The Sinner's Prayer

[The Author of my Faith]

Coming from an Arminian background one would think that the "sinners prayer" was found in the bible next to the "Lord's Prayer".

I have not found one instance in the bible where someone prayed to receive the Lord as their Savior. Correct me if I am wrong but I am unable to find this in the Bible. In the Book of Acts all who came to Christ came by a sovereign act of God. As the Word was being preached on Pentecost they said "what must we do to be saved". When Philip preached to the eunuch he asked Philip if he could be baptized and that he believed with all his heart. When Cornelius' house heard the preaching of Peter they were regenerated immediately before Peter's eyes. When Lydia was listening to Paul preached "GOD OPENED HER HEART", When Saul was on the road to Damascus Jesus saved him. (ELECTION KNOCKED HIM OFF A HORSE) I guess that is why he preached it so much. It seems that salvation happened in connection with the ministry of the Word of God. Those preaching did not ASK them if they wanted to accept Christ. The hearers responded by Faith to what was being preached and it was evident that they believed.

So if this is the case can someone tell me where did the preaching of the Sinners Prayer come into play?

Is it even biblical to tell someone to pray and ask Jesus into their heart? Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

Steve (The Author of My Faith)

 

[smhbbag]

So if this is the case can someone tell me where did the preaching of the Sinners Prayer come into play?

I'm guessing it came with the theologically-loose revivalism of Finney, but I'm interested to see others with a more educated answer.

 

[MrMerlin777]

There are much better historians here than me, but my understanding is that most of what we see in today's "walk the aisle say the prayer churchianity" emerged from the revivalism of Finney's day where "the anxious bench" was encouraged to be used. This idea of "you've got to get 'em to do somthin' fer Jeeessus" that came out of the Finney era.

And you are correct, the Scriptures nowhere speak of a "sinners prayer" the Scriptures don't even speak of prayer as a requirement before one can be saved. The way "the sinners prayer" is preached today one would think that it is a "sacrament" that unites someone to Christ and the Church.

 

[The Author of my Faith]

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT WAS FINNEY. My ex Pastor is a HUGE FINNEY FAN. The altar calls, the diming of the lights, the manipulating soft music, the chaning of the voice all manipulating the senses to work up a feeling as if the Holy Spirit and the Word of God were not enough to complete the task. I don't know I guess i am just silly but I tend to believe silly things like it is the Holy Spirit's responsibility to regenerate a man and not the Pastors? But hey, I could be wrong!

 

[awretchsavedbygrace]

Finney, Point Blank Period. There are some good videos on youtube by a brother who exposes the teachings of Finney. "Salvation is the act of man", finney said. Before Finney, altercalls, the piano playing in the back round, and singing Jesus is my friend 20 times in a row to get someone to "convert" was not around.

 

[Scynne]

Also, for your good pleasure, the Seeker's Prayer:

Dear God, whom I hate with all my being precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell, I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or, maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you. For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this and even more because I have to ask this. I am being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise. You know even better than I how much I hate you and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you but that is what I'm asking because I love myself. If you can answer this 'prayer' I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now—thank you for making me love you whom I hate. Amen.

 

[Knoxienne]

Every prayer's a sinner's prayer unless it's coming from Jesus Christ.

 

[reformedminister]

Finney is not attributed to the originality of the "anxious bench". The Methodists were known for that way before. I am not sure, but there may not have been a "anxious bench" in any of his meetings. I can't remember. However, what he is known for is pressing decisions. I don't like altar calls. They are not Scriptural nor historical. They try to do the Holy Spirit's work, and leave people with a false presumption that they are saved, when they are not.

 

[pm]

Rev 3:20

Maybe in part, the idea of asking Christ into your heart (part of the sinners prayer) comes from Rev 3:20

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

I am not sure it is correct to use this verse in relation to Salvation, but (if memory serves) it was the verse that brought me to Christ.

