So my women's group at church is reading Hard to Believe by John Macarthur. We're reading chapter 5 this week and I felt compelled to share an excerpt from the chapter. The books is eye-opening..I recommend it to everyone!
"I know this shocks some people, because we hear all the time that getting saved is easy. "Just sign this little card!" "Just raise your hand!" "Just walk down that aisle while the choir sings one more stanza!" "Just recite this prayer." "Just ask Jesus into your heart." It all sounds simple. The only problem is that none of those actions has anything to do with real salvation and getting through the narrow gate (a reference to the Sermon on the Mount). That sort of invitational-ism implies that Jesus is some poor pitiful Savior, waiting for us to make the first move to allow Him His way. It implies that salvation hinges on a human decision, as if the power that saves us were the power of human "free will."
This emphasis is a peculiarly American phenomenon that started in the nineteenth century with a New York lawyer-turned-evangelist named Charles Finney. He was the most formidable American anti-Calvinist, and he insisted that people get saved by an act of sheer willpower. Therefore, whatever is necessary in order to manipulate their wills is an essential method, because whatever it takes to convince them to decide to be saved is legitimate. The end justifies the means. And so the manipulative "altar call" became a major focus of his evangelism.
Up to that time, American evangelists were, for the most part, Calvinistic, that is, they believed that sinners are saved by hearing the message of the gospel while God the Holy Spirit awakens them from sinful deadness. But Finney took a different path. He made emotional appeals and taught that salvation required no sovereign regeneration by God, but only the act of the human will. The people came streaming down the aisle under the force of his cleverness. The vast majority of these weren't real conversions; in fact, Finney later admitted that his ministry had produced mostly half-hearted and temporary "converts." But the spectacle of crowds surging forward was very convincing.
Dwight L. Moody picked up the technique from Finney, and he passed it along to a generation of stadium evangelists and ministry leaders who still stage sometimes enormous public events and manipulate people to come to the stage. Most of that activity is fruitless. No doubt I believe that, in spite of the manipulation and not because of it, some people who take a pledge, sign a card, or come down front at those services are brokenhearted, aware of their sinfulness, and ready to follow Jesus as Lord by bearing their crosses with total self-denial. Those are the people who will be taken in at the narrow gate by the power of God through the truth, who will find themselves on the highway to heaven. The rest will not, but may be deceived.
According to Jesus, it's very, very difficult to be saved. At the end of Matthew 7:14, He said of the narrow gate, "There are few who find it." I don't believe anyone has every slipped and fell into the kingdom of God. That's cheap grace, easy-believism, Christianity Lite, a shallow, emotional revivalist approach: "I believe in Jesus!" "Fine, you're part of the family, come on in!" NO. The few who find the narrow gate have to search hard for it, then come through it alone. It's hard to find a church or preacher-or a Christian-who can direct you to it. The kingdom is for those who agonize to enter it, whose hearts are shattered over their sinfulness, who mourn in meekness, who hunger and thirst and long for god to change their lives. It's hard because you've got all hell against you. One of Satan's pervasive lies in the world today is that it's easy to become a Christian. It's not easy at all. It's a very narrow gate that you must find and go through alone, anguished over your sinfulness and longing for forgiveness.
Somebody might say this sounds like the religion of human achievement. Not so. When you come to brokenness, the recognition that you, of yourself, cannot make it through the narrow gate, then Christ pours into you grace upon grace to strengthen you for that entrance. In your brokenness, His power becomes your resource. Our part is to admit our sin and inability and plead for mercy and power from on high."
What do you think? Have a great evening!
