Aloha brother Winman,
Your Pastor sounds like a very wise man!
I have never heard: "
Those convinced against their will, are of the same opinion still"; but I have believed that for about 40 years now, and I intend to use what he said, because I have never heard it said so succinctly.
Back in 1969-1972, I once was largely responsible for
convincing an Independent Baptist Church on Kauai about the King James Bible being God's Final Authority and that statement was written into the "Constitution and By-Laws of the church. Within 3 short years (after Bob Jones University graduates came and joined the church) most of the people abandoned their "
belief" in THE BOOK" and have been on a down-hill slide ever since.
That sure was a blow to my PRIDE, but I learned a huge lesson from that incident. You can't "
force" people to genuinely believe anything, and you can't (on your own) "
persuade" people to believe something.
If the belief does not come from an individual's
own heart, it's NOT REAL GENUINE BELIEF! It's an assent, or an acceptance, or an acknowledgment, or an occurence (
with the mind -
NOT the heart) to someone's ideas or someone Else's beliefs - but it's NOT TRUE BELIEF!
Keep up the good fight brother, it's really good to have you on board.
