Common Questions (part 6)

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The Man Christ Jesus (part 7)

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If you'd like a verse -by -verse message, you'll have to get one of our sermons in the morning. Sunday nights, we've been going over common questions, questions that I've received over 18, 20, 25 years in gospel ministry.
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And we're going to continue that theme tonight. I don't know how far we'll get, but the question tonight is, why don't we do altar calls and what about sinners' prayers?
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They're related. What about altar calls and sinners' prayers? I got here, oh, it was almost 18 years ago today.
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It was one week ago, actually, but 18 years ago. And quickly, I noticed people would say to me,
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Mike, why aren't you evangelistic? Why don't you do evangelize? They'd pull me to the side and say,
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Do you believe in evangelism? Do you love the lost? I just thought, well, yes,
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I do. And someone, by the grace of God, came and told me that I was a sinner and here's who the
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Savior is. And of course, I love to talk about the Lord. When I visited someone in the hospital this last week, they just sat down and opened the
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Bible and I said, the Pope didn't say this, the Lutheran bishop didn't say this, but Jesus said this.
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If you look to Him with faith, you have forgiveness of sins. Do you see that? Jesus said it right here in the
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Bible. And I love to do that. Why do you think, though, they said to me, Do you believe in evangelism?
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Aren't you evangelistic? Why do you think they said that to me? The answer is, because I didn't do an altar call.
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Now, how many people here have never seen an altar call? I bet you,
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Loretta, Micaiah, you probably haven't, or have they? You know, there's a new generation of kids.
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They'll never have seen one. Most of us, how many people got saved and grew up in a church or attended a church that did altar calls?
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Most did. That's kind of what evangelicals do is respond to the altar call.
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So tonight, we're going to talk about altar calls, why we don't do them, what we do instead, and to get you to think through this issue.
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And then what about sinners' prayers? Do they saved? And we're going to not do an exposition tonight.
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So if you're dying for an exposition, you can get a cassette or an 8 -track or a reel -to -reel or whatever you would like,
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MP3, MP4. Now, let's first describe an altar call and then look at some scriptures.
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Altar calls use certain techniques. Cary Hardy has an excellent Shepherd's Conference message in altar calls, and he puts together some common traits of an altar call.
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Many times, there's music played in the background. There's an organ played or piano played, kind of creating the mood.
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A pastor would say things like, we just joked about, every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around.
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I don't know why the no one looking around was ever added because if you were obedient and had your head bowed and your eyes closed, you could look around, but you still wouldn't see anything.
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But I understand the point. Sometimes the pastor would say, if you do believe, look up at me.
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Everybody else has got their heads bowed, but you look at me and I'll establish contact with you and we can talk later.
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Oftentimes, they would say, please come up to the front. Of course, in Protestant churches, there are no altars, but come up here to the platform or the stage or the communion table.
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They may say things like, there'll be a counselor here to greet you and talk with you further.
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They don't want to embarrass you, but just pray for you. Certain large crusades that you would know of, they would have folks who are counselors seated in the congregation.
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And when the altar call was given, like at the Billy Graham crusade, sadly, I love Billy Graham, but I don't love what he does here.
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They would have men and women who would help prime the pump. And so they would already be believers, but they would come up to the front so you wouldn't feel like you would be the only person coming up to the front.
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And they would come up and be ready for that. There'd be many invitation hymns. What would some of the invitation hymns be for the altar call?
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Just as I am. I think there's originally 19 stanzas for that in the altar call version.
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What else besides just as I am? I surrender all, amazing grace, have thine own way,
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Lord. That would be another one. And then if people didn't come up to the front to give their life to Christ, then they would do something else.
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Well, maybe if somebody needs to be baptized, needs to join the church, maybe you have a sin to confess, maybe you'd like to have a ministry.
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And then they would say something about one final verse, and then it's time to pray.
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You might hear something like this. Here's how Billy Graham would say it. I'm going to ask you to come forward.
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Up there, down there, I want you to come. Come right now, quickly.
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If you are here with friends or relatives, they will wait for you. Don't let distance keep you from Christ.
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It's a long way, but Christ went all the way to the cross because He loved you. Certainly, you can come these few steps and give your life to Him.
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What's right or wrong with that last paragraph? Okay, he did part of it, and you come and finish the deal.
