OldRegular
Well-Known Member
I know! I know!:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
Almost complete "agreement" OR... almost.
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The sinners prayer
- Thread starter evangelist6589
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Are you saying that the sinner does not have to “make a decision” or “put their faith in Christ” (i.e., “come and drink,” “open the door,” “come,” “receive Him, “trust Him,” “repent,” “choose”) in order to be saved?
I’m not saying that the decision is not entirely a work of God…but it does seem that the choice must be made and that human responsibility remains an inherent aspect of salvation (men not being saved while they are yet unwilling). When we witness it should be consistently done through prayer…but the biblical model often presents the one witnessing as utilizing persuasion (I don’t recall an instance of a man being saved without a human response to God’s drawing).
I understand avoiding an "easy-believism" doctrine...but I don't know that we can abandon the idea that one must choose (even if the will to choose Christ is a grace of God and not a work of man).
Well, one thing is for sure. You understood exactly what I meant, and that makes me happy that I was clear with my words.
First, there isn't one single bible verse which says that becoming saved comes through making a decision. Not even one half of a verse.
Maybe you're making the all-too-typical mistake of confusing believing with behaving?
Passing from death to life is through faith in the One who justifies the ungodly (Rom 4:5), or believing the gospel (Eph 1:13), or believing in Jesus (Jn 3:16, et al), or being fully assured of the promise of God (Rom 4:21-24) - those are synonymous, imo.
It is not humanly possible to "decide" to believe a promise. It is not humanly possible to "choose" to believe a message. It is not humanly possible to "will" yourself to believe in someone. No human being has the capacity to decide to believe truth.
Either you become convinced of it, by someone or something else, or you simply don't believe.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing someone to faith. He convicts us and enlightens us to the truth. That's it, and it's over.
You don't become convinced of truth, then walk away to ponder it, and later make a decision to believe it. That makes no sense. If you're convinced of it, you believe it. And if you believe it, it's because you became convinced of it.
Come and drink is simply a metaphor, seeing how Jesus is offering the water of life, which is not a literal glass of H2O
Open what door? Please tell me you're not referencing Rev 3:20
Receive Him, like the ground receives a seed (parable of the sower). When was the last time you saw ground reach up and grab a seed out of the sower's hand?
Trust Him is not a decision. It is not humanly possible to decide to trust. Trust is based on the veracity of one who is trustworthy, or some paradigm which is guided from outside of one's self. It is not active, as in a water gun that you choose to point and shoot.
Repent means to have a change of mind. It is passive. It happens TO you, it doesn't come FROM you.
It's simply not a decision at all. By the time someone could get around to making their decision, it's already a done deal.
And I think the "easy believism" thing is just plain worn out. I'll tell you from experience that believing in Christ alone to provide the water of life, without cost, was the hardest thing I've ever come to believe. Easy believe? It was anything except easy.
I was 100% unwilling to leave my self righteous attempts to earn my way to heaven. I was flatly refusing to leave my eternal destiny in the hands of Christ, to save me.
My thinking was sideswiped by the Holy Spirit, and I was refusing. This is where human responsibility comes in. We don't choose to believe. We just have to stop refusing.
He broke me. He enlightened me with the knowledge of Christ, and utterly persuaded me that Christ alone saves wretched sinners.
And it was over. I believed the good news. Not by choice.
Just as if you were hanging on the side of a cliff by a twig, and someone grabs your shirt collar. Do you trust them to pull you up? Do you trust your collar to hold you? Let go of the twig.
You can't decide to trust your shirt collar to hold you, or to trust the person to pull you up.
If you're not convinced of those, you will refuse to let go of the twig.
But just to drive my point a little deeper, I would like to offer you an honest challenge. Since you're convinced that it's possible to decide to believe truth, will you do all of us a favor?
I'd like for you to decide, right now, to believe the earth is flat.
Then next week, come back and let us all know how you're doing with your decision.
Don't worry about falling into egregious error. Next week you can just decide to believe again that the earth is round.
Simple enough, right? Will you take the challenge?
Nice tirade. Yes, come and drink is a metaphor…but it is a metaphor for something. Likewise it would be crazy to view the parable of the sower as non-symbolic. You argue that the ground does not grab a seed - but then again, a seed does not fall on our heads and grow into a plant. It is also a metaphor. The disagreements are about the meaning behind the metaphor. But this can easily be ignored because I do agree with you for the most part. Where I disagree is that I do view a role for human responsibility in salvation. God draws men, and those whom He calls come. It is God’s drawing…but they still come (not God dragging them kicking and screaming, but God working within them to change their will). God works out our belief, not man. Men are not passive, they are changed. For example, when we are saved it is to labor in Christ ...but then you could argue "no - we remain passive because it is not our works but Christ in us." I understand your point. No need to “debate” the issue, this is one area where we apparently will not agree.
No I won’t take the challenge…it is asinine and ill-conceived. It is not honest because faith is from God (I doubt that God will lead me to the belief that the earth is flat…and I don’t find it appropriate to ask).
No I won’t take the challenge…it is asinine and ill-conceived. It is not honest because faith is from God (I doubt that God will lead me to the belief that the earth is flat…and I don’t find it appropriate to ask).
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Thank you.
I agree with that, as I pointed out in my tirade. I just don't believe the human responsibility is active. I believe it's a refusal to be active. If someone is determined to play an active role, they're resisting grace.
And to teach someone to resist grace?
I thought it drove my point rather well. You're right, though. It was quite asinine.
