DANGERS OF DECISIONISM
by Peter MastersFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2000 No 1
THE INVITATION to walk forward to confess Christ publicly at the end of
a sermon has become an essential part of worship in many churches, particularly in the
USA. It is seen less in the UK.
At the outset of this article the writer wishes to affirm his respect for Gospel
preachers who give careful and responsible invitations. (Such brethren are themselves
disquieted with the crass emotional manipulation employed in many shallow churches.)
However, there are many reasons why the practice should be rejected, even when carried
out more soberly. The following pages present arguments showing the dangers of public
invitations.
1. The invitational is not in the Bible
The most significant caution is the fact that the invitational is a human
technique. Nowhere in the Bible does the Lord command us to do anything even remotely
like it. The Lord Jesus Christ, our perfect example, never called for ‘decisions’ or for public
professions of the kind seen today, and nor did the apostles operate such a system. For that
matter, neither did any other known messenger of the Cross throughout the history of the
Christian Church, until the nineteenth century. Efforts to trace the invitation system earlier
than this have been wholly unsuccessful.
Calling for decisions was completely unknown to such worthies as Wycliffe,
the Reformers, the Puritans, and revival preachers such as the Wesleys, Whitefield, and
Spurgeon.
The various Bible texts which are used in support of the appeal technique
have nothing at all to do with walking to the front of a public meeting. Verses such as,
‘Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my
Father which is in heaven,’ quite clearly refer to the believer’s witness to Christ in daily life,
not to a public act at the end of an evangelistic sermon. Anyone who looks objectively at the
range of texts traditionally used to justify ‘appeals’ must agree that these texts are forced
out of their reasonable meaning. Some advocates of the system openly admit that it is not to
be found in the New Testament, and this is a sobering thought.
2. The invitational seems to give the seeker ‘executive’ power for
salvation
The appeal to walk the aisle inevitably conveys to the seeker the idea that he
possesses the executive power of action in his salvation. It tells him that he can do
it; conversion is available at his bidding. The call to make an immediate, public
confession convinces him that it is entirely up to him, that he may clinch his own salvation
instantly, and that Almighty God will fall in line and respond instantly.
But surely it is not right to convey this impression to a seeker, because only
God knows the true state of his heart as he responds. Only the Lord knows whether he is
genuine, and how sincerely he means his repentance and faith. The giving of salvation can
only be in the hands of the great Searcher of hearts.
Only the Lord knows whether a person is genuinely convicted, or merely
emotionally affected, and we dare not give the impression that a physical act will clinch
salvation.
3. The invitational never tests or questions a person’s approach
To extend the previous point, the invitational emphatically indicates to the
seeker that his approach is wholly right and valid. There need be no test, no doubts, and no
uncertainty. But the reality is that God does question the attitude of those who
approach Him. This is why most Christians say that when they first sought salvation they
had to repent two or three times before they had evidence that God had heard and answered
their prayers. With most believers there was a period of heart-searching before they knew
that God had washed their sin away, and given them the blessing of a new nature. Christ
never opens the door of spiritual experience until the Holy Spirit has brought the convicted
seeker to sole dependence upon the atoning death of Christ.
The invitational encourages the ‘volunteer spirit’ of people who may
be fairly sincere, but who lack depth of need or conviction. The Lord Jesus
Christ sifted and examined seekers - among them the rich young
ruler, and also the three men of Luke 9.57-62 - not accepting them on their
terms, while their understanding was still darkened. The invitational, however,
accommodates shallow repentance and imperfect trust. The very next day after ‘going
forward’, many responders cannot clearly say why they did so.
God may receive a person who approaches Him with only three words, as in
the case of the dying thief, who said, ‘Lord, remember me.’ The Lord read his
heart and knew how genuine he was.
Another person may approach the Lord with a display of fine words, but with
serious defects in his repentance, so that God may keep this seeker waiting at the door.
Perhaps he does not yet understand enough of the way of salvation, or is not yet prepared to
yield himself to the authority of the Lord. Perhaps he believes only partially in grace, still
trusting in some of his own works.
The system has brought into evangelical churches many people who believed
themselves to be converted when in reality they had no submission to Christ’s government
over their lives, and were still addicted to worldly attractions.
