Sinner's Prayer

Who are You ? 2 Sinners Prayer? February 17, 2008
Roger Miller

The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine2006. The Sago Mine in Sago West Virginia, the blast and ensuing aftermath trapped thirteen miners for nearly two days only one of whom survived. What went on in the final hours in that mine? We may have never known this side of heaven what happened in that mine in those final hour except for Randal McCloy On April 26 wrote a letter to the families of the 12 men killed in that mine detailing what happened in those final hours. "We were worried and afraid," McCloy wrote, "but we began to accept our fate. Junior Toler led us all in the Sinner's Prayer."

The Church of Christ the Christian Church has been criticized for it opposition to the sinners Prayer.
Because of our non-use of the prayer some have put the cult label on us! Some of this criticism has been justified because. . . Over the years ago I heard sermons and conversations in which a Church of Christ preacher would ask the question, "Can a man who is trapped in a cave and can't get to water to be baptized get to heaven?" His answer was absolutely not. Some may have went on to discuss why Mother Teresa is in hell and why the man on his motorcycle that dies in a crash on his way to being baptized is in hell.

Those type of preachers would give absolutely no credence to the belief that those miners who didn't know Jesus before praying the "Sinner's Prayer" could be in Paradise right now. He would argue since they weren't baptized in water there's no way they could be there. There are a lot of people and Bible scholars who would share the preacher's sentiments.

I'm as firm a believer in people being baptized as anyone. Every New Testament example of people being saved involved water baptism. Jesus was baptized. There's so much important symbolism in baptism. I've heard one writer refer to baptism as "the believer's wedding ceremony". I think everyone should be baptized.

In the situation of the Sago miners, I believe with all my heart that if their "Sinner's Prayer" was sincere (as I believe it was) that God heard it. What business of it is mine or anybody else to decide or declare whether or not those men got to go to be with the Lord or not? Is not Judging man-Gods Job? The bigger question is shouldn't we all hope they're there? What’s the Big Deal? Most people point to Romans 10:9-13 as the basis for the "Sinner's Prayer". That passage reads: "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

The examples I found of the "Sinner's Prayer" were almost all like this one:

“Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from his day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.”

What an incredible, scripture-based prayer! As the fumes and smoke literally sucked the life out of that hole in Sago, can you imagine the peace and comfort that prayer must have brought the men who had never prayed it before? Can you picture the tears in the eyes of the men who already knew the Lord as they heard these men pray this prayer?

So What the Big Deal? Why does the Christian Church oppose the sinners Prayer? In Romans 10:9- 10 we’re introduced to a Greek word that means "to say the same thing." It’s the Greek word "homologeo" (“homo" = same; "logeo" = say). This is the word that is translated "confession," and Paul tells us that confession is part of what we do to be saved. There are three Greek words used in the Bible that we translate to the English word, prayer. The first word is "proseuchomai" which means...to pray to God, supplicate, worship, make prayer. The second Greek word for prayer is "parakaleo" which also is a compound word. "Para" means "near, beside, equal" and "kaleo" means "to call or bid". When put together the two words mean to call or bid someone who is on an equal level with us. The third Greek word for prayer is "deomai" which means "to beg or petition...as binding oneself". It implies a very urgent need. The problem the restoration has with the sinners prayer is the word prayer is not found in Romans 10:9-13. Our motto is where the scripture speak we speak and where the scriptures are silent we are silent! We are for prayer, but against adding to God’s instructions and that is what we feel the sinner prayer does! Second problem we have with the sinners prayer is, well do you remember how we talked about last week the best way to understand the Bible is to use the scripture to understand hard to understand verses? Once again, if this were the only verse about confession or calling on the name of the Lord-it would be easy to make the leap that confession is prayer. Paul the writer of Romans I believe is going back to his own day ofsalvation. Luke recording in Acts 22: 12-15 Paul or Saul’s Conversion writes: A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. 13He stood beside me and said, 'Brother Saul,receive your sight!' And at that very moment I was able to see him. 14"Then he said: 'The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16And now what are you waiting for? Get up,be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.' Notice Luke the writer of acts uses a different word for confession: Calling on his Name but it is the same concept as Romans 10:9.
From this passage is it not clear that Paul is alluding to his public confession of Christ at his baptism? Once again Prayer is not in the passage! When you speak where scripture speaks and are silent where it is silent you have issues with man’s additions and subtractions with the text! What is it that we need to confess? We need to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. God wants us to say is the same thing that:* Peter said in Matthew 16:16 “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God (Let’s say that together) * Martha said in John 11 when Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ the Son of God, who was to come into the world." SO, God wants us to “say the same thing.” What does history teach us? As followers of Christ, we have to be on the offensive against the attitude that the way we have always done it is God’s way! Wrong! Most of history-a Majority of God’s children have made a mess of God instructions-including me-Including you-Including your saintly grand mother! Thank Goodness for God’s Grace and Mercy! Remember from last week three additions to God instructions was the teaching of Original sin, and indulgences! Then Came the teaching of purgatory, when you die if you have venial sins that are not forgiven you go to a place called purgatory to be punished for your sins and when you are punished long enough then you go into heaven. No where in scripture are we are sent to a temporary place to purge us from our unforgiven sins.

