I always like to be encouraging when possible, but I think this sounds bad with him. Have a look at this verse…[John 17:3 KJV] 3 “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” and [John 6:63 KJV] 63" It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life." and [Psalm 138:2 KJV] 2 “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”
So, the first verse says that it’s ‘life eternal’ that we know ‘the only true God and Jesus Christ’. The second verse says that ‘the words that I speak unto you’ that ‘they are life’.
You know the verse in Romans [Romans 10:13 KJV] 13’ For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ BUT I very rarely hear the rest of that verse quoted which reads in Romans 10:14 “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” So, in other words, we need to ‘know’ the Lord who we are calling on. Which Jesus? Is it the Jesus of the orthadox church? Is it the Jesus of the ‘charasmatic church’ or the ‘Catholic church’? Just like if I say I know someone, but have never listened to hardly anything that they said, I would be just believing in a figment of my own imagination.
Hosea 4:6 reads “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me;”
I think you not only need to know and believe in the basics of what the gospel is (ie Jesus died for the sins of his people, he is the only righteous one, he was born of a virgin etc) - but if you are believing in things like ‘I can pray to the virgin Mary and ask her to do things for me’ when the Bible says [1Timothy 2:5 KJV] 5 “For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” So the Bible is teaching something opposite to what the Catholic church teaches. I am an ex-catholic and I changed my mind when I started reading the Bible and realised that there were tons of things in the Catholic church that were the opposite to what the Bible teaches. And by the way ‘repentence’ in Greek means ‘I changed my mind’. God is calling us out of false religion and tells us [Romans 12:2 KJV] 2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
[1Peter 1:23 KJV] 23 reads “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” So the only way anyone can become born again is by getting to know the Jesus of the Bible, and since he is the Living Word of God, we need to study what he says so that we can recognise the counterfeits.
The only positive thing I can say is that literally every person who God has elected to believe the truth - will hear it, understand it and believe it. Jesus thanked God the Father that he has not even lost one. Just like God had his hand on all of the believing Jews in the Old Testament he has his hand on his own people today and he will bring them through this time of huge spiritual peril. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus is the ‘author and finisher of our fath’. So, healing someones blindess is entirely up to him. Thank God it’s not up to us. In fact [John 6:65 KJV] 65 says…“And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” and the disciples that were following him were so angry when he told them this that it says in John 6:66 ‘[Jhn 6:66 KJV] 66 From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.’ That’s because man wants to believe that there is something special or wonderful about themselves to make them choose God - but this isn’t the case. [1John 4:19 KJV] 19 reads “We love him, because he first loved us.”
So, man would never choose God of his own ‘goodness’ or his own accord, unless God heals his blindness first. I guess that’s why God says [Romans 3:10 KJV] 10 “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:” Actually the rest of Romans 3 is really revealing - he speaks about the total depravity of man.
So, it’s all up to him. He’s done things this way so that he gets 100% of the glory. I really hope your husband decides to pick up the Bible. It definitely can happen! I tried for years to get my dad to read the Bible and he kept on saying he didn’t want to. Well one day, he was rushed to the hospital with his main artery 99% blocked and he almost died. After his operation the first thing he said to the nurse was ‘do you have a Bible handy’?
Believe it or not, I was living in Australia at the time and I was walking back to work from lunch and this overwhelming thought came into my head ‘I want you to pray for your father that I don’t take his life today’. It was so out the of the blue and wierd and I silently started praying for him that God would spare his life, but also that he would make him want to read the Bible. And I found out when I had been praying this was the exact time he was in the ambulence being rushed to the hospital on the other side of the world. And I did a Bible study with my dad over the phone from that point onwards.
Psalm 110:3 reads ‘thy people will be willing in the day of thy power’. So, the good news is, if your husband is one of God’s elect, he won’t lose him and he will get him to change his mind.
…… but God!