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It is quite a man -centered approach, right? Is there a responsibility to repent and believe? Does man, do women have a responsibility?
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The answer is yes, but this is a more man -centered approach. You don't know the trouble that...
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Yeah, go ahead, Steve. That's true, a mosquito is just buzzing at me right here.
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Can you believe that? This is the sign. I'm getting attacked by a mosquito. This is crazy.
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We like to do things. Faith is invisible, and so we like to see things. How many people realized today you didn't get palm fronds handed out to you for the service?
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Did you want palm fronds today? Would that have been nice? What would you do if I told you
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Jesus didn't walk and ride into Jerusalem on Sunday, but it was on Monday, Palm Monday?
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Does that spoil it for you? Maybe. Yes, Russell? What's your background again?
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Is there a public demonstration of faith? What is the public demonstration of faith found in Scripture?
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Baptism. That's correct. I'm not against public demonstrations of faith, but I am against using verses out of context.
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You don't know how much trouble I get myself into. So, you know Word of Life? Is it in Schroon Lake or Schroon Lake?
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It's over there in New York. They would come and they would bring their singers, and I would have to pull them to the side and say, we'd love to have you sing, we'd love to have you minister, thank you for talking about Jesus, singing about Jesus, but we don't do altar calls, and so if you have to do an altar call, then we just can't have you come.
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If you want to tell people to believe in Jesus, we would love to have you do that. You know how much trouble I would get behind the scenes for saying things like that?
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Let me give you some reasons why at Bethlehem Bible Church we don't do altar calls. Maybe you want them done.
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Maybe you think we should do them. Let me tell you why we don't do them, and we'll look at some passages. Number one, there are no commands in the
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New Testament to do altar calls. No commands to do altar calls.
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Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15, verse 11. This has not much to do with Calvinistic versus Arminian, per se, because both
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Whitefield and Wesley, a Calvinist and an Arminian, neither one of those men did altar calls.
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We go back to what does the Bible teach. There are commands to preach, there are commands to evangelize, there's the
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Great Commission, go make disciples by baptizing, by teaching, but there's nothing in the pastoral epistles, there's nothing in the
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Bible to say, here's how we invite men to Christ, by having them come to the front. The onus is on the people who believe in altar calls to prove it from Scripture.
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We would generally believe in something called the regulative principle, that the Scriptures regulate what we do.
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Why do we do Scripture reading? Well, 1 Timothy 4. Why do we have an offering? Why do we have preaching?
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Because the Scriptures regulate it. And when you search the New Testament and every other book in the
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Bible, you will not find an altar call. You will not find the apostolic church doing altar calls.
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You will not see post -apostolic people inviting those to the front, although you will see them inviting them to Christ, but never to the front.
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Faith comes by hearing, hearing a message of what? Christ. And so when you look at 1
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Corinthians 15, verse 11, of course we want to call people to salvation. Of course we want to proclaim the
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Gospel, but I don't have to close it with having people come to the front. Luther said, close with Christ.
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He didn't say invite people up to the altar. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach 1
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Corinthians 15, verse 11, and so you believe.
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It is the power of salvation, it is the power of the Gospel, that when you proclaim the truth about sin and the
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Savior, when you talk about the triumphant indicatives of the cross, and then the response of repentance and belief, that God, by His good will, by His good pleasure, saves.
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Now this first started the origin of the altar call in the late 18th century among Methodist Episcopalians.
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That's kind of an interesting group. And they had something up front. It was called the anxious bench, or it was called the mourner's bench.
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It was a real bench. I think you can drive down the street to antique shops and you can buy deacon's benches, can't you?
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Isn't that a big thing in New England, a deacon's bench? I'd like to put some deacons on a bench once in a while, bench some deacons, but that's a different story.
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That was before with the Word of Life thing, not now at all. And then you had a guy named
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Charles Finney, and Finney's program was this, that man isn't really that depraved, and if he's not really that depraved, then you don't need a supernatural act of God to save people, and so we better use human methods and human means to get people to come to the front.
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Whatever it takes to get people to believe, we will do that. How can anybody ever be saved if you don't have an altar call?
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Well, the answer is, let's go to 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, we invite people, we beg people, we command people to believe in Christ Jesus.
