Was there a time in your life where you said the 'sinners' prayer? Did you mean it? Were you sincere when you prayed to ask Jesus into your heart? Did you approach God with the right motivation? Did you make serious, heart felt repentance before God?
These are some very important questions that need to be asked, because right now there are countless thousands of people who also prayed the 'sinners' prayer, or made a public profession of faith before their local church body, that are in Hell!
Are you shocked by that statement? What I am saying here may offend you, but don't stop reading, your eternity may depend on it. Hold on before you brand me a heretic, or something, and consider what I am telling you. The truth is that churches in North America are chocked full of false converts. People who believe in Jesus, and have prayed the 'sinners' prayer, but for the wrong reasons, let me explain.
These day's many preachers are using 'modernized evangelism'. This produces false converts by the scores because it causes people to respond to the Gospel for the wrong reasons. The Preacher will say something like “There is a God shaped hole inside of you that only God can fill. Come up to the front and pray this simple prayer”. What is wrong with this picture? There is NO mention of the need for repentance, and without repentance there is NO Salvation.
Some promise the individual that when they accept Christ, their life will improve, and get much better, when the truth is that life gets harder than it was before. The Devil could care less about those who are lost in their sins, he has them right where he wants them, their his trophies. When someone truly receives the Lord, that is when the Devil goes to work to screw up their lives so that they will not have the victory that Christ wants them to have.
When sharing my faith with someone, I walk them through the Law of God, known to most as the Ten Commandments. The Apostle Paul told us that the Law is what shows us that we have sinned, and it also shuts the mouths of people trying to justify their sin. Without exposure to the Law, people cannot understand the Gospel of Grace.
Repentance is agreeing with God that you have broken his laws, or commandments, and because of that you are guilty before him, and deserve God's wrath in Hell. Without Repentance, no one is saved from the wrath of God. The Bible tells us to repent and be baptized in order to have our sins forgiven. It's not the baptism that saves, but repentance that saves a person.
No where in Scripture will you find anything that says pray this prayer to receive Jesus as your Savior. What you will find is located in Roman's 10: 9-10, that instructs us that we must confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. Somewhere along the line somebody decided to compartmentalize this into a simple prayer. While the prayer itself is nothing bad, in fact it's very good, but is widely misused by many, and even misunderstood by others.
How is the prayer misused by so many? They call people to pray the prayer without fully explaining the seriousness of it, or they invite people to pray it leaving out the need for true heartfelt repentance. Even the Heidelberg Catechism mentions the need for there to be heartfelt repentance, but most churches that teach this way do not call people to true repentance before God, and many people making a public profession of faith do so out of shear religious duty.
Every individual must cry out of God in repentance in from the depths of their own hearts, it must be done in their own words. Too many times someone has said “here repeat after me”they did, some were saved, many were not. It must come from the sinners own heart, the desire to humbly come before God in true repentance, confessing Jesus in Lord, that he came in the flesh and gave his life on the cross for them. They must ask to receive he pardon God has on hold for them, this is the free gift of eternal life.
It's not my aim to judge the intentions of anyone else's profession of faith, but rather to make people think, and consider whether they are truly in the faith, or not. How do we know if someone is truly saved or not? We look at the fruit they bear? There is rotten fruit, and good fruit.
Rotten fruit is the works of the flesh that is described in Galatians 5:19-21. They are as follows: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,
http://www.wordsoftruth.net/worksoftheflesh122292002.htm
The Fruit of the Spirit is described to us in Galatians 5:22. They are as follows: Love, Joy, Peace, Longuffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control
http://www.bible-knowledge.com/fruits-of-the-holy-spirit/
2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith."
http://www.poweredbychrist.com/files/treasures/Examine_Yourself.htm
Here is a sermon by Paul Washer that has angered many, many people. It's called “Examine Yourself”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky8dTyPpiAo&feature=colike
So you said a little prayer to receive Jesus as your Savior, but it wasn't as simple as you thought was, was it? My prayer is that many will examine themselves before God according to His Holy Word, and that many will come to true repentance and be saved.
No comments:
Post a Comment