In this podcast episode, we explore the profound journey of Saul of Tarsus, who started as an antagonist of the church and ended as one of its most fervent apostles. Through this story, we uncover God’s unyielding power to transform even the most resistant individuals and His profound ways of reaching out to those who resist the Gospel. Through an in-depth analysis of conviction, this discussion sheds light on the spiritual process of recognizing one’s need for salvation.
Have you ever met someone, been around them a little while and thought to yourself,
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I don’t think they’ll ever get saved. I just don’t know how in the world God will ever get through to someone who has that kind of attitude. They seem to be so bitter about God, so hostile about the church, so unbelieving about the Bible, so blasphemous about Jesus Christ. I don’t know that they’ll ever be saved. Well, probably all of us have met people that we wondered, Lord, how could you ever reach someone like that? But one thing that’s very evident from the scriptures, there’s not anybody… so bad, so evil, so wicked, so vile, that it’s hard for God to save them. They may run. They may defy Him. They may fight against Him. They may be angry toward Him. They may be even hostile toward His people. Nobody is beyond the reach of a loving Father. And it’s interesting in the Scriptures when you read the Gospels that most of the people that Jesus brought to Himself were those people who came to Him. Now there was, of course, Zacchaeus, who was up a tree. When he saw him there, he said, Zacchaeus, come down. I’m going home with you today. Blind Bartimaeus was sitting by the highway side, but he called out to Jesus and asked him to heal him. And then, of course, the rich young ruler came to him and fell down and said, tell me how to inherit eternal life. A woman touched him on the hem of his garment, and he realized that power had gone out of him, and so she was healed. And then the woman at the well, it appeared to be a chance meeting. Of course, it was not. But most of those people are people who came to Jesus. But what about those people who just defy God? I mean, they absolutely, deliberately, willfully resist any opportunities about salvation. Don’t want to talk about the Bible. Don’t want you to talk about it to them. In fact, they’re just absolutely downright hostile about it. Well, what about God’s reach toward that person? Does it extend toward those who are so angry at God, hostile toward Him and His church? Yes, it does. So I want you to turn, if you will, to Acts chapter 9, because here is a perfect example of how God works in the life of a person. who indeed hates the Lord Jesus Christ and would do anything in his power to rid his name and everything he stands for from the face of this earth. I want us to read these first nine verses, though what we’re going to talk about takes care of almost 31 verses in this passage. And this is the account of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, whom we know as Paul the Apostle. So the scripture begins, now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogue at Damascus so that he may, if he found any belonging to the way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. And it came about that as he journeyed, he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground. and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and it shall be told you what you must do. And the men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. And Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing. And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now, what I want you to see for just a moment is what happened to this man who was such an antagonist of the church. Because once in a while, we’ll meet somebody, we’ll say, well, Lord, you know, I know the grace of God’s great. And we’ll say, yes, I know that God can save anybody, but Lord, I’m not too sure about so-and-so. Well, here’s someone who is a perfect example of one whom God loved in spite of everything he did and everything that he was. And I want you to see how God begins to work in his life because the way God begins to work in his life is the way he works in every person’s life who’s saved. And that is, there begins a deep conviction. Conviction, listen, conviction is a feeling. It is a feeling of a sense of need. It is a feeling of a sense of need that a person needs something they cannot do for themselves. And as that conviction begins to grow, it becomes an awareness that God is dealing with them and that conviction brings them to the point that they need something for themselves only God can provide. Now, there’s no such thing as salvation without conviction. Until a person is convicted that they need Jesus, until a person is convicted, becomes aware of their need of Christ and the reality of who He is, they’ll never be saved. And so when a person says, well, I’ll be saved one of these days somewhere out yonder. I don’t want to be saved right now. I don’t have any desire to be saved. One of these days I will. You will not be saved until there is a conviction, that is, the work of the Holy Spirit on the inside of you working in your life. You see, because somebody says, well, I’ll be saved one of these days when I choose to. No, you won’t. You won’t be saved when you choose to. You’ll be saved when God chooses to. And so there’s got to be conviction. I’ve never known anybody who said, well, I think I just want to be a Christian and just decide they want to be. No, there is a conviction of a need, a conviction of a need that is different in every person’s life. Now watch this carefully. Let’s say, for example, that here is a young child. That little child wants Jesus in his or her heart, that son or that daughter. And so you ask, well, what about this conviction? Well, what kind of conviction has taken place in the life of that child? Well, it certainly isn’t conviction over a lot of bad sin in their life because they’re so young. Now, of course, they know the difference between right and wrong. Their parents have taught them. Well, they know that what sin is, that sin is disobeying their parents or disobeying what God says. So they have an idea about that. But what is it that the Holy Spirit is convicting that child of? It is the Holy Spirit’s conviction is a sense of need. It creates a desire within a child’s heart that if Jesus is who my parents say he is, if Jesus is who the pastor