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Of course we invite men to Christ. Of course we invite women to Christ. But how did
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God save anyone 1 ,800 years before there was an altar call? 100
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A .D., 200 A .D., 300 A .D., 400 A .D., all the way up until the 1 ,800s, no altar calls.
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How did anybody ever get saved? 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, of course we want to tell people, look to Christ and live.
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Believe in this gracious gospel of Christ Jesus, the risen Savior. But we don't have to have people come up to the front.
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Therefore, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ, the Messiah, God making
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His appeal through us. Of course we should appeal, of course there should be emotion, of course we should beg people.
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We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. And I can say if you're here tonight and you're not right with God, you're not justified, you're not redeemed,
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I implore you to be right with God by faith. For our sake, verse 21,
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He made Him, the Father made the Son, to be sin, the sin bearer who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
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I say, come to Christ. I don't say, come here to Christ.
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I say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. I don't say, you believe by coming here to the front.
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Where is the biblical justification of walking down an aisle? Number two.
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Second reason why we don't do altar calls, and by the way, at the end we'll ask some questions if you'd like. If you disagree with me, you can still ask questions.
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Altar calls confuse an outward act with an inward new birth. The second reason why we don't do altar calls is because it confuses the outward act of coming to the front, the physical act, with regeneration.
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Of course, in America we are doers and we are accomplishers and we have a mindset of get her done.
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But what Phinney did, what Charles Phinney did, is he just made a big confusion.
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Coming to the front means coming to faith. Those are two different things, the outward act and the new birth.
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You can have people fall down on their knees, cry out for mercy, cry their eyes out, raise their hands, bow their heads, walk to the front, kneel down here, and not be saved.
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Did you know that? The old preaching, compared to the new measures of Phinney, they were called new measures, the old preaching was,
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God now commands men everywhere to repent. Acts 17 verse 30.
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The new measures were, how can I get people to come up to the front to do these things? Because after all, it would be nice if you were a preacher to have a validation of your ministry.
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Now, if I told you how long the pastors and elders here studied to put together a sermon, you probably wouldn't say, well, they only work one day a week anyway, and I'd love to have that job.
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I'm reading a Booker T. Washington biography, and lots of people in the
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South wanted to be pastors. Why? There's a church of 200 people with 18 pastors. Why would 18 people want to be pastors?
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Because you only had to work one day a week. Why work in the cotton fields? Why work, work, work, work?
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It would be nice if I could see some fruit. Friends, I'm convinced that when pastors show up and leave in three years,
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I feel sorry for them. Why? Because they don't really get to see fruit. I not only get to watch you age, watch you have kids, and watch you grow up,
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I get to see you mature. You're not the same people that you used to be. And you say, pastor, you're not either.
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I know that, praise the Lord, but I'm the preacher and I'm talking about you. I see God's growth in your life.
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So, this morning, I preach a sermon. I didn't really feel that good, and I just wanted to kind of power through.
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And it's like, okay, preach prayer, die within a minute's notice, and you just preach away. God's Word is powerful.
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But you know what would have been really neat? If all of a sudden there would have been like some kind of revival wind, and 200 people came to the front, we're all saved now.
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I'd be thinking, that's pretty good. I'd be thinking, man, I'm going to stay up all night more often.
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But we too, in ministry, we walk by faith, and we proclaim the Gospel, so we preach, so they believe.
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And I have to just know deep down, I don't know how many people got touched, I don't know how many people got saved,
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I don't know how many people got convicted, how many people got encouraged, but I know God's Word goes forth, it's powerful, and it doesn't come back void, and it does its work in those who believe.
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1 Thessalonians chapter 2. I just have to trust that. I just am thinking now, okay, this is going into my 18th year.
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52 weeks of year, times 17 is how many, Jonathan? 17 times 52, what's that?
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8 ,500? 8 ,600? How many times do I need to figure out how to get people to come up to the front to close a deal?
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8 ,600 different ways. I would hate that. The act of coming forward or walking an aisle is not the same thing as coming to Christ.
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Now, I know what you're going to say, if you're a detractor of mine, and you just argue the opposite view.
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Yes, but I got saved when I went to the front. God used that to save me.
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Could I be more precise for you to describe what happened? You didn't get saved because of the altar call.
