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Evangelism & Prayer (Part 8) · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Sometimes people ask, well, if God's providence is that pervasive,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: if his sustaining governing ordering of all things, including things
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: that happened to us and things that we will, if
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: everything is planned out like that, why pray? Why do evangelism?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It's an odd question, always puzzled. Why did they ask that?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: That just seems so strange to me that people would
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: ask that. In nineteen sixty seven, Noel and I were
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: at Urbana, the Great Missions Conference, and back in those
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: days you could stand up and ask questions from the audience.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: They're only about nine thousand people there, and one of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the questions had to do with why do you why
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: do you people on this panel up here? Why do
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you do missions? If God predestines, governs, rules, decides all things,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: what's the point of missions? And one of the great
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  Speaker 1: old statesmen there said, you know, I had that same
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: attitude when I went out first to Pakistan decades ago.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay, I will use my training and my
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: prayer and my spiritual wherewithal to convert Muslims to Christ.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And he said, now, after all those decades, I wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: dream of going to Pakistan if I didn't believe in predestination,
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  Speaker 1: meaning if God doesn't have the power and the right
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to use his omnipotent providence to save sinners, this is hopeless.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Jesus said, when the rich young man walked away, he said,
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  Speaker 1: with it. With man, this is impossible. But with God,
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  Speaker 1: all things are possible. It's just an odd question. It's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: if you ask why pray or why evangelize? If God
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  Speaker 1: has appointed who will be saved and whom he will
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  Speaker 1: providentially bring to himself. It's like asking, if God has
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: decided for the tight end to catch the pass, then
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: why should the quarterback throw it well, because God does
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  Speaker 1: it that way. Or here's another simple analogy. If you've
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: got a two by four and a nail, and God
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: has decreed that nailed to be in that two by
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  Speaker 1: four with the head flush, would it contradict the decree
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  Speaker 1: of God to hold the nail with your left hand
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  Speaker 1: and solidly hid it with the hammer until the head
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  Speaker 1: is flush. It's just an odd question. What those illustrations
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  Speaker 1: simply say is God's means of doing what he has
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  Speaker 1: decided to do is prayer and evangelism. So let's just
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  Speaker 1: take those one at a time. Prayer the way to pray,
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  Speaker 1: and Paul ported its life out to pray for unbelievers.
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  Speaker 1: Roman's ten one. My heart's desire prayer to God is
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  Speaker 1: that they might be saved. The way to think about
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  Speaker 1: prayer and God's providence is you look at the Bible
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  Speaker 1: and you see what God has committed himself to do
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  Speaker 1: in his providential saving of sinners, and you pray that.
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  Speaker 1: For example, Ezekiel eleven nineteen. I'm turning these now into prayers,
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  Speaker 1: Ezekiel eleven nineteen. God, take out the heart of flesh,
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  Speaker 1: put in the heart of stone, and give them a
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  Speaker 1: new heart. Deuteronomy thirty verse six. Lord, circumcise their hearts
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  Speaker 1: so that they love you, Ezekiel thirty six twenty seven. Father,
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  Speaker 1: put your spirit within them and caused them to walk
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  Speaker 1: in your statutes. Two Timothy two twenty five. Lord, grant
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  Speaker 1: them repentance and the knowledge of the truth, so that
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  Speaker 1: they escape from the snare of the devil. At sixteen fourteen, Father,
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  Speaker 1: open their hearts that they may give heed to the Gospel.
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  Speaker 1: That's the way we pray, and those prayers that I
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  Speaker 1: just pray, there is the way I pray for my
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: family and my church, my neighbors, The way I pray
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  Speaker 1: is so look at what the Bible has showed God
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  Speaker 1: is going to do by his omnipotent, providential intrusion into
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  Speaker 1: the lives of blind, dead, unable sinners. Turn those promises
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  Speaker 1: into prayer, because prayer is the means that God has
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  Speaker 1: chosen to do his sovereign work. Same thing with evangelism.
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  Speaker 1: Listen to Firs. Peter one twenty three through twenty five.
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  Speaker 1: Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed,
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  Speaker 1: but of imperishable through the living and abiding Word of God.
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  Speaker 1: A pause? How were we born again? How did the
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  Speaker 1: miracle of God's providential invasion of our dead souls to
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  Speaker 1: give us new life in the new birth? How did
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  Speaker 1: that happen? It happened through the living and abiding Word
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  Speaker 1: of God. Now what's that? Keep reading? For all fleshes
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  Speaker 1: like grass and all its glory, Like the flower of grass,
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  Speaker 1: the grass withers and the flower falls, But the word
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the
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  Speaker 1: good news that was preached to you. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: nobody's born again without evangelism. Nobody is born again. Who
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  Speaker 1: doesn't hear the good news? Because that's the instrument, that's
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  Speaker 1: the hitting of the nail. That's the throwing of the past.
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  Speaker 1: So amazingly, when God calls you to pray, me to pray,
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  Speaker 1: and God calls us to open our mouths and bear
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  Speaker 1: witness to him, he is calling us to be partners
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  Speaker 1: in his providence, partners in his saving providence in people's lives.
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  Speaker 1: And the amazing thing about that, one of the amazing
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  Speaker 1: things about that is that if you do that, you
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  Speaker 1: are participating in something that cannot fail. Listen to this
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  Speaker 1: Isaiah forty six nine and ten. I am God, and
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  Speaker 1: there is no other. I am God, and there is
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  Speaker 1: none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and
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  Speaker 1: from ancient times things not yet done, saying my counsel
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  Speaker 1: will stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. When
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  Speaker 1: you partner with God in his intention to save sinners,
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  Speaker 1: you can't fail in achieving his purposes.