No One Is Beyond the Reach of God | Sunday Message

Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners.

I'm Greg Laurie encouraging you. If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. The message is no one is beyond the reach of God. Now I want you for a moment to think about someone you know that is not yet a Christian. Now I want you to think of someone that, frankly, you can't even imagine them becoming a Christian.

It's like a stretch to think of this person walking around carrying a Bible and saying praise the Lord. Think about that person. And maybe that person is antagonistic towards you. Maybe that person is an outright atheist. And now I want you to start praying for that person. Why?

Because no one is beyond the reach of God. I'm writing a new book. It's a spiritual biography.

And as you may know, I've already written three. My first one was called Steve McQueen, The Salvation of an American Icon. And it's a story of how the then number one star in the world, the number one movie star in the world, became a Christian, rather unexpectedly, I might add. Then I wrote Johnny Cash, The Redemption of an American Icon.

And Johnny is different from Steve. He was raised in the church, but he had his ups and downs, but recommitted his life to the Lord toward the end and recorded some of the best music of his entire career. Finally, I wrote a book called Billy Graham, The Man I Knew. So the title of my new biography is Dylan, Lennon, Alice, and Jesus. You're saying what is that book about? It's about the spiritual search of rock stars.

And I have a chapter on John Lennon, another chapter on Bob Dylan, another chapter on Alice Cooper. You know, I find these folks interesting because they breathe rarefied air. They're supremely talented individuals who are at the top of their game. They fill stadiums. They make a lot of money. They have everything that people dream about. And they break the rules and do whatever they want. And hence the term, oh, he lives like a rock star. And then they face the consequences.

And quite honestly, a lot of these people are not with us any longer. They make bad choices, and then they reap the consequences. This reminds me of a little event that happened with my grandson Christopher the other day. He was out in the ocean playing with one of his little friends, and his mom said it was time to go. And so Christopher comes into the beach, and he has little red marks on his face. And his dad said, son, what are those red marks on your face? He said they're from a jellyfish. He said, but what happened? Christopher said, well, me and my friend heard mom say it's time to go, so we picked the jellyfish up and kissed it goodbye.

That's never a good idea. Never kiss a jellyfish goodbye, because you're going to have the effects of that if you do it. Well, coming back to these rock stars, you know, they break all the rules, and they live the way that they want to live, and they face the tragic results that come from that. Think of so many who have left us so soon. Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain.

The list just goes on and on and on. And frankly, you might personally know somebody that has died of a drug overdose or have drunk themselves into an early grave or who have made bad decisions and reaped the consequences of it. But here's the way I look at it. You know, some people made the wrong decisions. Others made the right ones. As an example, John Lennon made a profession of faith to follow Christ.

Yes, that's right. John Lennon of the Beatles asked Jesus to come into his life, but unfortunately, that was a short-lived experience, but a very real one for the time that he was believing. He seemed to walk away from it, so we don't know how that story ends, because we don't know what happens when a person is facing the afterlife as Lennon was when he was tragically assassinated in New York City in 1980.

We don't know that John did not call out to Jesus. One of the things I bring out in this book is there's gonna be three surprises when we get to heaven. Some of the people we never thought would be there will be there. Some of the people we thought would be there won't be there.

And third surprise will be there. Then there's Bob Dylan, very influential musician. He influenced John Lennon and so many other people in rock music, and he made a very overt commitment to Christ and actually recorded three amazing gospel-themed albums and seemingly sort of didn't walk away, but just stopped talking about it. But it appears that Dylan still believes he's a work in progress, and we know people like this. We know people that look like they've committed their life to the Lord. Then they don't seem to be walking with the Lord, but it's not how you start.

It's how you end. We all know people who are a work in progress. Finally, I write a chapter on Alice Cooper and many other rock stars, some that I've gotten to know personally, who became Christians. And Alice, who I interviewed recently, is a follower of Jesus Christ.

