Four Spiritual Laws vs. The Gospel

Dr. Charles Woodbridge expresses his concern with one of the most common evangelistic tools used in Evangelicalism: The Four Spiritual Laws.

Quite simply, I hate the Four Spiritual Laws. They are a perversion of the gospel. I appreciate Dr. Woodbridge's dissent with Campus Crusade on this issue. It seems that the biblebelievers.net website are also avid King-James-Only people, so I don't advocate everything on the site, just this article in particular. 

Four Spiritual Laws vs. The Gospel

Todd Friel: 10 Reasons Not to Ask Jesus Into Your Heart

The music weeps, the preacher pleads, “Give your heart to Jesus. You have a God shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it.” Dozens, hundreds or thousands of people who want to get their spiritual life on track make their way to the altar. They ask Jesus into their heart.

Cut to three months later. Nobody has seen our new convert in church. The follow up committee calls him and encourages him to attend a Bible study, but to no avail. We label him a backslider and get ready for the next outreach event.

Our beloved child lies in her snuggly warm bed and says, “Yes, Daddy. I want to ask Jesus into my heart.” You lead her in “the prayer” and hope that it sticks. You spend the next ten years questioning if she really, really meant it. Puberty hits and the answer reveals itself. She backslides. We spend the next ten years praying that she will come to her senses.

Telling someone to ask Jesus into their hearts has a very typical result, backsliding. the Bible says that a person who is soundly saved puts his hand to the plow and does not look back because he is fit for service. In other words, a true convert cannot backslide. If a person backslides, he never slid forward in the first place. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Cor. 5:17) No backsliding there.

Brace yourself for this one: with very few if any exceptions, anyone who asked Jesus into their hearts to be saved…is not. If you asked Jesus into your heart because you were told that is what you have to do to become a Christian, you were mis-informed.

If you have ever told someone to ask Jesus into their heart (like I have), you produced a false convert. Here is why:

1. It is not in the Bible. There is not a single verse that even hints we should say a prayer inviting Jesus into our hearts. Some use Rev. 3:20. To tell us that Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts begging to come in.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” There are two reasons that interpretation is wrong.

The context tells us that the door Jesus is knocking on is the door of the church, not the human heart. Jesus is not knocking to enter someone’s heart but to have fellowship with His church.

Even if the context didn’t tell us this, we would be forcing a meaning into the text (eisegesis). How do we know it is our heart he is knocking at? Why not our car door? How do we know he isn’t knocking on our foot? To suggest that he is knocking on the door of our heart is superimposing a meaning on the text that simply does not exist.

The Bible does not instruct us to ask Jesus into our heart. This alone should resolve the issue, nevertheless, here are nine more reasons.

2. Asking Jesus into your heart is a saying that makes no sense. What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart? If I say the right incantation will He somehow enter my heart? Is it literal? Does He reside in the upper or lower ventricle? Is this a metaphysical experience? Is it figurative? If it is, what exactly does it mean? While I am certain that most adults cannot articulate its meaning, I am certain that no child can explain it. Pastor Dennis Rokser reminds us that little children think literally and can easily be confused (or frightened) at the prospect of asking Jesus into their heart.

3. In order to be saved, a man must repent (Acts 2:38). Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of repentance.

4. In order to be saved, a man must trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31).
Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of faith.

5. The person who wrongly believes they are saved will have a false sense of security. Millions of people who sincerely, but wrongly, asked Jesus into their hearts think they are saved but struggle to feel secure. They live in doubt and fear because they do not have the Holy Spirit giving them assurance of salvation.

6. The person who asks Jesus into his heart will likely end up inoculated, bitter and backslidden. Because he did not get saved by reciting a formulaic prayer, he will grow disillusioned with Jesus, the Bible, church and fellow believers. His latter end will be worse than the first.

7. It presents God as a beggar just hoping you will let Him into your busy life. This presentation of God robs Him of His sovereignty.