Only the blood of Christ can purify us from sin, we can not purge ourselves from sin! Many of the European cathedrals where financed through indulgences. A priest would be designated as a fundraiser, He may come to Elbert and offer a sliver of the original cross and a hundred years less in purgatory for a 1000 dollars. So after you bought enough of these indulgences you might as well indulge in sin because your time in purgatory has all been paid up for.

This dramatically changed the teaching of Salvation, The church over hundreds of years shifted from adult baptism to infant baptism. From immersion to sprinkling. From a repentant heart full of faith, to no faith with the church as the saving agent! By the time the reformation came along Apostolic teaching of salvation was virtually lost, the new cry became by faith alone-most threw out baptism because of the vast heresies of the dark ages .

One of man’s solutions was the Mourners Bench. Out of the doctrine of original sin came the tradition of the mourner’s bench and alter call. The bench is about 20" to 25" high and several feet long. Sometimes it is covered with padding, and it is known to be a place of outbreaks of tears over sin. No one is certain how the first altar call happened, but most historians lay it at the feet of early Methodists. But the concept goes all the back to the Calvinist tradition which believed that men were called only to wait on God for their salvation. They prayed for special feeling of the heart or a vision to confirm they were of the elect. At one time in history the sinner prayer was almost unheard of and the mourners bench was front and center. It is a reminder that man is really adapt at adding and subtracting from God’s directions. WE all must be very careful! Because, If one wants to be saved, he must be saved according to God's will (Matt. 7:21).

The “sinner’s prayer” probably evolved, in some form or another, in the early days of the Protestant Reformation movement, as a misguided reaction against the Roman Catholic dogma of justification by means of meritorious works. For example, Jacobus Faber (c.1450-1536), who has been called “the father of the French reformation” wrote a commentary on the epistles of Paul in 1512. (This was fiveyears before Luther’s break with the Roman
Church in Germany.) In this volume Faber argued that justification is obtained through faith without works . Later, rebelling against the “merit works” system of Romanism, Luther would contend that salvation is on the basis of “faith alone.”
The Roman Catholic Church epitome of meritorious works was infant baptism, so in protest baptism was slowly left out. The sinners prayer has flourished because it is compatible with modern media. While the mourners bench originated about the same time, I believe it has faded from the seen because it is difficult to invite 10,000 at a Large revival to come forward and to wail and mourn seeking god’s confirmation of salvation. And if T.V. and Radio Evangelist had to ask their audience to find a bench or a baptistery-they may be out of a work. The sinners prayer is terribly convenient to man, but can not be found in God’s instruction book the bible! But the question I have is why did God choose baptism? Personally I think for three reasons it is a humbling act to be dunked in water publicly! You can not Biblically baptize your self, it requires another person, Christ made us to be in a community-so it should begin in a community! Lastly, most baptisms are done inside a church building or in the presence of a church family, the church is the mother that raises God’s children. So baptism is done in and with community not like a distant and independent sinners prayer that can be done over the airwaves! What would I say to Randall L. McCoy? I would say I am Confident in God’s Mercy to make an exception for your friends who sincerely prayed the sinners prayer.