In fact, just to give you a little snippet of where he is at spiritually, here's something he said to me recently. I knew who Christ was, Jesus Christ was, and I was denying him. I knew that there had to either come a point where I either accepted Christ and started living that life, or if I died in this, I was in a lot of trouble. And that's what really motivated me. I just got to a point of saying I'm tired of this life. So what would you say to somebody that's thinking there's some kind of an answer or fulfillment in the trappings of this kind of life, or drugs or any of that, or alcohol even, what would you say to them as to what course they should follow? Well, there's an old, old saying that trying to fill that hole that God should have with alcohol, drugs, sex, money, everything, and it never works.

So again, the point of this book, and really of this message, is to remind you that no one is beyond the reach of God, so don't give up on people you love. I want to look at two people in the book of Acts. They're effectively placed side by side.

They're quite a contrast. One was known as Saul of Tarsus, and the other was known as Simon the Magician. One had a real conversion. That would be Saul of Tarsus. The other did not, though it appears that he became a believer, and I'm talking about Simon the Magician. But let me kind of focus for the first part of this message on Saul of Tarsus. This is a man that went out of his way to destroy this growing movement of people who were following Jesus Christ. Maybe you know someone like that, someone that gives you a hard time, someone that's always criticizing you for what you believe, someone that just peppers you constantly with hard questions, and you think, what is the problem with this person? Did it ever occur to you that they may be under the conviction of the Holy Spirit?

What does that mean? That means that the Holy Spirit is working on a person's heart and seeking to bring them to Christ, and that person is resisting it. Sometimes the people that lash out the most may be closer to the kingdom of God than you realize. There's a saying that goes along these lines.

When you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that barks the loudest is the one that got hit. So in the same way, the one that barks the loudest, that criticizes the most, that pushes back harder than anyone else may actually be closer to coming to Christ than someone else. For instance, you might talk to someone about your faith, and they'll say, you know, I'm so happy that you've found religion, and you seem like a much happier person than you were before. And then you say, would you like to come to church with me sometime?

And they say, I would sometime, but you ask them, and they never come. And you talk to somebody else, and they're argumentative, and they're so resistant, that person may actually be closer to coming to Christ than the person who's rather benign in their response. Saul hunted down Christians for sport. He treated them like wild animals and wanted to arrest, imprison, and in some cases, execute them. Of course, Saul presided over the death of the first martyr of the church.

We already looked at his life. His name was Stephen, and rather than satisfying him, it almost seemed to add more fuel to the fire. And then Saul of Tarsus, the Christian killer, ultimately became Paul the apostle because he had an encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus is the most unexpected conversion probably in all of church history, so unexpected, in fact, that when it was revealed to the believers in the church that Saul was now a Christian, they didn't believe it.

They're thinking, no, there's no way that guy would ever become a believer, reminding us that no one is beyond the reach of God. This man, Saul, who had previously been controlled by hate, was now motivated by love, and he was a man that changed the world. The most significant and unexpected was the conversion of Saul of Tarsus that there was a British agnostic from the last century that thought it should not be hard to disprove the story. And he felt if he disproved the story of the conversion of Saul, he could then undermine all of the Bible. So he went about his research and wrote about it in a book called Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of Saint Paul.

This man's name was Lord George Littleton. And his amazing conclusion after carefully studying the life of Saul was it was all true, and Littleton himself became a Christian. And he made this statement in his book, quote, Paul's conversion in apostleship alone, duly considered, are a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation, end quote. After his encounter with Christ, Saul, later to become the apostle Paul, blazed a trail, leaving behind many converts and churches. He preached to philosophers, Pharisees, rulers, soldiers, sorcerers, sailors, slaves, and most likely to Caesar himself. This man was fearless.

This man changed the world. Saul was a guy who never did anything halfway. Now we call him Saul of Tarsus.