says he is, then I want him. I want to be saved. I want Jesus in my life. So in a tender, innocent child’s heart, That child says, I want to ask Jesus into my life. You say, well, do you believe that a person can be saved at the age of five? Absolutely. Both of my children were saved at that age. I’ve met many other children who were saved at that age. I’ve met many adults who were saved at the age of five or six or seven years of age. The Spirit of God did not convict them of a whole bunch of gross sin. He convicted them of their need and their desire in their heart. And it is the Holy Spirit who places that desire in the heart of a child to want Jesus Christ as their Savior. Do they understand what reconciliation, justification, redemption, and glorification is? Absolutely not. And let me ask you, how many of you understood it before you were saved? Right. So therefore, all of us are children when it comes to understanding the things of God. Now here’s, for example, a person who’s 16 years of age. A teenager living in sin. When the Holy Spirit convicts that teenager about their sin, it’s a whole different story. Then it’s conviction about sin. It’s conviction about sins. It’s conviction about their heart. It’s conviction about who Jesus Christ is, their need of Christ, His death on the cross. Whether you’re 16, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, or 100, it’s the same thing. The Spirit of God’s work in a person’s heart is to convict them of two things, their sins, and secondly, the person of Jesus Christ, that He is the only solution to that sin, and that when He died on the cross, He took their sin debt in full, and therefore, their conviction has to do with sin and the person of Jesus. When the Holy Spirit of God convicted, when Jesus came to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road, you’ll notice he didn’t say, Saul, you have been persecuting my people. You have killed my saints. You are trying to destroy the church. He came upon him in such a way, struck him down, blinded him, got his attention. And so Saul said, Lord, who art thou? He knew this was God because he saw something he’d never seen before. Not that he saw the visible presence of God or Jesus necessarily, but he saw this dramatic light that was so overpowering he knew this had to be from heaven, but he heard the voice of God. He said, who art thou, Lord? He said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. The issue with Saul of Tarsus on the road the day that he was converted was not his S-I-N-S, which was very evident, which was so horrible and terrible. The issue was, who is Jesus? Was he a Nazarene? Was he simply one of those itinerant preachers, or is he the son of God? And it’s interesting, listen, it’s interesting if you turn to the 20th verse of this ninth chapter, that after Paul’s conversion, immediately the Bible says he begins to preach and teach. And this is what happens, verse 20. And immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue saying he is the son of God. What was his message? His message was exactly the message he got on the Damascus Road. I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. And he knew that Jesus Christ had to be whom all of these converted people were saying he is the son of the living God. He is the resurrected Christ. He’s sitting at the Father’s right hand. And in that moment, on that day… Saul of Tarsus knew he had met the resurrected Christ and the reason all these Christians would not blaspheme his name because he was and is indeed the living resurrected Christ. Look if you’re in the sixth chapter of John, and the scripture says, talking to these Pharisees, he said now, verse 43, Jesus answered and said to them, do not grumble among yourselves. Now look at this 44th verse. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise him up on the last day. He says, no one can come to me unless the Father draws him. Look at that. No one can come to me except the Father draws him. He says you can only come if God draws you. And he says those whom he foreordained and he predestined, those he called. So when you think about your salvation, there’s not one single thing that you and I can take credit for. Because the Bible says if you were saved by the grace of God, it was foreordained, predestined, he called you. Well, does God just call some and not everybody? And then he asked another question, has God chosen to save some and chosen to send some to hell? Absolutely not. So I want to say that again. God does not choose to save some and choose to send others to hell. God indeed does choose to save. He says, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men. Many are called, few are chosen. So what we have to ask is, is it the will of God for anyone to be lost? No. He says, it’s not my will that any should perish. He says, he desires that all people would be saved. So it’s very clear in the scriptures, and there are many others that you and I can turn to. It is the will of God and the purpose of God. It is the desire of the heart of God that every person would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Will everybody call upon him? No, they will not. They rejected Jesus in his day and they’re rejecting Jesus today. And my friend, if you’re a person who has heard the gospel or listening to the gospel and you have rejected him and if you keep on rejecting him and if you die in a state of rejecting Jesus Christ as your savior, you will be eternally separated from God by your own choice. not because God didn’t want to save you, not because He didn’t try to, not because He didn’t send His Son to make it possible, not because He does not reach out to you in love. If you die without Christ, it’ll be because you rejected the truth, because you have chosen to have your own way, because you’ve said, I don’t want God having His way in my life. You have chosen to resist deliberately, willfully the truth and the opportunity of knowing God as your personal Savior through His Son, Jesus Christ. That’s the way it is. So the question comes, can anybody be saved? Anybody called by God? Anybody the Lord God draws? Well, can you be saved anytime you want to? No, you can’t. You cannot be saved until you are convicted of the need of salvation, until the Spirit of God works in your life, and you sense the call of God in your life. That will not come in everybody’s life the same way. Well, let’s talk about this whole issue, for example, of free will. Now, let me ask you