Romans 9:10-16 (KJV)

10. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
11. (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
12. It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13. As it is written, Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.
14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Many objections are brought against the doctrine of election. Sometimes the objections are loud and furious. Alas, many of these objections are in Baptist ranks. To preach this old-fashioned doctrine of our faith as did Bunyan, Fuller, Gill, Spurgeon, Boyce, Broadus, Pendleton, Graves, Jarrell, Carroll, Jeter, Boyce Taylor and a host of other representative men of our denomination is to court the most bitter kind of opposition. John Wesley himself never said harsher words against this blessed tenet of our faith than do some so-called Baptists of today. Arminianism, that offspring of popery, has had an abnormal growth in the last decade or two as the adopted child of a large group of Baptists.

1. IT IS OBJECTED THAT OUR VIEW OF ELECTION LIMITS GOD'S MERCY.
   Here we criticize the critics, for he who makes this objection limits both God's mercy and power. He admits that God's mercy is limited to the believer, and to this we agree; but he denies that God can cause a man to believe without doing violence to the man's will, and thus he limits God's power. We believe that God is able to give a man a sound mind (II Tim. 1:7) and make him willing in the day of His power. At this point we must face two self-evident propositions. First, if God is trying to save every member of Adam's fallen race, and does not succeed, then His power is limited and He is not the Lord God Almighty. Second, if He is not trying to save every member of the fallen race, then His mercy is limited. We must of necessity limit His mercy or His power, or go over boots and baggage to the Universalist's position. But, before we do that, let us go "to the law and to the testimony," which says, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion . . . Therefore hath He mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom He will he hardeneth" (Rom. 9:15-18). It needs to be said for the comfort and hope of great sinners, that God's mercy is not limited by the natural condition of the sinner. All sinners are dead until God makes them alive. He is able to take away the heart of stone. No man is too great a sinner to be saved. We can pray for the salvation of the chief of sinners with the assurance that God can if He will. "The King's heart is in the hands of the Lord as the rivers of water; He turneth it withersoever He will" (Prov. 21:1). We rejoice to say with Jeremiah that there is nothing too hard for God. We can pray for the salvation of our loved ones with the feeling of the leper, when he said, "Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean" (Matt. 8:2). When Robert Morrison was about to go to China, he was asked by an incredulous American if he thought he could make any impression on those Chinese. His curt reply was, "No, but I think God can." This should ever be our confidence and hope when we stand before sinners and preach to them, "CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED."

2. ANOTHER OBJECTION TO ELECTION IS THAT IT MAKES GOD UNJUST.
   This objection betrays a bad heart. It would obligate the CREATOR to the CREATURE. It makes salvation a divine obligation. It denies the right of the potter over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor. By the same reasoning it makes the governor of a sovereign state unjust when he pardons one or more men, unless he empties the prison and turns all the prisoners loose. Our view of election is in harmony with what even the Arminians allow to be proper and just for a human governor. All can see that a governor, by pardoning some men, does not harm others, who are not pardoned. Those who are not pardoned are not in prison because the governor refused them a pardon but because they were guilty of a crime against the state. Isn't God to be allowed as much sovereignty as the governor of the state? Salvation, like a pardon, is something that is not deserved. If it were deserved, then God would be unjust if He did not bestow it upon all men.

   Salvation is not a matter of justice but of mercy. It wasn't the attribute of justice that led God to provide salvation but the attribute of mercy. Justice is simply each man getting what he deserves. Those who go to hell will have nobody to blame but themselves, while those who go to heaven will have nobody to praise but God. (Read Rom. 1:22-23.)

3. IT IS AGAIN OBJECTED THAT OUR VIEW OF ELECTION IS AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF "WHOSOEVER WILL."
   But the objector is wrong again. Our view explains and supports the doctrine of "WHOSOEVER WILL." Without election the invitation to "WHOSOEVER WILL" would go unheeded. The Bible doctrine of "WHOSOEVER WILL" does not imply the freedom or ability of the human will to do good. The human will is free, but its freedom is within the limits of fallen nature. It is free like water; water is free to run down hill. It is free like the vulture; the vulture is free to eat carrion, for that is its nature, but it would starve to death in a wheat field. It is not the buzzard's nature to eat clean food; it feeds upon the carcasses of the dead. So sinners, who were in His very presence, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life" (John 5:40). It is not natural for a sinner to trust in Christ. Salvation through trust in a crucified Christ is a stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness to the Greek; it is only the called, both Jews and Greeks, who trust it as the wisdom and power of God. (See I Cor. 1:23-24.)

   Is a corpse free to get up and walk around? In one sense yes. It is not bound by fetters. There is no external restraint. But, in another sense, that corpse is not free. It is hindered by its natural condition. It is its nature to decompose and go back to dust. It is not the nature of death to stir about. Here is a spiritual corpse -- a man dead in trespasses and sins. Is the man free to repent and believe and do good works? Yes, in one sense. There are no external restraints. God does not prevent but offers inducements through His holy Word. But the corpse is hindered by its own nature. There must be the miracle of the new birth, for except a man be born from above he cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5).

