The Sinners Prayer

[JSM17]

Darrenss1:

....many simply gladly received/believed the gospel and then were baptised and added to the church.

Are you suggesting that one needs to be baptized before he can be added to the church?

 

[billwald]

>If a sinner, horrified by his sinfulness, cut off from any avenue of escape outside of the Lord Jesus, cries out "Dear God save me," I believe God hears and answers.

Why would a son of Satan be horrified by his sinfulness unless the Holy Spirit had regenerated him?

What does "added to the church" mean? If it means being officially added to the membership of a local congregation, then baptism is required.

If it means being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, then it was a done deal since before the foundation of the universe.

 

[Alive in Christ]

Matt...

"Hmmm....that's not what I understand the Sinner's Prayer to be: amongst UK evangelicals at least it is the prayer by which you 'ask Jesus into your life'....whatever that means..."

Whatever that means?

How is it that you dont know what it means?


Revelation 3:20...

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with me"

John 14:20...

At that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I in you"

"When Christ, who is our life..."

(cant remember the citation for that one)

 

[Darrenss1]

Darrenss1:


Are you suggesting that one needs to be baptized before he can be added to the church?

No, yet I wouldn't bring that up anyway as it is not related to the topic.

Darren

 

[Matt Black]

Matt...



Whatever that means?

How is it that you dont know what it means?

Revelation 3:20...

Others have already pointed out that that is a bad exegesis of Rev 3:20, where the Lord is speaking to a congregation of the saved (specifically that at Laodicea) rather than an individual unsaved sinner. The whole "Rev 3:20 = asking Jesus into your life = conversion" owes far more to Holman Hunt's romanticism than it does Scripture.

 

[Jerome]

"Unless you have Christ in your heart, a profession is but a painted pageantry for a soul to go to hell in. As a corpse is drawn to the grave by horses adorned with nodding plumes, so may you find in an outward profession a pompous way of being lost. God save us from that!
"No," says one, "but I do not trust in mere profession. I have great reliance upon orthodoxy. I will have sound doctrine." That is right, friend, I would have all men value the truth. "My confidence is in my sound doctrine." That is not mine, friend, and I hope that it will not be yours long, for many lost souls have firmly believed orthodox doctrine." ---Charles Spurgeon

 

[Tom Butler]

>If a sinner, horrified by his sinfulness, cut off from any avenue of escape outside of the Lord Jesus, cries out "Dear God save me," I believe God hears and answers.

Why would a son of Satan be horrified by his sinfulness unless the Holy Spirit had regenerated him?

I agree. The Holy Spirit also illuminates, convicts and draws during this process. Since the rest of the post veers away from the OP, I won't comment on it.

My view is that the Sinner's Prayer is neither prohibited nor required.

 

[RAdam]

Romans 10 deals with conversion, not regeneration.

 

[Tom Butler]

I find it interesting that nearly without exception everyone contributing to this thread will preach that God is sovereign in salvation; that God is the one who saves. Then some will turn right around and instruct a sinner to do something to be saved. That he must perform some act to be saved. That he must say some words and everything will be all right.

Oh, but you must really, really, really mean those words.