Easy Prayerism – Romans 10:9-13

 We all know what it is to eat a wonderful meal. It has your favorite main course, and a vegetable or two which you like, then perhaps a great dessert. I think that it can be said that eating has evolved – and digressed – throughout the years. Cooking and eating to a lot of people has become an art form. The preparation, the appeal, the looks, the flavor and the presentation are more important than the nutrition. To others food is an obsession. Then to others a mere unpleasant necessity; a speed bump in day’s activities. There have been periods in human history when eating offered no pleasure at all. It was something merely to keep the body alive. Perhaps the food was thoroughly awful, or there was so little of it that every meal was essentially the same

Like eating, religion has undergone a lot of changes and differing periods. It used to be that religion was a way to commune with God. In the cool of the evening God came into the garden and fellowshiped with man. Religion used to involve a means of deliverance from the innate guilt that people felt about their sins. But for many, today, it is only a means of human social contact or self improvement.

There was a day just a couple of generations ago, when nearly all religion dealt with sin and its forgiveness. That was when people still felt that there was a difference between right and wrong, righteousness and sinfulness. Today amidst the religions of mere psychology or sociology, there are some still dealing with sin. But, unfortunately, among those, there are hundreds of differing ideas about how to remedy the sin problem. Mere church membership, baptism, money, sacraments, personal sacrifice, good-Samaritanism. These are but to name a few of the ideas of men used to solve the problem of personal sinfulness. Some of these are Catholic ideas; some are Protestant; some are foreign and some are perfectly independent. And of course Baptists take pride in being neither Catholic, Protestant, foreign nor Perfectly Independent. This church, and most of our Baptist cousins say that we try to pattern our ideas after the Bible. Yet there are a great many Baptists who still have man-made notions about forgiveness, like all the rest. And it’s one of those ideas that I would like address this evening.

Some of the religions that still deal with sin, make deliverance – salvation from that sin – very difficult. Others make it unrealistically easy. For example, there are many Baptists who practice something that we’ll call “Easy Prayer Salvation.” And they justify their assertions with verses like Romans 10:9-13. For example, a young man may feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit about his spiritual condition. He comes forward in a church service as the congregation is singing “Just as I am without one plea.” Then as he kneels at steps to the pulpit someone tells him that all he must do be saved is repeat these words: “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. Come into my heart and save me.”

I am afraid that simple prayer, although not necessarily evil in itself, has condemned thousands of people to Hell. The words do not condemn a person, but they come short of what it takes to experience God’s salvation.

First, that kind of prayer comes from an incorrect approach to evangelism.The father of modern evangelism, better teach the same thing as the father of original evangelism. When I was in Bible school, I had to buy, or it was recommended that I read, various books on evangelism. A prominent book at the time was called “Evangelism Explosion.” I believe that I still have that book hidden somewhere in all my boxes. James Kennedy, author of that book, is not the father of evangelism. Nor is Jack Hyles, or Mr. Ford who wrote the tract “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation.” I had a class in school called “Personal Evangelism,” & our text was written by our professor – R.O. Woodworth. There was nothing particularly wrong with that little book, and I still have that book as well. And then there is Spurgeon’s excellent book on “soul-winning.” All of these are well and good, but if the evangelists of today cannot find their evangelism in the Bible, then it’s not Biblical evangelism. The complaints that are made against modern preaching often apply to modern evangelism. And one of those complaints is the lack of emphasis on the sinner’s sinfulness and the need of repentance.

A great many people like to use the Book of Romans as their evangelistic guide. And believe me there is nothing wrong with that if it’s taken in its context. So what does the Book of Romans show us? There are some surprising things which the modern Baptist evangelist should seriously consider. For example, did you know there is no reference to THE LOVE OF GOD until there is a complete exposition and realization of sin. As we have seen, the first three chapters of Romans takes the hand of man and puts it over the coals of hell. The sinner is not ready for a genuine Savior until he sees his need of genuine salvation. He certainly doesn’t need to hear about God’s love until he sees a need for God’s love. And perhaps he doesn’t need to hear about God’s love until he is fully impressed with God’s holiness. So Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned come short of the glory of God.” A person can believe that verse intellectually, but have it not mean a thing to him personally. There are about a 100 other verses in those three chapters which need to be driven into the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit before 3:23 can mean very much.

