Dr. Joel R. Beeke

[The last article] considered the Puritans’ responses to four human impediments in coming to Christ: neglecting Christ, false conversion, despair due to great sins, and spiritual complacency. This concluding article expounds their responses to an additional four human impediments in coming to Christ.

Impediment #5: Despair Due to Backsliding

Some people refuse to come to Christ because they believe their backsliding has disqualified them from doing so. They believe they have committed the unforgivable sin. They think they may have been saved at one time, but now all hope is lost because they have committed a terrible transgression. They have sinned against the Holy Spirit, and thus they are cast off forever.

O backsliding friend, come to Christ, for He says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” This includes you. There are no exceptions in Christ’s promise. All whom the Father gives to Christ, He will raise up. The Lord said in Jeremiah 3:12, “Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever.” Matthew Henry (1662–1714) wrote that these words reveal “God’s readiness to pardon sin and to receive and entertain [welcome with blessings] returning repenting sinners.”¹ He is ready to forgive you when you come to Him! Remember that Christ taught that we must forgive the sin of a brother, “until seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22). Divine forgiveness must exceed such a human standard.

You may object: “I am clearly not one that the Father has given to His Son. For if I was, I would not have backslidden so grievously.” Dear friend, do you long after Christ? Do you despise your sin? Do you feel remorse for what you have done? If you say yes, the gospel promise is for you. But if you continue to push it away, saying, “It can’t belong to me,” think of David or Peter, and many others, who returned to Christ after a lapse into gross sin. You, too, are not beyond the reach of sovereign grace. Heavy laden as you are, come to Christ and cast your burden at His feet. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Impediment #6: Confusion about Election

Some people refuse to come to Christ because they do not think they are among the elect of God. They say, “If Christ only saves His elect, and I don’t think I’m elect, then all my attempts to come to Him will fail.” You, dear friend, have misunderstood the doctrine of election. This doctrine does not keep people away from Christ; when rightly understood, it draws people to Christ. Without the glorious doctrine of Christ’s free election, no one would come (Rom. 3:10–12). Election is the friend of sinners; it paves the way for sinners to come to Christ. The door is open.

“But it is not open to me,” you say. Dear friend, do not let your election decide your coming; let your coming decide your election. Joseph Alleine wrote, “You begin at the wrong end if you first dispute about your election. Prove your conversion, and then never doubt your election…. Whatever God’s purposes be, which are secret, I am sure His promises are plain…. Do not stand still disputing about your election, but set to repenting and believing.”²

The doctrine of election should drive us to Christ. Come to Christ and He will enable you to make both your calling and your election sure (Acts 5:31).

Impediment #7: Ignorance of the Gospel Call

Some people refuse to come to Christ because they have never heard the command to come to Christ; they have never repented of their sins and have never felt the Spirit open their hearts to embrace the Christ offered in the gospel. For such persons there is a message of warning and a message of hope. The message of warning is that if you continue in your ignorance and unbelief, you will perish in it, and there will be no hope of coming to Christ. The door of the kingdom of heaven will be barred fast. You will be kept far away from the Lord Jesus Christ, forever and ever. To you, I lovingly exhort, learn of Christ, come to Christ, and trust in Christ, while there is time to do so (John 6:37).

Impediment #8: Unbelief

All of these impediments — and there are many more — are rooted in the soil of unbelief. Unbelief is the “mother sin” of all sin, the root and receptacle of all sin. Unbelief is the
“mother sin” of all sin, the root and receptacle of all sin. Unbelief is the belief of Satan’s life. Unbelief makes us cling to the world rather than to Christ. Unbelief is the ultimate reason for not coming to Christ.

