Sermon #388-A Effectual Calling By The Rev. James Smith, Of Cheltenham.
My Christian Friends, our minds have been occupied today with some of the loftiest subjects that can engage the
thoughts of man. Our attention has been directed to the infinitely wise and true God, and we have been endeavoring to
conceive of Him as the Great, the Infinite, the Eternal; the Great, the Infinite, the Eternal Intellect, who—of Himself
conceives the grandest schemes, and Infallibly provides for their accomplishment so there are no mistakes, and no failures. We know that every wise intellect forms its plan before it provides its means, or attempts to carry out the idea conceived in the mind.
And the great Doctrine of Election, to which our attention was directed this afternoon, answers to the formation of
the plan in the Infinite mind of God. He foresaw, clearly, that the whole human race, represented by the first man, would
fall into sin, and left to themselves, would certainly perish. To prevent a catastrophe so fearful, He determined in His
Infinite mind to have a people for Himself. A people who would comprise the vast majority of the fallen inhabitants of
this world. They were all present before His mind; their names were registered in His Book, which Book was delivered
into the hands of the Lamb, the Son of God, who accepted the Book at the hands of His Father, and, as it were, signed it
with His own name so that it has been designated, “The Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world.” And Jesus looked upon this act as the committing of the people to Himself on purpose that He might take the
charge of them, on purpose that he might carry out the Father’s will respecting them, and gain eternal laurels and honors to Himself by placing them in splendor, majesty, and glory before His Father’s face forever. We therefore find Him
frequently, when speaking with His Father, and referring to this act in the Eternal Counsels, saying, “Yours they were,
and You gave them to Me. Keep those whom You have given Me by Your own name, that they may be one as We are.”
But election interferes not with man as standing in Adam, but with man as under sin—the result of Adam’s Fall. Election ensured their restoration, but it did not interfere with their fall, and consequently the elect, with the rest, all fell in
the first man. The entire mass of human nature became depraved, polluted, rotten to the core—so depraved, so polluted,
so rotten, that nothing could effect a change but the Omnipotent energy of the Omnipotent God. There is that in depravity in every form that defies the touch of anyone but the Infinite—that refuses to succumb to anything but to Omnipotence itself!
The heart of man is foul as the heart of Satan; the nature of man is foul as the nature of Satan; and the sin of man is
worse than the sin of Satan! Satan, the great archangel that fell from Heaven, did a tremendous deed when he set mind in
opposition to Deity; but man set not merely mind, but matter with mind, in opposition to the Eternal God. God could
once look upon the world and say, “Though mind is in rebellion, matter is not in opposition,” but after the fall of man,
mind and matter alike were corrupt, were depraved, were in opposition to the Eternal! Every man’s heart steams with
enmity against God; every man’s spirit rises in rebellion against God; and, as you have heard tonight, the verdict of every
man’s conscience in its fallen state is, “No God! No God!” And if the Eternal could be voted out of existence by the suffrages of His fallen creatures, every hand would be up, every heart would give its verdict, and every voice would vote for
the annihilation of the Most High! The will of man strong, the will of man stern, the will of man determined, and op-
posed to the will of God will yield to nothing but that which is superior to itself; it laughs at authority, it turns with
disgust from holiness, it refuses to listen to invitation, and in this state, man—universal man, is found! In this state,
man, the entire mass of man, with the exception of those who had been saved by Grace and had been changed by the sacred influences of the Spirit—in this state man was found when Christ came into our world! He came and, as you have
heard, assumed humanity, and united it with Deity. The two natures constituted the one Person of the glorious Mediator; that glorious Mediator stood the Representative of His people; that Mediator stood the Surety of His family; that
Mediator stood the Substitute of the multitude of His fallen ones; that Mediator came to be the Sacrifice to which sin was
to be transferred, by which sin was to be expiated and removed out of the way—that God’s mercy might freely flow, and
from the sinners’ conscience, that he might have peace and joy.
But as the Election of the Father did not interfere with the falling of man’s nature, so the Redemption of the Son did
not change the nature that had fallen. It was therefore necessary that as the Father sent the Son, the Son should send the
Comforter; and as it required an Infinite Victim to atone for man’s guilt, it required an Infinite Agent to change man’s
fallen nature. As to the Father, the Atonement must be made as the moral governor, as the maintainer of the rights of the
eternal Throne; so from the Father, through the Son, must the Holy Spirit descend to renew, to transform, to remodel,
to fit human nature to gaze upon the unveiled glories of Deity, and to render to God the homage due unto His name.