Why? Because he was from the city of Tarsus, which by the way, was a very important city in the Roman world. It was famous for its university, and it ranked among the great universities in Athens and Alexandria as one of the most honored in the Roman world. This means that Saul was a Roman by birth. He had Roman citizenship, which was actually a big deal and would work in his favor later on in the book of Acts, as we will discover. But there in Tarsus, Saul also learned Greek philosophy and Roman law. So it's not just that he knew the scripture.

This guy understood Roman law, Greek culture, Greek philosophy, and then he was schooled under the famous Gamaliel, who was referred to as the teacher's teacher. And this all produced a zealous young man who became very successful early in life. He joined the Sanhedrin. Now the Sanhedrin was sort of like the Supreme Court of their day, but their difference between the Sanhedrin and the Supreme Court is they ruled over civic and religious decisions. And considering that Saul was very young means that this guy climbed his corporate ladder.

He was very successful and very powerful and even famous, and he presided over the stoning of Stephen. And this just shows something that I find very interesting, and it's simply this. Religion can turn us away from God. You know, people think, no, religion is good. We need more religion in our life. I just need a little religion, someone might say.

I beg to differ. You don't need a little religion. You need a lot of Jesus. The problem with religion is it's focused on what I do. Do X, Y, and Z, and I may find the approval of God, and I may get to heaven. If you were to sum up all the religions of the world in one word, it would be do.

Do this, do that. If you were to sum up Christianity in one word, it would be done. Now, technically speaking, Christianity, of course, is a religion. But if we want to speak biblically, Christianity is a relationship with Christ himself.

It's possible to be a religious person and not have a relationship with God, and Saul is a textbook example of that. He was filled with hate and rage. You know what amazes me? That there are religious people, sometimes even some, that profess to be Christians that are just perpetually angry. They're always attacking other people. If anyone disagrees with their doctrinal position or their philosophy, they attack that person, and they love to tear others down. As a great theologian Taylor Swift pointed out, the haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, and some of them are even in churches today.

The problem with being a bitter person is you rarely keep it to yourself. You tend to want to spread it around and get others angry as well. And this makes God sad. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote about things that grieve or make sad and sorrowful the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 4, 31, from the Phillips translation, he says, let there be no more resentment, no more anger or temper, no more violent self-assertiveness, no more slander, no more malicious remarks. Instead, Paul writes, be kind to each other, be understanding, be ready to forgive others as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. So true.

Listen to this. Whatever your issue or your cause or your doctrinal position as a believer, if it makes you a mean, argumentative, malicious person, then friend, you have missed the point. When someone loves to constantly run others down, I'm telling you something is wrong in their spiritual life.

Don't be surprised if you find the person who complains and criticizes the most is guilty of something far worse in their own life. So we're introduced for the first time now to Saul of Tarsus here in the book of Acts chapter eight. I'm going to read verses one to four from the New Living translation. Saul was one of the witnesses and he agreed completely to the killing of Stephen. This means he was part of the Jewish Sanhedrin. A great wave of persecution began the day sweeping over the church in Jerusalem and all of the believers, except the apostles, were scattered to the regions of Judea and Samaria. Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning, but Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house dragging men and women to throw them into prison, but the believers who were scattered preached the good news about Jesus wherever they went.

So let's set the scene. Stephen has been martyred. The church is spreading out. Actually, Saul is helping God's work get started because the church would have been happy to have a little holy huddle in Jerusalem and stay there forever, despite the fact that Christ himself said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Despite the fact that Jesus said in Acts one eight, you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you to be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Effectively, Jesus is saying, get out of town, guys.

Take this message everywhere. And instead, they're staying in town and not going anywhere. And along comes Saul of Tarsus, hunting them down, arresting them so the church spreads out, and it's like a wildfire that sweeps across the land. And here is Saul hunting them down. What drove Saul? Why did he have so much hatred for Christians? I think it was the way Stephen died, praying for the person who did this to him, praying for the people that were responsible for his death. And as I pointed out earlier, Stephen did not reach thousands of people. He didn't even reach hundreds of people, but he reached one in particular.