It gave me a good chuckle, though.
quantumfaith
Active Member
Do you "believe" or are you "convinced". ?
It's synonymous. I'm convinced, so I believe. Also, I believe because I am convinced.
I said thanks because John gave me an honest compliment, much the same as I issued an honest challenge. I figured "thank you" probably carried 100 times more thrust than an expression of anxiety or offense because I felt neither.
And the chuckle came from anticipating the look on John's face when he would read my proposed "honest" challenge. Not that I expected him to take it, because that challenge makes it blatantly obvious that we do not have the capacity to decide to believe something. It gets people real honest, real fast.
That's not true.
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Pro 1:29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
Believing is a choice, every election you choose between candidates who make many promises, you choose that person whom you believe is telling the truth.
It is absolutely possible to decide to believe a promise. When you got married you chose to trust your wife. That's all marriage really is, a promise.
Yes, the Holy Spirit convicts and enlightens, but you must decide to trust. We live by faith, not sight.
Sure you do. Listen to any two good lawyers in a trial. If you listen to one, you will be convinced, listen to the other, you will be convinced by him. In the end, you must CHOOSE which story you believe is the truth. Folks choose to believe every day.
These verses concern the will, trusting Jesus is an act of the will, you choose to trust him, just as you would open a door for a stranger who knocks (or not).
This is true in the sense that soil that has been tilled will receive seed before soil that is trampled down and hard. The soil represents the heart.
You trust all the time. If you have money in the bank, you decided to trust that bank with your money. Trust is taking a risk, taking a chance. You decided the bank was trustworthy and left your money with them.
Would you give your life savings to Bernie Madoff now that you know he is a con artist? Your answer is your decision.
Again, people repent all the time. You may have believed a false doctrine, such as the folks who believed being a son of Abraham guaranteed salvation, but good teaching caused you to change your mind.
Mat 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
Many Jews believed they were guaranteed to be saved simply because they were the physical descendants of Abraham. John the Baptist told them to repent of this false belief.
Because many people truly believed John the Baptist was a true prophet of God, many would be convinced by this teaching from him and change their belief. That is a conscious decision.
Here you are correct, believing in Jesus alone is very difficult for most people.
You prove believing is a decision, you say you were "unwilling" to leave self righteousness. You were refusing. Therefore you made a decision to be willing and stop refusing.
Sure, but you still must believe by faith, and that is a decision.
But it was a choice. You were unwilling and refused before, now you are not.
Still a decision.
Not a good analogy, we KNOW the earth is round, we have satellite photos of it. We know the earth is round BY SIGHT, not faith.
Your test is a fallacy, we know the earth is round by sight, not faith.
Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
I believe…or maybe I’m convicted…or passively believe….I don’t know…I think that we actually agree (or mostly agree).
When man, on his own merit, does anything towards righteousness it is a self-righteousness that falls short of the glory of God. When the lost comes to Christ it is by God drawing them. At the same time, we are commanded to “repent and believe.” God fulfills that command in those who are being saved.
Good - while sarcastic, I didn’t mean it as an insult. :wavey:
Not always. WOTM does not use it.
No no problem with him/her praying that I just have problem when someone prays that and has no fruit of conversion afterwards which all too often reflects the majority whom have said the prayer.
thisnumbersdisconnected
New Member
If you'll look carefully at what you say here, it isn't the prayer that you have the problem with. It is the life lived afterwards, and there are many emotional or intellectual confessions in countless circumstances that fail to be proven valid for salvation in the life thereafter lived. So you shouldn't be criticizing the prayer. You should be criticizing the discipleship provided the convert.
No truth to that.
And who are you, the fruit inspector?
Many saved people do not act saved. No one would have believed Samson was saved by looking at his "fruits". He was disobedient to his parents and married a non-Jewish girl, then he abandoned her, then later came back and took her from another man. He killed 30 innocent men for their coats to settle a gambling bet that he lost, and he visited a prostitute on a regular basis. Yet we know that Samson was a great man of faith and is included in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11. Solomon was another believer who did not always live for the Lord, he had hundreds of wives and built groves and altars to false gods for them. Yet he was saved and wrote several of the OT books.
You may not like the sinner's prayer, but we have an example of it in scripture;
Luk 18:9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Who showed the "fruits" here? Why, the Pharisee did, and he was as lost as a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. He was not an extortioner (which publicans were considered to be), or unjust, or an adulterer, and he paid tithes. Yet he was proud and self-righteous.
The publican made no such boasts, neither did he promise to stop sinning and obey all the commandments. He simply confessed he was a sinner and cast himself completely on God's mercy. And according to Jesus, this publican went down to his house justified, forgiven all his sins.
Trusting Jesus does not mean trusting in our own works to save us, trusting Jesus means to depend upon him alone to save us.
You better be careful how you judge others, you will be held to that same standard.
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Why does that amaze you? Don is absolutely right - we are not saved by saying a prayer.
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quantumfaith
Active Member
It is the work of the HS and the intent of the human heart when such a "prayer" is uttered.
No one says anyone gets saved because of a prayer. That is just a myth.
He's amazed because he accepts Calvinists contentions that non - Cals all believe in a magic prayer that saves, that 90% of non - Cals aren't really saved because of easy believeism, etc. He's stated this umpteen times and every time it is refuted he is amazed that actual people don't fit his preconceived prejudices.
He wants it to be true, he needs it to be true, therefore he believes it is true and he doesn't let a little thing like facts get in his way.
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