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The sermon presents election as God’s eternal saving purpose and effectual calling as the Spirit’s inward work that brings the elect from sin to faith in Christ. Assurance is not grounded in passive doubt or a bare profession, but is strengthened through diligent faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, perseverance, and consistent obedience. Good works do not earn salvation, yet they necessarily evidence genuine renewal. Those who lack assurance are urged to seek God’s mercy, abandon self-righteousness, cling to Christ alone, and pursue a joyful, fruitful entrance into the everlasting kingdom.
Theological center: God eternally elects and effectually calls sinners by the Spirit through Christ, securing their salvation while producing holiness as its necessary evidence.
Applications: Make calling and election sure · Cultivate Christian virtues · Reject sinful presumption · Come to Christ in faith
Primary texts: 2 Peter 1:10-11 · Romans 8:30 · John 10:28
“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:10-11 IT is exceedingly desirable that in the hours of worship and in the house of prayer our minds should be as much as possible divested of every worldly thought. Although the business of the week will very naturally struggle with us to encroach upon the Sabbath, it is our business to guard the Sabbath from the intrusion of our worldly cares, as we would guard an oasis from the overwhelming eruption of the sand. I have felt, however, that today we should be surrounded with circumstances of peculiar difficulty in endeavoring to bring our minds to spiritual matters, for of all times perhaps the most unlikely for getting any good in the sanctuary, if that depends upon mental abstraction, election times are the worst. So important in the minds of most men are political matters, that very naturally after the hurry of the week, combined with the engrossing pursuit of elections, we are apt to bring the same thoughts and the same feelings into the house of prayer, and speculate, perhaps, even in the place of worship, whether a conservative or a liberal shall be returned for our borough, or whether for the City of London there shall be returned Lord John Russell, Baron Rothschild, or Mr. Currie. I thought, this morning, Well, it is of no use my trying to stop this great train in its progress. People are just now going on at an express rate on these matters. I think I will be wise, and instead of endeavoring to turn them off the line, I will turn the points, so that they may still continue their pursuits with the same swiftness as ever, but in a new direction. It shall be the same line. They shall still be traveling in earnest towards election, but perhaps I may have some skill to turn the points, so that they shall be enabled to consider election in a rather different manner. When Mr. Whitefield was once applied to use his influence at a general election, he returned answer to his lordship who requested him that he knew very little about general elections, but that if his lordship took his advice he would make his own particular “calling and election sure,” which was a very proper remark. I would not, however, say to any persons here present, despise the privilege which you have as citizens. Far be it from me to do it. When we become Christians we do not leave off being Englishmen. When we be…