   It is painful to some of us to see our brethren forsake the faith of our Baptist forbears at this point and join the ranks of the Roman Catholics and other Arminians. If anyone doubts this charge let him read the article of faith adopted by the Romanists at the Council of Trent (1563). I quote their statement on the freedom of the human will -- "If anyone shall affirm that since the fall of Adam man's free will is lost, let him be accursed." But alas, in this day, such a spirit is not confined to the Roman Catholics. Horatius Bonar makes the following quotation from John Calvin: "The Papist theologians have a distinction current among themselves that God does not elect men, according to their works which are in Thee, but that He chooses them that He foresees will be believers."

   Ah, the real trouble with the objector is not election; it is something else. His real objection is to total depravity or human inability to do good. I can do no better here than to quote from Percy W. Heward of London, England. He says, "It seems to me that the majority of objections to God's sovereign grace, to God's electing love, are actually objections to something else, namely objections to the fact that man is ruined. If you probe beneath the surface you will find that very few object to election. Why should they? Election harms no one. How can the picking of a man out of doom harm anyone else? The real objection at the present day is not to election, though that word is made the catchword of sad controversy -- the real objection is to that fact which is revealed in Psalm 51, that we are shapen in iniquity, that we are both sinners by nature, dead in sins, until, as we read concerning Paul in Gal. 1, 'It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me . . .' Ah, beloved friends, we deserve nothing but doom. Acknowledge trespasses, and sins, only evil continually; acknowledge that there is in man no natural spark to be fanned into a flame but that believers are born again of incorruptible seed which the Lord places; acknowledge that if anyone is in Christ that there is a new creation, for we are His workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus; and election must be at once recognized."

   Every real believer on his knees subscribes to our view of election. You cannot pray ascribing some credit to self. Sovereign grace will come out in prayer though it may be left off the platform. No saved man will get down on his knees before God and claim that he made himself to differ from others who are not saved, but with Paul he says, "By the grace of God I am what I am." And in praying for the lost we supplicate God to convict and convert them. We do not depend upon the freedom of their wills but beg God to make them willing to come to Christ, knowing that when they come to Christ He will not cast them out. (See John 6:37.) A Methodist minister once went to hear a Presbyterian minister preach. After the sermon the Methodist said to the Presbyterian, "That was a pretty good Arminian sermon you preached today." "Yes," replied the Presbyterian, "We Presbyterians are pretty good Arminians when we preach and you Methodists are pretty good Calvinists when you pray."

4. IT IS ALSO OBJECTED THAT OUR VIEW OF ELECTION IS A NEW DOCTRINE AMONG MISSIONARY BAPTISTS.
   The fact is that it is so old-fashioned that it has about gone out of fashion. The ignorance betrayed in such a claim is indeed pitiable. In refutation we resort to two sources of information: (1) Confessions of faith; and (2)Statements of representative preachers and writers.
   1. CONFESSIONS OF FAITH.
      The Paterines, according to W.A. Jarrell, appealed to the text in the 9th of Romans, in proof of the doctrine of Unconditional Election. See Jarrell's History, page 139. The Paterines were ancient progenitors of the Baptists.
      The Waldenses, through whom Baptist church succession must be traced, declared themselves as follows: "God saves from corruption and damnation those whom He had chosen from the foundation of the world, not from any disposition, faith or holiness that He foresaw in them, but his mere mercy in Christ Jesus His Son, passing by all the rest according to the irreprehensible reason of His own free-will and justice." THE DATE OF THIS CONFESSION WAS 1120!
      The London Confession (1689) and the Philadelphia Confession (1742) read as follows: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined or foreordained to ETERNAL LIFE through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sins to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious Justice."
      The New Hampshire Confession (Article 9): "We believe that election is the eternal purpose of God according to which He graciously regenerates, sanctifies and saves sinners; that being perfectly consistent with the free-agency of man, it comprehends all the means in connection with the end; that it is a most glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, being infinitely free; wise, holy and unchangeable; that it utterly excludes boasting and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imitation of His free mercy; that it encourages the use of means in the highest degree; that it may be ascertained by its effects in all who truly believe the Gospel; that it is the foundation of Christian assurance; and that to ascertain it with regard to ourselves demands and deserves the utmost diligence."
   2. REPRESENTATIVE PREACHERS AND WRITERS.
      John A. Broadus, former president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; "From the divine side, we see that the Scriptures teach an eternal election of men to eternal life simply out of God's good pleasure."
      A.H. Strong, former president of Rochester Theological Seminary: "Election is the eternal act of God, by which in His sovereign pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, He chooses certain of the number of sinful men to be recipients of the special grace of His Spirit and so to be made voluntary partakers of Christ's salvation."
      B.H. Carroll, founder and first president of the Southwestern Baptist Seminary; "Every one that God chose in Christ is drawn by the Spirit to Christ. Every one predestined is called by the Spirit in time and justified in time, and will be glorified when the Lord comes." (Commentary on Romans, page 192.)
      J.P. Boyce, founder and first president of Southern Baptist Seminary; "God, of His own purpose, has from eternity determined to save a definite number of mankind as individuals, not for or because of any merit or works of theirs, not of any value of them to Him; but of His own good pleasure."
      W.T. Conner, professor of theology, Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas: "The doctrine of election means that God saves in pursuance of an eternal purpose. This includes all the gospel influences, work of the Spirit and so on, that leads a man to repent of his sins and accept Christ. So far as man's freedom is concerned, the doctrine of election does not mean that God decrees to save a man irrespective of his will. It rather means that God proposes to lead a man in such a way that he will freely accept the gospel and be saved."
      Pastor J.W. Less of Batesville, Miss.: "I believe that God has foreordained before the foundation of the world that He would save certain individuals and that He ordained all the means to bring about their salvation on His terms. Men and women are not elected because they repent and believe, but they repent and believe because they are elected."

