No Altar Calls

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Ebendroth. My dad used to say, you know, if I had a dollar for every time I said such and such, I don't know why I'm looking at the clock and not looking at the camera.

But if I had a dollar every time I said, welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, I think we're almost up to 5 ,000 episodes over the years. I think that includes some reruns, but about 5 ,000. So if I had a dollar for every time I said that, or if I had $10 or 100, anyway, you can write me mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

We have a book out that's not about Christian nationalism, but it's called King, because if you understand God as a king, I think it'll help you understand who God is, right? If you think about even Jesus, the mediator, he has a threefold office and that threefold office is prophet, he proclaims God's word, he reveals who God is.

We have Jesus as priest. He not only is the sacrifice for our sins, priest sacrifice, but he's also the one who makes intercession because priests pray. But also Jesus is king, prophet, priest, and king.

And so he subdues us and saves us. He subdues those that oppress us after we're saved. And so it's good to be reminded that Jesus is not only prophet, not only priest, but also king. And so I tried to amplify that in the book, how the sovereignty of God changes everything.

Why Altar Calls Are the Topic Today

So today on the show, I'd like to talk about something that Mario doesn't know about yet, but he's going to like the topic. The topic is altar calls. Why do we do altar calls? Why don't we do altar calls?

I've been here now at this particular church building and then the church, the people for 29 years, and I've never done an altar call. And some people have said to me over the years, well, why aren't you doing altar calls?

Why don't you call people to the front? Why don't you say every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around, I see that hand, why don't you do that? Matter of fact, Mario, years ago, and it was, I think, 28 years ago, a guy came to me and said, I'd like to talk with you, pastor.

I said, sure, what about? And he said, why don't you evangelize people? I don't know, I'd like to evangelize more than I do, that's certain, but if I'm at the coffee shop or I'm on a plane, I'm thinking of ways to talk and introduce conversation spiritually and theologically and about the Lord.

And one of my favorite things to do is to say to people, have you read your Bible today? Just about a week or two ago, I met someone and I said, have you read your Bible today? And they're like, oh no.

And I said, well, it's not too late, with a smile. I learned that from Martin Holt, a man who was in Africa as a pastor. All that to say, I said, what do you mean I don't evangelize? And he said, well, you don't have altar calls.

You don't call people out the front. And I thought, wow, isn't that interesting? Because the church here for many, many years did do altar calls, did call people up to the front. People could see that was happening.

And as they did call people up to the front, they talked about the Lord Jesus and his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension. They actually did talk about the gospel, but did they equate evangelism and altar calls?

And how did that all work? So today on the show, and maybe even next week, we're going to talk about altar calls. Now I found some background on altar calls. Most of this information isn't mine. I just collate it, abendrothize it.

And so I just want to make sure I'm not plagiarizing anything. I don't know, by the way, this is a side note,.

But this is radio,.

And this is ADHD radio called NOCO Radio. When people who are pastors plagiarize, I don't know what percentage it is, but a great joy that I have is I get to study God's word. The church kindly pays my plumbing bills and trash bills and mortgage and stuff like that.

So I get to devote myself to the word and to study. And there's so many things as I study God's word, it is living and it is active and it does its work in those who believe. And so why would I want to copy someone else?

Why would I want to steal someone else's work? I get the joy of study. And by the way, half of the preaching problem these days is taking everything you learned and then giving it to the congregation where you have to edit properly.

Mario knows you've got to edit good movies. They film for 14 hours and the editors bring it down to about 90 minutes, 120 minutes. And so anyway, all that to say, pastors don't plagiarize. Pastors just study.

It's the joy of study. It's a joy of learning. What happens during a typical altar call? Well, some of these things probably happen. There's music in the background and it could be just background music as the pastor's talking, or of course it could be just as I am, the hymn sung with 42 stanzas.

Have thine own way, Lord. They could be playing that. I surrender all is a really good one. Because remember, sometimes for the altar calls, you call up the unbelievers to come up to believe and to receive.

And other times, if they don't show up, you still want to have people come to the front because you want your message to actually show fruit. So then you call up believers to say, I want to get baptized, or call up believers to rededicate their life, to re-irrigate their life, to re-consecrate their life, to re-something their life, and have them come up to say, okay, fine.