And that one that he reached was Saul later to become Paul. So you could call that one whopper of a convert. Have you ever heard of Mordecai Ham? That sounds like something you would order in a deli. I love the Mordecai Ham. Mordecai Ham was an evangelist from the past. Most people don't know his name. We've heard of D.L.

Moody. We've heard of Billy Sunday. We've heard of George Woodfield. And of course, we've heard of Billy Graham, but how many of us have heard of Mordecai Ham? Well, Mordecai Ham was a guy preaching when a young farm boy from Charlotte, North Carolina, best known as Billy Frank, walked down the aisle and gave his life to the Lord. Billy Frank is better known as Billy Graham. So though Mordecai Ham maybe didn't reach as many as others reached, he reached one whopper of a convert. You ever heard of Edward Kimball?

Yeah, probably not. Well, Edward Kimball was a shoe salesman, and he had a coworker whose name was Dwight. And Edward took it upon himself to share the gospel with young Dwight, and one day Dwight accepted Christ into his life, and Dwight went on to become D.L. Moody. And so maybe Edward Kimball didn't reach a lot of people, but he reached one very significant person, and that was Moody himself. Who's your one? Is there someone that you can point to right now and say, thank God I played a role in the conversion of that person?

And if the answer to that question is not yes, my response is why? You should at least reach one. The fact is you should reach many more than one, so Stephen reached his one, and his one was Paul. And listen to this, sometimes when you're sharing the gospel, people act as though they're not listening, but actually they are. Remember this, God promises in scripture his word will not return void, but it will prosper in the place where he sends it. The Bible is a little bit like a time bomb that may detonate later. You may share some truth with someone, you may share some verses with someone, and they act as though they're not listening, or they argue with you or walk away from you or hang up the phone or whatever, but maybe in the middle of the night they'll wake up and they'll be thinking about what you shared because God's word is alive and powerful.

So just sow those seeds, leave the results in the hands of God. Now let's shift gears and look at this amazing story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. We're in Acts chapter nine now, still in the New Living Translation. Verse one, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and he was eager to kill the Lord's followers. So he went to the high priest and requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus asking for their cooperation and the arrest of any followers of the way.

You might underline that phrase, I'll come back to it, followers of the way. He found there he wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem in chains. Listen to this, as he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and he heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord, Saul asks, and the voice replied, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

Now get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you are to do. The men around Saul stood speechless for they heard the sound of someone's voice but saw no one. So here's Saul now, chasing down Christians. He's like a wild animal. It's an interesting phrase here, verse one. It says he was uttering threats with every breath. Another way to translate that is he was ravaging the church. He was like a wild animal out to destroy these followers of Christ.

In his own language later, he said a raging fury obsessed him in Acts 26, 11. If you would have met Saul of Tarsus at the beginning of his journey and said, Son, you are gonna meet Jesus before you get to Damascus, he would have thought you were out of your mind, reminding us of the scripture that says, is anything too hard for the Lord? I love this description here of these first century believers. Look at verse two. When it says that Saul requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the way, followers of the way. This is how these believers were described at this point. This is before they were actually called Christians.

That happened later. That was the name given to them critically, I might add, not as a compliment. But up to this point, they were known as the followers of the way.

I think that's a great phrase, actually. No doubt based on the statement of Christ in John 14, six, when he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. See, even back then, it was very irritating to a religious zealot like Saul of Tarsus that these people believed that Jesus was the only way to God, and frankly, it still irritates people today. I just read an article that pointed out that 70% of born-again Christians disagree with the statement that Jesus is the only way to God. 70%, first of all, I would say 70% of so-called born-again Christians need to start reading their Bible.

Listen to this. This is a non-negotiable for us as followers of Jesus. Why is Jesus the only way to the Father? Simple answer, because the Bible says so, and Christ himself says so. I already quoted a statement where he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me.

