Know Your Bible
August 2003

The Sinner's Prayer

The TV preacher was winding down his fiery sermon. He had preached hard against immorality and sin. He had exposed those present in his audience as sinners before God in need of forgiveness and salvation. Now it was time for him to tell those convicted as sinners what they should do for God to forgive them of their sins. "All you need to do, right now, wherever you are is get down on your knees and pray the 'Sinner's Prayer' and God will pardon and save you. All you have to do to be saved is pray, 'God, I am a sinful person. I have transgressed your law. I believe that Jesus is your Son. I accept him into my heart as my Savior. I ask you to save me right now.'" And for all those who responded to the preacher's "altar call" the preacher assured them that they were saved and there was nothing else for them to do and they were on their way to heaven.

The "Sinner's Prayer" is a common denominational appeal and plan of salvation. The words may vary but the elements are usually the same. The assurance is given that if one says these words sincerely that God will save them.

Since the Sinner's Prayer is presented as the means one receives forgiveness and salvation and becomes a Christian, it is important to examine it in light of the Scriptures.

Where Did It Come From?

Not from the Scriptures! No where in the New Testament is anyone told to pray to receive salvation and become a Christian. Since the Sinner's Prayer doesn't come from God's Word, then it must have originated with men.

In the 1730's and 1740's a preacher named Eleazar Wheelock used a technique called the Mourner's Seat. He would target sinners by having them sit in the front bench (pew). During his sermon he would tell these front row sinners that 'salvation was looming over their heads." After his sermon those in the hot seat were usually open to further counsel and exhortation. False conversions were multiplied.

Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) took Eleazar Wheelock's "Mourner's Seat" and renamed it the "Anxious Seat" and developed a conversion system around it. Finney wrote about his system. "The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this purpose. The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ, were called out to be baptized. It held the place that the anxious seat does now as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians."

In the 1860s Dwight Moody (1837-1899) modified Finney's Anxious Seat and modified it. Moody asked those who responded to his message to join him and his counselors in a room called the "Inquiry Room." In the Inquiry Room some questions were asked, some Scripture was read and then counselors prayed with potential converts. Prayer was considered the last step of Moody's conversion process.

R. A. Torrey succeeded Moody in 1899 and he modified Moody's system to include "on the spot" street conversions. Torrey's method made popular instant salvation with no strings attached.

Billy Sunday began crusade preaching. Billy Sunday was a well-known baseball player from Iowa. After a conversion experience in a Dwight Moody Chicago mission, Billy left baseball to preach. Billy Sunday was a very popular and entertaining speaker. He preached fire and brimstone sermons with a great deal of antics, show and humor. Sunday preached that one could be saved by simply walking down his tent's "sawdust trail" to the front where he was standing. Latter people were said to be saved if they publicly shook Sunday's hand and said that they would follow Christ.

Billy Graham became the next big crusade preacher. Graham descended from Moody & Sunday. He used counselors to tell those who responded to his "altar call" to pray. Graham's conversion method began with a prayer from what he called His "Four Steps to Peace with God" which originated in a tract called "Four Things God Wants You to Know" 50 years earlier.

In the 1950s Bill Bright coined the expression "The Four Spiritual Laws" which ended with the so called "Sinner's Prayer." "Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be."
Passages Used to Support the Sinner's Prayer

John 1:11-13. For years many denominational folks have used the phrases "just receive Christ into your heart"and "Trust Jesus as your Personal savior." And the method of doing this is often the "Sinner's Prayer." While we are to trust in Jesus and receive Jesus by faith into our hearts as this passage teaches, nowhere does the Scriptures say that's all one needs to do to be saved.

Revelation 3:20. Consider how this passage is misused as a basis of evangelizing non-Christians. "Here is a promise of Union to Christ; in these words, I will come in to him. i.e. If any Sinner will but hear my Voice and open the Door, and receive me by Faith, I will come into his Soul, and unite him to me, and make him a living member of that my mystical body of which I am the Head" (John Webb, Christ's Suit to the Sinner, 14, mid 1700s). Many denominational preachers base their plea to sinners "to let Jesus come into your heart" upon this passage. However, Jesus' words in this passage are not to those lost in sin outside of Christ, but to lukewarm Christians. "(14) And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write,..." This passage must not be used to appeal to those who are not Christians.

Romans 10:9-10. Yet, nothing in this passage mentions praying for salvation or a Sinner's Prayer. What it does say is one must confess Jesus as the Lord and believe from one's heart that God raised up Jesus from the dead. If one argues that this passage states the only things necessary for one to be saved they would have a problem. There is no mention of recognizing one is a sinner. There is no mention of repentance or turning from sin (Luke 13:3) and there is no mention of baptism for sin (Mark 16:16). Belief and confession are "unto salvation" or lead to salvation but are not complete until and unless one truly repents of their sins and is baptized into Christ for the remission of their sins.

Romans 10:13. "For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved" This text is not instructing prayer for salvation. Paul is quoting a promise of the Old Testament of the availability of salvation with the coming of Christ. The action of "calling on the name of the Lord" does not refer to prayer but belief and obedience to the commands of the Lord. Calling on the name of the Lord includes Belief (Rom. 10:9), Confession (Rom. 10:9), Repentance (Acts 2:21, 37-38), and Baptism (Acts 22:16).

Luke 18:13. Is this an example of the Sinner's Prayer that saves and makes one a Christian? This prayer was offered by a Jew who lived under the Law of Moses. As a Jew he would have already been a child of God. As a Jew he was in covenant to God. As a Jew he could pray and receive forgiveness for his sins from God. As a Jew he lived before the death of Christ and the offering of salvation through Christ. The prayer of the tax collector is not an example of a prayer that a sinner might pray today to be saved.

Simply Calling on the Lord in Prayer is Insufficient

The closest to the "Sinner's Prayer" is found in Jesus' words are found in the Sermon on the Mount."Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." (Mt. 7:21). It is not enough to simply call on the name of the Lord. One must do the will of the Father. One must not simply prayer something, they must do something. "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?" (Lk. 6:46).

The Sinner's Prayer is not found in the New Testament and is to be rejected as a means of salvation. It's continued use only gives people the wrong instructions and a false confidence that they are saved when they are not.

If I am to be a preacher of the gospel truth then I must tell sinners how to be saved following the examples in the Scriptures. I should be able to tell people how to be saved by saying the same words the inspired preachers told people in the New Testament. In the words of the apostle Peter, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38). In the words of Ananias, "'And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord'" (Acts 22:16).

---Taken from a sermon by Wayne Greeson

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