The answer to this question is found in the character of God. Listen Psalms 103: 10 share with us the character of God: He (God) does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us our sins deserve or repay us according
to our iniquities. Ps 103:10 NIV Would a God of love reject an honest heart? No way. Would a God of mercy and kindness condemn any seeking soul? Absolutely not. Having called you and died for you would he cast you away because of a curious sequence of events? Inconceivable. Is it possible for an unbaptized believer t o be saved? Yes, definitely. Should every One be baptized? Yes, definitely. Listen to how the Character of God comes through Jesus hanging on the cross in his love for the thief to which he says: Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 20:43 the thief on the cross, however, is a crucial exception. His conversion drives dogmatists crazy. It is no accident that the first one to accept the invitation of the crucified Christ has no creed, confirmation, christening, or catechism. How disturbing to theologians to ascend the mountain of doctrine only to be greeted by an uneducated thief who cast his lot with Christ. Here is a man who never went to church, never gave an offering, never was baptized, and said only one prayer. But that prayer was enough. He has a crucial role in the gospel drama. The thief reminds us that though our dogma may be airtight and our doctrine dead-center, in the end it is Jesus who saves. Does his story negate the importance of obedience?

No, it simply puts obedience in proper perspective. Any step taken is a response to a salvation offered, not an effort at salvation earned. In the end, God has the right to save any heart, for he and only he sees the heart. That is the position of the Christian Church-Only God can make exceptions-as men we have no right to add or
subtract from scripture-so I have a responsibility as a follower of Christ and a teacher to follow scripture as close as possible trusting God’s grace to overcome my weaknesses and sins!

What would I say to Randall L. McCoy if he said to me, I prayed the sinners prayer in that mine and I do not want to be baptized. I would first point out that Once a person admits his sin and turns to Christ for salvation, some step must be taken to proclaim to heaven and earth that he is a follower of Christ. Baptism is that step. Baptism is the initial and immediate step of obedience by one who Has declared his faith to others. So important was this step that, as far as we know, every single convert in the New Testament was baptized. With the exception of the thief on the cross, there is no example of an unbaptized believer. Second, I would say Randy think about your response for a moment. God humbles himself by leaving heaven and being born in a feed-trough. The God of the universe eats human food, feels human feelings, and dies a sinner’s death. He is spat upon, beaten and stripped naked, and nailed to a cross. He takes our eternal condemnation on himself in our place. He then offers salvation as a free gift and asks that we say yes to him in baptism and someone responds, “I don’t want to.” Such logic does not add up. Such resistance doesn’t reveal a problem with baptism. Such resistance spells trouble of the soul. It reveals a problem of the heart. I am confident that it reveals a unrepentant heart! A person refusing to obey God does not need a study of the sacrament. He needs a long, hard examination of the soul. The incongruity puzzled even Jesus. “Why do you call me‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things I ask?” (Lk. 6.46). Or listen to James; You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. James 2:24 True believers not only offer their sins, they yield their wills to Christ. Baptism is the initial test of a believing heart. If one won’t obey Christ in baptism, what will he do when He calls shim to obey him in prayer? Or evangelism? Or service?The highest motive for doing anything is because God asks you to do it. The heart of the saved says, “If you want me to be baptized in a pool of Jello, I’ll do it. I may not understand every reason, but neither do I understand how you could save a sinner like me.”

If one is resistant on the first command, one might wonder if there has been a true conversion experience. So Randy if you love and believe in Jesus, if you are willing to turn from your sins and follow God there is no need to refuse or wait-this day declare your faith and commitment to Christ at your baptism!

Conclusion: What is our Hope? Some have called the Christian Church Water regenerationist because we
have emphasized baptism to the point some have left Christ out of the equation. So I am often asked, as a member of the Christian Church is your hope in Baptism-is your hope in doing a ritual in the right way? I respond the same way every time My hope is the same as that of every Christian-My hope is in Jesus the Son of the Living God! Hebrews Points out that Jesus is the Author and perfecter of every believers faith. He is the hero of the Christian Faith. He is the one we practicing walking in his footsteps.

Well Jesus left us an example I believe we should follow. Sinless Jesus is Baptized as an Example for us. Matthew 3:16 Jesus is Baptized as a Adult by being dunked under water. Matthew 3:17 Lastly, Jesus commands us to baptize other believer to declare that they and disciples of Jesus! Matthew 28:19 I am certain that if you love Jesus, but have not been baptized after hearing the truth today your faith will compel you to obey by coming forward to be baptized as we stand to sing!