Praying to receive Christ, evangelism questions

John, this post and others in this thread contain gold nuggets of perspective that I had never seen before. Particularly your comments on Acts 10:14, "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?"

I'm convinced that God will save sinners who cry out to him for mercy. But throughout the New Testament, the exhortation, starting with John the Baptist, is "repent" or "believe." In one interesting passage, Paul's sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 17, Paul's exhortation to the Greek philosophers is that God "commands all men everywhere to repent." (v.30). The response of some listeners was to "believe" (v.34).

So we who are witnesses may counsel a sinner to ask God for salvation. But I'm afraid it is often corrupted into "say these words." Magic words, which carry the power to get saved. We reinforce that distortion by following it up with "if you prayed that prayer, and really-really-really meant it, I declare you saved, and don't you doubt it."

After determining where he is spiritually, and testing his understanding, and after laying the groundwork of pointing the lost one to Christ, what about simply asking, "do you believe this? Do you desire trust Christ and him alone for your salvation. Do you trust him?"

If the answer is "yes," that's all you need to hear. The next step is to point him to baptism as a public confession of that salvation, based on his "yes."


In another post you said:

I agree, and add this: The Holy Spirit not only convicts, but also illuminates, and opens the heart and mind to understand.

 

I hope you realize I mean a little bit more than just tell them the Gospel. I mean actually inviting them to salvation and then following up. So you say, "Wouldn't you like to be saved?" And if they say, "Well I don't know," you say, "Why not?" If they say, "I think I want to," you say, "Why don't you do it right now? "You try to get them to accept Christ as Savior right then. This is what I mean by an invitation in personal evangelism.

I don't mean manipulate them into a prayer if they don't mean it, but then I also don't mean just say, "I hope you get saved," and leave it. I mean actually inviting and pressing them to become saved. Paul said, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences" (2Co 5:11 ). He actually tried to persuade people, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to be saved.

 

This is so important!! The question is, what do we care more about? Our personal evangelism, or the lost soul? If we care about our personal evangelism, we run the sinner through the Gospel and get him to pray without seeing if he means it or not. If we actually care about the person's soul, we will take nothing for granted, but ask further even if they have prayed. A number of times in my ministry I've prayed with someone and then asked if they really meant it. I've had people say straight out, "No!" Others have said, "I'm not sure," or, "I don't think I understood it all." Then I've dealt with them further.

Amen! As the old hymn says, "All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down." ("Brethren We Have Met to Worship").

 

Dear zrs6v4, you said

Jesus said

Matthew 18:12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

I believe your life bears witness to His words.

HankD​

 

All the answers to all of your questions are in the filling and leading of the Holy Spirit. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Right now? When you witness to someone? Are you led by the Spirit when you witness to someone? Then you don't have to wonder all of these things. The Holy Spirit will lead you and help you say what you should.

But it is up to them to be saved. So therefore we should ask them. Look at the end of the Book again where it says in Rev., 22:17, "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." We are to tell them to come, they are to come freely if they want to. It is not up to us to decide who we want to invite to Jesus. We are commanded to give the Gospel to everyone in the entire world (Mark 16:15). Any time we think, "I'll ask this person to be saved, but not that person," we are putting ourselves in the place of the Holy Spirit.

God commands--not recommends, not requests--us to tell others to come to Christ. "Let him that heareth (that's us who are believers) say come." You either invite people to trust Christ as Savior or you are disobedient to Christ, it is as simple as that.

 

zrs, I think if you want more discussion on this (and you have another thread where you ask some of the same questions), and want to ask more questions about witnessing, maybe you should go to the missions, witnessing and evangelism thread under the Baptist Fellowship Forum. You might get more input there than here on the debate forums.

Or maybe a moderator can move this thread there?

 

Yes, I see your point, and you are making sense.

My favorite passage on trust is still Prov. 3:5-6, "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." This passage says that trust is with the whole heart, it is done without understanding completely, it is realizing that it is God Who does it and not we ourselves.