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You got saved in spite of it. You got saved like every other person who has ever gotten saved got saved. You heard the
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Gospel, the good news, and the Spirit of God convicted you and encouraged you and regenerated you, and you responded with faith, but it was the pastor's ignorance who said you come up here and express it by coming to the front, so you never got saved because of an altar call.
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You got saved in spite of an altar call. You never got saved by coming to the front. I don't like the altar call because it makes salvation seem like a work of man when it's the work of the triune
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God. Repentance, a gift. Faith, a gift.
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Following Christ, a gift. All supernatural gifts. Turn to Luke chapter 8, please.
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Let me tell you why I don't like altar calls is because they confuse outward acts with inward new birth, and there can be short -lived conversion -like experiences.
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Have you ever preached the Gospel to someone and they really seemed like they believed? It really stuck.
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It really made an impression. They knew they were sinners. They knew they needed a Savior. They knew Jesus was the only
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Savior. They said they believed. But then what happens? Luke 8, verse 13,
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And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, they receive it with joy.
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As a matter of fact, they come up to the front of the church. They do whatever the pastor tells them to do, basically.
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But these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away.
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That's why it's so wrong to say, if you really want to go to heaven when you die, then step out of your seat wherever you are.
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Come and let us know about your decision. Christ went all the way to the cross for you. Won't you just walk a few steps for Him?
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Friends, you know what that's slang for? One of the things that I hate more than anything else, and that is anything that denigrates the
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Word of Christ, the work of Christ. Why do I hate Lent? I absolutely despise
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Lent. I don't despise the people that do it. They're enslaved to a system. I actually looked up all the different things this week with the kids.
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They're like, Daddy, what's Lent? Why do people, what do they give up for Lent? And I think usually at the top of the list is chocolate.
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And now you know what is like number two? Twitter, Facebook, social media.
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But I was glad to see that some people gave up Lent for Lent. I was very happy because that's what
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I do. It's not Jesus suffered, so now I have to suffer. No, Jesus suffered,
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I don't have to suffer at all. Jesus suffered and I get to have roast beef sandwiches on Friday in airplanes.
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I think actually Braniff was owned by Roman Catholics and they got a special dispensation to sell meat on airplanes on Friday.
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It just depends on who you know. It is not the sinner takes the first step and then now
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God can do His part, kind of poor pitiful God. You just start. It's like this morning, did you notice what
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I was trying to get after and talk about with the redemption of Ruth?
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With Boaz, Boaz didn't pay the redemption price for everybody in the world.
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And Ruth is one of those who just said, you know, but I'll take him up on it. No, Ruth's redemption was paid for by Boaz on purpose with the intention of Boaz saying,
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I redeem you and only you. It wasn't potential, it wasn't possible. It's all driven from the
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God word perspective. Number three, why don't we do altar calls at Bethlehem Bible Church?
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Altar calls give a superficial view of sin and depravity and conversion.
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Altar calls give a superficial view of sin, depravity and conversion. It is not within the sinner's power to come to Christ, but it is in the sinner's power to come up to the front.
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And I don't want to confuse the two. I'd like to call unbelievers to do things that only
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God could work in them. I'm telling people to repent and believe and they can't do it unless God is working behind the scenes.
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But they can sure come to the front. And by the way, this is probably going to sound bragging.
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I don't want to brag. I guess I do want to brag, but I know I'm not supposed to. I was in sales for 20 years.
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That's my job is to sell people and to convince them and to persuade them and to summarize the situation, state the idea, explain how it works, reinforce key benefits and what?
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Close. Thank you. It's like I've heard that thing 50 times from Pastor Mike. We're going to hear it 50 more until it just goes into your brain.
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I guess it's in there. I don't want that. The fall is true and man's will has been affected by the fall.
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Man's mind has been affected by the fall. Man's heart, women's hearts affected by the fall.
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Lorraine Bettner writes, 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 not able.
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How can he repent of his sin when he loves it? How can he come to God when he hates him?
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This is the inability of the will under which man labors.
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True or false? So then it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
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I hope you said true. That's Romans 9 .16. True or false? Who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.
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True. John 1 .13. I love Luther.
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You know, Luther was the bull in the china shop and then he was followed by Melanchthon, who was kind of, he was the scholar that had a little sophistication.
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So you can tell why I like Luther. He was talking about the
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Bible verse in John 15, when Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. And Luther said, that really means nothing.
