{"id":271,"date":"2014-05-27T23:55:46","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T02:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/?p=271"},"modified":"2014-05-27T23:55:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-28T02:55:46","slug":"the-romans-road-to-salvation-it-is-from-the-bible-but-is-it-biblical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/2014\/05\/the-romans-road-to-salvation-it-is-from-the-bible-but-is-it-biblical\/","title":{"rendered":"The Romans Road to Salvation. It is from the Bible– but is it Biblical?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am about to sacrifice one of the Baptist\u00a0 sacred cows on the altar tonight….I don’t advocate using the Romans Road for\u00a0 leading people to Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 A major problem with America today is lost and saved alike do not fear God.\u00a0 A major reason is everyone\u00a0 in America is “saved” but they were “saved” man’s way.\u00a0 They are not born again, they are still in their sin, and they are still headed for hell.\u00a0 But they had an emotional experience,\u00a0or trusted something someone did for them, or are blindly\u00a0trusting their church.
\nA major error many folks are trusting in for their salvation is praying something called the Sinner’s Prayer.\u00a0 The Roman’s Road to Salvation ends with the Sinner’s Prayer.\u00a0 It usually is a 5 minute quick and easy 1-2-3,\u00a0repeat-after-me,\u00a05-6-7, do-you-want-to-go-to-heaven, 8-9-10, I promise you are now born again\u00a0gospel presentation.\u00a0 It makes grace cheap, and emphasizes going to heaven when they die.\u00a0 During the great awakening when men spent hours listening to preaching of the law and the holiness of God from men like George Whitfield and Charles Wesley, they did not have to be told what to pray.\u00a0 They clearly saw their offense against a holy God and saw they offended God by their actions.\u00a0 This naturally birthed repentance and turning to Christ and that supernaturally resulted in the new birth.\u00a0 A repentant adulterer will not have to repeat a Hallmark card to reconcile with his wife.\u00a0 His tears and trembling will shut his mouth.\u00a0 Where are the tears of repentance in today’s evangelism?\u00a0 Where is the fruit like the great awakening?
\nThe church in general for the past 100 years has promised heaven but there is often no\u00a0hint they met the God of heaven.\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus will say depart for me for I NEVER KNEW YOU to MANY in that day. (Matthew 7).\u00a0 \u00a0 If modern crusades boast of hundreds saved and the FBI cannot find them a year later, something is amiss.\u00a0 Yet modern evangelism boldly marches on to it’s next victim to try and convert.\u00a0 Wake up evangelist! Wake up church!\u00a0 Wake up soulwinner!\u00a0 The statistics prove that the majority of your converts are going to wake up in hell!
\nDo you know if you died today, would you go to heaven? they ask.\u00a0 If they say Yes, then the presentation is unfolded like a expert sales pitch and it sounds easy and wonderful.\u00a0 It lets you get saved YET STAY IN YOUR SIN and it teaches salvation is in a prayer to anyone who will admit to being a sinner.\u00a0 That is the deal.\u00a0 If you admit you are a sinner and be willing to bow your head and repeat the master soulwinner’s words —and REALLY MEAN IT– then you can go on with your life and when you die that moment you once prayed\u00a0is your permanent ticket to all the eternal enjoyment you could ever want, free of charge.\u00a0 The only problem is there is nothing Biblical about this presumptuous presentation and it is cheap and instantly turns people into 2 fold children of hell.
\nPeople may think I am mean about this, but\u00a0these false methods\u00a0need to be exposed and it needs to be rooted\u00a0out of our churches.\u00a0 Jesus is angry with it because it makes a sham of the gospel, it makes conversions nothing to shout about, and it makes the gospel powerless and phony.\u00a0 Salvation is not to get everyone to heaven, it is to bring glory to God.\u00a0 Saved sinners who act lost bring embarrassment to the cause of Christ and is why most of the world thinks Christianity is a joke and won’t consider it’s claims.
\nPart of the major problem of America today is there is no difference between saved and lost alike because most of the saved are “saved” by a prayer only and will still end up in hell despite the false promises of this man centered repentance-less gospel.\u00a0 But everyone around them too is lost but prayed the prayer so we tolerate this and write it off as normal modern evangelism.\u00a0\u00a0 We expect it not to work.\u00a0 We expect everyone to backslide.\u00a0 We expect 90% of the flock to fall away.\u00a0 Is that what the apostles expected?\u00a0 Is that what you see in the book of Acts?\u00a0 Is that what you see during the great awakening?
