Heresy in the church 1 - The sinner's prayer

Repeat this prayer to be saved

We have been taught to ask a person who wants to be saved to repeat a short ‘sinners prayer’ . Once he has done this, he is saved!

This is a particular dangerous heresy and being practised by the majority of evangelical Christians.

The statistics show that many who say the sinners prayer give up after a short time.  I'm sure you have come across people who have said this prayer, and who wants nothing to do with Christianity later.    Even the Billy Graham Crusade Association quietly admits that a large portion of the ‘converts’ – people who fill in the decision card – drop off.    Why?

The simple answer is that they were never converted in the first place. 

So doesn’t saying the sinners prayer save a person?    No, period!  There is a false assumption that saying the sinner’s prayer is conversion. I acknowledge that there are genuine conversions, but it is not due to saying the sinner's prayer. Something else has to happen first.

Can you find one example in the New Testament of a person saying the sinners prayer and is saved?  You won't find one.

What about Revelation 3:20?  Didn’t Jesus say whoever opens the door, He will enter?   Look at the context closely. Who was it written to?  The church!  Not unbelievers.  Jesus was reprimanding the church and asking them to return to Him.  Like someone said ‘text without context is pretext’.

If you take away what you have been taught in the church, and go right back to the bible, ask yourself what does the bible say about how to be saved?  What did Jesus say? What did Paul teach?  What the bible says is all that matters.

Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus gives a clue. The wind blows where it wills. You can’t see the wind, but you can see the results. Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit works in the life of a person to create the ‘new life’ in him, making him a new creature – ‘born again’.  He says its not by the will of man. You can’t will it, and then be born again.  The new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit.  

This is where the false assumption falls apart – it is assumed that once a person says the sinners prayer he is automatically born again, as if he said a magic spell that brings about the new birth or that this magic words will force God to give us the new birth.  Has the church adopted a pagan practice here?   Saying the sinner's prayer has become like rubbing Aladdin's lamp and getting the genie to do our wishes, in this case getting God to do our bidding.

So what can a  person do to be born again?   Nothing.  That’s right. You can’t do a single thing. You don’t have the power to change the colour of a single hair on your head, let alone create a new heart.

So if I can’t do anything, then….I’m lost.  Yes that’s right. We are lost, without hope. Just waiting for judgement to fall on us because there is nothing we can do to save ourselves.

But wait. There is hope. Because what you cannot do, Christ can do.  He can transform us, change us, give us new hearts.

What we can do is to fall on the mercies of a gracious God.  Fall before Him, come to him with nothing.  Repent of your sins, repent of your love for yourself, and wholly trust Jesus Christ to save you. Keep trusting and see if He will not begin the good work of saving you by transforming your heart.  This is our responsibility. Regeneration of the heart is God’s responsibility and up to Him.   

I know many who read this will not like what you read.  But I challenge you to pick up any book written pre-1900 about how a person is to be saved and see what they teach.  Try Spurgeon, or bishop J.C. Ryle, try any of the Puritan writers like Owen, Jonathan Edwards, read the sermons of Whitefield or Wesley.  None of them teach the concept of the sinners prayer. 

The sinners prayer is an invention of the last 100 years, by zealous evangelist whose aim is to increase the tally of converts to their name.  If the organisers of crusades and tent meetings are so clearly aware of the large drop-out rates, why haven't they done something about their 'method'.  Are numbers more important than making sure a soul is saved?

I'm not saying that there are no genuine conversions coming out of these evangelistic meetings. What I am saying is that the idea that a person is born again when he says the sinners prayer is a false teaching and is not supported by scripture. 

Why is the spiritual life of the average Christian so dry? 

And why do Christians live just like a non-Christians? 

According to The Barna Group, evangelical Christians embrace lifestyles "every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general.  

May I suggest that the reason why these professing Christians behave exactly like the world is that they are the world, they are still dead in sins, they have never experienced the new birth. It is impossible for one who is born of the Spirit to continue to live a sinful lifestyle. Don't believe ,me? Read the first epistle of John.   These people have said the sinners prayer, and were misled by the evangelist into thinking that they have been born again.   What a dangerous heresy to pronounce a person a Christian when he has not been regenerated.    How many people have gone to hell thinking they’re Christians.

How will you know if you’ve really been born again?   By your fruits.  By the things that you now love. Do you love God and the things that God is interested in, including his church?   Is there a higher principle working in you that was not there before?  Do you have a new heart that drives you to behave differently?  If you do, you’ll know about it.  Are you sensitive to sin and want to avoid all appearance of it in your own life?  The Holy Spirit will bear witness to your spirit that you are a child of God.

Please email me if you have concerns about your soul. I can try to point you to the right direction at the very least.

Highly recommended books to read. Get them:

Today’s gospel - Authentic or Synthetic? by Walter Chantry

Alarm to the unconverted by Joseph Alleine  (electronic version below)  http://www.gracegems.org/28/alarm_to_the_unconverted.htm

God’s way of peace by Horatius Bonar

Also search youtube for sermons by  ’Paul Washer’