“He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how shall he not with him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this, spirituals or temporals, from his people? How shall he not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally? How shall he not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them?

Surely if he would not spare his own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.

(John Flavel, quoted in John Piper, Future Grace, Kindle location 2232)

I can scarce open my eyes but I envy those
above me,
or despise those below.

I covet honour and riches of the mighty,
and am proud and unmerciful to the rags
of others;

If I behold beauty it is a bait to lust,
or see deformity, it stirs up loathing and disdain;

How soon do slanders, vain jests, and wanton
speeches creep into my heart!

Am I comely? what fuel for pride!
Am I deformed? what an occasion for repining!
Am I gifted?  I lust after applause!
Am I unlearned? how I despise what I have not!
Am I in authority? how prone to abuse my trust,
make will my law, exclude others’ enjoyments,
serve my own interests and policy!
Am I inferior? how much I grudge others’
pre-eminence!
Am I rich? how exalted I become!

Thou knowest that all these are snares
by my corruptions,
and that my greatest snare is myself.

I bewail that my apprehensions are dull,
my thoughts mean,
my affections stupid,
my expressions low,
my life unbeseeming;
Yet what canst thou expect of dust but levity,
of corruption but defilement?

Keep me ever mindful of my natural state,
but let me not forget my heavenly title,
or the grace that can deal with every sin.

(from The Valley Of Vision. HT: Reuben Hunter)

You can find my Christianity Today article here, and here’s a more recent Gospel Coalition piece I wrote about online dating. It touches on the same theme.

The response has been extraordinary. Apparently it’s not just me.

The article has just been made available freely on the web for non-subscribers, but if you’re looking for the print version, it’s in the January/February edition.

I wasn’t planning to publish, as it’s a very personal piece. The germ of the idea was in an essay I wrote for Mark Dever while interning in October 2011, and he encouraged me to preach on it at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. “What’s my text?” I asked. “You’ll think of one”, said Mark, which is probably the least Deveresque thing he’s ever said. Someone in the congregation that evening contacted Christianity Today, and that’s how it came to be released into the wild.

My hope for the article is that it might keep someone from making the same mistakes I’ve made.

I don’t wait anymore.

HT: Mark Walley

Sometimes, because “The Sinner’s Prayer” has become so much a part of our furniture, we wonder if – in its absence – people will know how to respond to our preaching. What will they do, we wonder, if we don’t give them a prayer to pray? Won’t they just walk away and do nothing? 

No, not if our evangelistic preaching clearly tells them what they must do.

And what they must do is repent. As far as I can see, there is no evidence of “The Sinner’s Prayer” being used in Scripture, but there is plenty of calling people to repent.

Not only is repentance what Jesus calls for in his first recorded sermon (Mark 1:15), it’s also the first command Peter gave to those who wanted to be saved after his first sermon (Acts 2:38); and what Paul said God had commanded all men everywhere to do now that Jesus had been resurrected (Acts 17:30).

I would like to suggest that if our evangelistic writing/preaching/teaching is following the biblical model, the sinner’s prayer is made redundant.

But Isn’t There a “Sinner’s Prayer” in Hosea?

Doesn’t Hosea tell his hearers which words to use as they come to God? Isn’t that just the same as an evangelistic preacher saying, “If you’d like to come to God now, why not pray this prayer?”

Here’s what Hosea says:

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
² Take with you words
and return to the Lord;
say to him,
“Take away all iniquity;
accept what is good,
and we will pay with bulls
the vows of our lips.
³ Assyria shall not save us;
we will not ride on horses;
and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’
to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.” (Hosea 14:1-3, ESV)

But is this really a “Sinner’s Prayer”? No, not in any customary sense of the term. For three reasons:

a) This is not evangelistic preaching to people who do not know God. The call here is aimed squarely at God’s people. It is a call to “return to the Lord”, not come to him for the first time. As a result, Hosea’s hearers are not ignorant of how they should respond (ie repent) or what that means. This is confirmed by…

b) …the end of verse 2, which contains the explicit reminder that the words themselves are nothing. It is their action which will confirm whether or not their vows have any weight: “…we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.”

c) There is no hint, either in Hosea’s preamble or in his postscript, that the sincere recitation of words will be the grounds of their acceptance. Instead, as the Israelites well knew (see Hosea 6:6), God was interested in the state of their hearts. And that, of course, will be revealed by their subsequent obedience, or disobedience – not by the utterance of the words suggested by Hosea.

What we never see in Scripture, then, is a prayer suggested by evangelistic preachers, the utterance of which is seen to be a way into the Christian life.

Is this absence of “The Sinner’s Prayer” in Scripture merely an argument from silence? Well, as D. A. Carson puts it, “If there is silence where you would expect to hear noise, then the argument from silence is worth hearing.”

Conclusion

“Repent and believe” is the Bible’s clear and simple answer to the question, “What must I do be saved?”

It’s natural and appropriate, of course, that such repentance and belief will be subsequently expressed by praying. But the very real danger of imposing the “sinner’s prayer” methodology is that the prayer itself is mistaken for repentance and belief. It is looked to as the beginning of repentance and belief, rather than being the result of it.

