Easy Believe-ism

Years ago, I attended a soul-winning presentation by two "Baptist preachers" here in the Chicago area. One preacher took the role of the soul-winner, while the other played the part of an unsaved Roman Catholic man. The "preacher" told the "Catholic man" that all he wanted him to do was to reaffirm the faith he already had as a Catholic. He then led the "Catholic man" through a salvation prayer, telling the "Catholic" to carefully repeat the prayer after him, word for word. The "preacher" then asked the "convert," "Did you get saved?" and the "convert" replied "Yes." The "preacher" asked the "convert" how he knew he had been saved, and the "convert" replied, "I know I am saved because I prayed that prayer." These two well-respected Baptist preachers were presenting false doctrine. Their presentation promoted a deceptive soul-winning technique based on the concept of "easy-believism" or "decisionism." Easy-believism teaches that we can obtain genuine conversions by merely obtaining mental assent to the gospel message and getting people to recite the words of a prayer. There is no reliance on the Holy Spirit to convict sinners and draw them to Christ. Often there is no repentance on the part of the sinner, and no effort made to get the sinner to understand his sinful condition and need of a Savior. Easybelievism is a man-centered philosophy, with little or no recognition of the sovereignty of God. Essentially, it teaches salvation by works sinners are given the impression that they can save themselves by reciting the right words, or by "walking the aisle," or whatever ritual is in vogue. (In some churches, people are expected to speak in tongues or get baptized as part of the process of getting saved. Baptist churches do not teach this way, but sometimes we give people the impression that "if you pray this prayer and walk the aisle, you will thereby be saved.) Salvation is by faith alone: "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8-9. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." Titus 3:5. A person who is trusting for his salvation in the fact that he prayed a prayer, or walked the aisle, is just as lost as a person trusting in his infant baptism, communion, confirmation or church membership for salvation. Those who are truly saved are trusting in Christ alone for salvation.

The Apostle James makes it clear that mere mental assent to the existence of the true God and the facts of the Gospel is not saving faith:"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" James 2:19-20. Christ warned that there would be many who prayed a prayer and named His name, and yet would be eternally lost: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Matthew 7:21. FOLLY OF EASY-BELIEVISM: The idea is that if we can just manipulate the prospect into praying the words of a rote prayer, or even just bowing their head and closing their eyes and following along while we pray the prayer for them, then they will be saved. If it is that easy, then why does the Bible not prescribe for us the exact words of the prayer we should ask sinners to pray? The notion that we can get sinners saved just by cajoling them into repeating some magic words is just as erroneous as the Roman Catholic belief that a priest can save a soul and cleanse all original sin by dropping a few drops of water on someone's head. There are even some soul-winners who will tell a person who thinks they are perhaps saved already, "Well, why don't you just make sure by praying the words of this prayer, just in case?" A person who does not think they are lost is not ready to be saved. If the Holy Spirit has not yet done His essential work of convicting the sinner of his sin (John 16:8-11), then the worst thing we can do is to obtain a premature and false profession of faith from him, thus deceiving him into believing that he has been saved. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, if saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Romans 3:19-20. Sinners who are making excuses for themselves, and saying that maybe they are already saved, are not ready to be savingly?? converted their mouths have not yet been stopped, and they are not yet conscious of their guilt before God and their need of a Savior.

The way to show a sinner his guilt and need of salvation is to point out to him that he has broken God's law, so that he may have the knowledge and recognition of sin in his life. Most modern evangelism, however, avoids any mention of the fact that people are unrighteous sinners who have offended a holy God. Any specific rebuke for offenses committed before God is deleted from these watered-down "gospel" presentations. Instead, we rely on worldly entertainments and self-esteem techniques, and we serenade sinners with the promise that God has a wonderful plan for their life. As a result, we see very little conviction of sin, and few genuine conversions. It doesn't have to be that way if we boldly confront people with their sinful condition, they will come under conviction, just as the men of Israel did under Peter preaching at Pentecost, Acts 2:37. In the final analysis, no one is ready to be savingly converted until God has drawn him to the Savior. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:44. "Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. " John 6:65. CONSEQUENCES OF EASY-BELIEVISM: One consequence is that we cause people who have absolutely no understanding of the gospel message or their need of a Savior to have a false hope of salvation. There are multitudes of people who are on the way to hell but who think they are saved because someone led them in a prayer. When such deceived persons start to doubt their salvation, they are exhorted to "Never doubt your salvation. God's Word promises that if you say that prayer, you will be saved. You do not want to make God a liar, now, do you?" However, the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians to"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith" 2 Corinthians 13:5. Christ warned in His parable of the Sower, Matthew 13:1-23, that there would be many false professions of faith. Acts 8:9-24 gives a clear example of a false profession of faith, that of Simon the sorcerer. There may be some false professions of faith, no matter how much care we take to avoid it. But we must not be guilty of carelessly obtaining such false professions, just so we can brag about how many souls we have won. Another consequence of easy-believism is that it results in our churches being stuffed with members who are not saved. As a result,

immorality runs rampant in the church, creating a bad testimony and making it impossible for the church to properly represent Christ and His gospel message to the community. Pastors end up spending most of their time fighting with their own unsaved members, fending off the slanders and false accusations generated by these unregenerate sinners in the church, and many times being driven out of the pulpit by them. There must be a better way. THE CURE FOR EASYBELIEVISM: First of all, we must never attempt to obtain a profession of faith in a prospect whose heart has not been prepared by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. It is our job to preach the gospel, but only God can draw the sinner to Himself and make him see his need for the crucified and risen Savior who shed His blood to redeem us from our sins. When a baby chick is born, it takes many hours for him to peck himself out of the shell of his egg. If we try to hasten the process by peeling the chick out of his shell prematurely, the chick will die. We dare not produce "stillbirths" and give a lost sinner a false hope of salvation, because we got ahead of the Holy Spirit and rushed the sinner down the Romans Road and through the Sinner's Prayer (whatever that is) before he was ready. To avoid further confirming lost people in their false hope of salvation, we must carefully examine all candidates for baptism and membership in our churches, as to the nature of their salvation experience. Too often, we merely ask people, "Did you ask Jesus into your heart?" and if someone mumbles, "Yes," then we rush them into the baptistry. (Nowhere does the Bible say that we get saved by asking Jesus into our hearts!) Sometimes a church will hustle people onto the church rolls without asking about their salvation experience at all. These things ought not to be. If pastors will take time to counsel all candidates for membership and examine them as to what they are trusting in for salvation, we may be able to lead victims of "easybelievism" into a true knowledge of the Savior and a Scriptural conversion experience. While we want our churches to grow, we dare not grow by padding our membership rolls with unsaved people. A regenerated church membership has always been a historic Baptist distinctive -- let's keep it that way. -Copied Illinois and Indiana Missionary Baptists