The Dissilusioned Sinner
May God in His grace disilluion us:
“Security is by the applied blood of the Lamb. Assurance and peace are to be found by resting on the Word of God. The ground of both is outside of ourselves. Feelings have nothing to do with either. Deliverance from judgment is by the Finished Work of Christ, and by that alone. Nothing else will avail. Religious experiences, ordinances, self-sacrifice, Church-membership, works of mercy, cultivation of character, avail nothing. The first thing for me, as a poor lost sinner, to make sure of is, Am I relying upon what Christ did for sinners? Am I personally trusting in His shed blood? If I am not, if instead, under the eloquence and moving appeals of some evangelist, I have “gone forward” and taken the preacher’s hand, and if he has told me that I am now saved and ready to “join the church,” and doing so I feel happy and contented – my peace is a false one, and I shall end in the Lake of Fire, unless God in His grace disillusions me.”
– Arthur W. Pink in Gleanings in Exodus (Chicago: Moody Press, 1977), 86.