Trusting Christ as Savior is the sinner letting go of their own efforts to save themself, casting self on Christ for salvation. It is not understanding everything, and knowing that it is not necessary to understand everything. A child trusts his parents for protection from the big bad world. A patient trusts the surgeon to fix what's wrong with his body. A bride trusts her groom that he will love her until death. Trust in Christ as Savior is like all of these, but differs in that Christ never fails, though parents can fail to protect a child, the doctor can take out the wrong kidney, and a man can stop loving his wife. But Jesus never fails. :jesus:

 

You may have misunderstood me. I don't believe you have to change anything to be saved, or can be saved no matter what you change. God changes you through regeneration. But you have to trust that He is the only one able to do that. Being born again means exactly that: you start out life again as a spiritual baby, able finally to live spiritually.

I oppose what is called "Lordship salvation," the view that you have to consciously accept Christ as Lord as well as Savior. Stick around and you'll see threads on that on the BB.

 

zach...

There's this haunting doubt in your mind about being saved but not living as one should. Do you know what this shows? It shows that there are 2 distinct decisions to be made: 1) to trust Christ as Savior and 2) to trust Christ as Lord.

We should begin to see the first decision as once-for-eternity "justification" of our soul and the second as progressively-throughout-this-life "sanctification" of our spirits. And the reason they are separate is that Christ is going to take control of your life after salvation only so long as you relinquish control to Him. Read 1Cor 15:29-40 and see where the Corinthians were very much this way in not believing that they were "new creations" in Christ! "If we are dead in Christ," they asked, " with what body are we raised from baptism?"

You, like they did, initially took the attitude "let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die," right? Their justifcation was full and complete but sanctification was only just beginning! They had to realize that "thou sowest not that body that shall be,..."
but that God would give them a new body/life according to His pleasure as we grow in Him! And He gives us each different lives/paths to live. Some people, when they realize this, will "rededicate" their lives, not to be saved again but to make Him truly Lord of their lives.

So when this becomes an issue for you or those whom you are trying to disciple, make sure you point this out to them. There are, for instance, many who think they will embark on their "sanctification life" who have not prayed for justification/reconciliation with God. They believe that God is gradually going to save them or that God has justifyingly chosen them without their input or choice in the matter. Both of these courses can have the "form" of salvation without the actual "substance" of salvation to begin with. Both are "slippery slopes" to them wondering whether they are really saved or not. Both Paul (Heb 6) and Peter (2Pet 1) tell us we needn't revisit our decision if we prayed for justification. Instead, they say, we need to move forward in spiritual growth, which is sanctification.

What does the "sanctifing life" look like? It looks like "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." It means knowing God's word so you can know His way. It means praying for His will in our lives because He doesn't give it to those who will not to receive it (this is the part that many find daunting -- trusting God regardless of how He might answer!). Here's when scriptures like this come to mind: "I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." We can trust that! "I know the plans I have for you. Plans for your blessing..." But you can't enter into this life with "self" as Lord.

skypair

 

There is no way I can tell when you were saved. If at age 11 you depended and trusted on Jesus alone for salvation, knowing He died for your sins and rose again, then you were saved.

I was saved that way when I was four years old. I changed when God regenerated me, and stopped my rebellion towards my parents. When I was six I won my first soul to Christ, a friend at kindergarten. His mother came with him to say thank you for leading her child to Christ. It was not till I was 16 that I offered my body as a living sacrifice, and told the Lord I would do whatever He wanted me to. (I don't like the term "made Him Lord of my life." It's not in the Bible.) When I was 18 He called me to preach and I said yes. When I was 20 He called me to be a missionary and I said yes.

That's what I believe the Bible teaches. :jesus:

 

Thank you for your post, J of J!!!

:godisgood:

 

I just want to keep saying yes to God! :jesus: