So You Want to Give An Invitation?

AN APPEAL TO SINNERS

"You are maimed and your arms are gone. But you are worse off than that, for if you could not work your way to heaven, yet you could walk your way there along the road by faith; but you are maimed in the feet as well as in the hands; you feel that you cannot believe, that you cannot repent, that you cannot obey the stipulations of the gospel. You feel that you are utterly undone, powerless in every respect to do anything that can be pleasing to God. In fact you are crying out-

Oh, could I but believe,

Then all would easy be,

I would, but cannot; Lord, relieve!

My help must come from thee.*

To you I am sent also. Before you I to lift the blood-stained banner of the cross, to you I am to preach this gospel, ‘Whoso calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved;’ and unto you I am to cry ‘Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.’"**

*extracted from a hymn by John Newton

** From the New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 4 (sermon called “Compel Them to Come In, Luke 14:33)


Copied from The History of the English Calvinistic Baptists 1771-1892 by Robert W.  Oliver, pages 343-344

Here we have an example of a self-admitted Calvinist, whole-heartedly committed to the doctrines of grace giving an evangelistic appeal for sinners to cry out to God for salvation, begging for help, not from them, but from God. This is a far cry from, ‘Just ask Jesus into your heart.’ Don't you think so?