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Will You be Left Behind?
Those
missing the rapture will consist of professing Christians who prayed to receive
Christ but did not belong to Him! This article encourages readers to examine their
hearts as instructed by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
By Carpe Diem
Part 1: False Conversions from Easy
Prayerism
A Televised Event
A
Sunday school teacher asked her class of seven-year olds how many would like to
receive Jesus into their hearts. All the hands went up! “Repeat this prayer after
me,” said the teacher: “Dear Jesus, I love you! Please come into my heart and
make me a new creature in Christ; and, I will serve you forever. Thank you
Jesus! Amen!” “Now boys and girls, you have been born again and are all
children of God,” said the teacher who had just led several children in a
prayer to receive Christ. “Next Sunday I will give each of you a certificate
that identifies when you received Jesus into your heart,” said the
teacher.
Although
the preceding paragraph was on a ‘televised’ event, the practice of leading
young children to Christ ‘in this manner’ occurs in many evangelical Sunday
school classrooms each week. The parents and church leadership express joy over
so many of their children having found Christ at an early age. As the children
grow and mature, the certificates on their bedroom walls are vivid reminders of
their decisions to receive Christ.
Although
‘recital prayer’ (or easy prayerism as a perceived method for saving souls) is
widely practiced by many churches, it is also widely practiced by popular
television ministries. On a recent television program, a minister led a
middle-aged woman (on a stage in front of millions) to receive Christ by
reciting a salvation prayer. The salvation prayer was very similar to the one
recited by the Sunday school children.
Although
we cannot judge whether God saves people who recite the prayer, we can judge
the results from such prayers, which is the thrust of this article.
Is Reciting a Prayer Biblical?
Is reciting a prayer the way
God intends for one to receive Christ? The Bible teaches we receive Christ by
placing our faith in his substitutionary death through the finished work on the
cross. Many
churches and television ministries are producing false converts by using the recital
prayer as the decisive moment for when salvation occurs. However, most
evangelicals believe these salvations misfire most of the time, which is to say
salvation never really took place for most who recite the prayer. Ironically,
those who practice recital prayers (for getting one saved) think they are doing
a great work for God. The confusion about salvation stems from the notion that
we receive Christ by asking Him into our lives.
Justification for this notion originates from pastors who point to
Romans 10:13 without mentioning the preceding versus in Romans 10:9 thru 10:12.
The verses say, “That if you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God
has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” 10 For with
the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is
made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes
on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon
Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Well
meaning pastors place the emphasis for salvation on the confession (recital of
the prayer supported by Romans 10:13) to the exclusion of the heart, which is observable
only by the Holy Spirit. While the act of asking (calling) Christ into our
lives is an expression of our desire to receive Him, it is seldom ever the
‘decisive moment’ for the new birth. Since
most who pray to receive Christ fall away, the telltale results show
there is a serious flaw in the practice of reciting a prayer for salvation.
One
major international ministry in particular promotes you cannot be saved without
first reciting the sinner’s prayer. Think about
that! Where in the Bible does it articulate that truth? What could be more
dangerous then for church leadership to tell trusting and unsuspecting souls
they are now new creatures in Christ when in fact they may not be?
Why Do They Fall Away?
Most
evangelists agree that about 85% of those who pray to receive Christ drift back
into the ways of the world, believing they are saved because they recited a
prayer. What a horrible deception and tragic end for those who were never
really born again!
Many
people, apparently, pray to receive Christ without any understanding of
biblical truth, holiness and the need to be saved from the power of sin. There
is no recognition of their need for Christ as a matter of life or death. People
(both children and adults) feel (or are told they are) forgiven but do not seem
to have realized the depth of their sinfulness and ungodliness.
False
conversions occur when people (including children) do not fully comprehend the
basic truths leading to salvation summarized in 1 Corinthians 15: 1-4. If people are led to recite
a prayer to receive Christ before being led to see their own sinfulness and
hopelessness in Romans 3:23, they will not see their
need for Christ to save them in Romans 6:23.
Jesus
gave the parable about a sower who went forth to sow seed, God's Word. All the
people in the parable received the seed (God’s Word) gladly, but then soon fell
away for diverse reasons. Only a few continued to feed themselves daily on the
Word, becoming grounded in faith and growing deep roots in the soil of
regeneration (Matthew 13:3).