What the pastor does often during altar calls is, as I said before, he'll say something like, please come up to the front, or he'll say, right where you are. And by the way, let's have everybody's head bowed, everybody's eyes closed, no one looking around.

By the way, when I'm in churches, when they do that, the first thing I do, probably because I'm a rebel and a sinner, but also I want to look around. Of course, I'm going to look who's raising their hand, who's doing that.

Oh, look at the pastor's wife just raised her hand. Sometimes they'll say, now we've got some dedicated counselors up front, maybe an elder or a deacon or a couple that's a member of the church, and they're here to help you after you've made your decision.

We have something that we might give, Billy Graham used to say this, I'm going to ask you to come forward, up there, down here, I want you to come. You come right now, quickly. If you are here with friends or relatives, they will wait for you, but don't let distance keep you from Christ.

Listen to what Billy said. It's a long way, but Christ went all the way to the cross because He loved you. Certainly you can come up these few steps and give your life to Him. Now, I don't know if you've been to Charlotte, North Carolina, but that's where Billy Graham, I believe, was born.

And there's a Billy Graham Museum there. And I've been to the Billy Graham Museum in Charlotte. And of course, many times he was preaching the right thing and he was talking about repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, the resurrected Savior.

You have to trust in Him. And so there are many things that, of course, the Lord did through Billy Graham, and I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that the Lord uses people who are far from perfect theologically, far from perfect even with their own lives, and He uses them as conduits, as preachers, right?

Case in point, I'm thankful that the Lord would use somebody like me. But the point is, Billy Graham did a lot of altar calls and you hear things like this. And I think, you know what? To what degree is it manipulation?

To what degree is it biblical? To what degree does soft music, emotions, special lighting? I mean, Mario understands what you can do with soft lighting and stark lighting and bright and everything else.

It just creates this mood. And so are altar calls biblical? What does the Bible say about it? That's today on No Compromise Radio. Now, a man that I don't like as much as I do Billy Graham, his name was Charles Finney.

Here's what Charles Finney said, and then we'll get into the reasons why I don't believe in altar calls. Finney said, preach to him. And at the moment he thinks he is willing to do anything, bring him to the test.

Call him to do one thing, to make one step that shall identify him with the people of God. If you say to him, there is the anxious seat, come out and avow your determination to be on the Lord's side. And if he is not willing to do a small thing as that, then he is not willing to do anything for Christ.

So kind of a similar thing. Hey, do this small thing for Jesus, so then you can do the larger things. Why am I not evangelistic after 29 years of Bethlehem Bible Church? Why no altar calls? Let me give you some reasons.

Some of them are kind of just no-co style. Some of them are funny. Some of them are legit. The first one you're gonna go, ah, well, it is true. Number one, why no altar calls? Number one, there are no commands in the New Testament to do them.

You're like, come on, that's not fair. Well, it's my show. Put it on Two Speed. These days, I've been watching a guy named Sheriff Lamb on YouTube. So if you don't like this show, just go to Sheriff Lamb's show.

And he is a sheriff that will talk over body cam arrests. And he'll say, here's how the guy should have been arrested or put this person in cuffs, this, that, and the other. Very fascinating. If you don't have anything to watch on Netflix, Sheriff Lamb, I recommend.

It's interesting. There's of course the great commission in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, right? Remember Jesus said, go make disciples, going, teaching, baptizing. He has all authority and he gives that to people.

There is the call to evangelize, that's certain. There are no commands in the Bible to say, call people up to the front. Now you're saying, yes, but are you to call people to salvation? Just two weeks ago, someone said to me via email, Pastor Mike, we're essentially, I think, bringing friends to the church.

And I know you're talking about repentance in Luke chapter 13. Can you like give an altar call? Can you call people to salvation? And I said, that's exactly what I do is I call people to salvation. Even this last Sunday, I said here in light of this passage that unless you repent, you will also likewise perish.

You can hear that sound, that sound is telling you, you better repent. Once I was doing a radio TV show, Mario, and it was cable access television in Burbank, California. I think I probably told the story before and the ministry was called Narrowgate Ministries.

