If God is Sovereign, Why Pray or Evangelize?
One of the most frequent questions Christians ask when they hear about God’s sovereign election is “why should we pray or evangelize?” That is to say, if God is going to do what he’s going to do and has already decided ahead of time who will be saved, then what’s the point?
These are valid questions. After all, adopting a fatalistic approach which leads one to think their actions are inconsequential is profoundly unbiblical. Therefore, allow me to offer four reasons why Christians should still pray and evangelize even though God has sovereignly ordained all things.
1. God Commands Us
I think the easiest answer to this question is that God tells us to evangelize and pray. The Great Commission is clear (Matt 28:18-20). The Lord Jesus wants us to go “make disciples.” And of course, our church’s mission statement reflects this very idea: We exist to glorify God by making disciples of all nations.
Furthermore, Scripture contains dozens of exhortations to pray. We’re told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17) and to consistently make our “requests known to God” (Phil. 4:6). Again, our church tries to emphasize the importance of prayer through weekly prayer meetings, corporate prayer on Sunday mornings, and prayer time in small groups. Our church covenant also exhorts our members to pray consistently on their own.
So while a text like Ephesians 1:11 states we have “been predestined according to the purpose of him who works out all things according to the counsel of his will,” we must also bear in mind that God has also instructed us to engage in evangelism and prayer. That is to say, God’s sovereign will and our prayers/evangelism are biblically consistent with one another.
As Charles Spurgeon once said:
That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other.
And if you know anything about Charles Spurgeon, he was devoted to evangelism and prayer!
2. We Get To Participate in God’s Plan
Next, prayer and evangelism affords us the opportunity to participate in God’s kingdom work. Certainly, God could have saved a whole host of sinners without our help. He is perfectly capable of doing things unilaterally. For God could have determined to whisper in people’s ears, appear to them in dreams and visions, or write his gospel message in the clouds to bring people to salvation. But he has not chosen to ordinarily operate that way. Rather, he has chosen to use the foolishness of human preaching to advance his kingdom plans.
To use a sports analogy, God has put us in the game! He doesn’t save us and then have us sit on the bench. We get to participate in what he’s doing in the world. And as God has made perfectly clear in his word, he has ordained for our prayers and evangelism to accomplish his purposes to bring about his kingdom.
As Paul writes in Romans 10:4-15:
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
You see evangelism and prayer are the great privileges of Christians. We must also remember that through these ordinary means, God is not only enlisting us in his kingdom building, he is also wedding our hearts to his. For as we continue to pray and evangelize in faith, the Lord continues to draw our own heart towards his which causes our love and affections for him to increase. And is this not our ultimate purpose in life? As the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
3. God Ordains the Ends as well as the Means
As I’ve already argued, God ordains the ends. That is, he has predestined those who will be saved. At the same time, however, he also ordains the means by which to bring about those ends. God knows who his elect are. And he knows exactly what it will take in order for them to come to faith in Christ. Therefore, he ordains that our prayers and preaching be the instruments by which the elect come to saving faith. In short, prayer and preaching affects change!
Listen to the prayer of the early church in Acts 4:24-29:
Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them . . . for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,
Notice how they address God as the “Sovereign Lord.” That is, they recognize that he is in complete control of all things. More than that, they recognized that he determined the events which had taken place in their midst when they acknowledged that rulers like Herod and Pontius Pilate did “whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” Certainly, these early Christians could see that the rulers acted sinfully in what they did. Yet at the same time, they recognized that these earthly rulers were accomplishing God’s sovereign will by their actions.
Yet despite this understanding of God’s sovereign will, the church felt freedom to pray and ask the Lord to “look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.” Therefore, one the one hand, they acknowledged God’s sovereign will. And on the other, they knew that God uses the prayers of his saints to accomplish his purposes.
