 Is there a right way or wrong way to have an altar call? Or are they just all together unbiblical? Hey smart Christians, if you notice on YouTube or different places that you go, you'll hear people have a varying opinion on altar calls, whether we should have them or not, the dangers and so forth. Now, there are some people who I absolutely respect, who I absolutely also disagree on this topic. One such person is Paul Washer. Overall, I love his doctrine. I like what he stands for and how he presents himself. But this is one of these things that I'm going to have to disagree with him on. Let me share it with you a clip from him and then I'll tell you where and why I disagree. So you draw the net and you get people to come forward. Now look at how they do this. The music plays a, it must play a role because I noticed that they always make sure they got the right music. So that must play a role. Some even give the lights, lighting's important. Okay, and then also you got a big enough congregation. You don't put your counselors down front. You put them in distinct places all around the auditorium so that when you give the invitation, they come forward, which makes it easier for the other people to come forward. Tell me that doesn't happen. It does everywhere. That's a cult. That's manipulation. And I'm going to call it exactly what it is. It's wrong, it's sin, it's deceptive. And it has nothing to do with the ministry of Jesus Christ or the apostles. Now if a man is up there preaching and he wants people to come forward, he's preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. He's crying out for men to repent and believe, to take their stand no matter the cost. He's telling them that Jesus Christ promises them two things, eternal life and a cross to die on. And people come forward and they're broken and he counsels them for four hours. I got no problem with that. That's not what's going on. They come forward and then someone who has been supposedly trained in counseling. Now notice, trained in counseling but not trained in the gospel. Comes down to the clipboard, talks to that person for five minutes, gets that person to pray a prayer. And then preacher comes by, reads the Bible and pray. Come on up here. Brothers and sisters, I want to present to you your new brother and sister in Christ. That is so wrong. There's a reason why God gives elders or pastors to a church. They are men who supposedly qualify for the ministry. I'm not going to have just someone who's trained in how to get someone to pray a prayer. If someone is seeking the Lord, shouldn't an elder be there? Shouldn't someone trained in theology and the discernment of souls of the working of the gospel in the heart of a man be able to sit there and maybe sit there four hours and maybe have to meet with them for the next six weeks before anything like, we'd like to present to you someone who has made a professional faith. Isn't it wonderful when you go to a church and someone says a few weeks ago, so-and-so came, shared the gospel with him, we spent time with him in prayer, discipleship, gone through many things like the Book of First John that this person might have biblical repentance. We considered their conversion experience and everything else. They have the assurance and we as pastors ourselves have scrutinized this situation. We prayed over and with great assurance and great joy we present to you this brother to be baptized. Now, admittedly, there are people that are going to abuse altar causes. As a matter of fact, there are people that are going to abuse everything. There are going to be people that are going to abuse the offering. There are people that are going to abuse the praise and worship service. There are people that are going to abuse being an usher, anything like that. This is just how it is. As long as you've got fallen men in this world, you're going to have some of those fallen men coming to the body inside the church who will also act inappropriately or who will exhibit behavior that they should not do. You'll even have churches where they're intentionally trying to be deceptive or they just honestly make a mistake. You're going to have some errors in people coming to the Lord. I believe though that an altar call can be good. I don't think the church has to necessarily have an altar call. However, here is the good thing about an altar call and then I'll deal with some of the bad things that he stated. An altar call allows the church, the body to know if a person has stated or professed faith in Christ. Obviously, when someone professes faith in Christ, when they say so, we don't know if they genuinely have or not. That's always the case. But what it does is it gives the church the opportunity to do the next thing that's just as important as them coming up and saying that they have placed their faith in Christ and that is discipling them. Jesus says to go and make disciples. Well, it'd be kind of hard to make a disciple of someone who you don't know is actually a believer. Maybe they attend church, but we don't know where they stand with Christ. But at least in this regard, whether they are telling the truth or not whether they have genuinely placed faith or not, it gives the body an opportunity to work with this person that the person pushes away and decides not to. They don't want to be a disciple. They don't want to attend me. They don't want to grow. The Bible says, well, then that might be an indication because this person did not actually place faith in Christ. But what you have is a point of contact. You've got an appointment reference. You can say, okay, well, let's, Joe Bob here has stated he places faith in Christ, but we don't see any fruits of it. And so we can design something around reaching to Joe Bob. Maybe there's other things in his life. Or if he actually did profess faith because one thing we discount sometimes is that they may have actually genuinely profess and place their faith in Christ. And so then what do we do? You don't want a new believer standing in the body, helpless, not knowing what to do. He or she is just coming to church, clapping and praising and then goes home throughout the week and is left to fend for themselves. But the other thing is that altar calls are not just for people to place their faith in Christ. They also are there for prayer. Let me go to James chapter five. And I want to read this passage. This is, I think, the biblical way to have an altar call. James says in five verse 13, he says, is anyone among you suffering? Well, quick question then. How do we know if you're suffering if you don't tell anyone? Now churches can have it to where they