And so we were in this motorcycle garage, set up a situation like this. It was hot. So I had shorts on with flip-flops, but from here on up, I had my suit and a tie and all that. And so it was probably midnight.

All of us were working. And so we just had opportunity to go film and a siren ambulance went by and it was so loud. And I was preaching and I was telling people they need to believe. And I said, you hear that siren, it's coming for you one day.

Every time I hear noises like that, that's what I think of. Of course we call people to salvation. And of course we can say things like I said, even last Sunday. If you're here today and you're not a believer, you need to repent.

You need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't have to go to a room. You don't have to come up front. You don't have to talk to a pastor. You don't have to talk to anyone else. Go to the visitation room.

You can trust in the Lord right where you are right now. And so of course we're calling people to salvation, but I want you to know that Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

It is on the proponents of the altar call. It is on them to try to prove that it's biblical, right? I'm arguing from the opposite side. It says, preach the Bible, preach the word, faith comes by hearing.

And I proclaim that 1 Corinthians chapter 15. So we preach, so they believe. And so if you want me to say, you know what? There's nothing in the Bible that talks about altar calls. I wanna say to you, I want you to prove from the scriptures that there are.

I'm just saying, if I preach, doesn't God just save? What about church history? It was the Armenians that did altar calls. It wasn't the Calvinists. It was those who thought, do you know what? I need to try to help.

There needs to be some kind of cooperation. There needs to be, I'm gonna do my part and I want them to do their part. How did people get saved before Finney came along, before Graham came along? For 1800 years.

And even if you go to the Old Testament, which is thousands of years, there were no altar calls in churches. So how did anybody get saved? How do people get saved now? Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

Luther would call this closing with Christ. Of course, it's fine when you're preaching to say, if you're an unbeliever, believe. I hope you say that regularly. If you're a pastor or if you're an evangelist, you say those kinds of things.

And it's fine to say at the very end of the service, if you're not a believer, I want you to trust in the Lord right where you are. Receive him, come to faith. But I'm not saying I need to have you come up to a certain place.

I can say, trust in him, trust in him alone. But I would say to you that one of the first reasons why I believe there's no altar calls, that we don't do them, is there's no New Testament command. I guess I could flip it around this way.

If your pastor preaches the gospel, calls on believers to believe, but doesn't have an altar call, is he sinning? Is he evangelizing if he's giving people the good news and saying, the response to the good news is believe on the Lord Jesus.

Trust in him, receive him, accept him, lean on him. Is he doing something wrong? Number two, the second reason why I don't do altar calls is because altar calls confuse the outward act with an inward new birth.

Confuses an outward act going to the front with the inward regenerating power of the word. Finney confused these things, the outward act and the new birth. Here's what one writer said. An individual can fall on his knees, raise his hand or walk to the front, but there's nothing in the Bible to say that such actions make or even contribute to making a person a Christian.

The older evangelical preaching taught the instant responsibility of sinners to obey the gospel in repentance and faith. So when you hear obey the gospel, that means believe. It did not pass over such texts now as God now commands all men everywhere to repent, Acts 17.

But at the same time, it knew that the time when the hearers of the gospel get grace to obey, it's not in the hands of men. The physical act coming forward gets confused in altar calls with the inward act that is God making people alive, making them born again, making them receptive to the gospel.

Luke chapter eight, the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while and in the time of testing,.

Fall away.

Walking to the front of a church isn't required for salvation. It is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and the fruit of that faith is going to be repentance, saying no to sin. The altar call makes conversion look like it's so much of a work of a person, a work of man, that I'm doing something in order to receive.

And that doing can only be repentance and faith, which are the fruit and consequences of the new birth. How does God make people alive? How does he make them born again? It's through the preaching of the word.

And by the way, I just read Luke eight. Some people receive the word with joy and they're not Christians. They fall away because there's no root. The time of testing comes. So when I meet people, and this is not talking about altar calls per se, and they'll say, I believe the Lord Jesus.

You know what I say?

I will see.

No.

When someone says, I believe, I go, that's wonderful. And when my children said they believe, I said, that's awesome, keep believing. Because people can respond with joy to the word and not be saved. And so what am I doing?