Acts 4, 12 reminds us, there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. I know in our minds we think it's very fair-minded and benevolent of us to believe that all religions are good and all religions teach the same thing, but it's not true. If you take an honest look at the religions of the world, they do not all teach the same thing. And as I said earlier, if you were to sum up religion in one word, it's do, do, do, do. But Christianity, again, is done.

It's a finished work. It's a gift that God gives us, this gift of forgiveness. Listen, only Jesus was uniquely qualified to bridge the gap between a holy God and sinful humanity. Jesus, not just a good man, but rather the God-man, was fully God and fully man, and when he went to that cross and laid his hands out and they pounded spikes through those hands and feet, he was taking hold of that holy God we've offended and taking hold of sinful humanity whom he represented and dying in our place.

No other guru, no other prophet has done this for you. They were followers of the way. So it's afternoon, the sun probably is shining, the zealous Saul is out to hunt down the Christians, and a light from heaven shines down around him and he falls to the ground and hears these words, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Interesting little twist on this story. Those who were with Saul heard the voice but could not make it out. It was just a sound, but Saul heard the voice.

Why is that? How is it that God could speak and they would hear a sound, they saw the phenomena of it, but they didn't understand it? Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice.

You know, I can talk to a crowd of people and sometimes I'll go to a whole bunch of people at one time, and one will respond and the others will not to the gospel. And I just think that the Lord speaks to certain people in certain ways and God was speaking to Saul. And by the way, Saul not only heard Jesus, he saw him because he later writes in Acts 9, 27, he saw Jesus.

And what does Jesus say? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So who is this supernatural voice speaking to Saul?

Saul's probably really scared because I think he already knew the answer. Who are you, Lord? Tell me who you are that I'm persecuting. And I think Saul's saying, don't say Jesus, don't say Jesus, don't say Jesus. And then Jesus says, I am Jesus. I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting.

I think Saul knew it all along. The very one he was attacking and attacking his followers was the one that was calling him on this particular day. Notice that Jesus says, why are you persecuting me? Listen to this, when people attack Christians, they're effectively attacking Christ. When a persecutor raises a hand against us, they are in fact raising a hand against Jesus Christ himself. So I want to remind you if you're hurting, if you're being criticized unfairly, if you're being persecuted for your faith, God is more than aware.

Amazing statement is made. This is from the King James Version, verse five. Jesus says, it's hard for you to kick against the goads.

Now we read that and we have no idea what that means. Okay, a goad is basically a sharpened stick. So let's say you're out plowing your field and your oxen are not moving as quickly as you would like them to. So instead of putting the pedal to the metal, you take the goad and stick it in the oxen.

Simple sharpened stick. Hey, let's step it up. Let's go a little faster. So Jesus uses this phrase, you're kicking against the goads. In other words, I'm speaking to you.

I'm making you aware of your need for me. I'm bringing you into the conviction of my Holy Spirit. And you're fighting with me, fighting, fighting. Are you fighting with God right now? Now listen, your arms are too short to box with God. You're going to lose.

You're gonna go down. Stop fighting with God. Remember the story of Jacob in the book of Genesis? He fought with God. He wrestled with an angel of the Lord. And finally, he gave in and he went from wrestling to nestling, from resisting to resting. And God gave to Jacob a new name.

But I love how he finally just stopped fighting. Stopped fighting with God. Because actually, his plan for you is so much better than your plan for yourself. You think you have a better idea for your life than God? God is at all mapped out for you if you will follow his plan. The thoughts that he thinks toward you, according to Jeremiah 29, 11, are good.

They're thoughts of peace and not of evil. Stop running from God. Stop fighting with God. And instead say, Lord, who are you? And that's what Saul said. Who are you, Lord?

And what do you want me to do? We'll get more into the life of Saul in our next message from the book of Acts. Now let me come back to the other person I mentioned earlier in my message. Remember, it's a contrast between two men, Saul of Tarsus and Simon the magician.