Our task is to persuade people to come to Christ in sincerity. The sinner
must go to the Lord Who reads the heart. He knows the readiness
of the seeking soul. The sinner should always be urged to repent in his heart, and to believe
in the work of Christ, and to yield himself up to the great Searcher of hearts. He should not
be exhorted to ‘take’ or ‘seize’ or ‘claim’; even less to substitute a public act for a matter of
the heart.
4. The invitational gives false assurance
Building further on the same point, the invitational gives a seeker a
definite affirmation that conversion has occurred, and this is immensely harmful.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the last 150 years have been assured that they are
converted, despite the absence of real evidence. Thousands of booklets and tracts issued by
supporters of the invitational give the same assurance. They tell readers that because they
have accepted Christ, God has definitely saved their souls and they are children of God,
whether they feel anything or not.
The truth is that when a sinner is converted, God authenticates the event by
giving comfort and assurance to the soul, and a completely new life, with new motives,
desires, character and strengths. Such changes are very obvious and prove to the onlooker
that the seeker is now born again.
False assurance is potentially a most cruel act, because the shallow seeker
goes happily and complacently on, not realising that he is still unsaved. He urgently needs
to be treated as a seeker still, but he does not regard himself as such. After all, walking the
aisle has clinched his salvation, and his counsellor confirmed that.
5. The appeal system was originally devised to suit extreme freewill
theology
It is a matter of history that the invitational began in earnest with the
American evangelist Charles Finney (1792-1875). Some time after 1830, he inaugurated an
‘anxious bench’ at the front of his meetings and began to evolve the modern appeal system.
He adopted an unashamedly pragmatic approach to soul-winning, his principle of approach
being not, ‘What saith the Scripture?’ but rather, ‘How can I get the maximum number of
people to a point of decision?’
Finney believed that if people could only be persuaded to choose
Christ, by whatever means, they would be saved.
He said that the method of public invitations held immense emotional
potential, and he deployed this to maximum effect. He did not accept that such pressures
may act as substitutes for the genuine convicting work of the Holy Spirit, concluding that a
decision for Christ coupled with a public confession should be the crucial, climactic and
decisive factor in conversion.
Many preachers who make use of Finney’s system do not subscribe to his
freewill (and manipulative) view of conversion, but they should give serious thought to the
fact that the method was designed and tailored to suit this theology and practice.
6. The invitational takes no account of how easily false decisions may be
taken
Should ambassadors of Christ build a response technique around such an
unstable faculty as the will? In John 4.48 the Lord taught that many make false
‘decisions’ out of fascination with the outward physical power of spiritual
events. He said - ‘Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.’ The
will is highly susceptible.
The biblical way is to direct persuasion to the rational mind, and so press
sinners to turn to the Saviour. The invitational - as an emotional climax to preaching -
demands a response from the will, and not from the mind, the core of the soul. The former
is not the proper and legitimate organ of thought and response, and stripped of the direction
of the mind, it is bound to act precipitately and insubstantially.
It is so easy to induce acts of will, especially by the deployment of emotional
pressures, but when such techniques are used in Gospel preaching it produces stony-ground
hearers, where the seedling springs up suddenly, but has no root.
7. The invitational suggests a lack of faith in God’s power
Why should preachers be so anxious to ‘clinch the deal’ by bringing people
to decisions and public professions before they leave a meeting? Why must they insist on
knowing ‘right now’ what the spiritual result of their preaching has been? In the case of
some evangelists it is no doubt because they have a ‘commercial’ need for success-statistics
in order to promote their work. But why should better-motivated preachers be so anxious to
see the event of conversion concluded?
Could it be that there is within us a residual urge to trust only what can be
visibly seen? Do we not have faith to believe that the Holy Spirit can continue His work in
the heart of a sinner after he has left an evangelistic service?
Many preachers say that they must strike while the iron is hot, but this
suggests that conversion is entirely a human work, not involving the Spirit of
God.
Take the case of believers who had been taking an unsaved friend to a
church where there was an excellent, persuasive Gospel ministry. After a time they grew
concerned that their friend, though much affected, had made no clear response. There
happened to be a church in their town where the preacher made appeals, and they thought
that the invitation would bring their friend to a ‘crisis’.
There lurks in the heart of many a tendency to think that there is something
we can do to expedite the conversion of a soul. Some simply cannot leave it to the Holy
Spirit.
