One of the delusions of the day, is that an evangelical believing in Christ lies within the power of the unrenewed man, so that by performing what is naively called a simple act of faith he becomes a renewed man. In other words, it is supposed that man is the beginner of his own salvation. He takes the first step, and God does the rest; he believes and then God comes in and saves him. This is nothing but a bald and blank denial of the Spirits work altogether. If there is one time more than another when the sinner lies in need of the Spirits power—it is at the beginning. He who denies the need of the Spirit at the beginning, cannot believe in His work at the after stages—nay, cannot believe in the need of the Spirits work at all. The mightiest and most insuperable difficulty lies at the beginning. If the sinner can get over that without the Spirit, he can easily get over the rest. If he does not need the Spirit to enable him to believe, he will not need Him to enable him to love. (H. Bonar) - Arthur Pink
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 08:51:05 +0000