Excerpt taken from A Simple Explanation of Monergism by John Hendryx @ www.monergism.com

“Monergism strips us of all hope to ourselves, reveals our spiritual bankruptcy, apart from Christ, and thus leads us to give all glory to God for our salvation. As long as we think we contributed something, even a little bit (like good intentions) then we still think God saves us for something good he sees in us over our neighbor. But this is clearly not the case. We are all sinners and can boast in nothing before God, including the desire to have faith in Christ (Phil 1:29, Eph 2:8, 2 Tim 2:25). For why do we have faith and not our neighbor? Consider that. Did we make better use of God’s grace than he did? Were we smarter? More sensitive? Do some naturally love God? The answer is ‘no’ to all of the above. It is God’s grace that makes us to differ from our neighbor and God’s grace that gave rise to our faith, not because we were better or had more insight.

The fact is that when the Spirit enables us to see that we fail to live up to God’s holy law, man will utterly despair of himself. Then, as C.H. Spurgeon said:

‘… the Holy Spirit comes and shows the sinner the cross of Christ, gives him eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve, and says, “Look to yonder cross. That Man died to save sinners; you feel you are a sinner; He died to save you.” And then the Holy Spirit enables the heart to believe, and come to Christ.’

To conclude, ‘…no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 12:3) . …who is the deposit guaranteeing what is to come (2 Corinthians 5:5). Thus it should become plain to us that not everyone receives this redemptive blessing from Christ. God bestows it mercifully on whom He will according to His sovereign good pleasure (Rom 9:15-18; Eph 1:4, 5). The rest will continue in their willful rebellion, making choices according to their natural desires and thus receive the wrath of God’s justice. That is why it is called “mercy” – not getting what we deserve. If God were obligated to give it to all men then it would not longer be mercy by definition. This should not surprise us … what should surprise us is God’s amazing love, that He would save a sinner like me at all.”