Another thing to notice beside the first reference to the love of God in Romans is the first reference to FAITH. Humanly speaking, by faith sinners are saved. By faith God’s love and forgiveness are realized and enjoyed by the sinner. But again, faith is not even a shadow before there is a thorough exposition of sin – Romans 3:10-25.

So often the emphasis of modern day evangelism with a prayer for salvation is coupled to a mis-timed reference to heaven. “Hey, dude, don’t you want to go to heaven when you die? Well, then pray this little prayer with me.” Again, do we have any business talking to people about Heaven until we have exposed the sinner to Hell? It doesn’t matter if someone is only 11-years-old, or even 7, that person is going to Hell for his sins. It doesn’t matter how much he wants be with his Heavenly grandmother, he is worthy only of Hell. And until he realizes that fact, it may be out of place to talk about Heaven. In a slightly different context, the Lord Jesus once spoke about His ministry by saying: “They that are whole, need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Christ is a doctor of souls, a healer, but until we realize that we are deathly ill, we’ll never properly call upon Him. Christ is a doctor of souls, not a real-estate agent earning a commission filling up a subdivisions of Heavenly condos.

The reason why there are so many thousands of people professing to receive, and praying to receive, Christ, and yet then a few months later, or a few years later, they are back in the pig-sty of sin, is that their prayer for salvation came from the wrong direction. Rather than coming through repentance for sin and the fear of Hell, it came from a seminar on heavenly real-estate and a spiritual stock market.

Let me point out some of the problems that people have with Romans 10:9-10.There are thousands of evangelicals who misunderstand the word “confess.” Look at it carefully and prove to me that it is talking about the confession of sin. I’m not against the confession of sin – in the right context it is an important thing to do. When we have offended a brother in Christ or a spouse in marriage, the confession of our sin may be the first step to proper reconciliation. But I’m not sure that we can ever properly confess our sins to the Lord. First, He knows them better than we do. And secondly, how many must we confess, before we have done an adequate job? Will a blanket confession, “Lord I am a sinner,” do? Perhaps it will, but that doesn’t answer the question of whether or not this verse is talking about that kind of confession.

The Greek word translated “confession” is “homologeo” (hom-ol-og-eh’-o). The root word is “logos” – “word.” And the prefix “homo” means “the same.” “homologeo” (hom-ol-og-eh’-o) means – “to say the same thing as….”

Now let me step forward just a bit before coming back. There are multitudes of evangelists who believe that Romans 9:10 is the way that sinners are saved. And they were go so far as to say that without the confession of sin, there is no salvation. But let’s try to figure out who it is that is making this confession. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Isn’t it the believer who does this confessing? Some people say that if a man repents of his sin, and trusts Christ to save him, but who doesn’t publically confess Christ in a church service, the man is still unsaved. That is tantamount to saying that a repenting believer is not necessarily saved.

Again, what is it to confess? It is to say the same thing about Christ that is said by Christ Himself. And this brings us back to our message this morning. To merely ask the Lord Jesus to come into one’s heart and save him, minimalizes who the Saviour really is. To ask the Lord Jesus to come into a heart and save from sin, is not what this verse is talking about. When a sinner confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus, he is confessing that JESUS IS LORD. The sinner is confessing that he is unworthy of demanding, requesting, asking or pleading anything of God. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, and certainly unworthy you should reside in my heart. What business do I have of asking the King of Kings, and Creator of the universe to do anything for me?” The kings of Medes and Persians had a law that no one could enter the throne room without permission. How can we come into the Lord of those kings and lightly ask anything of him. How can we enter His presence, unless we come in the fashion that He has dictated.

I do not believe that in order to be born again, someone must theologically define Jesus’ deity and Lordship. But I do believe that he will be so humbled and submissive that he will eagerly yearn for the Lord and His guidance. In other words, he will have a desire to become one of Jesus’ disciples – a learner and a seeker. Efforts to hide the terms of discipleship from someone who claims to long for forgiveness is diabolical evangelism – not Christian evangelism. A little prayer asking Christ to come into one’s heart is not saving faith. To confess that we are sinners is not Biblical repentance nor the pathway to salvation. The confession that the Lord requires involves an acceptance of who He is, and an acknowledgment our worthlessness before Him.