      To the above list of well known and honored Baptists we could add quotations from Gill, Fuller, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Pendleton, Taylor, Dargan, Jeter, Eaton, Graves, and others too numerous to mention. It is sadly true that many of our pastors hold election as a private opinion and never preach it. We personally know a number of brethren who say that election is clearly taught in the Bible, but that we cannot afford to preach it, because it will cause trouble in churches. This is worse than compromise; it is surrender of the truth. It is a spirit that leads preachers to displease God in order to please men. The writer believes that silence upon this subject has wrought more harm than open opposition to it. Those who openly oppose election will, sooner or later, make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of all Bible loving Baptists.

5. IT IS FURTHER OBJECTED THAT OUR VIEW OF ELECTION MAKES MEN CARELESS IN THEIR LIVING.
   It is said that belief in the doctrine leads men to say, "If I am an elect, I will be saved; if I am a non-elect I will be lost, therefore, it matters not what I believe or do." The same objection has been persistently made against the doctrine of the preservation of the saints. This is false rationalism. It is the setting of human reason against divine revelation. It takes no account of the operation of the grace of God in the human heart. If Baptists surrender election on such a ground, to be consistent, they will have to surrender the doctrine of preservation on the same ground. Election does not mean that the elect will be saved whether they believe or not, nor does it mean that the non-elect will be damned regardless of how much they repent and believe.

   The objection we are now considering is simply not true to fact. Believers in election have been and still are among the most godly. Augustus Toplady challenged the world to produce a martyr from among the deniers of election. The Puritans, who were so named because of the great purity of lives with few exceptions (if any), were believers in personal, eternal, unconditional election, and, of course, in the security of the believer. Modernism, that spawn of the pit, is rapidly adding to the number of its adherents, but they are coming from the ranks of Arminianism. Others have challenged the world to find a single higher critic, or a spiritualist, to a single Russellite, or a single Christian Scientist, who believes in the absolute sovereignty of God and the doctrine of election. Without an exception these awful heretics are Arminians to a man. This is a significant fact that is not to be winked at.

6. OBJECTORS CLAIM THAT OUR VIEW OF ELECTION DESTROYS THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS:
   They boldly assert that if unconditional election should find universal acceptance among us that we would cease to be a missionary people. There is an abundance of historical evidence with which to refute this claim. Under God, the father of modern missions was William Carey a staunch Calvinist. Andrew Fuller, first secretary of the society that sent Carey to India, held tenaciously to our view of election. It did not destroy the missionary spirit of these men. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

   Belief in election did not destroy the missionary spirit in Judson, Spurgeon, Boyce, Eaton, Graves, Carroll and a host of other Baptist leaders. The Murray, Ky. Church, which J.F. Love called the greatest missionary church on earth, heard election preached by Boyce Taylor for nearly forty years. The greatest missionary churches among us today are those that have been purged from the heresies of James Arminius.

   Election is the very foundation of hope in missionary endeavor. If we had to depend upon the natural disposition or will of a dead sinner, who hates God, to respond to our gospel, we might well despair, but when we realize that it is the Spirit that quickeneth, we can go forth with the gospel of the grace of God in the hope that God will cause some, by nature turned away, to be turned unto Him and to believe to the saving of the soul. Election does not determine the extent to missions but the results of it. We are to preach to every creature because God has commanded, and because it pleases Him to save sinners by the foolishness of preaching. We believe more election than the Anti-mission Baptists. We believe that God elected means of salvation as well as persons to salvation. He did not choose to save sinners apart from the gospel ministry. (See Rom. 1:16.)

   Election gives a saneness to evangelism that is greatly needed today. It recognizes that sinners "believe through grace" (Acts 18:27) and that while Paul may plant and Apollos may water, God gives the increase. Arminianism has had its day among Baptists and what has it done? It has given us man power, but robbed us of God's power. It has increased machinery but has decreased spirituality. It has filled our churches with Ishmaels instead of Isaacs by its ministry of "sob stuff" and with the methods of the "counting house."

   If this message needs further Scriptural support, the following Scriptures will give it: Psalm 65:4; Acts 13:48; John 6:37; 6:44-45; John 17:12; Matt. 11:25; II Cor. 13:3; II Cor. 10:4.

   Many sources were referred to in compiling these thoughts -- but the truths of this great doctrine are all in God's Holy and Undeniable Word.

   Fred Cherry is the maternal grandfather of
   Pastor Wade Burleson, Emmanuel, Enid.