Preaching to the Dead

      So, I just wanted to share with all of you who might come across this blog about something that I read in Jesus Rose for You, which is a book that is a collection of Charles Spurgeon's sermons that I have been reading. I would like to share what he wrote about preaching to unbelievers.

    "Oh, sons of men, if you really want to know God,'ye must be born again' (John 3:7). 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' (John 3:3); he cannot understand it; he cannot know it. The carnal man cannot understand the things of God, which are eternal and invisible, anymore than an ox can understand astonomy or a fish can admire the classics. Poor humanity is dead, not in a moral sense or in a mental sense, but in a spiritual sense, and this is the way in which the Word of God very definitely describes it again and again.
     Consider the many bodies that are sleeping in graveyards. They are quite unconscious are they not? What evergoes on around them neither brings them joy nor causes them grief. Friends they have left behind may water their graves with their tears, but no answering signs come from the gloomy caverns of the tomb. ...
     It is the same way with men who are spiritually dead. They are unaffected by spirtual things. They can hear of a dying Savior, whose groans might move the very adament and make the rocks dissolve, without being moved at all... The pangs of hell do not alarm them, and the joys of heaven do not entice them....
      Someone might say, 'If this is so, then why do you tell spiritually dead people to repent and be converted.' Why do I speak to the spiritually dead in this way and tell them to perform actions that they cannot do? Because my Master tells me to, and as I obey my Master's command, a power goes forth with the word that is spoken, and the dead are startled in their sleep. They awaken through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit, and those who cannot naturally repent and believe, do repent, believe in Jesus, escape from their former sins, and believe."

    If you are sharing the Gospel with someone and they reject it or do not understand it, it is because they are spiritually dead. It is as though you are speaking to a dead body and telling it to come alive. Do not be discouraged if you are preaching the Word and do not see conversions left and right. YOU can not save anyone. Only God can save someone through the power of the Holy Spirit.