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THE
SINNER'S PRAYER
Many
churches today teach
salvation by the sinner’s prayer. The
Bible, however, does not teach the sinner's prayer.
These are the verses that
people commonly distort when teaching
it:
1)
John 1:10-13
- 10He was in the world, and though the world
was made through him,
the world did not recognize him. 11He came to
that which was his
own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to
all who received him,
to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children
of God— 13children born not of
natural descent, nor
of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
By
reading
verses 12 and 13 in their context we can understand the meaning of
"receiving" Christ. In
verse
11 "his own did not receive him." Does
this mean that they did not ask him to save them? No, they
did not receive his message. In other words, they
rejected him. So,
to receive Christ, we accept his message. This does not mean
to say the sinner's
prayer, it means to repent (Mat. 4:17),
deny oneself, and follow him
(Mat. 16:24).
Churches
that teach the sinner's prayer take
one word, "receive," and a couple of other
misunderstood verses and formulate
this whole doctrine of salvation out of it. If this was the
method for people to be saved, it
would be clearly
portrayed in the Bible, but it is not. The sinner's
prayer gives millions of people a false
sense of
security. These
people do not know what
Christ's message really is, so they do not know how to follow
him. Many churches today think
that obeying
Christ is optional, because they think that anyone who says the
sinner's prayer
and means it is saved for all eternity. This belief
contradicts hundreds of verses in the
Bible, but people
think that they can hang on to a few distorted verses and ignore
everything
else. The following
verses demonstrate
that "receiving Christ" means to accept his message:
John 13:20,
John 12:48,
1 Thess.
2:13, 1 Cor. 15:1,
James 1:21,
Acts 8:14,
Acts 11:1,
and Mat.
10:40-41.
2)
Rom. 10:9-13 - 9That if thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from
the dead,
thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man
believeth unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11For
the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12For
there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord
over
all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13For
whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (KJV)
The
message in
the book of Romans is very clear. There
are two main points that Paul makes throughout the book: (1)
men are not justified
by observing the
law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, and (2) this faith is available
not
only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles. This second
argument is critical to understanding
what Paul is saying by
quoting Isa. 28:16
and Joel 2:32
in verses 11 and 13. He is
stressing the "whosoever"
part of the verses, which is seen
by verse 12. The
following verses
illustrate Paul’s emphasis on argument (2) throughout the
book of Romans:
Romans:
1:16,
2:9-16,
2:26-27,
3:9,
3:29-30,
4:9-11,
4:16-17,
9:24-26,
10:12,
10:19-20,
15:9-12.
Also,
because
Paul is quoting Joel 2:32
(Old Testament) in verse 13—not
declaring a new
doctrine—how can the Old Testament be referring to this
previously unknown New
Testament doctrine of "ask Jesus into your heart?"
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1
Cor. 1:2 - To
the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and
called to
be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our
Lord
Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
This
verse shows
that calling on the name of the Lord is not a single event (the
sinner’s
prayer) but a lifestyle. Acts 9:14
& 21
also demonstrate the
meaning of "calling on the name of the Lord."
If Paul was
teaching in Rom. 10:13
that everyone who calls out to Jesus wanting to
be saved
will, indeed, be saved, it would clearly contradict what Jesus said in
Mat. 7:21-23, as well as many other
verses in the Bible.
Mat.
7:21-23 -
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will
say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name,
and in
your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell
them
plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
Also,
desiring
to be saved is not how a person gets saved, it is by God's
grace. This is clearly shown by
the following
verse:
Rom.
9:11-18 -
Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or
bad—in order that
God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who
calls—she
was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written:
"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God
unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It
does
not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
For the
Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that
I
might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in
all the
earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he
hardens whom he wants to harden.
In
regard to
verses 9
and 10
of Rom. Ch.10, where did the idea come from that
"confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus" means "ask Jesus to save
you?" The
following verse depicts what it means to
"confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus":
2
Tim. 2:19 -
Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this
inscription:
"The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Everyone who confesses
the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."
This
verse
clearly shows that confessing the name of the Lord means to claim to
know the
Lord or claim to be a Christian. It
also shows that those who have not turned away from wickedness do not
know the
Lord, which is also supported by numerous other verses, such as 1 John 3:6.
3)
Rev. 3:20 - Here I
am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens
the door,
I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
In
this verse
Jesus is not talking to everyone in the world who is not saved, He is
talking
to the lukewarm Laodicean Church, explaining that they have not yet
opened the
door to Him. Jesus
tells them what to
do in the previous verse (Rev. 3:19
- "...so be earnest and repent")
and
then
gives the invitation for salvation in verse 20. So, to let
Jesus in does not mean to "ask
him into your heart,"
it means to get serious about the Lord (be earnest) and forsake all
sins
(repent). John
14:23 also describes
what a person must do for Jesus to come live in him (which is by God's
grace)
(Rom. Ch.9):
John
14:23 -
Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father
will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."
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