AG STUDY GUIDE FINAL - The Forerunner

spreading of the Gospel by speaking to these heathen nations.
Church Leader - Mr. Carey, Mr. Carey, calm yourself down. If it
pleases God to save the heathen, He shall do it without your aid or
mine. For God is sovereign…
Fortunately, William Carey didn’t listen to that church leader. Some friends helped him
start the English Baptist Missionary Society, and under it’s auspices in 1793, he sailed for
India and became:
“…the greatest and most versatile Christian missionary sent out in modern times.”
Carey was a Calvinist.
Evangelism is a responsibility and a privilege. Arminians sometimes think that, if the
church embraces Calvinism, evangelism will die. However, when you consider that
many of the greatest preachers and evangelists in history were Calvinists, this fear can
be seen as unwarranted. In Section I, we gave a short list of these men. If time would
permit, we could spend hours, even days, naming off others. Who would ever charge
Jonathan Edwards, or Spurgeon, or Whitefield, or J.C. Ryle, or John Piper, or Dr.
Kennedy with being slothful in their responsibility to evangelize? Well, no one - at least
no one in their right mind.
Dr. Roger Schultz – We look at the history of the United States, we see that our greatest
revivals, the most impressive ones in our country’s history, were produced through the
sovereignty of God by people who were committed to the doctrines of grace. The first
“Great Awakening” in 1740, 1730’s and 40’s, with Jonathan Edwards and George
Whitefield were remarkable outpourings of God’s grace and they were outpourings of
God’s revival by people who proclaimed the doctrines of grace.
Dr. Stephen Mansfield – You know the standard knock on Calvinism is that it
undermines the reason for evangelism, that, if God has already chosen men, there’s no
reason to evangelize. But the fact is, the greatest evangelists in the history of the church
have, for the most part, been Calvinist. George Whitefield, certainly one of the greatest
evangelists in the whole history of the church, and one of the founders of America,
really, a Calvinist who led a huge number of people to Jesus. And others have been as
well. So the reality is that a man is more likely to preach the Gospel when he knows that
God has already sovereignly chosen to make him a success at his efforts than he is if it’s
just based on human will.
The fact is, not only does Calvinism with its high view of God demand that we obey the
Lord and take the Gospel to the four corners of the world, it also guarantees our success
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