The sinners Prayer

John, my problem with the Sinner's Prayer (and the Roman Road) is not their use, but their abuse.

I believe Roman Road is a good tool for sharing scriptures with a lost person. But in many ways it has been corrupted into a sales pitch, leading to the Sinner's Prayer, which becomes "closing the sale."

Too often the use of the Sinner's Prayer to help someone ask God to save him, has become "say these magic words."

That may sound cynical, but when you tell a lost person to "repeat this prayer after me," you are risking that he may understand the prayer as some magic words.

If a lost person cannot plead for mercy, repent, confess and call on the name of the Lord on his own, you have not adequately laid the groundwork. He is not lost enough, so to speak.

D. L. Moody said: It is a great mistake to give a man who has not been convicted of sin certain passages that were never meant for him. The Law is what he needs . . . Do not offer the consolation of the gospel until he sees and knows he is guilty before God. We must give enough of the Law to take away all self-righteousness. I pity the man who preaches only one side of the truth-always the gospel, and never the Law."

My wife once asked someone about their salvation. The answer was, "Well, I said the prayer." That was it. Can you say cold chills?

 

John it is a little difficult to speak on what someone has said unless it can be heard. So in this case I will only say that no one ever gets saved by a so called sinners prayer. We are saved by repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not a prayer.

 

I agree with those above. I tend to view the sinners prayer as the cry out similar to the thief on the cross who repented of his ridicule and cried out for mercy. The TBN's of the world view it as some hokus pokus set of words to say, and the "repeat after me" part makes me throw up in my mouth. Why do I need to repeat after you? Can I not cry out to God without your help?

Many "pastors" will have to answer for their "if you said this prayer, congratulations" deception, IMO.

 

I don't understand why you won't tell his name since he has put his sermons out to the public. I would like to know who this is.

 

I think something that gets missed by those who use a sinner's prayer to "close the sale" is that when scripture speaks of "the name of the Lord", it is not talking about a literal name (as merely an identifier), but of the Person, character and integrity of the Lord. In the Hebrew culture (as well as many other non-native-English-speaking cultures in the world today), a person's name represents who they are. That's why the names of biblical characters often changed at pivotal points in their lives (Jacob->Israel, Abram->Abraham, etc.).

So "calling upon the name of the Lord" is much more than pronouncing the words, but it is calling the Person and resources of the Lord to your rescue/salvation and putting yourself (speaking from the human perspective here, I'm much more Calvinistic than most people realize) into the hands of God to be used for His purposes and glory.

 

Is this the kind of thing y'all are bothered about?

Invitation time at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, 1888:

"breathe an earnest prayer to God, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner. Lord, I need to be saved. Save me. I call upon thy name." Join with me in prayer at this moment, I entreat you. Join with me while I put words into your mouths, and speak them on your behalf—"Lord, I am guilty. I deserve thy wrath. Lord I cannot save myself. Lord, I would have a new heart and a right spirit, but what can I do? Lord, I can do nothing, come and work in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure.
. . . .
But I now do from my very soul call upon thy name. Trembling, yet believing, I cast myself wholly upon thee, O Lord. I trust the blood and righteousness of thy dear Son; I trust thy mercy, and thy love, and thy power, as they are revealed in him. I dare to lay hold upon this word of thine, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lord, save me tonight, for Jesus' sake. Amen." —Charles Spurgeon, "A Free Grace Promise"

 

When a person calls on the Lord for forgiveness and salvation, they should be allowed to use their own words and not told as I was, "Repeat these words after me." I wasn't ready, willing, or in the right frame of mind (repentant and realizing my lost condition) when I was (as a teen) led to a back room in a church, told to get down on my knees, and then told to "Repeat these words after me." Those words were meaningless to me at that time. Even if I had had any idea what being "saved" and what I was being saved from meant, I had never done anything (except lying and a few mischievous things) that I would have thought were bad. Well, I did try to steal some candy once from a store when I was 5 at the prodding of my brother, but the store clerk caught me and scared the daylights out of me.

First, those who are so anxious to lead someone to Christ need to find out where that person is in their spiritual understanding of their need for forgiveness and salvation instead of jumping in with both feet, grabbing the person and saying words that are meaningless to that person and then saying, "Repeat these words after me."

I was shy, withdrawn, and afraid to speak my mind and tell them, "I don't understand any of this and have no idea what's going on." Just because I was 16 at that time, that didn't mean I was ready, willing, and desirous of being saved--especially when I had no idea what that meant. When I went home from church that day, my dad who had a background in a 7th Day Adventist church asked, "Well, did you get saved?" Of course, the question was not one of concern but meant as a joke." I replied, "Yes, but I don't know what from", and we all laughed.

The Publican in the temple simply said, "Have mercy on me, a sinner", and we're told that he went home justified--unlike the boastful Pharisee. There are no magical words that we need to repeat, and there is no such as a "sinner's prayer." The sinner's prayer is one that comes from your heart as you call on the Lord in humbleness and repentance, and the words change from sinner to sinner. Mine (when I got saved nearly a year later) were something like, "Lord, please forgive me of my sins and save me." That time on May 18, 1963, the words were real to me. I knew that time what I was doing and from what I was being saved. Rushing people into a decision before they're ready and understand the consequences of rejecting Christ can give a person a false assurance that they are ready for heaven when they're not.

Another thing I have always thought can be dangerous and give people false hope and a false belief that they are a Christian is the pastor saying, "You can be saved right there in the pew (which is true enough). Just repeat these words", or something to that effect." The lost person in the pew might think, "Wow! All I have to do is say those words, and I'll be saved." I generally don't hear the pastor tell them, "However, you must repent of being a sinner and be truly sorry for your sins." Too many people think, "I'm not all THAT bad, but just to play it save I'll repeat his words."