\nYou know a tree by it’s fruit.\u00a0 11 saved disciples turned the world upside down.\u00a0 Millions of professing Christians who prayed the prayer and have no other hint they truly know God have helped turn this once Christian nation of America into hell.<\/p>\n

There is no power in the churches because there is no power in our evangelism.\u00a0 There is no power because there is false promises and false proclamations and false prophets and pastors giving false fake performances and sales pitches.\u00a0 We need to root this stuff out now!
\nAs catholics wrongly trust their baptism for salvation, Protestants and Baptists trust praying a prayer and asking the Lord to save them.\u00a0\u00a0 A frequent way they do this is through the verses in the “Romans Road” that produces a formula for salvation.\u00a0\u00a0 We must examine everything 1) by the Bible and 2) by the fruit it produces.\u00a0 If something sounds too good to be true it just may be.\u00a0 Salvation is easy, but it is not cheap.\u00a0 Salvation is a person, not\u00a0a prayer or performance.\u00a0 The Bible says in 1st John, \u00a0He that hath the Son hath life.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>Modern evangelism says He that hath prayed the prayer.<\/p>\n

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Here are the issues with using the Romans’ Road and \/or the Sinners Prayer I have found.<\/div>\n
\n1. It is too generic. 99% of people will admit\u00a0 to being a sinner to get a free pass to heaven. People will crash planes into\u00a0 buildings to get to heaven, so people will be also willing to admit to coming\u00a0 short of the glory of God. What people can’t see is how wicked, and hell\u00a0 deserving and UnGodly we are before regeneration. We may admit to be sinners,\u00a0 but we don’t want our specific sin dealt with. God deals specifically with the\u00a0 sin. “Go and sell all thou hast and come follow me,” was Jesus’ response to the\u00a0 rich young ruler. Not “Do-you-want-to-go-to-heaven, then pray-this prayer”. The\u00a0 Holy Ghost deals with the person at the point of contention. Jesus is not a\u00a0 generic\u00a0flu vaccine just in case we might be at risk to get sick.<\/div>\n
\nLook at it like this.\u00a0 A man found his wife leaving him so he went to a marriage counselor in a last ditch effort to save his marriage.\u00a0 The counselor took out his big marriage book and said, “Bill, here is the problem.\u00a0 My marriage book says you are a bad husband.\u00a0 There is no good husband, no not one.\u00a0 What you need to do is admit to your wife you are not a good husband, tell her you’re sorry and mean it, and ask her to forgive you.\u00a0 Then my marriage book promises you a wonderful marriage.” See, that man is not convinced his wife knew what she was doing.\u00a0 He thinks he is Mr. Wonderful, and yet he wants his wife back.\u00a0 He will eat crow, and admit to something he is not convinced of for the return promise of a wonderful marriage.\u00a0 He will now feel entitled to a great marriage or he will feel ripped off. He better have a great marriage, after all he agreed to something he didn’t believe to get it.<\/div>\n
\nI was with a soul winning booth at our Erie County Fair and saw this in action.\u00a0 They didn’t want you to mention hell, they didn’t want you to deal with their false religion.\u00a0 They merely wanted you to ask them if they knew if they would go to heaven and if not, if they would want to know.\u00a0 It was implied this was a 5 minute never worry about it again sort of flu shot thing.\u00a0 Get it over with and it won’t come up again.\u00a0 This is basically Christian Hinduism where you merely get a person to add Jesus to their collection of gods like we do with the latest shoppers discount card we put on our key chain.\u00a0 This one saves me on gas, this one saves me on my prescriptions, this one saves me from hell.\u00a0 Jesus is God and that gives him the right to rule.\u00a0 There is no hint of any type of repentance or teaching that once saved God will expect you to obey him.\u00a0 Not to be mean, but because before we are saved we obey the lust of the flesh and that is the path to destruction.\u00a0 Jesus came that we might have life, but it is a life controlled by Him.<\/div>\n
