WHY SALVATION MUST BE SUPERNATURAL

 

BY STEPHEN CHARNOCK

Charnock  was one of the great puritan preachers. He is known best in our time for his powerful  Existence and Attributes of God, and Christ Our Passover. Recently Banner of Truth has reprinted all his books in one set, as they do so well. Money being tight just now, you can also find many of them online at Monergism.com until, and if we ever have money again. Here, read this great article by him.

The insufficiency of nature to such a work as conversion is, shows that men may not fall down and idolize their own wit and power. A change from acts of sin to moral duties may be done by a natural strength and the power of natural conscience: for the very same motives which led to sin, as education, interest, profit, may, upon a change of circumstances, guide men to an outward morality; but a change to the contrary grace is
supernatural.
 
Two things are certain in nature. 
(1.) Natural inclinations never change, but by some superior virtue. A loadstone will not cease to draw iron, while that attractive quality remains in it. The wolf can never love the lamb, nor the lamb the wolf; nothing but must act suitably to its nature. Water cannot but moisten, fire cannot but burn. So likewise the corrupt nature of man being possessed with an invincible contrariety and enmity to God, will never suffer him to comply with God. And the inclinations of a sinner to sin being more strengthened by the frequency of sinful acts, have as great a power over him, and as natural to him, as any qualities are to natural agents: and being stronger than any sympathies in the world, cannot by a man’s own power, or the power of any other nature equal to it, be turned into a contrary channel.
 
(2.) Nothing can act beyond its own principle and nature. Nothing in the world can raise itself to a higher rank of being than that which nature has placed it in; a spark cannot make itself a star, though it mount a little up to heaven; nor a plant endue itself with sense, nor a beast adorn itself with reason; nor a man make himself an angel. Thorns cannot bring forth grapes, nor thistles produce figs because such fruits are above the nature of those plants. So neither can our corrupt nature bring forth grace, which is a fruit above it. Effectus non
excedit virtutem suae causae [the effect cannot exceed the power of its cause]: grace is more excellent than nature, therefore cannot be the fruit of nature. It is Christ’s conclusion, “How can you, being evil, speak good things?” Matt. 12:33, 34.  

Not so much as the buds and blossoms of words, much less the fruit of actions. They can no more change their natures, than a viper can do away with his poison. Now though this I have said be true, yet there is nothing man does more affect in the world than a self-sufficiency, and an independence from any other power but his own. This attitude is as much riveted in his nature, as any other false principle whatsoever. For man does derive it from his first parents, as the prime legacy bequeathed to his nature: for it was the first thing uncovered in man at his fall; he would be as God, independent from him. Now God, to cross this principle, allows his elect, like Lazarus, to lie in the grave till they stink, that there may be no excuse to ascribe their resurrection to their own power. If a putrefied rotten carcass should be brought to life, it could never be thought that it inspired itself with that active principle. God lets men run on so far in sin, that they do unman themselves, that he may proclaim to all the world, that we are unable to do anything of ourselves towards our
recovery, without a superior principle. The evidence of which will appear if we consider,
 
1. Man’s subjection under sin. He is “sold under sin,” Rom. 7:14, and brought “into captivity to the law of sin,” ver. 23. “Law of sin:” that sin seems to have a legal authority over him; and man is not only a slave to one sin, but many, Tit. 3:3, “serving divers lusts.” Now when a man is sold under the power of a thousand lusts, every one of which has an absolute tyranny over him, and rules him as a sovereign by a law; when a man is thus bound by a thousand laws, a thousand cords and fetters, and carried whither his lords please, against the dictates of his own conscience and force of natural light; can any man imagine that his own power can rescue him from the strength of these masters that claim such a right to him, and keep such a force upon him, and have so often baffled his own strength, when he attempted to turn against them?
 
2. Man’s affection to them. He does not only serve them, but he serves them, and every one of them, with delight and pleasure; Tit. 3:3. They were all pleasures, as well as lusts; friends as well as lords. Will any man leave his sensual delights and such sins that please and flatter his flesh? Will a man ever endeavour to run away from those lords which he serves with affection? having as much delight in being bound a slave to these lusts, as the devil has in binding him. Therefore when you see a man cast away his pleasures, deprive himself of those comfortable things to which his soul was once knit, and walk in paths contrary to corrupt nature, you may search for the cause anywhere, rather than in nature itself. No piece of dirty, muddy clay can form itself into a neat and handsome vessel; no plain piece of timber can fit itself for the building, much less a crooked one. Nor a man that is born blind, give himself sight.
 
God deals with men in this case as he did with Abraham. He would not give Isaac while Sarah’s womb, in a natural probability, might have borne him; but when her womb was dead, and age had taken away all natural strength of conception, then God gives him; thatit might appear that he was not a child of nature, but a child of promise.
(From The Chief of Sinners Saved which I  selected from Fire and Ice.)

VANCE HAVNER'S HUMOR

(Some more good sayings of Vance Havner, compiled by W. F. Bell. This time humorous).