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Without me, you can do nothing. And so Luther wrote this, it is totally unheard of, grammar and logic, to say that nothing is the same thing as something.
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To logicians, the thing is an impossibility for the two are contradictory. Without me, you can do some things.
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No, without me, you can do nothing. Unbelievers are spiritually dead. Unbelievers can't repent.
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They don't have it in them. Unbelievers are under the power of Satan. So for me to say to unbelievers,
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Christ did everything He's going to do to save you, now it's up to you to do your part, is untrue.
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Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, page 684.
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You're going to email me and ask me for this quote. Just a prediction. A living man may be persuaded not to commit suicide, but a dead man cannot be persuaded into life.
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A living man may be persuaded not to commit suicide, but a dead man cannot be persuaded into life. So how does anybody come to faith and become alive?
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It's the working of the Word of God with the Spirit of God. We don't need to try to induce men to save themselves, to ask ladies for some assistance to save themselves.
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P .B. Warfield said, Jesus Christ has not come to advise, urge, woo, or help him to save himself, but to save him or her.
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How can I say, come to the front makes goats into sheep? How does that work? Alter calls give us a superficial view of conversion, therefore we don't do them at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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Charles Spurgeon, what the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity.
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What we want to do is kill it once and for all, to show him that he's lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion, that he must look upward.
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They seek to make man stand up, we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hands of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God and cry aloud,
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Lord, save or we perish. Spurgeon says, we hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all.
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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.
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We don't do alter calls because we believe in depravity. Number four.
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What time is it? Okay, we got a little bit more time. Number four.
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Alter calls are not done at Bethlehem Bible Church because they put the focus on the commands of the preacher, not on divinely inspired commands.
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They get you to do what I want you to do, instead of what the Bible wants you to do. Come to the preacher, come to the front, comply with me, raise your hand, look me in the eye, sign the card, come to the front, every head bowed, every eye closed.
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Not one of those is from the scripture. Ian Murray said, if accepting
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Christ is the same as walking to the front, then all who have done the latter must be Christians. Which leads me to number five.
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Why don't we do alter calls at Bethlehem Bible Church? It gives people false assurance. It gives people false assurance.
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I don't care how much you try to talk someone in or out of, listen, I know you came to the front, but you're not saved, that's a difficult one to do.
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They heard it from the pastor who stood up there, kind of authoritatively, if you come to the front, you're saved, and now you're going to tell them, come to the front, won't save you.
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How can you blame a person for equating the two? Come to Jesus right now, let this be the moment of decision, come as you are,
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He will receive you, and now come to the front? It's confusing. I think it deceives people about their spiritual state before God.
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I think it does harm to people, basing assurance on a one -time event.
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What does the Bible say about assurance? Do you want to have assurance? Do you want to have insurance? By the way, men, just a side note, one of the ways that you...
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Are you supposed to love your wives? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Let me give you something very practical.
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People go, well, BBC is not practical. This is a side note, it has nothing to do with anything, it just popped in my mind because I've seen the damage from it.
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If you're a husband, here's a way you love your wife. This one's for free, wives can just be thankful.
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Buy some life insurance, bub. If you're a husband and or you have kids and you don't have life insurance, shame.
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Shame. Well, I can't afford it. Oh, now you say, well,
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I am a husband, but I'm 70 years old and you don't know what it costs at 70. Okay, I'll give you a couple...
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I'll give you a couple outs because I think I can only afford it till about 65. I can no longer afford it.
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Okay, it's sure getting hot in here. Why don't we just close? And I'm thinking of this because I just renewed my life insurance and I don't really want to pay for it.
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But I know it's important and I remember walking into somebody's house and the wife, the drunk wife trying to hit me because I'm representing who
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God is to her. Why is my husband dead? Why is my husband dead? And just over on the floor is the naked body of a 40 -year -old man with two kids and this wife and he still got the thing in his mouth where they were trying to resuscitate him and blood down the side of his mouth and there he is with rigor mortis and all the paramedics were there.
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And what could be worse than losing your husband and your dad? They didn't have a dime to bury the guy.
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Not a dime. Okay. Ben, take that out of the sermon, by the way.
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You can cut that out. Emotional, external, temporary, spiritual illuminations don't mean conversion.
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Basing assurance on a one -time event like walking the aisle, yet the Bible says our assurance should be based on what?