 

[ewenlin]

Maybe in part, the idea of asking Christ into your heart (part of the sinners prayer) comes from Rev 3:20

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

I am not sure it is correct to use this verse in relation to Salvation, but (if memory serves) it was the verse that brought me to Christ.

that verse is taken out of context if applied soteriologically. brother. Paul Washer is to such silly practices today what Owen's Death of death is to unlimited atonement peeps.

I've had experiences with pastors who got a piano to play in the background while he was preaching. Coming from an assemblies of God background, a lot of it is just rubbish. I shouldn't say anymore.. sigh

 

[The Author of my Faith]

Maybe in part, the idea of asking Christ into your heart (part of the sinners prayer) comes from Rev 3:20

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

I am not sure it is correct to use this verse in relation to Salvation, but (if memory serves) it was the verse that brought me to Christ.

that verse is taken out of context if applied soteriologically. brother. Paul Washer is to such silly practices today what Owen's Death of death is to unlimited atonement peeps.

I've had experiences with pastors who got a piano to play in the background while he was preaching. Coming from an assemblies of God background, a lot of it is just rubbish. I shouldn't say anymore.. sigh

My Brother, I came from The Brooklyn Tabernacle. Pastor Cymbala is a HUGE Finney Fan and uses his methods at EVERY service. If there is not an Altar Call people think God did not show up and the meeting was dead (as if God was absent from the meeting anyway).

The preaching that plucks at the emotions, the dimming of the lights at the end and the beautiful organ (Now I am not against music, or dimming lights or even people displaying emotions to some degree) But to use that as the means to bring someone to Christ is basically stating that the Holy Spirit is not wise enough or strong enough to save a soul so we must help and created an atmosphere whereby we can save souls.

And I have to be honest it really does draw the crowds. I have witnessed HUNDREDS at a time come to the altar calls after the Christmas and Easter Dramas. Hundreds of people saying the sinners prayer, some crying. But at the end of the day when the follow up calls go out MOST have no interest to come back to church. Very Few had a genuine salvation experience.

I remember when I was saved in 1987. I was a bartender. I went to a pentecostal church. I heard the preacher preach on heaven and hell. I sat in my seat and never went to the altar call. I just remember praying in my heart quietly saying something like "God I know I am going to hell and that I am a sinner, have mercy on my". No big deal, not experience, nothing.

My friend gave me a New Testament and I started Reading it. Within a week I noticed the cursing stopped, the desire to snort blow was gone, my heart was warmed and changed and I really loved the bible and loved Jesus. I quit my bartending job, broke up with the girl I was dating and started going to church. My salvation experience happened while reading the Word of God not at an altar call.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Finney is not attributed to the originality of the "anxious bench". The Methodists were known for that way before. I am not sure, but there may not have been a "anxious bench" in any of his meetings. I can't remember. However, what he is known for is pressing decisions. I don't like altar calls. They are not Scriptural nor historical. They try to do the Holy Spirit's work, and leave people with a false presumption that they are saved, when they are not.

I was not aware of this bit 'o history. Thanks.

From what I know of Finney he may not have had an "anxious bench" per se, but he sure used the methods associated with it.

 

[DMcFadden]

Here is a bit of the history for the interested: The Pensieve: The Sinner’s Prayer- History

Mourner’s Seat. A method originated during the 1730s or ‘40s, which was practically forgotten for about a hundred years. It is documented that in 1741 a minister named Eleazar Wheelock had utilized a technique called the Mourner’s Seat. As far as one can tell, he would target sinners by having them sit in the front bench (pew). During the course of his sermon “salvation was looming over their heads.” Afterwards, the sinners were typically quite open to counsel and exhortation. In fact, as it turns out they were susceptible to whatever prescription the preaching doctor gave to them. According to eyewitnesses, false conversions were multiplied. Charles Wesley had some experience with this practice, but it took nearly a hundred years for this tactic to take hold.