I'm having people come to the front. They're receiving the word with joy. They realize their plight. Here's what one writer said. If you really want to go to heaven when you die, then step out of your seat, wherever you are.

Come and let us know about your decision. Christ went all the way to the cross for you. You just won't walk a few steps for him. That sounds like God of the playbook for Billy Graham. Number three on No Compromise Radio.

And again, you can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Why don't we do altar calls? Number three, altar calls give a superficial view of sin and man's depravity. One of the key things when it comes to thinking through theological issues is understanding depravity.

How did the fall affect men and women? And so if you've got a low view of depravity, you've got a high view of how man could help save himself or save himself. And so if you understand depravity, I don't think you're going to do altar calls.

Is the will affected by sin, Adam's sin, and our own sin nature, consciences, mind, affections? Does man, does women, does women, do women have the ability to will themselves to do something spiritually profitable and I'm going to go to the front to make this happen?

I want to say depravity, total depravity, whole depravity, W-H-O-L-E, would help you understand, you know what? You're calling people to do things that their spiritual nature can't do. Physically, they could do it.

They could walk to the front. Lorraine Bettner said, as the bird with a broken wing is free to fly, but not able, so the natural man is free to come to God, but is not able. How can he repent of his sin when he loves it?

How can he come to God when he hates him? This is the inability of the will under which man labors. Friends, just as reminder, it is God who saves and God simply saves through preaching. We were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God, John chapter one.

Romans chapter nine, so then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. I don't want people to attribute the act of the will of man to their salvation. That's how God saves, by my will.

So Graham and Finney and these other guys come up, make a choice now. They're appealing to the person's will to come up to do something. And I'm saying that will is depraved. I'm saying that willer that they have is corrupt.

I'm saying that there's no such thing, even though you might like the movie Free Willy, there's no such thing as a free will. And so that will is bound. So why do I make appeals to have their will do something?

Instead, I say, this is who God is. And then he's the one that does something to the nature. And then when the nature's changed, of course, the will changes. What can change the will? My manipulation, my music, my soft lighting, my appeals.

Only the spirit of God can change the will. Luther said, it is totally unheard of. Grammar and logic to say that nothing is the same as something. To people who study logic, the thing is an impossibility.

The two are contradictory. You know what he's talking about? When Jesus said, without me, you can do what? Nothing, you can't do anything. And so I don't need to try to tell unbelievers, these are some inducements.

These are some things that you might wanna try. This is how you should come up here. I need to tell you about who Jesus is and how he saves. And in light of that, here's how you should respond. What you need if you're an unbeliever is a change supernaturally done to your life.

And when you do have that done to you, you will respond with faith. Paul said, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Warfield said, Jesus did all that is included in the great word save. He did not come to induce us to save ourselves or to help us to save ourselves or to enable us to save ourselves.

Jesus came to save us. And it is therefore that his name was called Jesus because he should save his people from their sins. And so one of the reasons why I don't like alter calls is I think it has a superficial, it creates a superficial view of conversion, a superficial view of how depraved people are.

Spurgeon said, what the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity. What we want to do is to kill it once and for all. Spurgeon said, you know what? If you're sitting there and you're hearing this message, you don't need to come to the front.

You don't need to go to the prayer room. You don't need to go to the deacon's bench. You need to bleed like a stag wounded right where you are and call out for the mercy of God. See, what we believe theologically determines our methods.

So if the method is I call people up to the front to make a decision, an act of will, hey, you need the Lord come to the front to do something. Well, that betrays what the theology is. And the theology then would be man's not completely depraved.

Man has a choice. Man's will's not affected by the fall. And so when I watch things, I go, hmm. If you're just calling people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to talk about sin and redemption and the Lord, and you say, you know, your response needs to be repent and believe.

There's a theology behind that. And that theology is a biblical theology. I just call people to believe. Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ. I'm preaching that message. You should come to faith.

But if I'm watching people come up and another, you know, you've seen it before. By the way, when I say you've seen it before, I love it when young people here at the church will say to me, I've never seen an altar call because they've been here for how many years and they've never seen one.

