In this post I
want to examine what is commonly called the “sinner’s prayer”. The sinner’s
prayer is basically (as I understand it) a way to help sinner’s pray to receive
Christ, or an example of how to pray to receive Christ. Sometimes the preacher
will say, “Repeat after me in your own heart”, or invite people up to the front
individually to do the same process. First I want to explain the positives of
the sinner’s prayer, and lastly some negatives as well.
Positives
The sinner’s prayer encourages people to
receive Christ as Savior.
As a Christian, I want to see as many people as possible come to faith in
Christ and go to heaven to be with Jesus.
I like that this method of evangelism really does try to do that.
The sinner’s prayer encourages people to
pray to receive Christ. I
say this because nobody will be in heaven who has not asked for salvation. Everybody must pray to God if they want to be
saved, and the sinner’s prayer encourages people to do that.
Many people have come to Christ through
hearing the gospel presented this way. I think it’s an excellent way for people to receive Christ
who are not familiar with basic truths of Christianity. It also helps people
take that first step into exploring the Christian faith.
Negatives
The sinner’s prayer method of evangelism
is not directly taught in Scripture. For example in the book of Acts, we do
not see any of the apostles declare that sinner’s must ask Jesus into their
heart, or pray a prayer, nor does Jesus ever mention this method. I agree that
some verses in Scripture maybe hint at a possible justification of this method,
but still it is not openly declared in the Bible, this to me is the biggest
problem.
The sinner’s prayer method of evangelism
inevitably makes people think that they will be in heaven if they prayed the
prayer. For example,
after leading people in a prayer, I have often heard pastors say, “Let’s
welcome all these people into the kingdom of God”. Are you kidding me? When did praying a prayer
become the standard for entrance into the kingdom of Christ? Will everybody who
exercises true faith in Christ enter the kingdom? YES!! Will everybody who
prays the prayer enter into the kingdom? No. Why? Because in Matthew 7:21 Jesus
says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven”. Jesus means that not everyone who professes him will enter the
kingdom. It is very dangerous for an evangelist or pastor to make statements
like the one above.
The sinner’s prayer method of evangelism indirectly makes people trust in the
prayer or their own decision, instead of the work of Christ alone. In Scripture it is clear that one must
repent and believe to receive the benefits of the work of Christ in saving
sinner’s (Mark 1:15), yet it also true that faith is the gift of God (Ephesians
2:8). It is clear to me that often when a person does that prayer; they are usually not focused on the work of
Christ, but instead on their own decision. And I realize that most pastors
would not want people to do this, but the problem is that most people who pray
the prayer don’t realize what they are doing. And the problem is that it
becomes dangerously close to a works salvation. If God gets 95% of the credit,
it is NOT all of grace, and therefore God does not get all of the glory. In
Christianity salvation is ALL of grace, and the triune God gets all of the
glory!
For more teaching
on the sinner’s prayer, I would encourage anybody to listen to Paul Washer’s
sermons here
Here is also a
very helpful article on this issue.
I hope this has
been helpful, and would love any feedback from you all.
No comments:
Post a Comment