Why Witness if God is Sovereign?

At the 2009 Ligonier conference entitled the Holiness of God. The following question was asked at the 3rd Q&A of the conference: “What makes a Calvinistic preacher get out of bed in the morning when he knows that nothing he can do will effect the outcome of his work?”

This is DA Carson’s response:

"The same God who ordained the elect ordained the means and ordained the prayer warriors. My father was a church planter in French Canada. It was during hard years when a large church had 35 to 40 people. Opposition was severe enough, on occasion, where we kids were beaten up because we were ‘damn protestants.’ Baptist ministers in French Canada spent a total of 8 years in prison from ’52 to ’53…. Then the Belgium Congo erupted into the Civil War that would make it the country of Zaire and it became very dangerous to be there….at the time many American missionaries in the Congo came back to the US and look for another part of the world to go to and a few of them went up to French Canada because at least we spoke French….People like my dad were busy rejoicing because we were going to get more help…not one of them (the former Congan missionaries) lasted more than 6 months in French Canada…not one! By this time I was in my teens and in high school so I knew a lot about just about everything. And I asked my dad, ‘How come none of them had the courage, stamina, godliness and perseverance to stick it out and do a good job under these circumstances?’ 

My father tried to reason with me, he was a most reasonable man..unlike his son. He said ‘You’ve got to understand that they have served in parts of the world where they have seen a lot of fruit and they have seen a lot of conversions and built schools and hospitals and they just can’t imagine seeing a place in the world where there is very little fruit. So they come here and see nothing so they conclude that God doesn’t want them here and that they have misread his providential guidance"

So I said something that I regret to this day (Dr. Carson then tries to fight back tears) ‘Then why don’t you go somewhere and make your life more fruitful?’ He wheeled on me and said, ‘Because I believe that God has many people in this place’ and he walked out of the room. 

Don’t you see that’s exactly the encouragement that God gave the apostle Paul. Preach on Paul I have many people in this place! It is election that grounds perseverance other wise all it is…is style and mechanics.”

Posted by Charlie King