Matter of fact, I'd have people come and visit us, people from Word of Life. Word of Life had done a lot of good things. And they would have young people come for concerts and singing groups and stuff like that.

And I know they would do altar calls at the end. And I'd have to say, even as a young pastor, when I was 36 years old and, you know, who wants to listen to a 36-year-old? Now that I'm 66, I throw my weight around.

I'm the old guy around here. And I'd have to say to them, we'd love to have you come and do a concert, but no altar calls. You can call people to believe on Jesus. We want that. That's what the Bible teaches.

But to call them to the front, I don't want that. Spurgeon said, they seek to make man stand up. We seek to bring man down and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God and that his business is to submit himself to God and cry aloud, Lord, save or we perish.

We hold that man is never so near to grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, I can do the other, marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow.

So I don't want people to think they can do something apart from grace. I don't want them to think they can come up on their own will, and I'm just going to now do the right thing. And when I do it, then I get saved.

Martin Lloyd-Jones, take another illustration out of my experience. In the church where I ministered in South Wales, I used to stand at the main door of the church at the close of the service on Sunday night and shake hands with people on the way out.

The incident to which I'm referring concerns a man who used to come to our service every Sunday night. He was a tradesman, but he was also a heavy drinker. He got drunk regularly every Saturday night, but was also regularly seated in the gallery of our church every Sunday night.

On one particular night to which I'm referring, I happened to notice while preaching that this man was obviously being affected. I could see that he was weeping copiously, and I was anxious to know what was happening to him.

At the end of the service, I went and stood at the door. And after a while I saw this man coming, immediately I was in a mental conflict. Should I, in view of what I've seen, say a word to him and ask him to make that decision that night, or should I not?

Would I be interfering with the work of the spirit of God if I did so? Hurtly, I decided I would not ask him to stay behind. So I greeted him in the usual manner and went out. His face revealed that he'd been crying and he could scarcely look at me.

The following evening, I was walking to the prayer meeting in the church and going over a railway bridge. I saw the same man coming to meet me. He came across the road and said, you know, doctor, if you had asked me to stay behind last night, I would have done so to receive Jesus.

Well, I said, I'm asking you now, come with me now. Oh no, he said, but if you had asked me last night, I would have done so. Lloyd-Jones, my dear friend, I said, if what had happened to you last night does not last for 24 hours, I'm not interested in it.

If you're not as ready to come with me now as you were last night, you have not got the right, not the true thing. Whatever affected you last night was only temporary and passing. You still do not see your real need for Christ.

As some would say, salvation is prayed down, revivals are worked up. And so people can come with joy and not be believers. So my name is Mike Gabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, number four with two minutes to go.

I think I can do it because I've got a lot. I've got like 13. Number four, altar calls. Fourth reason why I don't do altar calls, put the focus on the divine commands onto the commands of the preacher.

Instead of doing what the Bible says, repent and believe. Now the preacher says, come up to the front, raise your hand, close your eyes, pray this prayer, comply with the preacher, sign the card, come to the front.

Those are all my commands. The commands in scripture are simple, repent, believe. These are called new measures. Old measures found in the Bible. Turn, believe, trust, repent, circumcise your heart, break up, follow ground.

All these words that talk about, how do you think about sin? That's repentant side. Now the flip side of the coin, faith, trust, receive, accept. Those are where I want the divine commands. Or those are the divine commands.

I don't want these commands. Come to the front, kneel down, raise your hand, look me in the eye, say these words. So what do you think of that? That was a fast one, Mario. Number five. You're gonna have to wait till number five for next week because now I've got 59 seconds left and we're not gonna do it.

Don't forget, you can write me, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com. Wednesdays, it's the YouTube. So hit subscribe, hit like, hit... Don't I need a new plane or anything? A new airplane? I know, I need to fly around all these places.

Charlotte, Billy Graham's Museum, other places, a private jet. Selling these books is not gonna get me there. So I don't know what we're gonna do. The other shows, Tuesdays and Thursday shows are just audio only.

And so you can get those as well. Like, subscribe, hit, all those kinds of things. Mario, thanks for everything. See you next time on No Compromise Radio Ministry.