The saying is more than likely as old as the animal’s history, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.” My friends you can employ all the words of love that you can imagine, you can cajole and threaten, you can offer every truth there is, but when you lead a man to the cross of Christ, you cannot make him repent.
I have witnessed to individuals with words of love, showing them from the Scriptures the truths of their need for a Savior, the facts that their good works, no matter how many they have accomplished, cannot measure up to the righteousness that God demands of all that He will call the sons of God. I have warned them of the threats, the promises in the Word of God of what will happen to them if they do not repent, an eternity of fire and pain, of hopelessness and separation from the Lord. I have shown them that the religious organization they belong to is lying to them, that they are edifices of Satan, and I have spoken to those who believe that if they attend an Evangelical church on a regular basis that there is no proof of salvation in that one deed.
“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3)
To repent is to change one’s mind, and to behave accordingly to that change that only came about by the power of the Holy Spirit. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2) The renewing of our minds must mean the discarding of that which we once thought of as truth, as the path that was the correct one, it is the revelation that everything that we believed before that moment was a lie when it came to the means of our salvation.
It is at times quite easy to discern those who have only professed the Lord Jesus with their lips, they are Christlike only in the church setting. Their minds have not been transformed, the deeds they did before, the friends they had, in fact even their lifestyles are not altered. Their lives do not revolve around Christ.
There are stages, if you will, that most who have been born-again go through, and they are almost always similar in nature. When we first are saved by His grace through faith, we are ecstatic, everyone we know must be told, everyone we meet we want to share as much of the good news of Christ with as we know. In time, there is what I call a “cooling off” period, for those friends do not want to hear about the Lord, they are not concerned with what His Holy Book says, they want their old friend back, and we begin to see that we will be walking much of this journey alone. Then of course we became, for lack of a better explanation, callous, not towards Christ, but towards ourselves, here is where the battle with the flesh truly begins, here is where our adversary will begin to place the world at your doorstep, here is where we seek the promise of 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
We were led to the cross, we fell on our knees, and were from that moment on, eternally blessed. Now the true frustrations begin, not only the battle with our flesh, that old nature, but our inability to understand how the wicked can still deny Him who offers so much.
I have not kept track of every person I have told the old, old story to; I cannot tell you if that seed I was used to plant for the glory of God has begun to grow, or if it died on the path. I do not need to know, I need to continue leading all I can to that cross, the decision they make there is entirely up to them.
“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14)