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Well, this is what 1 John says Christians do. My life by the grace of God seems to line up with it.
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Not perfection, but direction. Confessing sins, confessing Jesus is
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God, loving the world. No, I don't. Love not the world. Loving other people.
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Loving God. That's what Christians do. I tend to do that. I have assurance. Jesus didn't call people to make a one -time decision to follow
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Him. Not one single time did He do that. Not one single time. Spurgeon said, sometimes we're inclined to think that a very great portion of modern revivalism has been more of a curse than a blessing.
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Why? Because it has led thousands to a kind of peace before they've known their misery.
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Restoring the prodigal to the father's house and never making him say, Father, I have sinned.
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It often happens that the converts that are born in excitement die when the excitement's over. R .L.
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Dabney said of Phineasim that they have come to coolly accept that the fact of 45 out of 50 who come up to the altar call will eventually apostatize.
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Number six. All right, we've got to wrap this up. Number six. Altar calls delude Christians into inviting unbelievers to church instead of evangelizing them.
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Altar calls delude Christians into inviting unbelievers to church instead of evangelizing them. If the place to do business with God is right here, you're at work, you're at play, you're at school,
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I'd better invite them to church, but church worship is for sheep. But if you think you've got to bring them here so I can get them to the front, then you're not going to preach the
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Gospel to them. Remember, this is very important. I get paid to be good, and you're good for nothing.
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It's very important to understand that. I am to proclaim to you the truth and equip you for the work of ministry so you go out and preach the
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Gospel, right? That's true contextualization. Some of you work in the assembly line, some of you work for Enterprise Rental Car, some of you wake up at work because you're a homemaker, and then you have your own ways of knowing people, and then you preach the
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Gospel to them. But if you think, I've got to get this guy saved, well, I'd better get him to church so he can go up to the altar call.
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It confuses the two. There's no sacred space here. There's no sacred space to do business with God anywhere.
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Technically, this isn't even a sanctuary. This is just a building. It misunderstands the nature of a
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Bible teaching church that the church is for believers. Evangelism takes place mainly out there.
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True or false? The Bible never commands unbelievers to go to church.
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The Bible never commands unbelievers to go to church. Matter of fact, there's only one place in the Bible where it does show that they go to church.
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Let's look at it. 1 Corinthians chapter 14. It says in my notes, so let's see if we can find it. I've got a few other students here and Bible pastors, and maybe they can help me if I can't quite find it.
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1 Corinthians chapter 14. What happens when unbelievers come to church?
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What would we like to have happen? Okay, next Sunday. What's next Sunday? It's the
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Lord's Day, Resurrection Sunday. I'll preach a message for some unbelievers, try to encourage believers as well.
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What do you hope they'll do next Sunday? When the unbelievers come here, what do you hope they'll do?
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Give a lot of money to the offering? See, I'm just talking because Steve knows me.
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Steve knows me so well. It's like on the radio, when Mike just begins to talk and ask questions, he doesn't know where he's going. So, now we know.
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Verse 23, it says in 1 Corinthians 14. Thank you.
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If therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you're out of your minds?
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But if all prophesy, they all tell forth things, and an unbeliever or an outsider enters.
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He's convicted by all. This is what I hope happens next week. He's called to account by all.
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The secrets of his heart are disclosed and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
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Number seven, altar calls replace the significance of baptism. The first sacrament of the church is baptism.
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The second sacrament of the church or ordinance, depending on how you'd like to look at it, is the Lord's Supper. And the third is not an altar call.
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Whoever confesses Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
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But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
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Matthew 10, 32 and 33. The public declaration of faith is baptism.
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Number eight, altar calls distract people away from the pinnacle of the New Testament worship service, which is preaching.
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It distracts away from the preaching to get to the end. Guy just needs to be quiet. Sermon just needs to wind down.
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The plane needs to be landed so my friend that I invited can get saved at the altar call. Number nine, this is the last one.
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This one is... No, it's not the last one. Number nine, this one is subjective.
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I admit it, but I offer it to you. Altar calls are not practiced by anyone
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I respect. Number nine, altar calls aren't practiced by anyone I respect.
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Spurgeon, MacArthur, Lloyd -Jones, Boyce, Sproul, the list could go on and on and on.
