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Christ reached and rescued us. He pressed through the veil of our stubbornness and rescued us from ourselves. Thank God that He did. Without Him, what would we have? Apart from Him, what would we do? We need Him every moment of every day. We cannot afford an instant of self-sufficiency. What an ash heap of human pride is the saying: "God will not force Himself on anyone." That is the lie of Satan. Yet how many who claim the name of Christ believe and teach it.

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We now understand that God gives the belief and faith necessary for salvation. But this leads us to a startling and initially troubling conclusion: He has not given this belief and faith to others. While this may be a hard pill to swallow at first (I recommend a little orange juice), it is nonetheless true. But as I will show, this is not a problem. Truth is never a problem. Discarding error is the problem.

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¨ Romans 11:32- "For God locks up all together in stubbornness."

¨ Romans 9:18- "Consequently, then, to whom He will, He is merciful, yet whom He will, He is hardening."

To the mind unprejudiced by traditional teaching, these verses say one thing: God is responsible for human unbelief. Don’t shoot the messenger. This truth is probably causing yet another seemingly inescapable problem to trouble you. Allow me to place the problem squarely before you and offer a solution to it in the plainest possible language. I choose English.

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God needs a cross to reveal His salvation. He needs rotten Romans who know how to hammer people. He needs a foul priesthood to offer the Sacrifice. He needs, yes, a Judas Iscariot to deliver the Lamb. He needs enemies and sinners and whips and nails and vinegar and reeds to fulfill His Scriptures. And so, He gives Israel a spirit of stupor (Romans 11:8). He makes vessels of dishonor, to make His powerful doings known (Romans 9:21-22). He has made the wicked for this day of evil (Proverbs 16:4), and has created the ruiner to harm [His Son] (Isaiah 54:16). The mob in Jerusalem believe they have untrammeled wills, but they are doing precisely what He has designated beforehand to occur (Acts 4:27-28). None of them know that (1 Corinthians 2:8), but it doesn’t matter. This was a scene choreographed by God (Ephesians 1:11), for our benefit (Romans 5:9). Good and evil are servants in His hand (Job 2:10).

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The day I finally realized that salvation was not of me, was a big day. This was years after I had become a so-called Christian. In the old days, I would say my salvation was "not of me," but I never really believed that. I was brainwashed into saying it, but not believing it. The day God revealed it to me—what a revelation. What a day. I had been a Christian for years, but I’m speaking now of the day I became a believer. There really was no difference, I discovered, between my flesh, my mortality, my ability to seek God, and the flesh, mortality, and ability of unbelievers. I was in the same boat as everyone else. This is humbling, when you finally see it. It breaks you and you cry.