\n2. It emphasises\u00a0 salvation is in a prayer not a person. Romans Road, 4 spiritual laws, asking\u00a0 Jesus into your heart, and the Sinner’s prayer are all recent developments in\u00a0 Christianity. They are not how men were saved in the Bible, and they were not\u00a0 how men were saved in the Great awakening! Our evangelism today is why the\u00a0 church is still asleep!!!!! People can respond emotionally to a powerful\u00a0 presentation, but that doesn’t mean their conscious was awakened. A wonderful\u00a0 salesmen came to our home and sold us a $2,000 vacuum. After he left I felt\u00a0 hood-winked. Anyone can sell you anything. It is what happens after that proves\u00a0 if it was just an emotional decision or something permanent.<\/div>\n
\nI like to explain it like this.\u00a0 The Bible says salvation is faith and repentance.\u00a0 Evangelist prayer letters will boast about hundreds of people “saved” during their ministry. What they mean is hundreds of people made a profession and either asked the Lord to save them or prayed a prayer.\u00a0 We are like a burned wedding cake.\u00a0 Our hearts are black and wicked, and the bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.\u00a0 Hatred is murder and lust is adultery.\u00a0 We are wicked and you just have to think of the wicked thoughts you had the past 7 days or think about how you feel about the person who cut you off in traffic or was promoted over you, and be honest with God.<\/div>\n
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When you get saved, you are born again.\u00a0 It is like God rebakes your heart.\u00a0 You can’t rebake it, and it takes a miracle.\u00a0 You are brand new.\u00a0 Now once the cake is rebaked, it is ready to decorate.\u00a0 If you decorate it before you are rebaked, it does no good.<\/div>\n
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Religion is decorating the cake that is still burned.\u00a0 Looks good to man, tastes terrible to God.\u00a0 Now modern evangelism is the icing.\u00a0 Praying a prayer, asking Jesus to save you, asking Jesus in your heart are things one can do but they won’t save them.\u00a0 They are saved when they repent and believe the Gospel.\u00a0 After they may pray a prayer.\u00a0 If your convert is saved who happened to also pray a prayer, don’t take credit for it.\u00a0 A prayer cannot save.\u00a0 The prayer was the icing.\u00a0 God already rebaked him.\u00a0 Evangelism today takes credit for the icing.<\/div>\n
\n3. It is\u00a0 man made, and worse it is something that came out in the last hundred years, which is the time of compromise and collapse of Christianity.\u00a0 The bible says there will be a great falling away and warns of false prophets and teachers.\u00a0 Jesus said Follow me and I will make you fishers of men….it is not\u00a0 learn the secret sales tactic and see how wonderful you will look to the\u00a0 brethren! A good salesman can sell something that someone doesn’t need, but as\u00a0 soon as he is gone, the person wakes up and regrets the purchase. Especially\u00a0 when the person receives the bill.<\/div>\n
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That’s what modern evangelism does. It makes\u00a0 heaven sound like a 5 minute flu shot, just in case you are headed for hell,\u00a0 pray-this-prayer! It sounds wonderful and you don’t have to lift a finger. I’m\u00a0 not talking works for salvation instead, but i am against this method that\u00a0 tempts God to save us in our sin, not from our sin. Again, it is fruit not\u00a0 works, but if we are new creatures after and the sinner’s prayer produces folks\u00a0 who want nothing to do with God there is something wrong.<\/div>\n
\n4. It makes\u00a0 salvation “unconditional”. That sounds nice, but it is not biblical. A gift can\u00a0 have conditions. Son, I will buy you your first car as a gift when a) get your\u00a0 driver’s license and b) turn 17. God’s 2 conditions for the free gift of eternal\u00a0 life are A) Saving faith and B) Biblical Repentance. If you skip either of\u00a0 these, God will not give you eternal life. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want\u00a0 to go to hell. It doesn’t matter if you want to go to heaven.<\/div>\n
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It doesn’t matter\u00a0 if you will ask the Lord to save you. You can ask all want but until you meet\u00a0 God’s conditions, you won’t get the gift of God. It is like someone who is drowning in a\u00a0polluted\u00a0lake\u00a0saying, “Lifeguard save me!” and then the lifeguard rows over in his lifeboat and the person drowning refuses to get in the boat.\u00a0 He wants to be saved, but he enjoys the filth he is swimming in too much.<\/div>\n
