[NOTE: I DID NOT SEND OUT A PRAYERLETTER IN NOV. - DEC. 2006. INSTEAD, I SENT OUT THIS LETTER WITH MY JANUARY 2007 MY PRAYER LETTER. IT WAS WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO MANY MINISTERS, WHO VIOLENTLY ATTACKED US, WRITING TO CLAIM MY WIFE'S SALVATION WASN'T GENUINE. THEY WANTED TO BELIEVE SHE WAS ALREADY SAVED (BECAUSE SHE MADE A PROFESSION AT AN EARLY AGE, BUT WITH NO UNDERSTANDING). SOME EVEN TOLD US SHE WAS SAVED BUT "JUST DIDN'T KNOW IT." ANOTHER SAID I WAS GUILTY OF PREACHING A "NEW-FANGLED GOSPEL" BECAUSE I MADE SUCH AN EMPHASIS ON THE BLOOD OF JESUS. IT WAS A REAL EYE OPENER TO ME TO SEE SUCH APOSTASY WITHIN THE RANKS OF INDEPENDENT BAPTISTS, WHO CLAIM TO LOVE TO SEE PEOPLE SAVED WHEN THEY ARE OUT IN THE WOLRD, BUT HATE TO SEE LOST PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN IN THEIR CHURCHES ALL OF THEIR LIVES GET TRULY BORN AGAIN. IT REALLY SHOWED ME THE RAMPANT SHALLOW EVANGELISM NOW WITHIN OUR INDEPENDENT BAPTIST CHURCHES, IN WHICH THEY PUT THE EMPHASIS ON THE WORDS FROM THE MOUTH INSTEAD OF FAITH FROM THE HEART. MANY TODAY ONLY PRESSURE A SINNER TO SIMPLY REPEAT A PRAYER WITH THE LIPS, AND THEN THEN PROCLAIM THEM SAVED, EVEN THOUGH THE SINNERS OFTENTIMES HAS NEVER HEARD THE GOSPEL AND HAS NOT REPENTED, i.e. BELIEVED THE GOSPEL FROM THEIR HEART. THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM IN OUR DAY AND ONE THAT MANY MINISTERS REFUSE TO ADRESS. BUT IT MUST BE ADRESSED, FOR THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE GOING TO HELL FOR LACK OF UNDERSTANDING AND SALVATION.
WHAT'S WORSE WAS MY HOME CHURCH ATTACKED US AS WELL, LABELLING MY WIFE A RETREAD AND ME A RETREADER, (WHAT EVER THAT MEANS, FOR IT'S NOT FOUND IN THE BIBLE), AND CLAIMED I HAD DECEIVED MY WIFE AND TALKED HER OUT OF HER SALVATION, GETTING HER SAVED ALL OVER AGAIN. (SOMETHING WHICH IS COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE, FOR IF A PERSON IS TRULY SAVED, THEY CAN NEVER LOSE IT, OR GET IT ALL OVER AGAIN. BUT IF THEY ARE LOST TO BEGIN WITH, THEN THEY CAN BE BORN AGAIN). TO US IT WAS WAS CLEARLY THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD THAT WORKED UPON THE HEART OF MY WIFE AND SHOWED HER HER LOST CONDITION AND NEED FOR SALVATION. BUT FOR THE REASON GIVEN ABOVE, WE HAD TO SEPARATE FROM AND LEAVE OUR OLD HOME CHURCH AND WE JOINED OURSELVES TO GRACE BIBLE BAPTIST CHURCH IN MONTERREY, MEXICO, IN INDEPENDENT, SOUL WINNING, STREETPREACHING, BIBLE BELIEVING CHURCH THAT PUTS OUT THE RIGHT SPANISH BIBLE -- THE VALERA 1602 PURIFIED. WE FEEL CONFIDENT WE MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE. BUT WE ARE GREATLY SADDENED AT THE DIVISION IN THE INDEPENDENT BAPTIST MOVEMENT AND THE SHALLOW EVANGELISM WHICH LEADS TO MANY FALSE CONVERTS, WHO IF THEY DO GET SAVED LATER GET LAMBLASTED AND RIDICULED BEING LABELLED AS "RETREADS". WE FURTHER SEE A REAL NEED TO PREACH THE GOSPEL MORE CLEARLY, AS WE ARE CONCERNED THAT THERE MAY BE MANY MORE OUT THERE LIKE MY WIFE WHO THINK THEY ARE SAVED BY AREN'T. IT IS OUR PRAYER THAT THEY WILL HEAR THE GOSPEL AND TRUST THE BLOOD ALONE FOR SALVATION. FOR FAITH IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS IS THE ONLY MEANS OF SALVATION (ROM. 3:25), AND IS SADLY SOMETHING THAT IS QUITE OFTEN LEFT OUT OF MANY MODERN SOUL WINNERS PRESENTATIONS.]