Cane Ridge. In 1801 there was a sensational revival in Cane Ridge, Kentucky that lasted for weeks. Allegedly, people barked, rolled over in the aisles and became delirious because there were long periods without food in the intense heat. It resulted in the extreme use and abuse of emotions as thousands left Kentucky with wild notions about rebirth. Today it is generally viewed as a mockery to Christianity.
The excesses in Cane Ridge produced expectations for preachers and those seeking religious experience. A Second Great Awakening, inferior to the first, was beginning in America. Preachers were enamored with the idea that they could cause (manipulate) people into conversion. One who witnessed such nineteenth century hysteria was J. V. Coombs who complained of the technique:
“The appeals, songs, prayers and the suggestion from the preacher drive many into the trance state. I can remember in my boyhood days seeing ten or twenty people laying unconscious upon the floor in the old country church. People called that conversion. Science knows it is mesmeric influence, self-hypnotism … It is sad that Christianity is compelled to bear the folly of such movements.” (J.V. Coombs, Religious Delusions, 92ff).
The Cane Ridge Meeting became the paradigm for revivalists for decades. A lawyer named Charles Finney came along a generation later to systemize the Cane Ridge experience through the use of Wheelock’s Mourner’s Seat and Scripture.

Charles Finney. It wasn’t until about 1835 that Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) emerged to champion the system utilized by Eleazar Wheelock. Shortly after his own conversion he left his law practice and would become a minister, a lecturer, a professor, and a traveling revivalist. He took the Mourner’s Seat practice, which he called the Anxious Seat, and developed a theological system around it. Finney was straightforward about his purpose for this technique and wrote the following comment near the end of his life:
“The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this purpose. The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ, were called out to be baptized. It held the place that the anxious seat does now as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians”

 

[blhowes]

The "Altar Call" Is it helpful or harmful? I like the waY it addresses some of the arguments in favor of the practice.

Spurgeon:
"Sometimes we are inclined to think that a very great portion of modern revivalism has been more a curse than a blessing, because it has led thousands to a kind of peace before they have known their misery; restoring the prodigal to the Father's house, and never making him say, 'Father, I have sinned.' How can he be healed who is not sick? or he be satisfied with the bread of life who is not hungry? The old-fashioned sense of sin is despised, and consequently a religion is run up before the foundations are dug out. Everything in this age is shallow. Deep-sea fishing is almost an extinct business so far as men's souls are concerned. The consequence is that men leap into religion, and then leap out again. Unhumbled they come to the church, unhumbled they remained in it, and unhumbled they go from it.​

David Martin Lloyd-Jones
"Most would agree with my sixth point which is that this method tends to produce a superficial conviction of sin, if any at all. People often respond because they have the impression that by doing so they will receive certain benefits. . . .

"Or take another illustration out of my own 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 as they went out. The incident to which I am referring concerns a man who used to come to our service every Sunday night. He was a tradesman but also a heavy drinker. He got drunk regularly every Saturday night, but he was also regularly seated in the gallery of our church every Sunday night. On the particular night to which I am 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. After a while I saw this man coming, and immediately I was in a real mental conflict. Should I, in view of what I had seen, say a word to him and ask him to make his decision that night, or should I not? Would I be interfering with the work of the Spirit if I did so? Hurriedly I decided that I would not ask him to stay behind, so I just greeted him as usual and he went out. His face revealed that he had been crying copiously, an 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 this same man coming to meet me. He came across the road to me and said, 'You know, doctor, if you had asked me to stay behind last night I would have done so.' 'Well,' I said, 'I am asking you now, come with me now.' 'Oh no,' he replied, 'but if you had asked me last night I would have done so.' 'My dear friend,' I said, 'if what happened to you last night does not last for twenty-four hours I am not interested in it. If you are not as ready to come with me now as you were last night you have not got the right, the true thing. Whatever affected you last night was only temporary and passing, you still do not see your real need of Christ.'​

 

[Rich Koster]

Suggestion: Read Ian Murray's "Revival & Revivalism". It's chock full o' goodies.