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Now, maybe you could find a person who really taught the Bible and you respected. I think that could be true.
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But the big guns, the theological giants, they never did it. Not even Wesley. Not even
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Lewis Perry Chaffer who was no great Calvinist. Who was just laughing?
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Who knows who Lewis Perry Chaffer is? Harry, you read his book, True Evangelism.
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He won't do any altar calls. When you're convinced that the
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Word of God has power, you'll say, I don't need to do it. I don't need an imitation system.
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Number 10, I think this is the last one. This is the last one no matter what. Altar calls confuse the pastor with the mediator.
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1 Timothy 2 .5, for there's one God, one mediator also between God and men, the preacher
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Mike Abendroth. I mean, you would all be so toast. You would be so dust.
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I'm the mediator? The guy's got to come up and talk to me or talk to the counselor?
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No, do business with God through repentance and faith. Come talk to a personal worker.
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A behind -the -scenes counselor. He's your new mediator. She's your new mediator. No, I think it distracts.
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Spurgeon, we must not come back by a rapid march to the old ways of altars and confessionals and have a
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Romish trumpery restored in a coarser form. If we make men think that the conversation with ourselves or with our helpers is essentially to their faith in Christ, we are taking the direct line for priestcraft.
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Spurgeon said, here's how you address the sinner. This is no compromise style for those folks that enjoy the show.
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Go home alone trusting in Jesus. I would like to go to the inquiry room.
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Spurgeon, I dare say you would. But we're not willing to pander to popular superstition.
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We fear that in those rooms, men are warmed into fictitious confidence. Very few of the supposed converts of inquiry rooms turn out very well.
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That's why we have a visitation room, not an inquiry room. Cast yourself on Christ now at once, ere you stir an inch.
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Spurgeon, God hasn't appointed salvation by inquiry rooms. For the most part, a wounded conscience, like a wounded deer, delights to be alone that it may bleed in secret.
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I'm not mad at people who do altar calls. I'm not better than people who do altar calls. I'm just telling you there's a reason why we don't do them.
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And because there's a theology that says the Word of God proclaimed forth does its work.
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Then the methodology that follows from that is, therefore, I just preach away. And if the
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Bible told me to do altar calls, I'd do them for the last 8 ,300 Sundays. But it doesn't tell me to do them, so I don't do them.
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Should you invite people to Christ? Sure. Should you invite them to believe?
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Sure. Should you beg them to believe? Absolutely. But no one's ever saved as a result of an altar call.
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They're always saved through the finished work of Jesus Christ, through the non -meritorious instrument of faith.
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Finney knew that you don't do altar calls from the Bible. That's why he said, I had no doubt then, nor have
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I ever had, that God led me by His Spirit to take the course I did. I was divinely directed.
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God told me. And did you ever notice, friends, the
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Bible doesn't talk that much about our faith. It talks mainly about the object of our faith,
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Christ Jesus, His life, His death. Jim Elf said there's virtually no explanation of the nature of repentance and faith.
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Merely its mention seems to be enough. Why is that so? It is because of this wonderful reality.
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When the Word is preached and the Spirit is at work, the sinner is brought to conviction of sin, and he cannot love his sin anymore.
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He must repent. And when the Word presents Christ as the only hope, and the Spirit at work in the sinner, he sees no refuge for his soul.
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But Christ, he must believe. Where else could he possibly go? On the main, evangelism, after laying out the awfulness of sin and the consequences of this sin, focuses its gaze on Christ and His work, and people simply believe.
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Isn't that amazing? People simply believe. Well, we'll have to do the sinner's prayer one next time.
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Let's go ahead and pray. Father in Heaven, I'm thankful tonight that You have been saving people here at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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You've been adding to the church. We know faith could never be done by ourselves to make us pleasing to You.
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What's faith so somehow we can do it and then You can save us? It's so much different.
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We're thankful that it's different as well. We tell people about sin and Your Son, the great
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Savior, and then by Your own free will, at Your own good pleasure, at Your own time, You grant eternal life.
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You've granted eternal life to many of us. And I pray for anyone here tonight, maybe somebody older, maybe younger, if they don't know the
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Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that they would come to faith in Him.
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Father, I pray that their lives would be so disordered that they'd only find order through repentance and faith, and even like Ecclesiastes 2 this morning, striving after wind without the