Let God be God

I shamefully admit that sometimes when trying to reach out to an unbeliever with the gospel I can think I am wasting my time. I see and understand only from my naturalistic perspective instead from a biblical perspective of God’s sovereign control and power over all things. I can see the person entrenched in secularism, or worldliness, or naturalism, or tolerance, or polytheism that I can think I am wasting my time. That, my friends, is unbelief in the power of the gospel.

In this morning’s devotion D.A. Carson wrote this in For The Love of God, Volume 1, for June 30th.

I once heard a learned sociologist, by confession an evangelical, explain with considerable erudition why even a major revival, should the Lord choose to send one to a country like America, could not possibly transform the nation…

The element that is most seriously lacking from this analysis, however, is the sheer sweep of God’s sovereignty. The analysis of this sociologist is reductionistic. It is as if he thinks in largely naturalistic categories, but leaves a little corner for something fairly weak (although admittedly supernatural) like regeneration. Not for a moment am I suggesting that God does not normally work through means that follow the regularities of the structures God himself has created. But it is vital to insist that God is not ever limited to such regularities. Above all, the Bible repeatedly speaks of times when, on the one hand, he send confusion or fear on whole nations, or, on the other, he so transforms people by writing his Law on their heart that they long to please him. We are dealing with a God who is not limited by the machination s of the media. He is quite capable of so intruding that in judgment or grace he sovereignly controls what people think.

God may normally work through ordinary means. But he is not limited by them. That is why…all the secularization, postmodernism, naturalism, and paganism in the world cannot by themselves prevent revival. Let God be God.

Amen. So, if you are uncertain whether you should reach out to your neighbor, or work associate, or family member with the gospel because of their entrenchment in some form of godlessness, take heart and see with biblical eyes. If you are uncertain whether or not you should invite them to the Preview Dinner, think and act with a biblical understanding of salvation.

Yes, God does work supernaturally through means and we are one of those means. But God also works supernaturally outside of those means. So, let’s work and pray not only for conversions through the witness of CrossWay, but let’s pray for revival in Southeastern Wisconsin and Northeastern Illinois.