inhabit the kingdom.

The effects on prayer for such people are devestating if they try to pray consistently with this rejection of the sovereignty of God in elections and conversion. It means they can't ask God to actually fulfill many of His promises and effectually save anybody.

- They can't pray, "God, take out my friend's heart of stone and give him a new heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 11:19)

- They can't pray, "Lord, circumcise my daughter's heart so that she loves You." (Deuteronomy 30:6)

- They can't pray, "Father, put Your Spirit within my dad and cause him to walk in Your statutes." (Ezekiel 36:27)

- They can't pray, "Lord, grant my teacher repentance and a knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 2:25-26)

- They can't pray, "Open my sister's eyes so that she will believe the gospel." (Acts 16:14)

The reason they can't pray this way is that all these prayers give God a right that they have reserved for man---namely the ultimate, decisive determination of man's destiny. If you ask God to do any of these things, He would be the one who actually saves. How then does one pray if one really believe that man, not God, must make the ultimate decisions about individual salvation (and thus the ultimate decisions about the size and makeup of heaven's population)?

I take an example from a well-known book on prayer that seems to reject God's sovereignty in the salvation of sinners. This writer says that the way to pray is to "Ask God to cause a specific person...to begin questioning whom they can really trust in life." But my question then is: Why is it right for God to cause a person to think a question and wrong for God to take control of a person to the degree that He causes the person to ask a question he would not have otherwise asked, but it is not legitimate for God to exert the same influence to cause the person to give an answer that he would not otherwise have given---namely, that Jesus should be trusted?

Here is another example of how this writer says we should pray for unbelievers: "Pray that God will plant in the hearts of these people...and inner unrest, together with a longing to know the 'Truth'." Now my question is: If it is legitimate for God to "plant a longing" in a person's heart, how strong can the longing be that God chooses to plant? There are two kinds of longings God could plant in an unbeliever's heart. One kind of longing is so strong that it leads the person to persue and embrace Christ. The other kind of longing is not strong enough to lead a person to embrace Christ. Which should we pray for? If we pray for the strong longing, then we are praying that the Lord would work effectually and get that person saved. If you pray for the weak longing, then we are praying for an ineffectual longing that leaves the person in sin (but preserves his self-determination).

Do you see where this leads? People who really believe that man must have the ultimate power of self-determination, can't consistently pray that God would convert unbelieving sinners. Why? Because if they pray for divine influence in a sinner's life they are either praying for a successful influence (which takes away the sinner's ultimate self-determination), or they are praying for an unsuccessful influence (which is not praying for God to convert the sinner). So either you give up praying for God to convert sinners or you give up ultimate human self-determination.

Paul leaves no doubt where he stands on that issue in Romans 9:16, "It depends not upon man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy." So he prays that God would convert Israel! He prays for her salvation! He does not pray for ineffectual influences, but for effectual influences. And that is how we should pray too. We should take the new covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass in our children and our neighbors and on all the mission fields of the world.

- "God, take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 11:19)

- "Lord, circumcise their heart so that they love you." (Deuteronomy 30:6)

- "Father, put Your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in Your statutes." (Ezekiel 36:27)

- "Lord, grant them repentance and a knowledge of the truth that they may escape from the snare of the devil." (2 Timothy 2:25-26)

- "Father, open their hearts so that they believe the gospel." (Acts 16:4)

When we believe in the sovereignty of God---in the right and power of God to elect and then bring hardened sinners to faith and salvation---then we will be able to pray with no inconsistency, and with great biblical promises for the conversion of the lost. Thus God has pleasure in this kind of praying because it ascribes to Him the right and honor to be the free and sovereign God that He is in election and salvation."

Edited May 17, 2012 by Kingdom1