How can a person believe in the sovereignty of God and despise the mandate of a sovereign God?

God's not only sovereign in his grace, he is sovereign in his commands.

Well I remember a most discomforting experience I had when I was a seminary student, and I was in a seminar and we were studying Jonathan Edwards work, The Freedom of the Will.

And I believe there were 22 of us in that class and the professor had us arranged in a semi-circle in front of his desk and he enjoyed

the Socratic method of teaching. He called it dial lecture. We said he lectured we died because he

would constantly grill us and put us on the spot and ask us difficult questions.

And on this one day, he said to us,

all right, gentlemen, if it is true that God from all eternity

has chosen to save certain people and not others.

Why then should we be busily involved in the task of evangelism.

And I breathed a great sigh of relief

because I happened to be sitting at the extreme right end

of this semicircle of students,

and he asked the person on the extreme left end and his

custom would be to go right down the line so I knew that there were 21 people who

would have to wrestle with this question before he would ever get to me.

And I was delighted that I had that safety cushion.

And so he started with the first student and he said,

Mr. So and so, if divine election... And so he started with the first student and he said,

Mr. So and so, if divine election is true,

why should we be involved in evangelism?

And the student just candidly replied a minutely.

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