We looked recently at the man Vance Havner (1901-1986) and some of his powerful insights into the gospel and related truths. Here we look at a few things with humor in them. But remember, when Havner used humor it was not like worldly people do. For Havner, to speak with humor was to put across a spiritual message. You don't have to read him long before noticing the special gift he had for this. Christ is still central.

IMPROVING OLD ADAM
"We are trying to make the gospel acceptable to man as he is. The church becomes an Old Adam Improvement Society. The rich young ruler would be gladly received today, with no questions asked and no sacrifice required."

ABSENT OR PRESENT?
"Some church members tell us that they will be absent in body but present in spirit -- one has a spooky feeling of preaching to ghosts! Then there are those who are present in body but absent in spirit. I'm not sure which crowd I'd rather preach to."

WHOOPING, HOLLERING, MISGUIDED
"Rip Van Winkle slept through a revolution. When he fell asleep, George III was ruler of America. When he woke up, George Washington was President of the United States. Rip didn't know what had happened. He started whooping it up for the King and almost got into trouble. He was hollering for the wrong George! Not a few misguided souls are doing just that today."

IDEAL ENVIRONMENT?
"Ideal environment does not guarantee perfect performance. After all, Adam was in Paradise when he fell! The New Testament was not written on vacation; much of it was penned in jail. Paul was not resting at a pleasure resort when he wrote the Epistles. The Pilgrim's Progress was not put together in a villa on the French Riviera."

MYSTICS OR MISTAKES?
"Some of the old mystics were really mistakes. They tried to be more saintly by hiding in caves. Living in a hole never made anybody holier."

TOUGH HIDES, SOFT HEARTS
"A preacher should have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros. His problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart."

GOD'S HOOT OWL
"Better to be God's hoot owl than the devil's mocking bird."

DUMB DOGS
"The Bible speaks of false prophets as 'dumb dogs, they cannot bark' (Isaiah 56:10). That is one D. D. degree I don't want."

OLD BERT
"On the farm of my boyhood days, we had an old horse named Bert. I observed that Bert never seemed enthusiastic when we started out in the morning, for he knew that a hard day's work lay ahead. But, believe it or not, in the late afternoon, when by all odds Bert should have been tired, he climbed the old hill back to the barn with amazing alacrity. I have often reflected that if an old horse knows when he is headed home and joyfully treads his way at sundown, should not we pilgrims of earth, who seek a City (Hebrews 11:10,14), walk liveliest when we near the other side?"

"Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come." Hebrews 13:12-14

"How sad shall be the days in store,
When voice and vision come no more."
Often quoted by Havner

VANCE HAVNER AND HIS WISDOM

BY W.F. BELL

I have a large picture of Vance Havner hanging on the wall of my study. Evidently taken at his home, he is seated with an open Bible in his hand, with a slight grin. Havner (1901-1986) was like Peter and John, having much "boldness," and also like them, when it was said the religious leaders of their day "took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13). An apt description of Havner! How we miss such preachers as this North Carolina prophet. As we note here some of Vance Havner's wisdom, the big question we must ask ourselves is, Does the world take knowledge of us that we too have "been with Jesus"? Combining his country upbringing with his "open Bible," Havner's true wisdom came from "Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (I Corinthians 1:24). May Christ fill our lives with His wisdom also.

SANCTIFIED COMMON SENSE
"The plainest man who is right with God will make decisions by sanctified common sense that PhD's will never arrive at."

RELIGIOUS SHOP-TALK
"When I listen to the shop-talk in religious gatherings, when I watch the scramble for top seats in the synagogue, when I behold the wire-pulling and politicking for posh pastorates, I cannot make the modern tune fit the Bible words."

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANS
"The issue is Christ. Not the Christ of modernism -- that is a false Christ. Not the Christ of party -- simply Jesus Christ Himself. To know Him and to make Him known, that is enough. The New Testament speaks of being called Christians -- there is our name."

AMAZED OR AMUSED?
"Once we stood amazed at worship in the presence of the Lord. Now a generation bred on entertainment wants to sit amused. What was once an experience has become a performance and the church must put on a show."

SPECTATORS, NOT PARTICIPANTS
"Americans are a generation of spectators. They sit, thousands strong, in a football stadium. Then they go to the movies and thrill to the sham of Hollywood. On Sunday some of them go to church, and once again they are spectators before whom the minister is expected to perform. Many of them have no more intention of doing anything about the sermon than they intend to act out the movies. They are spectators, not participants."

CORNBREAD AND MILK
"On the little farm where I grew up we kept a cow and mother milked the cow each late afternoon. The wood thrush was always at his best at that time and mother called him the milking-time bird. How sweet his vespers as I, a hungry little country boy, waited for my supper of cornbread and milk! A lot of water has run under the bridge since then. This young generation never heard of milking time; they know only about milk in cartons."

Precious memories, how they linger!
How they ever flood my soul!