Can Someone Be Argued Into Salvation?

Is there a way to convince someone into conversion?

I don’t think that the word convince is the right thing because you can’t argue a person into salvation. I could give you a lot of scriptures on that, but here is one, Luke 16:19-31:

There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’

Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ 

Can someone be argued into salvation? Well, it appears in this Scripture that it’s pointing out the fruitlessness of the effort.

Arguing People Into Salvation – Billy Graham’s Experience

You can’t really force or convince a person into conversion and salvation. All you can do is bear witness, and that’s what the scripture says we are to do. We are to be witnesses unto Jesus. So all we can do is speak, and we have to depend upon the Holy Spirit to quicken things. You know, Billy Graham had a turning point in his ministry in 1949. That’s the year that I was born.

Billy was just a very young evangelist, and he was frustrated because he was trying to convince people, force people, and argue people into salvation. He had an encounter with the Lord, and he said that the Lord told him, ‘You make a very poor Holy Spirit.’ Billy didn’t understand it at first, and the Lord explained. He said, ‘You aren’t supposed to try and force people. You just proclaim and let the Holy Spirit do the work.’ Billy said it changed his whole ministry, and he quit trying to argue people into salvation. He would just speak the truth and let the Holy Spirit bear witness.

So, I think that we often drive people away because we are pressuring them and trying to convince them. We are supposed to be witnesses, just like in a courtroom. Can we then argue someone into salvation? Well, the witness isn’t the judge, nor the jury, nor anything else. You’re just giving testimony of what you’ve seen and heard.

Should we argue someone into salvation? It’s more so about witnessing.

That’s what we’re supposed to do: let the Holy Spirit bear witness. Jesus said in Mark 4:9,

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

What that meant was here’s the truth, if you can receive it, receive it. Jesus didn’t force it on anybody. Amazingly, an almighty God would give us such freedom to choose Him. He could force every person or bring bolts of lightning. He can do it—but that’s not how the Lord operates. Without faith, it’s impossible to please Him.

There are people who believe that God is like Buddha or Mohammed, that we’re all worshipping the same God. That is a lie. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, the life’ (John 14:6). There is no other way to the Father. Jesus was either who He claimed to be, God manifest in the flesh, and He paid for our sins, and there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). He is either true and accurate, or He was deceived or a deceiver. But you can’t have it both ways.

For people to think that He was just a good man but not God means you don’t understand God; you aren’t responsive to the Holy Spirit. It’s not what the Bible teaches. You cannot believe in what the Bible says and believe that Jesus is just a man and not God. You could if you were a non-Christian who refuses to let the Bible get in the way of what you believe. But you can’t do it as a Bible believer.