have an altar call or they might fill out a slip of paper or they may have someone stationed where they can go and speak to that person but there needs to be some sort of way whereby the people can go and seek the elders to let them know, hey, I've got some sort of issue. Typically an easy way to do so historically in the American church has been through an altar call. Let's go back to it. He says, let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sin, he will be forgiven. And so these are things that could be fleshed out at an altar call. Granted, there are some bad things that can happen at an altar call, but there are some good things and this is what could take place. Let's continue. Therefore, look what he says, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should confess your sins to the entire body. Hey, everybody, I've been smoking. I've been watching things I shouldn't watch. I've been going places I shouldn't know. What it really is in general, acknowledging the fact that you are sinning or you are a sinner. And then what happens? Well, if you've acknowledged that point, well, then the next step will be then, since I'm a sinner and I know I need saving for my sin, well, who do I turn to? I'm in a church. Can you all give me any sort of clues as to who I should turn to if I've been sinning? Oh, Jesus, I've heard the story. What must I do to be saved? Believe on him and the Bible says you shall be saved. Well, those are the kind of things that can happen at an altar call. Let's continue. I wanna show you something. Let's drop down to verse 19. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin. So let's say, kind of like what Paul was saying, Paul Warsh was saying, if there's someone there who just comes to his altar call and they're not really genuine. They're not true believers. They may have stated something, profess something, but they weren't really true. Well, the Bible says that anyone among you, us believers who wanders from that truth, that person also, who he heard the truth, he knows about it, but he wanders away from it. Then look what he says. He says, then let him know that whoever brings back a sinner, that person who made a profession of faith and weren't genuine or they're thinking about it, but whoever brings him back, bring this sinner back from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sin. And so that's one regard where, for one example of how having an altar call, if it's done properly, could be beneficial. Now, are there some altar calls that are just for show? Sure. There are, I've seen churches where they've had plants where people get up, they've got folks who just get up and come down to the altar who are supposed to be believers already. That's debatable, but who will get up just to kind of lead other folks and things. And yeah, it's okay to get up and go also. So I won't be the only one, or people that, you know, they've got the lights, the music and so forth. Now, are the lights and the music in and of themselves a bad thing? No, it's not for show, but okay, I don't have a problem with it if it's done and it's done kind of tastefully and not too obtrusive, not too attention grabbing and so forth. I really don't have a problem with that. The main thing is the main thing and that is getting people to actually, genuinely place their faith in Christ. Well, that's done not just at that moment that makes the decision. It's done before that as they're understanding the gospel. Are there, what I do like Paul Washer says, is it always necessary that you've got to spend four hours with the person for a day or weeks and so forth? Well, if that's necessary, I will give everyone this bit of advice. Remember, we're always in sales, even just our regular life. If we get pulled over by the police officer and we want the ticket, we're in sales. We go before the judge, we're in sales. If you are maybe dating some young lady or some man or what have you, you're in sales. If you want to buy a house, if you want to sell something, you are in sales because you're trying to get your point across the way you see it. Well, if we are trying to share the gospel, we are in sales. And the key is this, take exactly the amount of time that's necessary. Meaning this, if it takes five minutes, you don't have to give them 20 minutes. If it takes 20 minutes, then don't take five minutes. So there are gonna be people who need to stay there and you're gonna have to labor with them for hours, for days, for weeks, for months. That's gonna happen. But then there are some that make the profession at an altar call at that moment because they have been hearing the gospel. There are people who have heard the gospel and they got it. Once the Holy Spirit has regenerated their heart, guess what they don't need? They don't need you to keep saying to make sure do you really, really, really, really, really have it? Because what it becomes in, it becomes more my preference. And we don't want someone's preference to take the place of what God's standard is. I get it that certain churches do things a different way. That's fine. But if there's no such thing as a perfect altar call or perfect way that the church does things. Because remember, the Bible does not tell us the exact order of service that we ought to have. Now I would always caution anyone to be careful with altar calls with everything. Again, any and everything in the church could be abused as a matter of fact has been abused. But are altar calls inherently unbiblical or wrong? No, they can be a useful tool. I've seen them used as a useful tool. I've had altar calls. I've stated this way and I've given people the opportunity. If you want to come down for prayer, if you feel like you need prayer, if you want to make a profession of faith publicly or if you don't have to, you can do so. You don't, coming down to the front does not get you into heaven. That your profession of faith, your actual faith in Christ is what does it. So if you want to do it right in your pew, hey man. But we would ask that you would let someone know of your decision if that's what you've done or if you have a prayer request and you don't want to become, if you don't want to get up before the people, then fill out the form or see one of the elders before you leave. So there's different ways to go about doing it. Again, the altar call is the most visible way to go about doing it, but there is no right or wrong way. And now I'm not totally against what Paul Washer is saying, but there are some things where I disagree with it. So I'm not against an altar call. I think that if it's a tool that can be used, well then let's use it. Hey man.