You Can’t Save Anyone | Part One

As the title might imply, this post is about evangelism.  I want to diverge from my normal way of writing and delve into a deeper topic which is the second most important thing in life to me (next to God); and that is people.

I will discuss the reasons why, as Christians, we must evangelize, and then I will thoroughly explain why you can’t save a single soul on this earth. Not only will I use stories from my own life to back up my claims, but I will give you practical advice on how to reach your lost friends.  This may take a while…

The entire ambition of the gospel is singular: to save sinners in a spirit of reconciliation to God. My favorite verse in the bible states Christ’s intentions clearly:

“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”

-John 10:10 (The Message)

This theme is repeated again and again throughout scripture just with different wording:

Jesus came to “set the captive free” (Isaiah 61:1).

Jesus came to “save sinners” (I Timothy 1:15).

Jesus came to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

It is this, therefore, that we have the gospel.  It is for the lost, the broken hearted and it is the light to a dark world.  A verse I used a while back in an article entitled Street Preaching was Romans 10:14;

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

This verse begs the most obvious of all questions; how does the gospel get from point A (a believer) to point B (a non believer)?

The simplest of answers is YOU.  It is your job to preach the gospel; it’s your job to live it .  Hopefully you can now extract why Christians must evangelize.  If not, I can put it two ways, the first being that Christians should evangelize because if they don’t, no one will ever hear the good news and Christ’s original reason for coming to earth will be hindered because of it.

Second, Christians should evangelize because God commands it (Matthew 28:16-20).

Now onto my second main point which at first may seem frightful, but will eventually come as a relief. You can’t save anyone.

Some of you reading this may be saying, “duh James, thats a no brainer.”  Others, like myself however, probably never thought of evangelism in such a light.  You see, when I first started witnessing to my friends I thought it would be easy.  Why would they not want eternal salvation and the many blessings that come from knowing God?  Then, once I began researching apologetics, I felt I could take on anyone in a debate, show them they are wrong and I am right and then give them no logical choice but to turn to God.

How many reading this know it doesn’t work like that?  I hope a lot by now, that means you are already out there evangelizing and learning from mistakes like I have.  I’ve made that mistake so many times now I just don’t take that route at all.  If they are persistent I ask a simple question, “If I could prove to you that God exists, would you bow down and serve Him for the rest of your life?”  Most will answer ‘no’, because after all the thought of God existing is not so much troubling to them as the thought of losing their life or that they would be under the authority of a being far greater than themselves.

So after years of struggling to convert people with my knowledge I had a scary dream, one that kept me up the rest of the night shivering.  I basically learned two things from this dream (which I later found scripture to back up).  The first being that I am powerless to save people.  The second, that God will save people when He so chooses to save them.  Ultimately, it isn’t about me, or about the person being saved, it is about God’s glory; and He gets to chose when such glory will be attributed to Him.

Time for the scripture:

“Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”

- Romans 9:18

“But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”

-1 Timothy 1:16

In part two, I will go more into detail about these points:

-  More on God’s timing as opposed to ours with example from the parable of the persistent widow.

-  More on why I believe living the gospel is of huge importance.

-  More stories from my life about people I’ve witnessed to, and how it happened.

-  Defining and recognizing a pyrrhic victory when discussing with a non believer

-  What you CAN do to save a person (seed, water, and growing)

-  Practical advise for every day evangelism

God bless beloved.

TagsAnyone, Can't, Evangelism, James, Part 1, Save, Thayer, You