Means of the Call

Pastor Martin completes the doctrine of calling by considering its pattern and its means. Using homely illustrations of a mother's sewing pattern and a builder's blueprint, he shows that God's work in calling is never haphazard but always follows a fourfold pattern: eternal design, determinate purpose, electing love, and Christ-centered grace. Then from 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 he establishes that the divinely appointed means of the effectual call is the gospel: God called you through our gospel. He refutes the notion that sinners need a special inward revelation that they are elect — Lydia's heart was opened simply to attend to the things spoken by Paul — and closes with application to preserving the purity of the gospel, proclaiming it zealously, fusing it with prayer for the Spirit's power, and refuting the canard that sovereign grace cuts the nerve of evangelism.