By
Laurence A. Justice
An
altar call is an appeal for an immediate public
response to a sermon just preached. It is popularly
called the invitation and as used in this context is
an appeal for a public act of commitment and can
involve hand raising, going to a counseling area or
signing a commitment card. Most often it involves
walking down the aisle to the front of a church
auditorium and speak with the pastor. The altar call
is tacked on to the end of a sermon and the
invitation usually is to “come forward and accept
Christ as your Savior.” Various emotional
techniques such as telling sad, tear jerking stories
and playing mood-creating music
in the background are employed to encourage response to
the altar call.
Like
many of you I grew up in churches which used the
invitation system and in the early years of my
ministry I used it myself before finally seeing its
implications and its inconsistency with God’s
grace. In those years we sang verse after verse of
invitation hymns like “Just As I Am” and we
sometimes sang on for an hour or more trying to get
people to come forward to accept Christ as your
Saviour. I once had an evangelist in a church where
I pastored and his entire program consisted of night
after night telling sob story after sob story
climaxing with the saddest one of all and then
giving an invitation to come to the front and accept
Christ.
So
firmly entrenched has the altar call become in our
modern churches that I have had people ask me on
several occasions, How can people be saved if you
don’t give an invitation? Preachers who do not
give altar calls are often criticized as not being
evangelistic.
We
do not have an altar call in the services of our
church! We do not extend an invitation at the close
of our services for people to make some kind of
physical demonstration that they are trusting
Christ. What I shall do in this sermon is explain
just why we don’t!
First of all we do not do it
BECAUSE GOD’S WORD DOES
NOT TEACH THE ALTAR CALL
It
is vitally important in this practice as in all
others that we look closely at the scriptures to
find what they teach about this practice. As we do
we find that the invitation is never commanded in
God’s word. Search the scriptures as you will,
there is no command in any scripture for us to use
this method. Not only this, there is no precedent in
scripture for using the altar call.
The Lord Jesus never in his earthly ministry
gave an invitation. The apostles of our Lord never
in all their ministries used the altar call.
In
Acts 2:36-37 we are told that at Pentecost 3,000
people were saved but no altar call was used.
The saving of those 3,000 was the work of the
Holy Spirit of God and not of clever emotional
appeals to come to the front of the meeting place.
Whatever reasons one may give for using the altar
call, it is a fact that it cannot be supported from
the word of God.
As we have already pointed
out, some people believe and teach that if one does
not give an invitation in connection with his sermon
he is not evangelistic. But we cannot be more
evangelistic
than the New Testament and the altar call or
invitation system is not to be found in the pages of
the New Testament. Actually having an altar call is
a departure from scriptural requirements and
practice.
In
the New Testament and in Christian history up until
the year 1820 AD sinners were invited to Christ, not
to decide at the end of a sermon whether to perform
some physical action. You will search Christian
history in vain for an altar call or invitation
before about 1820. George Whitefield, the greatest
evangelist perhaps of all time never used the altar
call. Charles Spurgeon under whose preaching more
people were saved than perhaps any other pastor over
the centuries never gave an invitation.
Well, where did the altar call come from if
God’s word doesn’t teach it? The answer is that
the altar call is a human invention that is less
than 200 years old.
It
is generally recognized that the altar call was
invented by a Presbyterian evangelist named Charles
G. Finney who lived from 1792-1875. Finney referred
to the altar call as coming to the anxious seat or
to the inquiry room and began using it in his
evangelistic services in about 1820. Did the
churches do it all wrong in the matter of evangelism
until Finney came along in 1820 with his new system?
How were people saved during the 1800 years of
Christian history before the advent of Charles G.
Finney? Evangelist D. L. Moody took Finney’s
altar call and refined it and in turn it was passed
on to its modern champion, Billy Graham.
In
a paper he wrote called “The Christian,” Billy
Graham defends his use of the invitation system by
resorting, not to the scriptures but to psychology
when he says concerning the invitation, “Many
psychologists would say it is psychologically
sound.” Biblical practices do not need the
endorsement of psychology! There is absolutely no
biblical authority for this practice! Yet today
virtually all evangelists, churches
and pastors use the altar call
invitation system.
Secondly, our church does not use the altar
call or invitation system because
THE
ALTAR CALL CONTRADICTS THE
GREAT
DOCTRINES OF GOD’S GRACE
1.
It contradicts the Bible doctrine of the depravity
or the inability of man.
God’s
word teaches that because of the fall of Adam into
sin man is by nature spiritually dead.
As Paul states it in Ephesians 2:1 man is
“dead in trespasses and sins.” A man who is
spiritually dead can do nothing spiritual.
He can’t even will to repent of sin and
trust in Christ.
He is dead!
God’s
word teaches that because of their depravity men are
helpless to save or help save themselves. This means
that there is absolutely nothing a sinner can do to
save himself or prepare himself for salvation.
Spiritually dead sinners can never come to Christ
until God calls them with a special, powerful,
effectual call. This is what the Lord Jesus is
talking about in John 6:44 when He says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw
him...” or literally, No man is
able or has the power to come to me except
the Father draw him.”