Now we're gonna go back now. Back to Acts chapter eight. In verse nine we read, A man named Simon had been a sorcerer there for many years, amazing the people of Samaria, and claiming to be someone great. Everyone from the least to the greatest often spoke of him as the great one, the power of God. They listened carefully to him because for a long time he astounded them with his magic. But now the people believe Philip's message of good news concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. As a result, many men and women were baptized, and Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he began following Philip wherever he went because he was amazed by the signs and great miracles that Philip performed. You know, first glance, it looks like this man, Simon the magician, becomes a believer.

So who is this guy? Well, it appears he would be steeped in occultism and maybe just a little trickery, a little sleight of hand. You know, there are people that practice magic today, often card tricks. By the way, I hate card tricks. If I meet some magician, hey, pick a card, any card, please no. I know how you even do the trick. Just don't do that trick. But, you know, it's sleight of hand.

It's smoke and mirrors, if you will. But there may have been devilish input into his abilities, but whatever it was, this guy was all that and a bag of chips. People were following him. They thought he was amazing, but Philip shows up and wrecks everything.

In a good way. Philip is preaching the gospel. And now people are turning to Christ and nothing is more powerful than the power of the gospel because the Bible says it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. Well, Simon has no magic trick that can match the power of the gospel. So we read in verse 13, Simon himself also believed and he was baptized. Well, that's good, right? It says he believed.

And it says he was baptized, so clearly he became a Christian, right? Well, I don't know. Because the proof is in the pudding. By the way, what does that even mean? Why do I have to find proof in a pudding?

I don't know. But the proof will be in the results and the evidence in a person's life. Well, after this, we see the heavyweight apostles coming to town. Peter and John are doing heavy duty miracles. And Simon comes to them and says, hey, guys, can I buy this power of God so I can do miracles to Peter, never one who was at a shortage for words, put Simon in his place and rebuked him? And verse 20, it says, may your money be destroyed with you, thinking that God's gift can be bought. You will have no part in this, for your heart is not right before God. So repent of your wickedness and perhaps he'll forgive you of your evil thoughts because Peter says, I can see you're full of bitter jealousy. Hey, that's a heavy duty charge.

Peter was leveling toward Simon the magician. It says, may your money be destroyed with you. Or as the J.B. Phillips translation puts it, to hell with you and your money. You can't buy the gift of God. I know sometimes we may envy someone else. You may envy their career. Oh, I wish I had their career. You may envy their family. I wish they had their wife or their husband or, oh, I wish I had their money or I wish they lived in their house.

And this can even happen to Christians. I wish I had their ministry. I wish my ministry was as big as their ministry. I wish I could speak the way that they speak. I wish they had the gifts that they give.

Never do that. Don't be jealous of someone else's calling or gifts. Just be faithful to what God has called you to do. The Bible says, we being many are one body in Christ.

Every one of us are members one of another. And we have gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Whatever gifts, spiritual gifts, you have are given to you by the grace of God. You did nothing to earn them or to merit them. Just be thankful for them.

Make sure that you use them. But Simon was jealous. He wanted these gifts. And I don't think he was a believer at all. He had a faith that is similar to the faith of a demon.

You say, what are you talking about? Over in James 2, it says you believe there's one God. And that's true. But even the demons believe in tremble. Don't you know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? If I could interview a demon, and I would never want to do that, I think you might be surprised to find demons are rather orthodox in their faith. If you were to interview a demon or Lucifer himself and say, Lucifer, do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? His answer would be yes. Because in the temptation in the wilderness, he prefaced each of his temptations with these words.

Since you are the Son of God, why don't you do this? It was an acknowledgement. And if I were to ask Lucifer, do you believe the Bible is the word of God? Again, his answer would be yes. He knows it's true. He disobeys it.

He hates it. But he knows the truth of it. And so you can say, oh, I believe Jesus is Lord.

Well, that's good. But you have to then commit yourself to him. I don't think Simon was a believer at all. There's a fascinating passage in the Gospel of John chapter 2. We read, when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did.