When we preach/write our evangelistic appeals, isn’t it better simply to do as the biblical preachers/writers do, and stress the necessity of ongoing repentance and belief in Christ?

If we dropped “The Sinner’s Prayer”, what would our preaching sound like? It would begin to sound… well, it would begin to sound a lot like the evangelistic appeals we hear in Scripture. It would ring with the simple call to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. No need for any additional closing of the deal. No need for “repeat after me.” No need for close your eyes or bow your head or walk the aisle or raise your hand.

What else could be more final, more pressing, more unmistakable than “repent and believe”?

Just to be clear, then, I’m not about to argue that sinners shouldn’t cry out for God’s mercy. Neither am I about to argue that it is always wrong to suggest words for the mouths of our hearers (which is something Spurgeon, Whitefield and Bunyan did on occasion).

What I’m about to argue is that the customary presentation or framing of “the sinner’s prayer” is deeply problematic. More often than not in my experience, the sinner’s prayer is presented with the message (either implicit or explicit) that “praying a prayer” is the entry point into the Christian life.

When this happens, it is catastrophic. For the following reason.

“The Sinner’s Prayer” encourages people to place their faith in a prayer, rather than in Christ.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve had a conversation like this:

You: “Would you call yourself a Christian?”

Friend: “Well, I prayed the prayer when I was younger.”

Because of the use of “The Sinner’s Prayer”, your friend’s focus is not on whether he has led a life of repentance and faith in Christ, but on whether he has said a prayer at some point in the past.

When the parting shot of an evangelistic presentation is the moment when a sinner prays a prayer (or doesn’t), it is all too easy (unless we are extremely careful) for our hearers to perceive the prayer as the determining factor in whether or not a person is a Christian.

At least three unhappy results are likely to follow.

1. Lack of Assurance

If my praying the prayer reveals whether I’m in or out, I’m going to pray that prayer like an overweight tween scoffs Smarties. This is why we very often see serial pray-ers of the sinner’s prayer.

I’m going to pray it every single time I doubt my salvation, which will be a lot, because I’ve subliminally (or explicitly) been made to understand that the saying of my prayer is everything.

Rather than looking to Christ and thinking to myself, “He is my Lord, I am in Him, I have his righteousness, therefore there is now no condemnation for me”, I am going to look to myself, and my performance in praying the prayer. Dead works have overruled living faith.

As a 14 year old, I had already “prayed the prayer” on multiple occasions. I went to the front at a Billy Graham rally and said the prayer. I went to the front at a Luis Palau meeting, and said the prayer. I sat with head bowed at numerous churches, in numerous denominations over the years, and said the prayer. I said it ever more fervently, ever more anxiously, and often with tears. “I’m so sorry, Lord. I’m so sorry. I know I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it. I really want to follow you this time. Please accept me.”

The use of the sinner’s prayer at evangelistic meetings had led me to believe that the prayer (and especially the sincerity of the prayer) was what made me a Christian. It was almost inevitable, really. Everything in the service led up to it. It was the climax of the presentation, the preacher’s last words. If you said the prayer, it demonstrated that you agreed with what the preacher had said, and wanted to follow Christ; if you hadn’t said it, then you didn’t.

Rather than saying, “I’m putting my trust in Christ from now on”, I remember telling my parents (on numerous occasions), “I prayed the prayer tonight.” The past tense (what I had done because of what Christ had done) was all important; the present tense (what I am doing as a result) was irrelevant.

Some might say, well, the preacher should have made it clear that the prayer itself was nothing. He should have made it clear that what matters is being born again, a transformed life.

The problem is, the preacher often did say exactly that.

But no matter how clearly and faithfully the gospel had been preached, the structure and emphasis of the service – not to mention the preamble (“If you want to begin following Christ / if you want to invite Jesus into your heart…”) – led the congregation to believe that “praying the prayer” was what it was all about.

No-one came to the Father except by it.

2. False Assurance

If it’s not lack of assurance, then it’s false assurance. I’ve prayed the prayer, and that is all that is necessary.

I think back to an old edition of a book I once wrote. It ended with a “sinner’s prayer”, and then the regrettable sentence, “You are about to explore an amazing new life!” ”Well,” if I may address my former self rather sternly, “Not necessarily.”

How do we know if someone has embarked on an amazing new life with Jesus? As Jesus warns us in Mark 4, only time will tell whether a person truly belongs to him. Time – and the visible fruit that emerges from repentance and faith.

For me, the most chilling words in Scripture are recorded in Matthew 7 and Luke 8, where we learn that on the day of judgement, Jesus will say to many who thought they knew him, “Away from me you evil-doers. I never knew you.” Are we, by continuing to employ “The Sinner’s Prayer”, helping to swell their ranks?

How many have been told over the years that if they “prayed the prayer”, they would be saved? As J. D. Greear pointed out recently:

A 2011 Barna study shows that nearly half of all adults in America have prayed such a prayer, and subsequently believe they are going to heaven, though many of them rarely, if ever, attend a church, read the Bible personally, or have lifestyles that differ in any significant way from those outside the church. If the groups described in Matthew 7 and Luke 8 are not referring to them, I don’t know who they could be referring to.

