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So this question, it's a longer 
one, but it provides some context and shows the heart of the person. 
So title, how do I handle family members, friends, et cetera, 
who are not believing? I've explained the gospel to 
them, but they don't care and they refuse to believe. They 
are waiting for a divine experience where hell is open to them and 
where they have a deep sense of their sin and misery. They 
think they have to pray for a new heart, use the means, wait, and 
maybe one day God will convert them. They say they are dead 
and can't believe, but they also don't care that they are headed 
to hell. It has caused me a lot of grief and I don't know what 
to do anymore. I don't want to strain relationships, but I also 
deeply care about their souls. I know God is in control and 
He does what He sees fit. Ultimately, I need to trust as 
if God can save me, for as if God can save me, nothing is impossible. 
Is there anything I could say to them? How do I deal with the 
grief of seeing them reject the Savior? It's a great question 
and certainly I think one that pretty much every Christian can 
enter into. I mean the theological background might be a bit different. 
Yeah, I, you know, keep faithfully praying for those people. As 
you have opportunity, share the truth with them. So, I do agree. I think Peter's admonition to 
wives that are with unbelieving husbands, it's through their 
conduct they may be won. It's not through your constant 
badgering of them. Being a heartbeat wife doesn't, 
you know, put men into the kingdom of heaven. Now having said that, 
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So, at some 
point, getting the gospel into a person's ears is absolutely 
crucial. If it's the kind of a scenario 
where that's happened several times before, there's theological 
differences involved in terms of the freeness of the gospel, 
in terms of, you know, the deadness of the sinner and all those things, 
you know, another idea might be read Scripture together. You 
know, let's just read the Gospel of John together. You know, faith 
does come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So, where 
people may be a bit standoffish for me to pop out the confession. 
Well, in chapter so and so, paragraph 8, it says this. You can't do 
that with the Bible. You can't scoff at the Word of 
God. So, whatever your theological 
background is, if you're in the realm of Christianity, there 
has to be a respect for scripture. So, perhaps a person who's turned 
their ears, you know, a deaf ear to your testimony, your citing 
gospel truth, your good presentation of gospel truth, they might be 
open to reading Scripture. And, you know, I would say pick 
a very, you know, powerful chapter or section You know, I think 
of John, we're going through it obviously on Sunday mornings, 
but you know, the John 6 and the will of Jesus, or the purpose 
of Jesus to do the will of the Father who sent him. What is 
that will? To save those who believe on him. So, you know, 
there's certain texts that I think are calculated to hopefully, 
you know, impact sinners. So, keep being faithful in prayer, 
you know, avoid the tendency, maybe it's my tendency, avoid 
the temptation to get upset, irritated, and just attack their 
theology. I think that's, you know, but 
I don't think it's an attack on a theology to just show where 
it isn't biblical. You know, some of those conclusions 
are not from scripture. and try to highlight, if I'm 
thinking about the backdrop to that question, the various conversions 
of persons in the New Testament. You didn't have periods of sin 
and misery when you were Matthew. You had Jesus say, come, follow 
me. And what did he do? He came and 
followed him. So, he didn't, you know, well, 
I've got to you know, go check in for bed and see if my misery 
cycle is bad enough or whatever. It was an immediacy. You know, 
when Paul and Barnabas say, or is it Silas in Acts 16, believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. You know, 
those are clear passages that I think do devastate some of 
that imbalanced theology where it's looked at, you know, suspiciously 
if we tell sinners to believe and repent. If that's what God 
is doing through the Apostles in the book of Acts, telling 
sinners to believe and repent, then we should go thou and do 
likewise. Pete Yeah, I've got nothing to 
add to that one. Nothing in the Bible around praying 
for a new heart. God gives new hearts, in Ezekiel 
36, giving a new spirit, a heart of flesh. But earlier in Ezekiel 
it says, get a new heart. It says to dead sinners that 
come to life. So there's God's perspective, 
or God's side of it, the equation, and there's our side. Yeah, I've 
always thought that was a curious way to sort of present the gospel. Pray to the Lord for a new heart. 
You do not see that in the book of Acts. It's believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ. It's repent, let everyone be 
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for their remission of 
sins. It's not, you know, there would be perfect opportunity 
with that Philippian jailer. You know, sirs, what must I do 
to be saved? Well, pray the Lord for a new 
heart. Pete That's not the emphasis there. The emphasis is look ye 
unto Jesus and you will be saved. So, some of it is a theology 
of confusion that's basically been imposed upon Scripture. 
God is absolutely sovereign. Man is responsible and we need 
to teach both things. So, yeah, just try to get them 
into Scripture. Let's just read. We can read 
without comment. We'll just read John 6. It's 
a good endeavor. Yeah, scripture and then some 
of their own church fathers they follow. Sure. Like Brackle, he 
talks about some people do have a crisis, a very high experiences, 
misery conversion, and other ones are really very boring. 
That's right. They don't even know what day 
or month or year it was, but they know they are in Christ, 
they are believing. Some have just been won over by hearing 
about the love of Jesus. That shouldn't be suspicious. 
There's different ways that we see in Scripture of various sinners 
coming to saving faith. And then the other one is Pilgrim's 
Progress, so Christian had the big burden on his back, but nobody 
else in the book did. And then there's many characters 
in there, and they all had different experiences, as well as in the 
second part where his wife comes to faith, very different. So 
that's been encouraging to me.