UPDATE: I posted a lengthy discussion of this issue entitled ‘American Jesus: A Manifesto’.
I’ve been hearing a lot about this lately. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s wrong to use a prayer to help people confess Christ, but to convince people that they are saved simply because they pray a prayer is ridiculous — it is not the Gospel of the Scripture. This runs deep, it runs at the heart of how the Church never talks about sin anymore.
How do you know you are saved? God has done such a work in your life that you hate the sin you once loved and love the God you once hated.
If you don’t have time, there are four videos in this post. Be sure to watch the third one, which is about nine minutes long. If you have time, first watch this video:
Here is Paul Washer on the problem of the false Gospel, this is less than three minutes:
What do i mean by modern “gospel”? I mean the typical “gospel” presentation that goes something like this:
- God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, He wants to give you peace, happiness, fulfillment, 40 days of a purpose-driven life, will balance your checkbook, make you rich, and grant you your best life now.
- God is good and man is sinful and there’s this big gap of a separation in between and Jesus is the bridge to that gap.
- Then we ask questions like:
- Do you want to go to Heaven
- Do you recognize that you are a sinner (and the preacher never speaks about how heinous sin really is)
- Do you want to ask Jesus into your heart and make him your Lord and Savior, because He’s standing at the door knocking, waiting for you to give him permission to save you.
- This step is usually only done in “evangelistic” meetings, never or rarely one-to-one. Playing soft music and using light dimmers to set the mood (by the way, there’s no Scriptural basis for that, that is just psychological manipulation…it’s metaphysical)
- Repeat these words after me…then he/she says a sinner’s prayer.
- If you repeated that prayer and believe that you were sincere, congratulations, you are saved, welcome to the family of God.
If you can find this model in Scripture, please feel free to cite the passage.
For an in depth breakdown of Romans 10, watch this video, which is about nine minutes long. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO, I HOPE YOU WATCH IT:
Paul Washer gives an exegesis on Romans 10:9-10, a text which modern evangelicals use to support the unbiblical altar call model of walking down the aisle, repeating a prayer, signing a card, and if you were sincere you’re saved. Yes people should be sincere when they repent and believe the Gospel, the issue is that many professing Christians are trusting in the sincerity of their decision rather than looking onto the finished work of Christ.
Sure, there are people who do get saved when they repeat a prayer and ask Jesus into their hearts, that would be DESPITE an unbiblical model being used. I do not doubt people’s salvation who came to know the Lord through this model. It has produced many genuine believers, but it has produced far more false conversions.
Do we receive Jesus as John 1 puts it? Yes, we do receive Jesus into our hearts/lives, it means that he becomes everything to us, that to the true Christian Jesus IS their life (read John 6), nowhere in the Gospel call(s) given in the Bible, or the majority of Church History, are sinners told to ASK Jesus into their hearts/lives. In fact, when it comes to the heart, it is God who opens up hearts…and minds, see Acts 16:14.
This blog post spells it out really well if you want to read it. No one reads long posts here, so I am using video for this post. Click here to read more. . . .
Here’s another great one if you have time:
Related posts:
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Romans 2 contains Paul’s emphatic reminder of the need for repentance.
Only the Holy Spirit can bring true repentance in the sinner’s heart; evangelists cannot manufacture it.
This whole matter has been one that I’ve wrestled with a fair amount as an adult, since I’ve had to somehow come to grips with my own sinner’s-prayer-experience as a child of nine or so. Was it real? Did I even understand what I was doing? Was I pressured into it? Is my inner conflict about “praying the prayer” as a child due to my doubts about having a genuine faith then, or simply tied to my discomfort with the whole contrived process of getting people to raise their hands? I still don’t think I have clear answers when it comes to my own childhood, and having a simple answer as to when I became a Christian, and for a while it really bothered me. There just isn’t pat answer however. There is now only a rather lengthy discussion that proceeds from asking such a question. A discussion that envelopes all that you touched on in your post. And, I suppose, that is what God prefers to have happen….. D
Preachers should tell people how to get saved…..not get them to say a “prayer” and pronounce them saved!
(bloodtippedears.blogspot.com)