Author Attribution: Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service
The Exceeding Wickedness of not Believing in Christ
Sixthly, if you do not come and believe in Christ, you commit the most abominable of all sins, with the exception of the sin against the Holy Ghost and the express act of blasphemy towards God, for the following reasons:
1. You deem the true God to be a liar. “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son” (1 John 5:10). No one is so foolish that he would not desire his well-being and life itself. Man will seek this, even if it is in the things of this world. God, however, testifies that life and salvation are in His Son. Therefore not to avail yourself of the Son, and to seek your rest, joy, and delight in something else, is to say, “It is not true that life is to be found in the Son, that is, in Christ, but it is in the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.” Take note that in doing so you expressly accuse God of being a liar.
2. You thereby despise Christ in His friendly invitation and offer relative to all that pertains to salvation. To despise someone who comes to help us is inhumane. To be evil because someone else is good is contrary to all civility. Think for a moment how intolerable it is for Christ to be despised by a sinner, especially when considering that He comes to help in a most friendly manner.
3. You are despising all true and heavenly benefits, and all that pertains to your salvation both here and forever. To kick with your feet against those benefits which alone are rich, genuine, glorious, delightful, satisfying, and eternal, is the work of one who is bereft of his senses and who is the most wicked person imaginable. You cannot but be convinced now that you must come and believe in Christ. If you refuse, be assured that you are guilty of a most abominable sin.
Know therefore that you will also bear the greatest of all punishments and will endure a most dreadful hell. Therefore hear your sentence, you who will neither repent nor believe: “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36); “In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of (that is, who do not believe in) our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Th. 1:8).
Seventhly, it is an extraordinary honor for the Lord Jesus to be so completely trusted by someone to receive wretched ones, to safely protect those who, persecuted by enemies, take refuge in Him, to satisfy the hungry one, and to bear those that are weak. Abraham conducted himself in this fashion. He “was strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom. 4:20).
Excerpt from The Christian’s Reasonable Service by Wilhelmus à Brakel (Volume 2, p. 301–302).