Charles
Finney, the inventor of the altar call, was a
Pelagian in theology. Pelagianism is a damnable
heresy which teaches that the fall of man in sin did
not actually make him dead in sin. It is true man
was damaged by the fall but he was not ruined by it
this heresy says. Finney’s idea was that man is
just sick in sin but he still has within him the
ability to obey God and be pleasing to Him.
In
his book “Systematic Theology” Finney says that
man can do anything God requires of him and that all
he needs to do so is to be induced to do so. Thus
according to Finney man has a free will and has
within him the ability to repent and to believe.
This thinking of course squarely contradicts the
Bible doctrine of man’s inability.
2.
Secondly
the
altar call contradicts the biblical order of
salvation.
The
whole question of the altar call or invitation can
be reduced to the order of salvation. The word of
God teaches that in the order of salvation,
regeneration precedes conversion.
In John 3:3 for example the Lord Jesus says
that only those who are born again can see or
comprehend or understand or appreciate the
kingdom
of
God
or spiritual things. “Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the
kingdom
of
God
.” God’s word makes clear that the Holy Spirit
in the new birth enables a sinner to trust
in Christ.
Arminians
on the other hand say that one must believe or be
converted in
order to be regenerated. In his great
booklet “The Invitation System” Iain Murray
quotes Billy Graham as saying that we are “made
alive by trust in Christ.” This of course is just
the opposite of what God’s word teaches about the
order of salvation being regeneration and then faith
and conversion.
In
the same booklet
Murray
quotes Graham concerning Graham’s own conversion.
“They were singing the last verse of the song when
I went forward.
That first step was the hardest I ever took
in my life. But
when I took it, God did the rest” and “the
rest” in Graham’s thinking is the new birth! In
this way of thinking poor God can’t do anything
for a sinner until the sinner takes the first step!
If,
as God’s word clearly teaches, regeneration must
come before conversion in the
order of salvation then the invitation system must
be given up as contradictory to God’s word!
3.
Thirdly
the
altar call contradicts the gospel way of salvation
by coming to Christ.
The
gospel is not, do something physical and if you will, you will be saved!
The gospel is, Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!”
The duty of sinners is not to come to the front of
the building but to believe in Christ! To be saved
sinners must come to Christ which means believe in
Christ.
The
Lord Jesus Himself says in Matthew 11:28, “Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest.” Think about it!
No one can now come to Christ with his feet
because Christ is no longer physically present on
this earth. Christ is not down here at the front
of
this church auditorium anymore than he is back there
in the pew or outside in the parking lot or any
where on earth. As someone else has said, the
fountain of life is not in front of the pulpit in
any church building. The fountain of life is Christ
Himself Who is the only advocate for you in Heaven!
We
don’t have to move a muscle to totally commit
ourselves to the safe keeping of Christ the Savior
for salvation. The altar call implies at least and
it is often specifically stated that by coming to
the front of a church building or some other
auditorium at some preacher’s invitation, the one
who comes becomes a Christian.
This is not so!
To
those who practice the altar call salvation is
equated with getting people to occupy a certain
piece of geography at the front of a building. In
doing this they effectively limit the sphere of
God’s saving activity to a few square feet at the
front of some building. My friend John Hunter of
Anniston
,
Alabama
calls this locational salvation because it makes the front of the church
auditorium the location where people must go to be
saved.
At
Billy Graham’s first London Crusade he said one
night in giving the invitation, “Don’t let
distance keep you from Christ.
It’s a long way but Christ went all the way
to the cross because he loved you.
Certainly you can come these few steps and
give your life to Him.” God’s word however does
not teach that one is saved by changing his location
but salvation come by believing in your heart what
Christ has accomplished in His atoning death on the
cross!
4.
Fourthly
the
altar call contradicts the Bible doctrine of
salvation by grace without works.
Biblical
salvation is not of works.
It is not by doing something, anything at
all. Instead
it is by grace through faith according to Ephesians
2:8-9. “For 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.”
Faith itself is the gift of God and not the
accomplishment or any contribution you can
make to obtain salvation. Colossians 2:12 calls
faith “the operation of God” and Philippians
1:29 calls it a gift given. “For unto you it is given...to
believe on Him...”
Under the invitation system the idea constantly presented by the
preacher is that the step forward is of great
spiritual importance.
Faith is presented as something a man does in
order to be saved. Believing in Christ is identified
with coming to the front of the church building in
response to the preacher’s appeal. But making an outward
response the same thing as receiving Christ adds a
condition of salvation that Christ Jesus never
appointed. Works is the necessary evidence
of salvation, not
the prior
condition of it. The altar call satisfies
man’s natural desire to do something to save or
help save himself to be saved, but this is not
biblical, or approved by God in any manner..
5.
Fifthly
it contradicts the Bible doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
Sola
Scriptura means the scriptures only and it
recognizes that God’s written word gives us everything we need for all matters of faith and practice. There
is nothing God wants us to know or to do that is not
found in His written word.
According to II Timothy 3:16-17 God’s word
is sufficient or completely adequate for all our
spiritual needs. The altar call is a way of
promoting religious experience by other means than
those clearly appointed in God’s word so it is a
denial of Sola Scriptura and of the all sufficiency
of God’s word.