But listen to this. But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men. Another way to translate this is they believed in him, but he didn't believe in them. And that's Simon. His faith was not real.

So contrast these two guys. Here's one guy, Saul of Tarsus, who doesn't want Jesus. He's not seeking Jesus. And Jesus seeks him, and he becomes a believer. Here's another guy, Simon, who appears to be seeking Jesus, but he isn't at all.

And I ask in closing, where are you at? Are you a person that puts on a good show and you pretend to be a Christian, but you really are not a Christian at all? I hope this would be a moment where that would change. I say, well, Greg, I'm a religious person. As we've already pointed out, religion can be the very thing that keeps you away from God.

Religion can blind you to your need for Christ. Because someone will say, are you going to heaven when you die? And you say, well, yes, because I've done these things. I go to church, I give my confession, I've received communion, and because of this, I'll go to heaven. No, no, no, that's not how you're getting to heaven. It's because you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross for your sin, and you've turned from your sin. That's what Peter said to Simon, repent of this sin. So I repent of my sin, I turn from it and believe in Him, and that I can be forgiven.

Have you done that yet? Or maybe you're like Saul, you've been running from God, and you're angry with Christians, you're angry with anybody that even opens the Bible in your presence. Why is that? Is it because actually, deep down inside, you know this is all true? See, the implication of that statement from Jesus, you're kicking against the goads of the sharpened sticks was, you know this is true, and you've been resisting it. And I'm talking to somebody right now, you know what I'm saying is true. I don't need to convince you, you know. Why are you running still?

What are you afraid of? God's plan for you is better than your plan for yourself. Heard the story about an attorney that contacted a man, said he wanted to meet with him. Well, this man was sure it was some kind of subpoena, so he resisted this attorney.

He made sure that the attorney would never find him. In fact, he moved out of his house and had an address that was very hard to find, because he never wanted to be served papers by this attorney. And so this went on for years. He kept eluding and evading this attorney. And then finally, this man got very sick, and he was dying, and he was in the hospital. And as it turns out, the attorney was sick as well, and his bed was wheeled up right next to the man who had been running from him. And the man said, go ahead and serve me papers. I've been running from you all these years. I don't even care now, I'm gonna die. The attorney said, serve you papers.

Sir, I wanted to inform you that you had inherited $50 million. That's us running from God. I don't want this, I'm against it.

Why? God loves you. God's plan for your life is better than any plan you have for yourself. And it can all happen for you. You know, I mentioned earlier that some people have ruined their lives chasing after empty things like drugs, partying, drinking, and all the rest.

Maybe that's you. Maybe you find yourself addicted and you can't get out of this cycle that you are in. You find yourself trapped, you don't know how to be free. Jesus can enter into your life and forgive you of all of your sin and give you a new beginning. I mean, you talk about a messed up guy. Saul of Tarsus, let's get real. He was a murderer, and he wasn't just a man who killed others, he killed innocent Christians.

He hunted down men and women and sent them to prison in chains. Could God forgive a man like that? Oh yes, he was forgiven.

And he spent the rest of his life sharing that message with other people. God can forgive you no matter what sin you have committed, but you have to admit you are a sinner and realize that Christ died on that cross for you. And if you'll turn from that sin and believe in Jesus, you can be forgiven right here, right now.

And your life can change just as Saul's life changed. In a moment I'm gonna pray a simple prayer. There's no magic in this prayer. It's just a prayer that you can pray, but it's your heart moving toward God, where you're saying, Lord, I need Jesus in my life. If you want Christ to forgive you of your sin, if you want a fresh start in life, if you wanna know that when you die you will go to heaven or maybe you've fallen away from the Lord and you wanna just start all over again, then just stop whatever you're doing and pray this prayer with me. You can pray it out loud if you like, you can pray it quietly in your heart, but pray these words if you would. Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that you're the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I turn now, Lord, from my sin and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my Savior and my Lord, as my God and my friend.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on Know God.