John Calvin wrote, “The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light…. Unbelief makes us rebels and deserters; [it] is always proud…. Our own unbelief is the only impediment which prevents God from satisfying us largely and bountifully with all good things.”³

Matthew Henry said, “Nothing is more offensive to God than disbelief of his promise and despair of the performance of it because of some difficulties that seem to lie in the way…. Unbelief may truly be called the great damning sin, because it leaves us under the guilt of all our other sins; it is a sin against the remedy.”⁴ Ultimately, it is unbelief that will drag to hell all those who refuse to come to Christ. “No sin makes less noise, but none so surely damns the soul, as unbelief,” J. C. Ryle said.⁵

I once pastored a man who strove hard against his unbelief. With tears streaming down his face, he cried out, “I hate my unbelief! O my cursed, cursed, cursed unbelief!” Do you hate and curse your unbelief? Do you flee to Christ from it as that which is most offensive to God (John 6:37)?

Conclusion: Reject the World’s Pig Food and Be Christ’s Willing Slave

Rowland Hill (1744–1833), a popular, evangelical, English preacher, hit a low point in his ministry for a few months in the midst of his ministerial career. He was sorely disappointed with the lack of fruit on his ministry. One day he looked out of his study window and saw a pig farmer going to market. To Hill’s amazement, the pigs followed the farmer straight into the slaughter house. When he later saw the farmer emerge from the slaughter house without the pigs, Hill went out to meet him. The minister said, “How did you get those pigs to follow you to their own death? I cannot get people to follow Christ to their eternal life.” The farmer replied, “Didn’t you see that as I walked along I had some pig feed in my pockets and that I just dropped a few crumbs every few steps as I walked? For a few crumbs of food they followed me to their death.”

Will you believe and follow Satan for a few crumbs of this world’s pleasures to your eternal death? Or will you believe in and follow the Savior to eternal life who said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35)?

Take to heart the words of Charles Spurgeon, “Unbelief will destroy the best of us. Faith will save the worst of us.”⁶ If, by grace, you do come to Jesus, think of what you will have. David Clarkson said, “You shall be admitted to such union with him, such a relation to him, as will not only engage his tenderness and love, but his joy and delight…. He will join you to himself in an everlasting covenant, a marriage-covenant, that shall never be broken, nor you ever divorced.”⁷

A wealthy Englishman went to California in the 1850s to enrich himself during the gold rush. After much success, he left to go back to England. He stopped at New Orleans on the way home, and, as all tourists did at that time, visited the infamous slave trading block. As he approached the place where people were sold for cash, he saw a beautiful young African woman standing on the block. He overheard two men, who were trying to outbid each other for her, talking about what they would do to her if they could buy her. To their surprise the Englishman joined in the bidding by offering twice the price.

The auctioneer was astonished. “No one has ever offered this much for a slave,” he said.

After purchasing her, the Englishman stepped forward to get her. When he helped her down to his level, she spat in his face. He wiped away the spit and led her to a building in another part of town. There she watched uncomprehendingly as he filled out forms. To her astonishment he handed her some manumission papers and said, “There, now you are a free woman.” She spat in his face again.

“Don’t you understand?” he asked, as he wiped her spit away again. “You are free! You are free!”

She stared at him in disbelief a long while. Then she fell at his feet, and wept. And wept some more. Finally, she looked up and asked, “Sir, is it really true that you paid more
than anyone has ever paid to purchase me as a slave, only to set me free?”

“Yes,” he said, calmly.

She wept some more. Finally, she spoke: “Sir, I have only one request. Can I be your slave forever?”

Come to Jesus Christ, for He will not cast out those who come to Him. He alone has purchased them with the price of His own blood. He alone can set them free from bondage to sin and death. He alone can lead them to eternal life. And in so doing, He makes them willing and ready to live unto Him, as His willing servants in this life and for ever (Ps. 110:3).

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1. Matthew Henry’s Commentary (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 4:331.
2. Alleine, An Alarm to the Unconverted, 12.
3. Quoted in Blanchard, The Complete Gathered Gold (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2006), 661.
4. Ibid., 662.
5. Ibid., 663.
6. Ibid.
7. Clarkson, Works, 1:347.

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Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This article was given as an address in the Netherlands.

Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, used with permission.