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"He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord."
Psalm 33:5
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The Sinner's Prayer
The Sinner's Prayer
One of the most common practices in Christianity today is that of the “sinner’s prayer”. I am against this for a couple reasons. Let’s begin by taking a look at Luke 18. In verse 18, a young ruler says to Jesus, “Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that question. The world is always asking, ‘What does God want?’ and ‘What does it take to get to heaven?’ But what answer do people usually get to those questions?In today’s day and age, the average Christian answer will go something like this: “Believe in your heart that Jesus is God, after that say this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart!” The Christian then provides a ‘repeat after me’ prayer. After the prayer, the Christian assures the sinner that now that they have ‘accepted Jesus into their heart’ they will go to heaven when they die. But is that how Jesus Christ responded to the rich young ruler? Not at all. He took the ruler through the Moral Law (verse 20) to show the young man his sin. After the ruler said that he kept those commandments, Jesus used the essence of the First Commandment to truly show the young ruler his sin in the eyes of God (verse 22). After realizing his sin, the scriptures say that the young ruler “became very sad, for he was extremely rich (verse 23).”
Whenever I read this story, it always makes me think of the modern church. If the average Christian today was standing in front of the rich young ruler when he asked Jesus, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” I can almost guarantee you that they would have led him in a sinner’s prayer, and created a false convert.
Which brings us to the second reason I do not believe the sinner’s prayer has any place in the church. Simply put, it creates false converts. Once after ordering pizza, I decided to witness to the delivery man. I asked how he thought people got into heaven. He told me that you had to be a good person. I walked him through the Commandments, and he admitted that no one is good enough to go to heaven. I then began sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. As soon as I mentioned Jesus’s name, he said, “Oh Jesus! Yeah I have Jesus in my heart!” He then assured me that he would go to heaven. There is absolutely no way the young man was a Christian. He was counting on being a good person to get to heaven; he had no knowledge of repentance; and he didn’t even think to mention Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. But, because he was led in a sinner’s prayer at some time in his past, he doesn’t think there will be any punishment for his sin, simply because he ‘accepted Jesus into his heart’.
I have one more reason for not believing in the sinner’s prayer. To show this, I will use an example that I heard used by Ray Comfort, that I think proves the absurdity of leading somebody in a sinner’s prayer. Imagine you have a friend who comes to you and admits that he had an affair. He tells you he feels really bad about it, and wants to make it right with his wife. You and him go to his wife, ring the doorbell, and his wife answers. She welcomes you to the house and asks what is going on. You then whisper in your friend’s ear, “Say I am sorry.” The husband repeats your words to his wife. You continue to whisper, “I had an affair and I shouldn’t have done that.” And your friend again repeats your words. His entire apology to his wife is nothing more than the words you told him to say. Would you ever do such a thing? Of course not! If the man is truly sorry for his affair, he will know what to say to his wife, and he certainly will not need somebody whispering his apology into his ear the whole time. That wouldn’t be him apologizing, that would be the person whispering in his ear apologizing. We can apply the same logic to leading somebody in a sinner’s prayer. If the person is truly repentant and sorrowful for their sin, they will not need somebody to lead them in a prayer. They will go directly to God themselves and they will know what to say. Their conscience will lead them, not the words of another human being.
I have met numerous people who have fallen victim to “sinner’s prayer salvation”. But the truth is you can say the sinner’s prayer 100 times, and it will not mean a thing on judgment day. I once heard the story of a man who was open air preaching. After he was finished, a man said to him, “There is a kid who wants to get saved in the back.” The preacher walked to the back and saw the young man. The preacher said, “I couldn’t possibly have led him in a sinner’s prayer, he was weeping too profusely.” The young man knew his sin, and he knew what to say to God. He didn’t need a sinner’s prayer, he needed to go before God and repent of his sin.
The “sinner’s prayer” is not Biblical, reasonable, and runs the high risk of creating false converts. Preach the Gospel Truth, and leave it to the person you are witnessing to to go before God, don’t tell him what to say. If he is truly ready to be saved, he will know what to say without you.