8. The cause of Christ is ridiculed. Visit an atheist web-site and read the pagans who scoff, “How dare those Christians tell us how to live when they get divorced more than we do? Who are they to say homosexuals shouldn’t adopt kids when tens of thousands of orphans don’t get adopted by Christians?” Born again believers adopt kids and don’t get divorced. People who ask Jesus into their hearts do. Jesus gets mocked when false converts give Him a bad name.

9. The cause of evangelism is hindered. While it is certainly easier to get church members by telling them to ask Jesus into their hearts, try pleading with someone to make today the day of their salvation. Get ready for a painful response. “Why should I become a Christian when I have seen so called Christians act worse than a pagan?” People who ask Jesus into their hearts give pagans an excuse for not repenting.

10. Here is the scary one. People who ask Jesus into their hearts are not saved and they will perish on the Day of Judgment. How tragic that millions of people think they are right with God when they are not. How many people who will cry out, “Lord, Lord” on judgment day will be “Christians” who asked Jesus into their hearts?

So, what must one do to be saved? Repent and trust. (Heb 6:1) The Bible makes it clear that all men must repent and place their trust in Jesus Christ. Every man does have a “God shaped hole in their hearts,” but that hole is not contentment, fulfillment and peace. Every man’s heart problem is righteousness. Instead of preaching that Jesus fulfills, we must preach that God judges and Jesus satisfies God’s judgment…if a man will repent and place his trust in Him.

If you are reading this and you asked Jesus into your heart, chances are good you had a spiritual buzz for a while, but now you struggle to read your Bible, tithe, attend church and pray. Perhaps you were told you would have contentment, purpose and a better life if you just ask Jesus into your heart. I am sorry, that was a lie.

(Taken from http://www.wretchedradio.com/pdf/ten_reasons.pdf.)

For a more moderate critique of the phrase "Ask Jesus into your Heart", see: http://saidatsouthern.com/mohler-on-asking-jesus-into-your-heart/.

Have You and I Become Christians for the Wrong Reasons?

Christian Apologist Ray Comfort preaches on the use of the Law of God in convicting a sinner and leading them to repentance, over against the preaching of man-centered, "ask Jesus into your heart" gospel:

Hell's Best Kept Secret | Living Waters

One True Gospel in a Sea of False...

Acts 2:31-39 (emphases mine):

[David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. 

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off,  everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself."

 With every week that passes, I discover yet another area in which the true, biblical gospel has been undermined. Whether among my peers at university through the teachings of professors or prominent liberal and post-modern theologians, or through common, even prevailing, modern-day versions of the gospel which leave out the most basic requirements of salvation according to the Bible.

Furthermore, with every week that passes, I become more enamored with the examples of men like Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, and above all Martin Luther, men who declared war on false gospels and preached the true gospel with such fervor - men who were not hindered by niceness or propriety in their attacks on the false gospels and false preachers which poison Christian thinking.

So here, rather than try to answer every single false gospel, which is an impossible task, I will simply affirm the true gospel as I find it in the Scriptures. And, unless convicted by Scripture and plain reason that I am wrong, I will stand with the likes of Spurgeon, Calvin and Luther and declare war on any and all gospels which oppose, deny, or contradict these teachings.

Above, I quote Acts 2 with several phrases emphasized. I want to take each of those phrases in order to make a few key points:

