Who Can't be Saved?

Joseph Baker

I am going to ask you to think of someone...someone you know that isn’t a Christian. Now pray for that person, all this week. You might be surprised at the result.

JOHN 3:16-18:"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."

All this is saying is that there is one-and only one-way to be saved. God gave his Son so that everyone can live. He doesn’t want anyone to die, but they have to make the decision to believe.

One of the first reactions that you might have is that person is too far gone. Maybe the person that you have chosen is an unwavering atheist, or maybe they are agnostic and just don’t believe in Jesus. Either way God can change them. All he needs is to be asked.

The Bible has many references to questionable people being saved and transformed by God. The transformation of Saul into Paul, the jailor of Paul and Silas, and Rahab in Jericho are all good examples. All of them had pretty compelling reasons to believe in God. Saul was knocked off his horse by a beam of light from heaven, the jailor just saw his entire jail fall apart by the singing of Paul and Silas, and Rahab heard the stories of the Israelites conquering cities and saw her own city conquered.

However there are people that converted without the fanfare and earthquakes. King Manasseh in 2nd Chronicles is one. In chapter 33 it tells of how he rejected the beliefs of his father Hezakiah. He did everything the exact opposite of what God wanted him to. Manasseh built altars to false gods, practiced witchcraft, consulted spirits, put carved images in God’s temple; he even sacrificed his sons! After feeling God’s anger through the Assyrians, he started paying attention. It was only after being in prison that he realized that he needed God to help him. After God helped him out of prison, Manasseh cleaned up his act. He got rid of all the evil things that he had built, and fortified the walls of Jerusalem so armies wouldn’t defeat them. He is an example of a person who did a 180 degree turn because of hopelessness of his situation.

A little more recently another man surprised Christians with his conversion. C.S. Lewis was a man with a high intelligence and a high moral code. He became an atheist at the age of 13 and held that belief strongly for 18 years. He said that he fought the idea of Christianity up until his actual conversion, and "...came into Christianity kicking and screaming." One of the main reasons for his conversion was his good friends J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and Dyson was a strong Christian. One day after talking about religion they challenged him to think critically about Jesus. Later that night he accepted Christianity. In his partial autobiography "Surprised by Joy" Lewis says "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." After his conversion Lewis is described as one of the foremost "defenders of the faith" and wrote many books about theology and Christianity.

All of these people came to the realization of God and the acceptance of Jesus. All of them were unlikely candidates for Christianity. But through God and the actions of close friends they all changed their ways and became thriving Christians. Philippians 4:13 says "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." Likewise we can share the truth with those people that don’t seem to care, with the help of God. If we pray for these people, then they might become receptive of the Word. Then we can allow God to use us to bring them into his family. Remember God doesn’t want them to die; he wants them to realize the truth and believe. And like that friend in the car wreck, and that friend in the hospital, the person you’ve targeted wants to know, deep down. They don’t want to go through the pain of hell. They just might not know it yet. The answer to "who can’t be saved?" is nobody.

Right now take a moment of silence. Pray for that person that you have targeted. Pray that God will work in their lives and open them up to his word.



Articles by Rev. Daniel B. Baker :: Webmaster: Joseph I. Baker