Where In The Bible Will I Find:

God Appearing Direct To The Alien Sinner For Salvation

It is a very popular imagination that in the matter of conversion one must wait until supernatural agencies move, and divine powers, separate and apart from the Word of God, be brought to pass. Hence, the great mysticism, the miraculous conception, and the “better-felt-than-told” ideas that so many good, honest, but honestly mistaken, people have today. There is nowhere in all the Bible that reveals any divine appearance to anyone for the purpose of converting that person without obedience to the Gospel on the part of the alien sinner.

But, you say, “How about Cornelius, did not an angel appear to him? And Saul of Tarsus, did not Christ appear to him?” Let's look at each of these cases and see if the subjects were saved on the spot without doing anything. The record shows that Cornelius was a good man but he was not a Christian, so the angel of the Lord said unto him, “...send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter ... he shall tell thee what thou ought to do” (Acts 10:5-6).

What an opportunity that angel passed up by just not saving Cornelius on the spot, and look at all the trouble he would have saved Cornelius by not having to wait several days for Peter to get there. Why did not the angel tell Cornelius "Words whereby he would be saved," as modem so-called preachers think today? Could not the angel say, “Cornelius you are a good man, you are now saved, nothing else for you to do.”

Christ could just have spoken the word to Saul on the road to Damascus and then Saul would not have had to go on in to Damascus to be told by a preacher what he must do to be saved. There was never a better time for Christ to have given an answer to the question that Saul asked, “Lord what wilt thou have me to do” (Acts 9:6). Christ told him to go on into the city and there it would be told what he must do. Why? In both cases, much time could have been saved by a “direct conversion,” but in each case a preacher had to be sent to tell the alien sinner what he must do to be saved.

Christ had commanded His apostles to “Go make disciples in all the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit...” (Matt. 28:18-20), and the apostle Paul said that “We have that reassure in earthen vessels...who ever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved - how can they call on Him whom they do not know - and how can they hear without a preacher - so faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (II Cor. 4:7; Rom. 10:13-17).

So here we see why they were not saved on the spot, God has given the task to men, mortal men, earthen vessels to tell people what they must do in order to be saved. The same thing holds true today, man must hear the Gospel, because the power of God to save is in His Gospel (Rom. 1:16), and obedience to His Word will save the lost.