Election by a sovereign God was one of the mainstay doctrines in the preaching used by God during great days of Awakening. Will it be preached today? Should it be preached today?

During the revival ministry of Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844) more than 25,000 were converted, principally in the New England area. According to John Thornbury this figure would be about 600,000 if percentaged to our present population.¹ Nettleton, for one, did not shrink back from proclaiming a God who elected. The following vignette comes from the book on his life by his dear friend Bennet Tyler.

A certain individual said to him: "I cannot get along with the doctrine of election." "Then," said Nettleton, "get along without it. You are at liberty to get to heaven the easiest way you can. Whether the doctrine of election is true or not, it is true that you must repent, and believe, and love God. Now, what we tell you is, that such is the wickedness of your heart, that you never will do these things unless God has determined to renew your heart. If you do not believe that your heart is so wicked, make it manifest by complying with the terms of salvation. Why do you stand caviling with the doctrine of election? Suppose you should prove it to be false, what have you gained? You must repent and believe in Christ after all. Why do you not immediately comply with these terms of the gospel? When you have done this, without the aids of the divine grace, it will be soon enough to oppose the doctrine of election. Until you shall have done this, we shall still believe that the doctrine of election lies at the foundation of all hope in your case."²

I concur. Election by a sovereign God is "at the foundation of all hope." It is this election that we wish to explore in the next few pages. There can be no question that the Bible speaks of election. In fact, God says that we are elect before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

It is a well-known fact that the spiritually facile New England pastor and revival leader, Jonathan Edwards, was taught by his father to write down almost every new thought he had, a method he practiced throughout his life. His Miscellanies are now an invaluable source of wisdom. In his written out thoughts are found the embryonic form for many of his sermons and books.

I keep a Commonplace Book as well, as so many did in the past. And though I don't write out everything I think, I often wish I had.

Here are some reasons for writing out our thoughts:

• We more easily discipline our minds to sustain our thoughts without interruption.
• If interrupted, because we have written our thoughts, we are able to return to them again for further contemplation and development. Click to read the rest of this article.
  
  
  

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1. Two books have just come out with chapters by Jim Elliff. The first is A Foundation for Life by Joshua Press (Click HERE to read more or to order from Amazon.com) and The Glory of Christ (Crossway Books), in which Jim has two chapters along with J.I. Packer, Al Mohler, and John Armstrong, editor. (Click HERE to read more or to order from Amazon.com) We hope you will order these resources for your own library, and perhaps a copy or two for leaders you know. The first book is specifically designed for new believers and to provide a teaching format for Christian leaders. It was originally requested by church leaders in China.
2. Jim is taking six months (July-Dec) off from the out-of-town aspect of his work, in order to preach locally, develop the local aspects of the ministry, work more extensively on writing, spend some needed time with family, and more personal time for meditation and study. The one exception is that Jim plans to take three or four weeks from mid-Oct to mid-Nov in Europe where he will speak at the FIEL Conference in Portugal and other places. If all goes well, Jim will take his family along. Meetings are being scheduled from January on in 2003. Please pray that Jim will have a meaningful growth and ministry time for these months. All aspects of the work through the office will go on as normal.
3. Jim is introducing a new line of items for explaining the great news about Christ. These cardstock bi-folds are well-illustrated, straightforward presentations that you may like to look over either for yourself or for friends and relatives. We call them Seeker's Guides. You may wish to order a sample pack. Current titles include: Mother Teresa Leona, The Change of Mind, Destroying the Future, 'Tis the Season?, If God is Good,Why Do So Many Bad Things Happen? and If I should Die Before I Wake You may also ask for the freedom to download these so that you can run off what you need when you need them. Email Susan at webserver@ccwonline.org for the correctly formatted pieces used with Microsoft Publisher. Seekers Guides may be useful for the following: distribution to individuals, follow-up to a message, assigned reading for a youth retreat, bulletin inserts on days the good news is emphasized, etc.
4. Our Zambian project is exciting. We are now working with the Katabwa Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia (Conrad Mbewe, teaching pastor) to print some our materials in their country for distribution. Our first project is to distribute Wasted Faith with an introduction by Conrad and some minor "Zambianizing" of the content, to every pastor in the country of 10 million! They will then be able to order copies from the church publishing house. God has already provided our first several hundred dollars for the project and will certainly add to that all we need as it is needed. We believe there will be great fruit from this approach in a country where there is a desperate need for sound Christian literature.
5. Pam Elliff is gearing up for the school year when we will again teach the kids mostly at home. We are now trying to reduce the number of trips out per week from 13 to more like 8, but don't seem too successful! Benjamin (15) will add a course on Worldviews at Christ Prep, a new University-styled school in the city. Bryan (13) plans to take parliamentary debate. Laura (10) is quite interested in taking an outside art class. With sports and music and church activities, mom plans establish residence in the car! All of the kids love reading, which they would love to employ as their only method of schooling. I woke up this morning at 4:30, for instance, and Benjamin was still reading Phantom of the Opera. He went to bed at 6:30 a.m. How do they do it?