Rethinking our Terminology

Brother Tom,
To tell the truth, I am starting to see some of your reasoning. Only God can save a person, and He does not need the help of human inventions. I think your question about how to properly hold an "invitation" or whatever you call it to allow God to do His work is quite profound. Whatever form it takes, it cannot be the way some other denominations present salvation by attending a class and answering questions in front of the local church.

 

Tom Butler

It is unfortunate that you do not know what the sinner's prayer implies or that your church does not lead the unsaved to praying it. The sinner's prayer is simply acknowledging to God that one IS a sinner and asking God to forgive him or her. It is taken from scriptural examples of the sinful publican who cried out, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner". It also is taken from Peter's address to the Jewish people to repent, so they could have their sins forgiven.

God COMMANDS all men to repent.Acts 17:30. But repent of what? Of their sins. Christ did not come to save the righteous, but sinners. Sinners need saving. This is what sinners are to repent of. Sadly, this message is not being preached in MANY churches today and apparently yours.

This is what happens at the altar call. The sinner comes forward and the counselor guides them and prays WITH THEM. A sinner does not know what to say, only that God has convicted him or her OF sin. The counselor now tells the sinner that he or she needs to repent of their sins and that Christ has died for them and IF they believe that he has, they WILL be saved.

This is what a sinner's prayer entails and why it is soooo important. We are to win the lost to Jesus. Show them and tell them of the gospel and how TO BE SAVED. An altar call can be anywhere really. In church, at work, in your home with a friend. But no sinner can be saved without faith and repentance. And that's where the sinner's prayer comes in.

Tom, it is my sincere hope that you get out of the church you are in and get into a church that has a burden for lost souls. A church that invites the unsaved to come forward and receive Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Believe me, you won't be sorry.Shalom.

 

Ron Arndt,
For your information, the church that Tom and GLC go to holds an invitation pretty much as your say. These two are merely expressing an opinion of how they would like it to be, and have never brought the matter before the church. Please read my post above. You seem to come to conclusions and sling accusations without the slightest idea as to what you are talking about. To me you seem to be projecting a double message. You start your posts with what seems like a sincere argument for your position, then in the last paragrah (and with GLC), you make statements that have no foundation, from which can only conclude that if there is validity to the rest of your position, you have no idea why.

 

That's exactly what I'm talking about (abiding in Him and bringing forth fruit). In my view, that's an excellent definition of decipleship.

 

I anticipated that a response similar to yours would come. My own daughter visited a service in my church in which the pastor simply closed the service without an invitation. She was upset. "Dad," she asked, "how can people be saved if you don't give an invitation?" Another question she asked: "What if there had been a lost person there who might have accepted Christ if there had been an invitation, but was killed in a wreck on the way home?"

The Calvinist answer (and mine) was, and is, It is God who saves, and in His own time. And none whom He has elected will be lost. As Jesus prayed in John 17:6 "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word."

The non-Calvinist reponse would resemble your view.

The question I posed earlier assumed that invitations were okay. It asked how you would frame invitation to avoid manipulation and gimmicks to get a response. I did not intend to trigger a debate on whether we should or shouldn't have them, only how to do them properly.

Tom </font>[/QUOTE]One night I was listening to Family Radio, a self-styled Christian radio station. Harold Camping was discussing scripture and answering questions from callers.

A man called in and said that he was miserable with his life and wanted to become a Christian. Did Camping, staunch Calvinist that he is, help him in his search for the Lord? NO. He told this man that he would just have to wait to find out if he was one of God's elect.

Is this the way to treat an honest seeker?

 

Tom,

you mentioned the word "decision", and I do recall now that many people use that word very vaguely. It can mean any number of things. And actually I don't think my pastor uses it in his invitations. But when I used it previously I was only referring to things like deciding to become a member, deciding to be baptized, deciding that one's actions are wrong and need to change in some fashion.

You also mentioned it probably being better for a counselor to take a person to a different room. I agree with this in most cases, but I know at my church our facility just doesn't lend itself to that well. There's really no place to take a person during a church service besides the back of the auditorium, or a quieter corner of the auditorium. I have seen separate counselling rooms used well in other churches though. We won't be able to do this until we get our new building done.
I think its a very good point though, as Ive seen counsellors interrupted as people leave the auditorium and the kids don't realize that there is counselling still going on.

 

Brother Ron - I, for one, made a public profession and was immersed (at age 9) through a long "altar call" - saved 5 years later under the speaking of Dr. Chester Swor, who gave a fairly brief invitation in an associational youth revival, but I was saved before I left the pew - had to go back to my home church and convince them to baptize me!
(Rough for a shy kid!)

I have no objection to longer invitations as the Spirit leads, but far too much is simply trying to put "notches in the spine of our Bible," in my observation of 60+ years (I'm over 70, but have been watching Baptists closely since that false profession induced by well-meaning people. The invitation on Pentecost was "with many other words," and that answers those who say there was never an invitation till ...(whatever date they give - Finney, etc.). But not many such are in the Bible; off the top of my head none come to mind, but I suspect Paul gave some in the synagogues.

"It has pleased God by the foolishness of ...." (you fill in the blank, but the word isn't "a long invitation," as I recall, or a great song service of whatever flavor, or a wise and deep Bible study (valuable as those may be). With all the "hoopla" today, it strikes me that there is not a lot of gospel preaching, from what I hear. But us old guys tend to get a bit "crochety" sometimes!

Best in Him - Charles - Ro. 8:28

 

Your right Charlie

When is the last time you heard a sermon on hell fire or that sinners were in the hands of an angry God? Preachers today are giving people milk and cookies, so as to not offend anyone and not lose the members they already have to another church.Shalom.

 

Nope. That's hyper-Calvinism and it's not biblical. </font>[/QUOTE]My understanding was that hyper-calvinism was believing that God identified the elect who who have eternal life in heaven AND identified those who would go to Hell. I've always thought this was mere semantics since there are only two eternal destinies, Heaven and Hell. If you weren't chosen as one of the elect you would have only one other destination possible, Hell.

 

I'll AMEN that Charles and Ron. Our new Pastor is a grace and love pastor, every Sunday. Never raises his voice like the "preachers" of my youth(I'm 56). No sermons on God's wrath so far.

Charles, can I replace your "hoopla" with the word "production"? It borders on an entertainment type service. That might be a little exaggerated. I ran the sound system every Sunday for many years. Most of the time it felt more like a job instead of a calling which is originally what I felt.

The sermon/message is usually 20 mins. long out of 60 minutes. Not enough meat and potatoes for me.

 

In this case the elders pray for a sick man who is healed and has his sins forgiven.

Jam 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
Jam 5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

If the sick man were already saved his sins would have already been forgiven.

 

Wait a minute Tom, I'm a non-Calvinist and I prefer your view. I would use the phrase "And none of His children will be lost" rather than use the word "elect".

Oh, OK

HankD