The few who fed themselves
daily on the Word were the ones who ‘received Christ’ (by hearing, understanding
and believing the salvation truths) and
were born again by faith in the Word (John 15). Now, under grace, believers feed on the salvation
truths presented in Romans through Hebrews. Salvation for the believer is in
the epistles of Paul, which are on the substitutionary death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ described in the four gospels.
Is
it wise to tell someone who prays to receive Christ that she or he is now born
again and heaven bound?
Countless
authors have written volumes about the process of spiritual regeneration.
However, what we known for sure about the majority of those who profess to
receive Christ (using the modern recital prayer method) is that many will fall
away or cease to continue in the truth. Easy prayerism (as the accepted
approach) to winning souls contains ‘polished evangelical appeals’ that
pressure people into making decisions for Christ before their hearts have been
fully cultivated by the Word of Truth.
Unfortunately,
these high-pressure (and often emotional) tactics are filling churches with
false converts whose hearts remain hard as stony ground and consequently
uncultivated to receive the salvation truths. They are lost thinking they are
heaven bound!
Why do most (professing) new converts (young and old) fall away? Most
fall away because they have been deceived (by church leadership)
into believing they have answered the call to salvation. They fall
away because they have no power to receive or continue in His word, and in many
cases simply loose interest in God and church. In John 8:31- 32, Jesus said: “If you abide (continue) in my word, you are my disciples indeed.
And you shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.” Jesus
plainly teaches that those who continue in His Word (and especially the
epistles of Paul, which are for the church) are the ones who have been born
again.
Church
leadership must return to TEACHING the basic truths about salvation and
victorious living. These truths will
give the church body (and those who join the body) the vision with which to
live in victory, discern growing deception in the church, uphold the brethren,
and evangelize the lost.
Is
the recital prayer the ‘definitive moment’ for experiencing the new birth?
While it can be for some, it is clearly not the ‘definitive moment’ for most. The ‘recital prayer’ is dangerous in the
sense that it can create false converts and unknowingly condemn those who recite
the prayer to an eternity without Christ.
Personal
salvation occurs when the soul hears, believes and receives (personalizes) the
‘basic salvation truths’ according to the Biblical precepts of redemption. Although reciting a prayer
is easy, it should not replace the need for the soul to personalize the basic
salvation truths. Personalizing the basic salvation truths is a soul-searching
experience that occurs under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit (John 16:
5-11).
Part 2: Making Sure of Your
Salvation
Do You Belong to the Lord?
Although
the Lord knows those who belong to Him (2 Timothy 2:19), do we know with
certainty we belong to him? We cannot look at other believers and say whether
they are born again even though they profess salvation. All professing believers need to examine themselves according to 2
Corinthians 5:17: "If any man be IN CHRIST, he is a new
creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become
new."
Those
who have been ‘born again’ by the power of the Holy Spirit will know it (Romans
8:16-17) because they will typically be:
In agreement with what the Bible says about judgment, their sinfulness
and depravity before a Holy God (before conversion)
At harmony with what the Bible says about grace, their acceptance and
holiness before God as they abide in Christ (after conversion)
Hungry for the Word and persistent in searching the scriptures for
truth
Grateful by the fact that Jesus died in their place on the cross
Convinced by the resurrection power that gives them daily victory over
sin
Appreciative to the Holy Spirit who sustains them day-by-day through
the power of the Word
Able to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is love, joy
peace...(Galatians 5:22)
Mindful of those who are lost and in prayer for their salvation
Note: According to Charles
Finney, a professing Christian who has no burden for the lost is himself lost.
For
church leadership to lead people into believing they are born again (after
reciting a prayer) when they have not been is an awful prospect! Yet that is
what many evangelicals are risking when they use easy prayerism to convince
people they have received Christ.
What Must You Know to be Saved?
Although the Bible contains
many salvation truths, three are most important for the would-be converts to
know and internalize in their souls.
Basic Salvation Truth 1
Romans
3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...”
The
Bible teaches humankind is subject to the wrath of God because they are displeasing
to Him. What makes us displeasing to God?