And this just brings me to my point—EFFECTUAL CALLING. This implies that there is a calling that may not be
effectual. Yes, there is a call that extends to the whole human family. As it is written, “Unto you, O men, I call, and My
voice is unto the sons of men.” There is a call that refers to humanity as sinful, and to sinners as such, however fallen and
depraved they may be. Repentance or a change of mind, repentance and remission of sins, are to be preached among all
nations, and the disciples were to begin at Jerusalem. And, beginning at Jerusalem, the slaughterhouse of the Son of
God, and the slaughterhouse of the Prophets and of the saints—beginning there, they said, “Repent and be converted
that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the Presence of the Lord.” But the people
were like the deaf adder that stops her ear, and refuses to hear the voice of the charmer—charm he never so wisely. The
Baptist had come and cried, “Repent,” and sternly and impressively he preached but they paid little regard—at least,
little regard that tended to life. And the Son of God, with all that was soft, and winning, and captivating, came and
preached; but they turned away, and He said, “To whom shall I liken the men of this generation: they are like unto children sitting in the markets and calling to their fellows—We have piped unto you, but you have not danced, and we have
mourned unto you, but you have not lamented.”
Now this call must be given because God commands it; this call must be given because God works by it. In giving the
general, the universal call to all who hear the Gospel, we obey the high mandate of the Eternal God; we do honor and
homage to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we employ an instrument—a weapon, if you please—by which the
Spirit of God operates upon the human mind; for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through
God, to the pulling down of strongholds, and the casting down of imaginations, and every high thing, and the bringing
into subjection every thought to the obedience of Christ. The general call leads to the special, to the particular, or what
we designate, the “effectual call.” We speak to men as men, and we reason with them. We speak to sinners as sinners, and
we expostulate with them; but while we reason, and while we expostulate, we have the promise of the Presence of the
Master—“I am with you.” We have the promised Presence of the Eternal Paraclete who was sent to empower, sent to
accompany, and sent to work by the Lord’s servants! And, while we speak and give the call as we are commanded and
commissioned, the Holy Spirit works—the infinite power of the Eternal Spirit comes into contact—direct, immediate
contact with the mind of man! There is a power that goes with the Word—distinct from the Word—when it is accompanied by the energy of the Eternal Spirit; and that power produces in the heart life—a spiritual, a Divine, an immortal
life—a life that man, dead in sin had not; a life which a man once having, loses not, for it is eternal; a life that was given
us in Christ before the world was; a life preserved for us by Christ all through the past ages that have rolled away; a life
that is communicated from the loving heart of Him who is the great depository of Grace, and conducted by the Holy
Spirit into the heart that is called by Grace!
Has the Spirit accompanying the Word produced life? From that life springs conviction—not the cold conviction
awakened occasionally in the mind of man, by the reasoning of man, by reflecting upon his past misconduct or by the
flashing of the forked lightings of the Law; but a conviction that is produced by the Holy Spirit bringing the Law into
contact with the conscience—the Gospel into contact with the heart! In the sinner’s conscience God erects a tribunal, in
the sinner’s conscience God sits as Judge, and to the tribunal, before the just Judge, man is summoned to appear, and in
the heart, in the soul, in the nature of man, there is a miniature of the judgment that is to take place at the completion
and winding up of the present dispensation. The man is arraigned as a sinner, the man is convicted as a culprit, the man is
condemned as a criminal! He stands before God, and he has nothing to say; every excuse has withered like the leaves of
autumn, every excuse is carried away like the chaff from the summer’s threshing floor, every rag that the man boasted of
is torn from him, and he stands, a naked sinner, before a heart-searching God! The penetrating eyes of the Omniscient
darts into the innermost recesses of his soul, and the gentle fingers of the Spirit turns over one fold of the heart after the
other, the process may be long, or the operation may be quick, but sooner or later the man is brought to this—“In me,
that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing.”
He had once laughed at the Scriptural representation of man’s fallen and depraved nature; he had once wondered
that from the lips of Truth had proceeded the startling words, “From within, out of the heart, proceed murders, adulteries, blasphemies, false witnesses, and abominable idolatries.” He never could have thought that evil so dreadful; he never
could have thought that sin so fearful; he never could have thought that principles so diabolical, could have been found
in a nature like his! But there they are, and he has nothing to object—and under the power of the deep conviction that is
produced, he is filled with terrible alarm. If he casts his eyes back, these are the crimes of his life; if he casts his eyes for-
ward, there is the tremendous judgment; if he lifts up his eyes to Heaven, there is the pure and holy God who he has in-
sulted; and if he turns his eyes within, all is dark and vain and wild. He is filled with alarm—alarm that perhaps keeps
him awake at night, and haunts and harasses him by day, until he is prepared to do anything, prepared to go anywhere if
he may but escape the just judgment of his God! He is by this discipline prepared to submit to God’s method of salvation;
he is prepared to give up proposing conditions according to which he would be saved; he no longer goes about to work
out a righteousness of his own, but he is ready to submit himself to the righteousness of God!
Being, therefore, conscious of his criminality, burdened with his guilt, and trembling at the prospect of his destiny,
he falls prostrate before the high Throne of the Eternal, smites upon his breast, and cries, “God be merciful to me a sin-
ner,” as if no such a sinner had ever appealed to God’s mercy, as if no such culprit had ever stood before God’s Throne.
Before God he says, “If there can be mercy in Your heart sufficient to reach a case so dismal, and so desperate, God be
merciful to me.” And after having pleaded with earnestness, after having supplicated with intense emotion, and after
having, perhaps, become a little bold, he is startled at his own temerity, and receding, as it were, from the position that
he had taken, he cries—
