The Barbed Arrow: How Conviction Pierces the Hardened Heart

When the crowd at Pentecost heard Peter's proclamation, they were "pricked in their heart" (Acts 2:37). This katanysso—pierced, stabbed—describes conviction that wounds rather than flatters.

Charles Spurgeon observed that genuine preaching of God's Word cuts like a barbed arrow. A salmon does not admire the hook that has taken hold of it; a man wounded by truth does not praise the sermon that entered his soul. The Adonai uses ministries of a cutting kind to make men uneasy in their sins and drive them to Christ for peace.

When supernatural power suddenly opens the unseen world to the soul—revealing eternal Light, heaven, and hell—fear and awe penetrate completely. A woman falling into a steamer's foaming wake thinks nothing of fashion; similarly, when a man glimpses Elohim's judgment, human opinion becomes insignificant.

One unconverted man read Scripture with his wife nightly. Within days he stopped: "Wife, if this book is true, we are wrong." Later: "we are lost." Then, taught by God's Spirit through a city missionary: "we may be saved!" Within weeks, both placed their faith in Christ.

The doctrine that grieves our conscience and troubles our heart bears grave marks of truth. Repentance begins when conviction pierces deep enough that a sinner cries out: "What shall we do?" (Acts 2:37)—and listens for the answer.