“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies, and if they perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let no one go there unwarned or unprayed for.”

“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will.”

source

My original fear of “if” arose because of a statement my aunt innocently said to me when I was a young boy. She said, “No pretty girl will ever marry a cross-eyed boy” and I was and still am cross-eyed.

Since then, I wondered for over a decade, “what if I was not cross-eyed” and became sorrowful and fatalistic.

God had mercy on me and led me to a church who then introduced me to marry my wife even though I did not propose to her. That was 32 years ago. I think that since then, I no longer have any fear of “if.” That’s entirely God’s grace to me.