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord,
When I entered the ministry in 1998, I never thought that the greatest hindrance would be other Christians. Nor did I think for a minute that other men of God, that I respected and appreciated, would lie, slander, and gossip about me, labeling me a heretic and a dissident. But so are the days of apostasy in which we live. I listened when my pastor told me, “The people that will hurt you most in the ministry are other Christians,” but I found it hard to believe. Now I know that it’s absolute truth.
I’ve recently been accused by other brethren of teaching, “A man doesn’t have to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.” But nothing could be farther from the truth! I believe that for a sinner to be saved, he must call upon the name of the Lord. And, this calling must be BY FAITH FROM THE HEART! 2 Timothy 2:22 clearly shows that calling upon the Lord is a heart belief when it speaks of, “them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
This calling must also be “in truth.” (See Psalm 145:18). Biblically, salvation is by GRACE through FAITH (Eph. 2:8,9) in the SHED BLOOD of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:25). The following three verses (which I learned in Bible Institute) prove this:
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Clearly justification or salvation is by God’s GRACE through our FAITH in His shed BLOOD. We see this also in Romans 3:25: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”
Therefore, the object of our faith must be the shed BLOOD of Jesus Christ. However, I’ve seen a lot of shallow soul winning in these last days, in which many so-called soul winners don’t put any emphasis on THE BLOOD of Christ at all. Instead, they follow the modernistic BLOODLESS GOSPEL, which puts all the emphasis on the prayer of the sinner, claiming THE PRAYER is what saves a man. Let me dogmatically state I am not against anyone saying a prayer! But, I am against telling someone that their prayer is what saves them instead of their faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Far too many today do a shoddy job of presenting the Gospel clearly, and instead jump straight to Romans 10:13, telling a sinner he must call upon God from his mouth. Many times, they command the sinner to repeat a prayer. But what happens if the sinner repeats the prayer from his head and not his heart? Is he saved?
I quote Dr. John R. Rice in his pamphlet “What Must I do to be Saved?”:
Many people believe that a sinner cannot be saved without a period of prayer, without consciously calling upon God. However, the Bible does not say that a sinner must pray in order to be saved. In fact, immediately following the verse in Romans 10:13 is an explanation which shows that calling on God is an evidence of faith in the heart and that it is really faith which settles the matter…The Lord encourages the sinner to pray, and the Lord hears and answers the sinner’s prayer if that sinner trusts in Jesus Christ for salvation when he prays… Certainly everyone who is to be saved must believe. Prayer is evidence of faith. No matter how long he prays, if he does not trust in Christ, he can never be saved. If he trusts in Christ without conscious prayer, then he is saved already. There is just one plan of salvation and just one step a sinner must take to secure it. That step is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ!
Here Mr. Rice states exactly what I believe. I believe a person is saved by FAITH FROM HIS HEART whether he utters a prayer from his lips or not! Biblically, a person is saved at the moment he believes or TRUSTS according to Ephesians 1:13, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.”
Let me reiterate. I’m not against anyone saying a prayer! (Even though this is what some are accusing me of). But I’m against telling a person that a PRAYER is what SAVES HIM. Sure, a person can trust Christ as their Saviour in prayer. But the actual prayer itself does not save anyone! Dr. Peter S. Ruckman even states the following in his commentary on the book of Romans, “It is obvious that the mere act of praying saves no one…[but] practically speaking it’s good for a sinner to pray when he gets saved.”
I firmly believe this! A person can be saved WHEN he prays, but not BY his prayer. This is why I’m quick to point out the damage that can be done by not clearly presenting the Gospel to lost sinners. Far too often in this Laodicean church age, we have people going around quoting Romans 10:13 without first explaining the Gospel, and without showing the person that FAITH in the shed blood of Jesus Christ is what saves. Instead of instructing the sinner to REPENT i.e. call upon God by trusting his finished work on the cross, they pressure the sinner to quickly REPEAT a ritualistic prayer. Often times the sinner gets confused, thinking the THE ACTUAL PRAYER is what saves him. (This happened to my wife and many others). This is the epitome of SHALLOW EVANGELISM! For this can leave a person nothing more than a spiritual catholic, who thinks a mystical PRAYER from his lips grants him forgiveness rather than FAITH from his heart in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. In short, this can leave a sinner utterly lost, with his faith in a PRAYER rather than faith in God’s PROPITIATIONARY BLOOD ATONEMENT. (And oftentimes it makes a person repeat the prayer every night over and, each time hoping they'll be saved because they said the prayer).