Once the Gospel has been faithfully and persuasively presented, and sinners
have been urged to repent and believe, the Holy Spirit must do His own work in the hearts
of hearers, and we should not trespass into His sovereign territory. We should not do what
the invitational attempts to do, and take over the sinner’s response. Bunyan’s Evangelist
cried, ‘See that shining light?’ But the invitation system picks the seeker up and carries him
through the wicket gate, and into the kingdom of God.
8. The invitational produces thousands of cynical ex-Christians
One of the consequences of the invitation system has been the hundreds of
thousands of ‘ex-Christians’ or ‘failed decisions’ it has produced since its inception in the
19th century. This concerns the countless people who walked the aisle without true faith
and repentance. It is certain that these greatly outnumber those who responded genuinely
(because otherwise ‘appealing’ churches would be overflowing). Those who ‘fall away’
inevitably bring the Gospel into disrepute. We meet with people who once responded to an
invitation and today say, ‘I was a Christian once. I made a decision for Christ, I
got converted, I tried it, and there was nothing to it.’
We hear converted young people tell of the scorn of unbelieving parents who
years before have gone forward at an evangelistic meeting. ‘You’ll grow out of it!’ they say.
‘It is a passing experience. We know, we went through it. Conversion is
nothing more than an emotional experience used by religious fundamentalists, who line
their pockets by making prey of susceptible people.’
In past centuries - before the appeal system was conceived - Gospel
preaching frequently had a lifelong solemnising effect even on those who were not
converted. These were never misled into making emotional decisions, or given the
impression they were converted - the opposite was the case.
Today there are vast numbers of unconverted people who at
some time have walked the aisle in response to an appeal, and been categorically told that
they were saved. Now the Gospel has no sobering or challenging influence upon their
consciences. They are cynics who have ‘been through it all’ and come to the conclusion that
conversion is a myth.
Let us add to this the hundreds of thousands of nominal
Christians who cling to the mistaken assurance that they are converted because they once
responded to an invitation. Many have joined churches only to spoil them. Being worldlings
at heart, they have brought their worldly tastes into the churches, so that the invitation
system has not only spread delusion, but carried wood, hay and stubble into the churches,
and into the ministry and seminaries also, to the great hurt of the churches of Christ.
The invitation system was designed as a form of manipulation, not a true
appeal to the mind and conscience, and it is therefore unwise to employ it as a climax for
evangelistic preaching. To preach appealingly and persuasively to lost souls is our great
privilege and duty, but we must do this in the manner of the apostles, urging men and
women to repent and believe. We must plead with them to go to the Lord; to apply to
Him, asking, seeking and knocking to be admitted to the kingdom of Heaven. This is
very different from inviting them to ‘take a decision tonight to accept Christ’ and to walk
the aisle, and by so doing, to clinch their conversion.
Only the Lord, Who sees into every heart, can observe the genuineness of a
seeker, whether he is ashamed of sin, has abandoned self-righteousness, trusts only in
Calvary, and desires reconciliation and life. When these things are so, God will usher him
into the certainties of pardon and conversion.
A sinner’s response to the Gospel should be privately sealed between
himself and the Lord, for it is an exclusively personal and spiritual encounter, and has
nothing to do with a public act.
For these reasons we urge the Lord’s messengers to give much
thought to the practice of calling for a public profession in the invitational.
FALSE DECISIONS ARE EASILY MADE
(See point 6)
The Bible gives many warnings about the ease with which false decisions
may be made. When Moses brought the plagues upon Egypt, Pharaoh made a ‘decision’
several times. His third abortive decision is recorded thus:
‘And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I
have sinned this time: the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked’ (Exodus
9.27).
Moses, however, replied - ‘I know that ye will not yet fear the Lord.’ ‘And
when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet
more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants’ (Exodus 9.34).
Moses was proved right in his judgement. Later we read -
‘Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I
have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore forgive, I pray thee,
my sin only this once, and intreat the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this
death only.’
On this occasion, God Himself rejected Pharaoh’s repentance, and it is
recorded that - ‘The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of
Israel go’ (Exodus 10.20).
What we see in the heart of Pharaoh we also see in the heart of King Saul.
In 1 Samuel 15.24-25 we read - ‘And Saul said unto Samuel, I have
sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I
feared the people, and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and
turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord.’
But Samuel rejected Saul’s repentance saying - ‘I will not return
with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from
being king over Israel’ (verse 26).
Samuel conceded only one of Saul’s requests in order to save him from
public humiliation, but his repentance was not accepted.
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