Here's an interesting subject as well, and I don't want to go too deep on this, but I
think it's an important point to mention.
How about people, and pay close attention because I don't want to lose anybody because
I'm going to go a little deeper here.
How about people who were already saved when Jesus came on the scene?
Because here's the thing, people are saved in the Old Testament, right?
Okay, so what about people that are already saved, and then John the Baptist comes on
the scene?
Jesus comes on the scene.
Did those people have to get re-saved?
No, of course not, because you only have to get saved once.
So they were already saved.
The disciples didn't have to get re-saved when they met Jesus, they're already saved.
That's why I even picked them.
They were saved before they'd ever even heard of Jesus, because they're under the Old Testament
system, okay?
Now here's how this works, because some people have put out a hypothetical, "Well what if
somebody was saved in the Old Testament, but then when Jesus came along they didn't believe
in him?"
You know, here's the thing, that's impossible situation, here's why.
Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me." Now, that means that when Jesus
came on the scene, Jesus comes into Israel and starts preaching, okay? There's three
kinds of people that are out there. There are people that are already saved, okay? And
those people, when they heard Jesus preach, they knew this is the voice of the shepherd.
This is the son of God, and they believed in him, right? But they were already saved,
and because they were saved, they believed in him, okay? Then, there's another kind of
people, people that were not saved, but when they heard Jesus preach, or when they heard
John the Baptist preach, they got saved, right? John the Baptist, Jesus the Apostles, got
them saved. And then, there's a third group of people who were not saved, they heard John
the Baptist and Jesus preach, and they still didn't believe in him, and they still didn't
get saved, right? Now, let me give you an illustration to help you understand this concept.
Let's say I took the Bible and showed a saved person a passage of scripture that they've
never seen before, because most Christians have not read the whole Bible. So if I took
a saved Christian, and I show them a passage of the Bible that they've never seen before,
and they point at it and say, "I don't believe that. That's a lie." You know what I'd say?
That person's not even saved. I thought they were saved, but that person's not saved. Because
if I show a saved person a passage from the Bible, they're going to believe in it every
single time. And if they don't believe in it, it's evidence that they weren't saved,
because you know what? He that is of God, heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them
not, because you're not of God. Okay, so if I show a saved person the Word of God, they'll
believe it. I'm not saying that they're going to necessarily have the same interpretation
of something that's complicated, but I mean, if I just show them a clear scripture, it's
just right there. I mean, how many times have you had somebody point at the Bible and say,
I don't believe that. And what does that tell you? Not saved. Okay, well it's the same thing.
If Jesus came along and started preaching, and somebody that you thought was saved said,
I don't believe this guy is the Messiah. I don't believe this. He's a false teacher.
What does that tell you? He wasn't saved in the first place. Okay, so let me ask this.
Was Saul of Tarsus saved during the ministry of Jesus and Stephen? No way. Why? Because
when Jesus came along and preached, and when Stephen came along and preached and these
other men of God preached, did Saul of Tarsus believe their preaching? No. He fought against
Christianity. He persecuted Christians. Look, Saul of Tarsus was on his way to hell, right?
But until Ananias preached him the gospel and he called on the name of the Lord. Up
to that point, he was religious. He profited in the Jews' religion above many his equals
of his own nation. Why? Because you could profit in the Jews' religion without being
saved. Saul of Tarsus wasn't saved until he got saved in the book of Acts with Ananias,
called upon the name of the Lord, and became the apostle Paul. That's who we're talking
about, the apostle Paul. Before that, he was called Saul of Tarsus. His mentor, Gamaliel,
was unsaved. Anybody who didn't believe on Christ wasn't saved because the people that
were saved, they were the sheep. When they heard Christ preaching, they embraced it because
they said, "Hey, this is the word of God. We recognize this is the word of God." When
John the Baptist preached, they recognized it as the word of God. When the apostles preached,
they recognized it as the word of God. The ones who rejected it and said it was false
and heresy, they were just showing that they weren't even saved in the first place. So
anyway, I just wanted to cover that. And by the way, with the people who got baptized
by John the Baptist, they didn't have to get baptized again, you know, after the death,
burial, and resurrection.