Listen to God
What do we have to do in our times to convince people to obey God? With as many changes and advancements as have been made in our current generation, some changes and advancements being for good but more being for evil and things that contaminate the mind. When one asks themselves this question concidering all the changes in our lifestyles and the way we collect information so much differently, one may begin to think that surely the way we speak to people about Christ must be done different than the way it was thousands of years ago when the apostles preached to people about Christ. We will begin by looking at different conversions in the Bible and see what the apostles and Jesus said to people in their time to convince them to obey God. 1) The first thing we will look at is in Matthew 4:17-22 We see that in tis case that the method was very simple Jesus simply called these four men and they immediatley followed him. 2) Then there is the account of the conversion that we all know very well in Acts 2 on this occasion we see Peter speaking to a group of people, as we begin reading in verse 36 we see Peter telling these people what they had done and now in verse 37 we see their response, they ask Peter and the apostles what shall we do? and Peter here gives them the answer repent and be baptized. Another example that seems pretty simple, so we can see here that Peter simply delivered the message of Christ and we can also see the results in verse 41. 3) Another example we can see of how the apostles taught is in Acts 3. Here we see that as Peter and John went into the temple they saw there a lame man who Peter healed, after he had healed this man many came together and was marveling at this because they all knew this man, they knew that he had truly been lame. Now notice in verse 19 what Peter tells this group of people, Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, what was the results of this? well if we look in chapter 4 here we can see that many of them believed and the number of the men was about five thousand. 4) Also in chapter 8 we can see here begining in verse 27 the account of Phillip and the eunuch, so what did Phillip do that convinced this man to be saved? Notice in verse 35 that Phillip opened his mouth and preached unto him Jesus again a very simple method. We have looked at a few different accounts given in the bible of how Jesus and his apostles went about teaching and converting people to Christ, and as you see how they did this you may think to yourselves that it was really a simple method they used, they simply delivered the message that was given to them and these people obeyed what they heard. But not every attempt they made resulted in some one obeying God. And as we will look at there were many who did not take hearing the things Christ and the apostles told them very well at all.
1) The first example I will use is in Matthew 26:62-67 Here we see that the high priest and those with him did not receive what Christ had told them as others had who received his words without question. Now notice the difference between how the high priest reacted and how the apostles that they immediately left what they were doing and followed Christ, yet when Christ tells the high priest that he is in fact the son of God the people there do not receive his words at all, they do the opposite and become inraged to the point of striking Jesus for what he had said. Now if the high priest had the same kind of heart as the apostles he would have heard what Christ told him and would have believed Christs words.
2)The next example that I will use is of Steven in chapter 7 of Acts this entire chapter is of a sermon that was preached by Steven to a group of people who were to say the least a very aggresive group of people. We all know of the great courage that Steven showed as he stood before this mob. But what I want to look at now is the attitude of the people who heard the message compared to those who heard almost the very same words from Peter on the day of pentecost, First notice what Paul said to the group he was speaking to in Acts 2:36 now Steven tells those in chapter 7:52 practiacally the same thing. They both told those they were talking to that they had slain the Christ that had been prophesied of. Now notice what a great difference there is between how the people reacted in chapter 2:37-41 and how they reacted in chapter 7:54-59 again we see the same message preached but a great difference in how it was received. 3) Another example that we will see is in Matthew 19:16-22 here we see a young man who had come to Jesus who had great possesions, asking Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. We also see that when he recieved the answer from Jesus in verse 21 he went away sorrowful he would not follow Jesus because he didn't want to lose all his worldly possesions so to this man there was something more important to him that following Christ so here we see the message Christ gave him was now received. Also let us look in Acts 4:32-37 so here we find a multitude of people whe had a completley differen attitude about obeying God and what was most imprtant to them. Notice in verse 32 that it says that none of them said that anything he possessed was his own buy they had all things in common and in verse 34 it says that those who possessed land and houses sold them and laid the money at the apostles feet, so we see what a great difference there was between these people and the young rich man. These people knew that for Christ that it was worth it to lose all their physical possessions. Sadly the rich man did not feel the same. I hope we will notice as christians that what we do to convert people today is the same thing Christ and his apostles did two thousand years ago. We preach and teach the word the very same gospel that the apostles preached so long ago. We are not always going to get the response that we would hope for even as the Lord himself did not always get the response that he hoped for. But no amout of technology or advancemenets in commuinication can change the very simple message we have been given by God. Many of these new advancements are great tools for christians to use in their efforts to convert people to Christ but the message stays the same.