The sin nature! Matthew 7 talks about the strait gate and narrow way
that leads to eternal life. Finding and then walking through the strait gate is
the most difficult part about salvation because the soul must look at itself,
acknowledge the depravity it sees, and then come to grips with the fact s/he is
lost and without hope.
God
uses the Ten Commandments to help us see our sin nature. Unfortunately, most people
refuse to look in the mirror of the Ten Commandments because they do not want
to confess they are ugly, destitute, and rejected by God. If the truth be
known, sin is the ‘spiritual essence’ of every heart, which is at the center of
every soul (Romans 3:10-18). We are not sinners because we sin but sin because
we are sinners.
Mark 3:28 says that although God has forgiven humankind for their sins,
there is one sin he will not and cannot forgive; and, that sin will send them
to hell! That sin is the act of unbelief in the sacrificial death, burial and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Basic Salvation Truth 2
Romans
6:23 says “For the wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Since
everyone is born in sin, all have the disease except Christ who was born without
sin (Romans: 3:21). Everyone needs a new heart,
a transplanted heart. Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to admit they
have the disease and for that reason unwilling to say ‘yes’ to the Surgeon of
their souls. They are unable to view themselves as the Publican in Matthew who
said: “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” They are unwilling to look in the
mirror of the Ten Commandments. Why?
The
answer is many evangelicals would have you believe one’s ‘heart disease’ is
nothing more than a ‘mild cold’ that will go away with a simple prayer. Many
ministries have diluted the seriousness of sin down to nothing more than
innocent mistakes. The Bible paints a different picture of sin, one that shows
our sinful nature as a terminal disease. The Bible teaches that every human
heart is (corruptible) beyond repair
and needs a new (incorruptible)
heart, one that God Himself transplants through the seed of His Word (John 3: 1-21; 1 Peter 1:22-25).
1
John 5: 4-5 says: “He that overcomes (or is given a new heart by the renewing
of our minds through the Word of God) will come out from under God’s judgment
into Christ. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the
victory that has overcome the world— our faith. Who is he who overcomes the
world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” 1 Corinthians 15: 1-5
says essentially the same but under the Spirit inspired penmanship of the
Apostle Paul.
Basic Salvation Truth 3
The
Bible says there are two sides to salvation. From God’s side, salvation is
possible by grace through the finished work of the Cross (Romans 3:22, 24-25,
28). From man’s side, faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus
Christ is the only condition God requires for salvation (John 3:16, 14:6; Acts
4:12; and 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Faith is our response to the gift of
salvation. From Genesis to Revelation, God uses grace and faith to put man
right with Himself. Faith and faith alone is what please the Father (Romans
1:17; Romans 5:1).
To
borrow from a popular analogy used by evangelists, imagine two brothers trapped
by fire on a window ledge several floors up. Their only hope of escape is to
jump into the net below. Suddenly, one brother leaps from the building and
lands safely in the net. He finds salvation. The other (blinded by smoke and
lacking faith in the net) backs away from the ledge and looks for another
escape route. In the ensuing moments that follow, poisonous fumes overcome the
second brother and he perishes in the fire. He finds death.
What
saved the first brother’s life? It was his faith in the net. What took the
second brother’s life? Obviously, it was his lack of faith in the net. The net
was there for both of them. One said yes and the other said no.
text-autospace:none'>From
this analogy, we see that grace (made possible by the finished work of the
Cross) is the net that God has spread out before all mankind. Those who jump by
faith will find salvation. Those who do not jump will be lost. What causes a person to be lost? Lack of faith (unbelief) in Christ!
text-autospace:none'>
text-autospace:none'>Before salvation can occur,
the person must:
Acknowledge s/he is a sinner (caught in
a burning building) with no way out and in danger of losing eternal life.
Look for an escape route from God’s
wrath (the fire) by placing his or her faith in the unseen net far below (the
finished work of the Cross)
Jump (take the leap of faith) believing
the one holding the net far below is Christ himself.
How
do we jump? According to the apostle Paul, we take the leap-of-faith by
believing the gospel (with all of our heart) as outlined in 1 Corinthians 15
1-4: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto
you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which also you are
saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed
in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was
buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures...”
In
closing, the Bible instructs believers to examine themselves to see if they are
in Christ (and rapture ready).
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