I quote Pastor Ron Ralph in his book, “Bible Basics for Bible Believers:”
“I strongly encourage you to NEVER lead someone in a ‘repeated prayer.’ If the Holy Spirit of God is dealing with someone about salvation, and that person is serious about being saved, he or she should be able to pray in their own words…allow them to pour their own heart out to God!”
This is very wise. We should do the work of CLEARLY presenting the Gospel of 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, and then let the Holy Spirit deal with the sinner’s heart. Sure, we can encourage a sinner to pray. But we should never tell him that the prayer in and of itself will save him! He must believe from his heart! Let the words of God do the work of God in his heart. And let him call upon God by faith when he is ready.
The problem is that most soul winners are more interested today in numbers than they are in conversions. They are trained to get a person to repeat a prayer as quickly as possible, so that they can then go away and brag about themselves and how many they’ve won to the Lord.
No doubt some of these people really do get saved. But I believe a good many of them have only made an intellectual decision rather than a heartfelt conversion of FAITH in Christ.
Pastor Doug Schorne makes the outstanding claim in his book, “Zeal without Knowledge:”
I honestly believe that thousands upon thousands have been deceived into a false profession of faith by well-meaning soulwinners who have been pushed and shamed into getting their quota of baptisms for the week.
If this be the case, what’s lacking is a CLEAR PRESENTATION of the Gospel, and AN EXPLAINATION of how to call upon the Lord by FAITH from one’s heart.
I recently butted heads with a real heretic who told me that calling upon the Lord means calling “only from one’s MOUTH,” and, “if a person doesn’t say anything with their mouth, they are not saved!”
He based his assumption on Romans 10:10, claiming that “confession is made unto salvation,” means that the ACTUAL PRAYER is what makes a man saved.
This strong emphasis of salvation based upon what a person says instead of what a person believes in is foreign to the scriptures. According to the entire context of Romans chapter ten, a person is saved by FAITH from his heart, not by something spoken from his mouth. This heretical twisting of the scriptures is what I’m against, as it usually leaves a sinner thinking he is saved by A PRAYER HE SAID, rather than by FAITH IN THE BLOOD GOD SHED!
This same man further stated that a person can be saved without even hearing the Gospel first. In other words, he can simply call on God with his mouth and words, asking God to save him, and then God will save him apart from SAVING FAITH from his HEART. I do not believe this. A person must first HEAR the Gospel, for “faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” And then he must BELIEVE from his heart, not his head, for salvation.
Biblically, a person cannot be saved until they first hear and understand the Gospel. No matter how many times a sinner calls with his mouth, he is not saved until he calls upon God by faith from his heart. This is a simple Bible truth.
People can be saved WHEN they pray, but not BY their prayer. A person MUST TRUST THE SHED BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST before God will give him eternal life. It is a damnable heresy to tell a person that a PRAYER will give him eternal life. Sadly, I’ve found that many so-called Fundamental, Independent Baptists today ARE DOING JUST THAT! In their zeal for numbers, they’ve compromised the Gospel and changed it into getting a man to DO something rather than instructing that man to simply TRUST (call by faith from the heart) in what Christ Jesus already DID for him on the cross over 2000 years ago.
Thus, to say that I believe a man should not call upon the Lord is completely untrue. I do believe a man should heartily call upon the Lord, and this calling must be BY FAITH from the heart in the PRECIOUS SHED BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST! Sure this heart belief can be manifested in a prayer. But the prayer itself is not the saving medium. Faith alone from the heart is what saves a man!
I’ll leave you with the words of C.H. Spurgeon in his message “The Blood of Sprinkling and the Children:”
Brethren, I do not think a man ought to hear a minister preach three sermons without learning the doctrine of atonement. I give wide latitude when I say this, for I would desire never to preach at all without setting forth salvation by faith in the blood of Jesus. Across my pulpit and my tabernacle shall be the mark of the blood; it will disgust the enemy, but it will delight the faithful. Substitution seems to me to be the soul of the gospel, the life of the gospel, the essence of the gospel; therefore must it be ever in the front…I charge you, Christian people, do not make this a secondary doctrine…The center of Christianity is the cross, and the meaning of the cross is substitution.
LET’S STOP SHALLOW SOULWINNING IN IT’S TRACKS! LET’S PREACH THE GOSPEL AS CLEARLY AND PLAINLY AS WE CAN! LET’S PREACH FAITH IN THE BLOOD!!! LET’S TEACH SINNERS TO CALL UPON GOD “IN TRUTH” BY FAITH FROM THE HEART!!!
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?… - Romans 10:13,14
