God’s Gift and God’s Work

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Wherever faith exists, it is the gift of God. Faith is not a plant that grows spontaneously in the soil of corrupt human nature. It matters not whether we are talking about little faith or great faith, it is the gift of God. If we find faith in one who was raised under the sound of the gospel by godly parents, with loving care and discipline, it is the gift of God. If faith is found in one who was raised in infidelity as an educated barbarian and has lived all the former part of his life in the most vile profligacy, his faith, too, is the gift of God. Faith is the gift of grace, the operation of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, in no way dependent upon man (Ephesians 1:19-20; 2:8-9; Philippians 1:29; Colossians 12:12).

The Opposite Way

I take great encouragement from this fact. If faith in Christ is, in all cases, God’s gift, we should never be selective in the work of the ministry. Our Lord gave us no such example, and no such commission. He told us plainly to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, beginning in Jerusalem and Samaria. Had our Savior carefully studied a map of Palestine, he probably could not have found a more unlikely place in the entire country from which he might expect to find men and women who would believe the gospel and become his disciples.

Samaria was as unlikely a place as any in which we might expect to find people chosen of God to be made followers of the Lord Jesus. When the Lord Jesus first came there, he found the great evil of racial prejudice against him. The Samaritans despised and would never trust a Jew. They would not even listen to a Jew. Yes, it is true the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. Yet, the Samaritans reciprocated the feeling, and had no dealings with the Jews.

Still, it was from among the Samaritans, a race of mongrels, whose faith was a mongrel faith, that the Lord Jesus gathered his elect in larger numbers than anywhere else. Judging by the events of John 4, we would be wise to always go the opposite way of the world’s wisdom and the world’s religion. We ought to always go first to those places and those people where there seems to be the least likelihood of conversions. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. God’s ways are not our ways. But his thoughts are always right and his ways always best. When Paul wanted to go preach the gospel in Bithynia, God would not allow it. He had planned and purposed the salvation of some folks down in a place called Philippi (Acts 16).

A Profound Effect

If we ever truly learn that faith in Christ is the gift, work and operation of God, a supernatural thing, it will have a profound effect. It will alter everything. — We will stop trying to figure out how to make the gospel effectual, and just preach it. — We will quit trying to determine where God is likely to work, and serve him where we are. — We will cease trying to determine who is likely to be saved, and preach the gospel to anyone whose ear we can get. — We will quit trying to make the gospel politically correct, socially palatable and culturally relative, and just preach it.

I say to the preachers of this generation who seem hell-bent on compromising the gospel in the name of seeing sinners converted, — compromise accomplishes nothing! Any converts gained by compromise are twofold more the children of hell than they were before! Faith is God’s gift, God’s work, God’s operation. And it is an operation performed, a work accomplished and a gift bestowed through the preaching of the gospel (Romans 10:17).

May God give us the grace to preach the gospel fully, to proclaim to sinners everywhere the good news of salvation accomplished by the sovereign purpose of God in eternal election and predestination, the obedience of Christ as the Surety, Representative and Substitute of his elect in his obedience unto dearth, and by the irresistible grace and omnipotent mercy of God the Holy Spirit in effectual calling. May God give us wisdom to preach the gospel plainly, and the grace and power of his Spirit to preach it effectually to the hearts of chosen, redeemed sinners.

You and I may and must go, feeble as we are, useless as we are, and tell sinners about the sinners’ Savior. We may and must scatter the precious seed of the gospel. The hand that sows the seed is meaningless. Life is in the seed, not in the hand that sows it. In spiritual matters, not even the soil matters, for it is the grace of God that makes the soil rich and fertile. Until grace comes, all is alike barren, empty and desolate. But God can make the seed sown fruitful anywhere.

He can cause it to spring up in everlasting life anywhere! He can make it spring up like a root out of a dry ground. As of old he brought water out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, so can he bring a harvest to his glory where everything is utterly barren. If this is God’s work, let us have no doubts regarding it. Let us have no despondency concerning it. Let us, rather, continually put ourselves into his hands, praying that he will use us anywhere he pleases. He knows what is best and always does it. So let him do what he will!

Don Fortner

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