THE SINNER'S PRAYER SCAM

 

Go to any evangelical church in America and you'll become familiar with "The Sinner's Prayer".  History tells us that Dwight L. Moody was the first to employ this prayer in his evangelism.  He was a Protestant revivalist and was popular, not only in America, but also in Great Britain and Sweden.  Many Christian evangelical ministers employed The Sinner's Prayer in their evangelistic "crusades", one of the most popular being Billy Graham.

I take issue with The Sinner's Prayer because pastors and evangelists have reduced the doctrine of salvation to a work - "do this and you'll be saved".  This goes against Ephesians 2:8-9 where it says, "For by grace you have been saved....not by works so that no man can boast."  If you have to do something to get salvation, you're saying you have to earn salvation and Scripture doesn't teach that.

We can see an example in Scripture of someone coming to salvation without the need to say a prayer and that is the thief on the cross.  Jesus didn't say to him, "You have to say this prayer first before you can be saved."  God regenerated that man without the need for an invitation and without having to repeat a rote prayer.

I've known of people who walked the aisle many times and repeated The Sinner's Prayer over and over again because they didn't "feel saved".  I would think after the second or third time the pastor would then begin to question whether this person really understood what salvation was.  See, they equate the person's salvation with what the person did.

"Did you say The Sinner's Prayer?"

"Yes"

"Did you sincerely mean it?"

"Yes"

"Then what's the problem?"

The problem is you're basing this person's salvation on what THEY did and not on whether God has done a work in their heart.  It doesn't matter how "sincere" they sounded when they said the prayer, if God hasn't given them a new heart, there is no salvation.  It's all empty words that have no meaning.

Stop basing someone's salvation on what they did.  Look for the fruit in their life (Galatians 5:22-23).  Just because they repeated some words and got dunked in some water, doesn't equate to a changed heart.

This is why churches have names on their roll who haven't shown up to church in years.  There was no true conversion.  I'm not saying it's wrong to pray with a person if they feel conviction and a drawing to Christ.  What I'm saying is, it's unscriptural to tell someone to "pray this prayer and you'll be saved".  It's unscriptural to base someone's salvation on what they did instead of whether they truly had a heart change.  If they're really saved, you'll see the fruit in their life and you'll see them grow in spiritual maturity instead of walking an aisle every few years and praying that same prayer time and time again because they don't "feel" saved.  If that's the case, it's probably safe to say there's been no true conversion at all.