Reviewed
Nov 10
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1 review
• brothermike.com
From the Pastor's study: "Unsaved people (who are often religious) may confess that a person is saved by grace through faith, but they often contradict themselves by saying that WORKS are ALSO necessary for a person to be saved or to STAY saved.
This teaching is clearly contrary to scripture, as is seen in Rom. 11:6, which says, "And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." (Romans 11:6) Salvation must, therefore, be either by grace or works. It cannot be by grace AND works.
Saved people realize that a person is saved by grace through faith, WITHOUT works, for the Bible says, 8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2)
Saved people also realize that the object of saving faith is the Lord Jesus Christ, and in particular, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as the apostle Paul wrote, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)
However, there are saved people who, although they recognize these truths, also claim that a person is saved by saying "THE SINNER'S PRAYER."
Well, which is it?
Is a person saved through faith, through prayer, through a prayer of faith, through faith in a prayer, all of the above, or none of the above?.......................
THE CONDITION OF THOSE WHO PRAY TO BE SAVED
When a person examines the scriptures, he is jolted by the fact that NOBODY in the Bible asked Jesus to come into his heart. NO unbeliever in the Bible asked God to save him for Christ's sake. NO soul-winner instructed a sinner in the New Testament to pray in order to become a Christian.
He learns that Rev. 3:20 was not an instruction to an unsaved man to invite Jesus into his heart, but rather for a saved man in a local church to open the door for the Lord Jesus to have communion with him.
He realizes that TRADITION was what caused him to believe that a person was saved through prayer. He realizes that TRADITION was what caused him to use "the sinner's prayer" in soul-winning.
If he was himself led to the Lord in prayer, he might well question his OWN standing before God. Can a person be saved who prayed "the sinner's prayer?"
It is an unfair conclusion to say that EVERYONE who prayed at his time of "conversion" is lost.
However, God's word teaches that a person is NOT saved by prayer, but through faith. Now, pay attention: if a person trusted in God's answering his prayer rather than in the substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, he DID NOT pass from death unto life. If he is saved now, he became saved subsequent to his prayer, at the point he put faith in the gospel. It is doubtful that many Christians were saved at the very moment they CLAIM that they got saved.
A person who is still depending upon his prayer is unsaved to this day."