1. Whom you crucified - Peter has just finished preaching to a large Jewish crowd on the Day of Pentecost. He has recited the prophecy of Joel concerning the "last days", and told the people that Jesus Christ has fulfilled it. Then, after asserting that Jesus Christ is the long-expected Messiah, he then turns to the crowd and tells them that they have crucified this Messiah. "You have spent your lives waiting for the Christ. I tell you now that he has appeared - and you killed Him!" Ouch. This is where the gospel begins - with an assertion of human sin - and not as a means to another end - that is, we don't teach that we need Jesus to improve our lives, but sin stands in the way. No, sin is the one and only problem which a gospel preacher need address. 
2. Cut to the heart - the response of the crowd is to be cut to the heart, caught under the crushing weight of their sin. How could they not? They killed the very one they had been waiting for. How could they escape the judgment of God? This is their motivation to become Christians. 
3. What shall we do?  - so they ask the Apostles what they have to do to escape the judgment of God. Their question is the one which I want to answer - "What shall we do to be saved?" Or, even simpler, "How do we become Christians?" 
4. Repent... - Peter gives two commands to them. The first is to repent. Even as they are crushed under the weight of their sin and the righteous judgment of God, they are commanded to repent - to turn from sin, to plead mercy, just like the tax collector in the temple, beating his chest and saying, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13).
5. ...and Be Baptized. - Interesting. What immediately follows repentance in Peter's admonition? Not "believe". Not "ask Jesus into your heart". Not "pray this prayer after me". Peter commands them to be baptized. I won't belabor the point at this juncture, as it is a matter of further study for me at the moment, but evidently, in preaching the gospel one also preaches baptism - Peter gave the command to be baptized before they had become Christians, in the same breath as "Repent", which is how you become a Christian. 
6. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself - The promise is not for everyone, but everyone who believes, whom God calls to himself. Notice the limitation of the last phrase - everyone whom the Lord our God calls. Implication - those who do not respond have not been called. That is, the call of the gospel is not to "believe that Jesus died for you". The gospel is, "Jesus died to save all those who believe. Therefore, believe!" The promise of the gospel is offered to all, but it is not for all - it is only for those who believe, who have been called. Furthermore, notice whose prerogative is the focus - everyone whom God calls. God is the one who calls. Salvation is the Lord and of His will - not human free will. An appeal to the free will of humans has no place in the preaching of the gospel. To preach the gospel is to preach the doctrines of grace, and of human inability. It is the sufficiency of Christ to save, and not the sincerity of human response to Him, which works salvation. 

The call of the gospel is to Repent and Believe. A gospel presentation which says different than this is not scriptural. May God unify his Church under one banner - the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Tearing Down Strongholds

Defend the Bible? Would you defend a Lion? Loose him; and let him go!

Charles Spurgeon 

I used to think that if you were clever enough, if you gave enough evidence, if your logic was sound enough, if you won every debate, that you could argue unbelievers into the Kingdom of God.

Boy, was I wrong!

Case in point, today I read a post by Christian apologist Ray Comfort, which simply states his burden to lead atheists away from hellfire. It seemed such a benign post to my sensibilities, and yet there was an overwhelming number of negative comments, atheists trying to logically de-construct Ray's post, his beliefs, and his ministry.

I felt sorry for all this unwarranted criticism from those whom Ray is actually labouring to save, so I felt moved to respond. Up until even just a few months ago, I would've engaged in intellectual debate and tried to logically de-construct their logical deconstructions line-by-line. But, as I've learned, that would've led to nothing but my own frustration and their further hardness of heart.

So I simply quoted John 3:18-20, and said that the atheists involved didn't actually want the evidence for the existence God that they were screaming for; they wanted an excuse to continue sinning, and they should instead repent of their sin and trust Christ. That is the truth. That is what the Bible says about them. And that is all I needed to write.

Charles Spurgeon said that Scripture was a lion - it doesn't need protecting, it just needs someone to open its cage. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10 that

the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

To destroy arguments against God, you need divine weapons. What can these be except those Paul lists in Ephesians 6: truth, righteousness, the readiness of the gospel, faith, salvation and, our only offensive weapon, the Word of God?

The Bible is the only thing we have that can ultimately lead someone to reject their unbelief and repent of their sins. No-one can be intellectually forced to believe. They can only be convicted of sin by the words of the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Debate is good and apologetics are good, but only the Word of the Lord can save.

I love arguments. But may I love preaching the Word even more.

Who knows how people will receive my comment. It will probably be hated, or simply ignored. But it was the truth, and that is all that needs to be said.