I got some good comments from yesterday and since this is where I am headed for Sunday, one more “helpers aid” might be of benefit. Tonight I will be sharing with a couple dozen what I’ve changed my mind about in the past 2-20 years, what I’ve been delivered from, and what I think I was taught that’s not valid. Sounds pretty arrogant doesn’t it? Belirve me, I’m far from that. Those who taught me were honest men and women. I may yet find out they were right and I am wrong, so I tread lightly with great humility as I depart from some of my past teachers and teachings.
As I mentioned yesterday, the come to the front of the building, confess Jesus as you savior, go off to a holding room for prayer (in larger churches), and accept the “artificial invitation” is a new method ushed by Charles Finney around 1820. I can’t tell you who is serious and who isn’t when such a method is employed, but I say artificial because it’s not Biblical, not proposed by the apostles, nor Jesus Himself!
But, don’t hear that you can’t do something they did not do!
Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), who was one of the greatest of all evangelistic preachers refused to use the method stating, “I dare say I am not willing to invite people into the enquiry-room. We fear that in those rooms men are warmed into fictitious confidence. Very few of the supposed converts of enquiry-rooms turn out well. Go to your God at once, even where you are now. Cast yourself on Christ, now, at once, ere you stir an inch.”
Biblical salvistic altar calls came with words such as “Come”, “Come to me and drink”, “Be reconciled to God”, “Repent therefore and be converted”, and “Be reconciled to God (II Cor. 5:20)“.
I was taught as a spiritual babe that Matthew 10:32-33 was a prooftext for such an altar call at the end of a service. I’ve since learned that this is more like trying to enter the Kingdom of God by the “wide gate“, the easy way, the no cost approach! A “profession of fath” is nothing but words unless followed up by a lifestyle of obedience, loyalty, and trust in the one to whom you were suppossedly confessing allegiance.
Saving faith is a whole nuther thang! 
So, lest I beat this to death and get too far into my Sunday message, let me give you the Letterman TOP TEN reasons today’s recent, modern, and evangelical altar call is potentially (not absolutely) bad for you (and us).
#10- Jesus and the apostles didn’t make it a requirement for salvation.
#9- It puts the focus on a single act and not a long, long journey!
#8- Preachers can’t decide for the Holy Spirit as to when “you come“. It’s not by human ability.
#7- It’s become a false assuredness and almost like a third sacrament (for Protestants).
#6- It’s not the preachers duty to “get a decision“!
#5- It takes away from man’s need to hear God call them Himself.
#4- It presupposes an unscriptural support of human ability and decision-making that needs to be urgently embraced.
#3- Faith is confused with coming forward and joining a church.
#2- Man is not the mediator- but the Holy Spirit!
#1- You are saved by the preaching of the Gospel, the Word, the Good News (I Cor. 1:17-18)
Other than that, I’m fine with it!
While I agree with most of the points I also think there are times when the alter call can be and is used by the Holy Spirit. I remember the first alter call I heard, I knew that I had to obey the call and walk the isle. I didn’t want to walk, I was afraid, but God required me to step out in faith and trust that He indeed was calling me. So it does have it’s purpose and can be used by the Holy Spirit. I think the problem is that we’ve made it a ritual, something we do at the end of a service to make ourselves feel good.
More than a ritual, my problem is that we’ve made it a manipulative, pastoral ego thing. You know, every eye closed, no one looking, one more verse, etc.
I can hear some closet Baptists shaking in their shoes on this one Ernie!:):)
Everyone has their “methods”. God bless theirs- and everyones!
Well now! The first time I hit the ground running to the alter was because everyone else was doing it.
Second time, because we had joined a new church and it was part of their “join-the-church activities”.
The third, as a Flower child (hippie), sitting down front, on the floor, listening to the preacher’s sermon, was made to understand that my life style showed that that there was no way possible that I had understood what I had done in the past when I went to the alter (even after a long discussion with said Preacher)so had to make a public confession again and change my wardrobe!(I did on sundays but the rest of the week was beads, flowers painted on my abdomen, low-cut bellbottom pants and short-cut tops.)
The 4th time, I rededicated my life to the Lord because I had “fallen away” and was told that was a good way to show the Lord of my true intent of of “re-upping”, so to speak.
The last time (around 20 yrs ago), called by the Holy Spirit, in my home, on my face, sobbing, I again gave my life to the Lord to use as He wants to.
It is not that the other times meant nothing to me, they did but more wisdom, deeper knowledge, and understanding of who He IS caused the last time to be the most profound. No one sanctioned it or was there with me (in the flesh) to witness it and it was the most heart-felt.
That is why I said in my last comment to A.I. that when going back to things as usual at church, it got to be an “is this all there is” feeling going on.
I can’t tell you I know alot of verses by heart but I know they’re in there (the bible) and, amazingly, sometimes the verses just pour out when I am talking to someone of HIM.
I am not sorry for the events of going to the alter, as they happened in my life, as I really feel that each had a purpose (mine or theirs) and it certainly didn’t hurt me, (Yeah, the hippie one did, to be truthful).
But I do think that we are at a place that if a person is making a public confession of what they believe, that he/she should do it themselves and NOT have to be lead through it by the preacher.
We are definitely in a journey and all that has gone on in my life, religiously or otherwise, is all part of it. And as long as I can choose, I want mine to be hand-in-hand with Him as my guide.
Well said! God uses ALL things in our life, good and bad, for His glory and our restoration.