Also consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 6:6-8:
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
According to Jesus, our prayers don’t add new information to God or cause him to change his mind. In fact, it would be rather audacious for us to think we could somehow teach the all-knowing God of the universe something new. After all, God never changes his mind, nor can anyone be his counselor (Rom 11:34). Isaiah 46:10 states that God is “declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’
But while prayer may not change God’s minds, we can be confident that it does change things. That is, God delights in answering the prayers of his people to affect change in the world (James 5:16). And it’s these prayers as well as evangelism which are the ordained means that God uses to bring about his ordained ends.
4. We Pray and Evangelize BECAUSE God is Sovereign
When we pray for people’s salvation, how should we do that? Should we limit our requests by asking God to bring them only to the point where he doesn’t override their freedom? Or should we pray that he would do whatever is necessary to bring them to saving faith? My sense is that most Christians adopt the latter approach when praying for the lost. But doesn’t this approach to prayer suggest that people believe that God is sovereign over people’s salvation? That it’s not really about the person making a free will choice, but about God who opens the eyes of unbelievers?
On the flip side, if God doesn’t supernaturally intervene in people’s lives to bring about salvation, then what are we actually asking God to do when we pray? It seems to me, then, that a belief in God’s sovereign will motivates, rather than undermines, a Christians desire to pray and evangelize.
Consider Acts 18. We read that Paul was discouraged because he hadn’t had much success as a witness in Corinth. But God spoke to him one night in a vision. God said in verses 9-10:
Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
Do you see that? God motivated Paul to keep preaching the gospel by telling him that several of his elect were in the city, they just hadn’t believed yet. In other words, God was guaranteeing Paul success if he would only keep laboring as a witness. And so he remained in that place for another year and a half preaching the gospel.
Or consider Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 3:6. He said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but Got gave the growth.” When Paul speaks about planting and watering, he’s most certainly referring to prayer and preaching. When he speaks about “the growth,” he’s referring to the spiritual change that takes place in people’s lives (i.e., salvation). Paul, then, recognized that he was powerless to bring about salvation in people’s lives. At the same time, he recognized that God would bring about the spiritual change provided that Paul and Apollos continued to “plant” and “water.”
Finally, let’s briefly consider Acts 13:48. After Paul and Barnabas had finished preaching, we read:
And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
Notice the sequence. It’s not “those who believed were appointed to eternal life.” Rather it’s “those who were appointed to eternal life believed.” In other words, God’s election guaranteed that Paul’s and Barnabas’s preaching would be successful.
Conclusion
In this article, I’ve sought to address the concern that an understanding of God’s sovereign election undermines prayer and evangelism. In fact, I’ve gone so far as to say that a belief in God’s election encourages more prayer and evangelism, not less! And I would argue that we’ve seen this play out in church history.
While some argue that a belief in sovereign election leads people to reject the importance of evangelism or prayer–something typically called “Hyper-Calvinism”–I must confess I’ve never met anyone like this. I won’t go so far as to call it a “boogeyman argument,” but I’ve never met a single Reformed Christian who didn’t think prayer or evangelism was important.
Rather, I’ve observed scores of people both now and in church history who held to a high view of God’s sovereignty and at the same time were committed prayers and evangelists.
I’ve already mentioned Charles Spurgeon as someone who held to God’s sovereign election and yet was as evangelistic and prayerful as they come. Others include William Carey, the man widely considered as the father of the modern-day missions movement. George Muller, a man notorious for his incredible prayer life. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield–the two most influential preachers of the Great Awakening. John Calvin who was responsible for sending out hundreds of missionaries from Geneva to Catholic France and Brazil. And many contemporary preachers who have had a significant impact on the advancement of the gospel in America. These preachers include the likes of John Piper, John MaCarthur, Tim Keller, David Platt, Matt Chandler, and more.
Now listing these names in no way proves my position (I could just as easily list other godly preachers who disagree–e.g., John Wesley, Billy Graham, etc.). I’m simply pointing out that affirming God’s sovereign election does not undermine the importance of prayer or evangelism. It never has. And God-willing, it never will.