this. How free is a man’s free will? Now, when I say man, I’m talking about men and women. How free is a person’s free will? Somebody says, well, a free will means you have the freedom to do anything you please. You believe that? I certainly hope you don’t. Because listen, when you take this to its fullest, here’s what you’re saying. If any person on the face of this earth has an absolutely, perfectly, complete free will… That means that they are no longer subject to God. God is the sovereign of this universe. And listen, while man has a free will, it is a limited free will. No one has an ultimately free will. The most vile, wicked, personal face of this earth can only do what God allows them to do. Now, why God allows some people to do some things he does, I don’t know. But they can only do what God allows them to do. Not necessarily what God wills them to do, but what God allows them to do. No one has an absolutely free will. All wills are subject to the sovereign, ultimate, omnipotent will of the living God. Otherwise, we’d have real tragedy everywhere. And God would not be the supreme sovereign of this universe. So therefore… No one has an ultimately free will. Well, what about this whole idea of many call, few are chosen? I want you to hear this very clearly. God would never choose to save these and choose to send someone to hell. Never. So he doesn’t make those kind of choices, but God does choose to save some people in spite of themselves. And you say, now, wait a minute. Now, just wait a minute. Now, you mean to tell me that God work up against the person’s will? Thank God he does. Most of us wouldn’t be saved. Thank God he works against their will. Does he recognize their will, acknowledge their will, respect their will? Yes, he does. But that does not mean that God’s just going to back off and say, be my guest, have it any way you want to. No, because He sent His only begotten Son into this world that you and I may be saved. Now listen, the Spirit of God came into this world to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And conviction, friend, is pressure. If you ever felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit, you know what pressure is like. And the Spirit of God knows how to turn it up. When the Apostle Paul… fell down, blind, smitten by Almighty God. On that day, what happened? God’s conviction came in a climactic form, struck him down, identified who he was. And let me ask you a question. How many of you think lying there in the sand, talking to the Lord Jesus Christ and hearing Jesus say, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, how many of you believe he could have said, I don’t want any part of that, nothing doing God, forget it. I don’t think he could have said no. You say, well, but what? No, I don’t think he could have said no. Because God had brought him to such conviction. Listen, here’s the man he hated. And suddenly when he realized he’s God. You think Paul could have said anything but yes. And in the King James Version it says, what wilt thou have me to do? Which is certainly what his attitude was. Could he have said no? I don’t think he could have said no. If you’re not saved, could you say no? You probably can. I don’t know that. Depends on what kind of conviction God’s got you under. Will he save everybody? No, because everybody’s not going to respond. He’s going to call many, and will he save some in spite of them? Yes. Has he chosen some for specific tasks? Yes. Is that fair? Yes. Yes. You and I will understand the purpose and plan for our life as it unfolds in our life once we place Him where He belongs. That is the Lord and Master of our life. So when somebody says to you, well, look, just leave me alone. Don’t give me any more of this church stuff and this Bible business. When I get ready to get saved, I’ll let you know. And my friend, I say this with all the love in my heart. You can’t get saved when you want to. You can only get saved when you begin to sense the call and the Spirit of God. That’s why every time you hear the gospel, it’s so very important. What I want us to see is it is a dangerous thing to feel and sense and hear. the message of truth, and say, no, no, no, no, no. Well, will I one day not even have those feelings and those interests? It’s possible. That’s what you call a hard heart. Well, can I be saved after my heart’s heart? No. Well, why not? Because if your heart gets so hard and you have absolutely no desire, and you have turned and spurned the Spirit of God that you absolutely will not listen, you absolutely will not consider, you will not have anything to do with anything that has to do with God, then how are you going to be saved? You won’t even want to. You say, well, you mean to tell me that I can get to the place in my life that I won’t even want God at all? Yes. That’s why it is so dangerous to hear the gospel of truth and to turn it down. Amen. Now, what about it? You say, well, I’ve been listening and I go to church every once in a while. But have you ever trusted Jesus as your Savior? Have you ever, listen, let’s put it this way. Have you ever felt conviction? Have you ever felt that something was wrong? Have you ever felt there was a separation between you and God? Surely you have. What did you do about it? Brush it off? Ignore it? Tell somebody about it? Just decide you were just going to forget it? Are you willing to have the courage to deal with it? You see, that’s God drawing you through His Spirit. And I want to encourage you to ask Him to forgive you of your sins and tell Him that today, Lord, I do believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I do believe, Father, that You sent Him into the world to die for my sins. I do believe the witness of Scripture. And by faith, I’m accepting Him as my Savior, my Lord, my Master. The moment you do that, He’s your Savior. Then what? You find a church that preaches the truth, you’re baptized, and you let your life begin to count for God. Is everybody going to be a preacher? No. Everyone going to have a Damascus Road experience? No. But once you’re saved by the grace of God, things become new. Listen, if this message is as glorious and life-changing and as powerful as we say it is, then all of us ought to be telling it. to our circle of influence, wherever we live, whoever we are.
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Thank you for listening to today’s podcast titled Those Who Resist the Gospel. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
