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"The sinner needs to be told emphatically that he MUST believe and that, in case he does not believe, the wrath of God will abide on him.
A worse predicament than that in which the unsaved sinner finds himself cannot be imagined. He MUST believe in Christ. If he does not he will be damned. Yet he CANNOT believe [without a work of the Holy Spirit]. Of that dire predicament he must become aware. If he is made aware by the Holy Spirit he will look away from himself for salvation and abandon himself unreservedly to the grace of God. That is precisely the act of saving faith.
A certain man had been a paralytic for thirty-eight years. Together with a multitude of other impotent folk he lay at the pool Bethesda. He despaired of recovery. Jesus spoke: 'Arise, take up thy bed and walk'. The paralytic was comanded to do that thing which of all things he could not do, and let no one think that he was not aware of his complete inability. But he also knew that his one hope of getting well lay in his doing that very thing. Fully conscious of his plight, he forgot himself and fixed his eye on Jesus. That was faith. By faith he was made whole (John 5:1-9)"
-R. B. Kuiper
HT: Kevin Williams
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