How Persuaded Are You?

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed: Paul was exhorting the Galatians in the truth of the gospel that they had received from him. It was the gospel and there was no other gospel forth coming. And since there was no other gospel that would come later, the Galatians was not be persuaded by any message or messenger that was contrary to what they had already received.

Paul used a hypothetical illustration about himself, or even an angel from heaven, being accursed if they preached another gospel to the Galatians to demonstrate how persuaded the Galatians should be in the gospel of grace that was originally preached to them.

How persuasive do you think Paul could be? It wass Paul’s job as a preacher of the gospel, as well as the job of all gospel preachers, to be persuasive. (2 Corinthians 5:11) Paul had persuaded some Jews, and a great many devout Greeks and more than a few women. (Acts 17:4) Paul had persuaded people to worship God contrary to the Law of Moses. (Acts 18:13) Paul had persuaded Jews in the synagogue about the kingdom of God. (Acts 19:8) Paul had persuaded a great many people in almost all Asia to follow God. (Acts 19:26) If you are not yet persuaded of his powers of persuasion, then examine the arguments that Paul crafted in Romans. I believe Hebrews is Pauline also. Even according to modern secular standards Paul was a brilliant logician, philosopher and rhetorician. Paul was also equally great by first century Greek standards. Paul was indeed persuasive.

But if that was not enough, Paul stepped it up a notch and included the persuasion powers of angels from heaven.  How persuasive do you think that an angel from heaven could be? An angel persuaded a virgin she could conceive a child without the natural contribution of a man. (Luke 1:34-35) An angel convinced a reluctant Joseph who is about to put away his wife for fornication that she had actually conceived of the Holy Spirit and not a man. (Matthew 1:20) An angel convinced Mary Magdalene, and others, at the tomb of Jesus that their dead Messiah had actually been raised from the dead. (Luke 21:1-11) What persuasiveness!

Part of the powerful persuasion of angels is their imposing appearance. They have appearance like lightening and their clothes are white as snow (Matthew 28:2) and they shine with the glory of the Lord (Luke 2:9). 

Yet, Paul argued that the Galatian Christians were to be so settled in their conviction of the nature of the gospel that neither he nor an angel could turn them away from it. Obviously an angel from heaven would never preach a gospel other than the true gospel. Paul was using an absurd hyperbole to demonstrate the depth of conviction Christians should have concerning justification by grace. 

Johnny Carroll: Man of Dreams

My father, Johnny Carroll, has been blessed with a unique relationship with God. God speaks to him specifically and frequently, but not in the manner you might think; God often speaks to him in dreams. I cannot not tell you how many times that it has amazed me the way things God has shown him in dreams have come to pass. I would like to share a couple of those stories with you.

One the neat dreams that my father had was concerning a lady that would pray through in one of his revivals. One night my father had a dream that he, and some other church people, came across a shallow grave, and in that grave was a body. The grave was so shallow that you could see the outline of the person. So, my father began to remove the dirt with his hands, and very quickly uncovered a woman who was bound with rope. My father took a pocket knife and carefully began to cut away the ropes that bound her. In the dream the lady was short, with short dark hair.

Within a day or two a pastor called my father and asked him to come and preach a Revival. Of course my father told my mother and I the dream the next morning after he had it. So, when the first night of that revival came, in walked this lady, she was short and had short dark hair. My father immediately knew this was the lady that he had saw in the dream. She, like that lady in the dream, was bound with many ropes; ropes of cigarettes, and numerous other addictions. For 21 straight nights of revival my father prayed with her for at least 1 1/2 hours every single night, but my fathers faith never wavered because of what the Lord had shown him in the dream. On the 21st service she received the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Another time we were camping as a family and during the night my father had a dream that he and my mother were fishing. My father was catching the fish and was throwing them up on the bank where my mother was. After a while he asked mother, "how many do you think there is," and she responded, "about 20-25." He was amazed that she had guessed so low and said, "there is at least 50." He woke up immediately and the Lord spoke to him that the fish were souls, and the that he was going to give us a revival of about fifty souls.

So, when we got Bakersfield, CA, for the first three weeks or so dad didn't preach but just a couple sermons. In fact, Brother Dawson said that he was wondering if he could even preach. After the first three weeks or so revival began to break and about fifteen weeks later the dream had come to pass!

I could spend hours telling stories just like this. It was amazing growing up and seeing a man operate in a dimension of faith for souls that you only read of in great revival books of the past. God has blessed me to see this occur hundreds of times.