3. Lack of Repentance

According to Scripture, the hallmark of genuine spiritual rebirth is repentance and faith. One devastating outcome of using “The Sinner’s Prayer” methodology is its implicit suggestion that the hallmark of spiritual rebirth is the recitation of a prayer. If that is felt to be true, then there is no need for repentance; in fact, it becomes an irrelevance.

By the time I reached university, having re-prayed “the prayer” countless times, I was still troubled by my lack of assurance. Yes, I was pretty sure I had been sincere in my prayer. And yet my life seemed the same as it ever was. Yes, I called myself a Christian. But there was no evidence of new birth, of a life transformed.

Why? Because of the emphasis on praying the prayer, the call to repent and believe had been forgotten. I believed that the way one “repented and believed” was to say the prayer. I had not understood that the way one “repented and believed” was to look to Christ every day, to live as he would have me live, not look back at a prayer once prayed.

When I grasped this, it was revolutionary. I understood that the “one thing I lacked” was trusting (and therefore obeying) Christ, rather than trusting my own prayers. When I stopped looking to them, and looked to him, I began to joyfully obey him. And of course, with that changed behaviour (courtesy of the Holy Spirit) came the assurance I had so long craved.

All of this had come about because, for the first time, I was looking to Christ, and he was calling me to repent. Why had I not repented before? Because I was looking to “the prayer” as evidence that I was saved.

Conclusion

For the reasons above, then, I would much rather err on the side of caution. I can think of few evangelistic presentations that would not be improved by the omission of “the prayer”, and the careful inclusion/explanation of Christ’s simple evangelistic call to “repent and believe” (Mark 1:15).

Next week: is there any Scriptural warrant for employing “The Sinner’s Prayer”? And if not, what does Scripture tell us about how we should be calling people to Christ? As always, I’d value your thoughts in the comments section below.

It’s become known as “The Sinner’s Prayer”. In its various forms it has become the parting shot of many of our evangelistic sermons, tracts, books and courses. It’s what follows when the preacher says to the congregation, “If you want to begin following Christ/receive Jesus into your heart, you might like to pray this prayer for yourself…”

What It’s Not

Just to be clear, we’re not talking here about merely “putting words into the mouths of sinners”. Charles Spurgeon, at the conclusion of his sermon “A Free Grace Promise”, offers to do exactly that:

Similarly, the barn-storming eighteenth century evangelist George Whitefield wrote a hymn called “The Sinner’s Prayer” in which he puts into words the heartfelt sentiment of a sinful soul before God:

God of my salvation, hear, and help me to believe:
Simply would I now draw near, thy blessings to receive.
Full of guilt, alas I am, but to thy wounds for refuge flee;
Friend of sinners, spotless lamb, thy blood was shed for me. . .

And in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Faithful tells Hopeful what to say to God:

God be merciful to me a sinner, and make me to know and believe in Jesus Christ; for I see, that if his righteousness had not been, or I have not faith in that righteousness, I am utterly cast away. Lord, I have heard that thou art a merciful God, and hast ordained that thy Son Jesus Christ should be the Saviour of the world; and moreover, that thou art willing to bestow him upon such a poor sinner as I am-and I am a sinner indeed. Lord, take therefore this opportunity, and magnify thy grace in the salvation of my soul, through thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

What It Is

What I’d like us to explore here is something different, something prevalent. It is the practise of putting words into the mouths of sinners, and implying (sometimes unintentionally) that the saying of those words assures salvation.

As far as I’ve been able to tell from my research, this latter practise is a relatively modern phenomenon, being popularised by Charles Finney and the Keswick movement in the 19th Century. But despite its recent provenance, it has become so much a part of the evangelical furniture that many of us wonder how we ever did without it.

Indeed, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to describe it as a modern Protestant sacrament. ”Praying the prayer” is very often regarded as an outward and visible sign of divine grace.

Why So Popular?

How has “the prayer” come to seem so indispensable to us? For many good reasons, I think. We long for people to be reconciled to God. We don’t want people to put that reconciliation off. We want people people to feel the urgency of the moment, and act upon what they’ve just heard/read. We hope it will give helpful words to people who are worried about how to express genuine repentance and trust.

Christianity Today rightly comments:

if we recognize that the Sinner’s Prayer is…a heartfelt expression of faith in Christ, we needn’t quibble.

Amen. We all long to see “heartfelt expressions of faith in Christ”.

The question I’d like to pose, however, is this. Is the presentation of “The Sinner’s Prayer” necessary, or even desirable, if we wish to see heartfelt expressions of faith in Christ? Does it help, or does it hinder, genuine spiritual rebirth?

Stick around. I’ll give my thoughts on it next week. And I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments below.

You can watch an animation of the presentation here, which is a great way of sharing the gospel with a friend using your smartphone/tablet/computer.

You can also get it in print from The Good Book Company here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Read The Proclamation Trust’s review here.

It’s free, and it’s available to read online, as a pdf, as an ePub, or as a mobi file for your Kindle.

If you’ve been wondering how you might implement some of my recent suggestions into your local church, 9Marks (and the resources they produce) would be a great next step.