The
third reason our church does not use the altar call
is
BECAUSE IT DOES GREAT DAMAGE
TO THE CAUSE OF CHRIST
What
have been the results of 200 years of using this
unbiblical method called the altar call or the
invitation system? I submit to you that the results
of the use of the altar call have been disastrous!
There are at least three things that the invitation
system does that cause great damage to the cause of
Christ:
1.
It produces great numbers of obviously false
professions of Christ.
I
say obviously
false because so many converts of this
system refuse to do the very first thing that Christ
the Lord demands of His people and that is submit to
scriptural baptism. There is a vast difference in
the number claiming to be saved and the number
actually baptized in this type of evangelism.
The
other day I came across some statistics put out by
Jim Elliff, a professor at Southern Baptists’
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here in
Kansas City
. By their own statistics Elliff says that among
Southern Baptists out of every 100 professions of
faith only 30 are later baptized and out of that 30
only 10 will show up at church on a given Sunday
morning and of that 30 only 4 will show up on a
given Sunday evening for worship.
One
well known altar call evangelist held a revival
meeting in
Oklahoma City
in which 47 people professed to have been saved.
A few weeks after that meeting
I called the pastor of that church and asked
him how many of those 47 he had baptized and he
said, Three!
2.
A
second thing the altar call does which causes great
damage to Christ’s cause is it
fatally deceives many who respond to it.
Walking the aisle and giving the pastor
one’s hand often gives people doing so a false
hope of salvation. These people believe that they
are spiritually right with God simply because they
have made the required step down the aisle though
they have never truly come to Christ in faith
trusting in Him as Lord and Savior. On any number of
occasions I have asked people, when were you saved?
only to have them respond, I went forward when I was
18 or when I was a child or at some other time.
Large
numbers of those who have come into the churches
with such counterfeit conversions have stayed there
as formal, dead and deceived professors. I have
known some such persons who have been awakened after
years of such deception to realize that in their
trips to the altar they did not come to Christ!
How many people are in hell today because of
this deception?
3.
Thirdly
the altar call causes much damage to the cause of
Christ because it
produces skepticism and bitterness in many who
respond to it.
Many
people who have sincerely and honestly gone through
the invitation system have recognized that nothing
actually happened to them. They tried it and it
didn’t work and they know it is not real.
They may also think that others who have
tried it know that it doesn’t work and that they
just don’t have the honesty to admit it to
themselves. If their own experience is not real it
is just natural for them to conclude that the
experiences of others are false also.
Many
converts of the invitation system feel that they
have been tricked by the evangelist and their
Christian friends into making such a move down the
aisle. Ultimately
this has produced skepticism and hostility toward
the gospel and because of this realization many have
fallen away from Christianity altogether.
In another city where I was pastor our church decided to knock on every
door in our neighborhood and ask people if they were
Christians. I was amazed to find that virtually all
people responded that they were or used to be
Christians but either were no longer so or did not
now go to church. They all claimed to have been
saved in some crusade or revival service.
Such
results of the altar call can be seen in the two
Southern Baptist churches I pastored in
Oklahoma City
. One
had over 600 members, 300 of whom we could not find.
The other had over 900 members, 750 of whom we could
no longer locate.
In
his day Charles Spurgeon commented on the damage
done to the cause of Christ by the use of the altar
call. Iain
Murray in his book “The Forgotten Spurgeon”
quotes Spurgeon as saying, “I should like to go to
the inquiry room.
I dare say you would, but we are not willing
to pander to popular superstition.
We fear that in those rooms men are warmed
into a fictitious confidence.
Very few of the supposed converts of inquiry
rooms turn out well.
Go to your God at once, even where you are
now. Cast
yourself on Christ, at once, ere you stir an
inch!”
CONCLUSION
Why
do the churches keep on using this unscriptural
practice of giving an altar call?
1.
For one reason they fail to measure all things by
God’s word. All of us have a tendency to accept
things as being right without comparing them with
God’s word to find out if they really are.
2.
Another reason is the desire on the parts of many
pastors and churches to report numbers because they
see numbers as equal to success in the church.
Counting large numbers of converts is irresistible
to these pragmatists. Some of them don’t care if
the invitation cannot be found in God’s word.
It works and they say that is what is
important in God’s work.
3.
Thirdly the use of the altar call in a church
indicates a failure to trust God to do His work in
this world. These people do not really believe that
God can do His saving work in this world without the
wisdom and methods of man to help.
But
how are people to be saved if we do not “give an
invitation” at the close of the sermon? Christ’s invitation is found in Matthew 11:28 where He says to
sinners, not, Come to the front of the church but “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest.”
If
we are to be true to God’s word we must direct
sinners to Christ and not to the aisles in the
church building. The messages of God’s preachers
are filled with invitations for all men everywhere
to come to Christ and be saved. We must be careful
not to give the impression that a sinner’s eternal
destiny hangs on the movement of his feet. Let us
determine to stay with biblical methods of
evangelism and plant, water and trust God for the
increase in seeking the salvation of souls.
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