Zion Seeker,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Quote
Z S said: But the Word can convict and awaken a lost soul, and because the Word carries faith, they can throw themselves at Christ and receive new life. They can look unto him and be saved. How does this work. I don't know. I only that this is the way the bible says it.
The Holy Spirit is the one who opens the heart and gives us ears to hear the truth of the Word so that a sinner is enabled to receive it from God and believe it. I don't think you would deny that the Holy Spirit is the one who works through the Word of God to convict the sinner whom God is drawing to Himself and to show them their desparate condition bringing them to a godly sorrow that leads to repentance..
Quote
John 6:63
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Quote
1 Thessalonians v.4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

Your statement that the word carries faith sounds a little strange to me, but if you mean faith comes by hearing the Word, I can agree. The Word doesn't always have the effect of faith in the hearers unless God gives them ears to hear that truth.
Quote
Romans 10: 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Quote
Z S said: and because the Word carries faith, they can throw themselves at Christ and receive new life
Yes, they are enabled to throw themselves at Christ if the Father has drawn them to himself and has changed their heart to desire what only He can give them.

Quote
John 6 :44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Z S said in the beginning of the post:
Quote
The spiritual man is alive to God in spirit, soul, and body. The natural man is dead to God spiritually. He cannot know God, because his spirit is dead. Eternal life is to know God, and his Son.
Z S said later:
Quote
A natural, soulish man, can receive the Word, and believe it.
You are still left with the question how can a natural man receive those things which are folly to him? Wouldn't he hate the Word of God? Wouldn't he think it was foolishness? Doesn't he hate the God of the Bible and the Bible?
Does it seem beyond reason that God's Spirit makes a person able to receive these things?
You may be interested in the following by C. H. Spurgeon.

Quote
How Spurgeon Learned of Grace - Charles H. Spurgeon

Well can I remember the manner in which I learned the Doctrines of Grace in a single instant.

Born as all of us are by nature, an 'Arminian,' I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the Grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.

I can recall the very day and hour when first I received these truths in my own soul--when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron: I can recollect how I felt that I had grown all a sudden from a babe into a man--that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.

One weeknight when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me: 'How did you come to be a Christian?'--I sought the Lord. 'But how did you come to seek the Lord?'--The truth flashed across my mind in a moment--I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself: 'How came I to pray?'--I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. I did read them; but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith. It was then the whole doctrine of Grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make it my constant confession. I ascribe my change wholly to God.