Make sure your call doesn’t mislead people
Whenever we present the gospel, whether in a public service on Sunday or in personal conversation during the week, we should invite people to repent and believe the gospel so that our presentation of the good news is complete. If I never tell people how they can respond to the gospel and what to do about it, we should invite people to repent and believe.
- But when we invite them.
- We must make sure that they do not confuse any answers with the only saving response.
- The risks are high at this stage.
- Because if there is ambiguity.
- We are actually cooperating so that people are wrong about their own spiritual state.
- Assuring them that they are saved.
- When they may not have repented or believed at all.
- The two answers often confused with repentance and faith today are (1) saying a prayer with someone and (2) advancing in worship service.
Christians often share the gospel with someone and encourage them to say a previously written prayer. (People can really repent and believe this way. )Then the well-meaning evangelist encourages the “new believer,” saying, “If you said this prayer sincerely, as if to express your own feelings, congratulations!Now, are you a son of God? However, saying a prayer or sincerity is never presented in the scriptures as a foundation for the security of salvation. Does Jesus teach us not to regard prayer and sincerity as the security of salvation, but actions are the fruit of our lives (Mt 7:15-27; John 15,8; 2P 1. 5-12) . The New Testament teaches us to consider holiness of behavior, love for others, and purity. doctrine as indicators of our security of salvation (1 Ts 3. 12-13; 1Jn 4. 8; Gal 1. 6-9; 5. 22-25; 1 Tim 6. 3-5) . This means that we should not encourage people to feel safe in their salvation based solely on a prayer they have done in the past, when they have no visible fruit of repentance in their lives.
This also applies to those who show up after preaching in the church. People often show up after a sermon, indicating a “decision for Christ”; And those people are soon received as members of the church!No fruit of salvation can be discerned in these people, although it is (wrongly) admitted that she really repented and believed, because she expressed an abundance of emotions, manifested herself, and offered a sincere prayer.
Doesn’t the result of this kind require proof? From the security of salvation is for people to learn to see the prayer of twenty years ago as the reason to think that they are saved, ignoring the contradiction between their way of life and their confession of faith. with false converts, whose sins call into question the testimony of the local church. Isn’t that the way to build a healthy church?And can it even hinder our work of evangelization? both inside and outside the local church.
We must understand that people can say sincere prayers and come to the front after the sermon without repenting and believing in Jesus, which has been done for two thousand years. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews warns us that many people have lived authentic spiritual experiences and that these experiences were not “belonging to salvation” things (Heb 6:4-9; cf. 2Pe 1:6-10). It also teaches us that faith, hope, and love are more reliable criteria (He 6:9-12). The fruit of obedience is the only external evidence that the Bible recommends that we use to discern whether a person is becoming or not (Mt 7:15-27; John 15,8; James 2,14-26; 1 John 2:3).
We will be wiser if we end ambiguous evangelical practices than if we continue to confuse people about the nature of the saving response. It is true that allowing ambiguity can increase our adherence, but does this mislead the insecure into believing that it is to be saved? It is the cruelest scam of all. It also weakens the purity of our churches and their collective witness, allowing the acceptance of members who profess themselves Christians, but who later turn out not to be Christians, because they revert to ways of life that cannot characterize a truly converted Christian.
Whether you are starting a new church or reorganizing an old church, continue to call people to repentance and faith, both in their conversation and in their preaching. New converts can make a public confession of this faith. That’s what baptism is for.
Adapted text from the book Deliberately Church, Chapter 3?Evangelization with Responsibility?(Pages 64 to 66). Copyrigh © FIEL Editor
Authors: Mark Dever and Paul Alexander Translation: Francisco Wellington Ferreira
Some people who reject so-called modern evangelicals go to the opposite end of never calling men to faith and repentance. What’s the balance? Steven Lawson discusses this in the video below and in Charles Spurgeon’s book The Evangelical Focus.