\nIt is not a works based\u00a0 salvation, it is not something you grow into, but that criteria must apply. We\u00a0 instead give intellectual agreement now to 4 or 5 select verses and get a head\u00a0 knowledge of everything the old men of God preached on for hours and think that\u00a0 produces true converts. It doesn’t.<\/div>\n
\nAfter doing some research on it….I\u00a0 found this article:<\/div>\n
\n“How do I know Jack Hyles originated the Roman Road\u00a0 to Salvation? Because he said he came up with it. Jack Hyles was a Independent\u00a0 Baptist preacher and evangelist who had churches in East Texas and DFW area.\u00a0 I ran across a Sunday morning sermon that Dr. Jack Hyles did at Hammond\u00a0 First Baptist Church on June 28, 1970 which he entitled the sermon \u201cThere\u00a0 Remaineth Yet Very Much Land to Be Possessed.\u201d He states in this sermon that he\u00a0 originated it and termed this plan of salvation the \u201cRoman Road.\u201d Sarah this\u00a0 is what he said as he is addressing the congregation of Hammonds FBC and the\u00a0 sermon has been written down. And I quote (Jack Hyles is speaking to the\u00a0 congregation at Hammonds FBC): \u201cBy the way, you folks who don\u2019t come on\u00a0 Wednesday night don\u2019t know this, but about twenty-two years ago, in a little\u00a0 East Texas Church, I came up with a little plan of presenting the plan of\u00a0 salvation called \u201cThe Roman Road\u201d whereby you take Verses contained in Romans\u00a0 and show people how to be saved using Romans 3:10, and Romans 3:23, and Romans\u00a0 5:12, and Romans 5:8, and on and on. I termed it, \u201cThe Roman Road,\u201d and from the\u00a0 \u201cRoman Road\u201d I wrote the little book, \u201cLet\u2019s Go Soul Winning.\u201d Over one hundred\u00a0 and thirty-five thousand copies of that book have been printed. It has been\u00a0 translated into several languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, and\u00a0 others, and has literally gone around the world.\u201d<\/div>\n
\nYou may like some of Jack\u00a0 Hyles stuff, but it is time we break away from his evangelism techniques because most of the soulwinning churches today are blinded by decisions!!!!!\u00a0 His methods have produced more cult than church and he was more of a cult leader enthralled with numbers and getting men to worship him.\u00a0Many of these mega-bible colleges practice a\u00a0doctrine of unquestioning loyalty, which\u00a0meant no one had a right to judge him.<\/div>\n
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Please know I am not slamming Jack Hyles, but so many people would rather defend him than examine his teachings.\u00a0 I am not picking on Jack Hyles, but due to how much influence his teachings have had across America\u00a0and beyond we have a Biblical command to question them.\u00a0 Are we blindly following the blind?\u00a0 Are we really following the Bible\u00a0or are we just\u00a0following a man, hook, line, and sinker, and assuming that he must be following the Bible?<\/div>\n
\nThe Bible commands us to prove all things.\u00a0 No matter who is the originator,\u00a0 we should not look to a decision-geared method generated in the 1900’s just as\u00a0 we wouldn’t trust a Bible translation in the 1900’s….these are the lukewarm,\u00a0 shallow, stony-ground hearing generation and not the most fruitful time to take\u00a0 our techniques from.<\/div>\n
\nWe like these methods because they are easier than\u00a0 all the prayer, labor, sowing, and tears that produced the GREAT AWAKENING. And\u00a0 it’s not as negative or harsh sounding, and it is more positive to tell people\u00a0 how wonderful heaven is, vs. telling them they have offended a Holy God by their\u00a0 actions. But folks, we must examine the fruit of what we are producing.<\/div>\n
\nIn\u00a0summary, the\u00a0 verses of Romans Road may be in the Bible but the method is not biblical because\u00a0 it makes salvation a PRAYER and not a PERSON and it is too shallow and allows a\u00a0 false watered down repentance or no repentance whatsoever.\u00a0\u00a0 We need to see it is a dead end street because the Romans Road is\u00a0 being paved with two fold children of Hell.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am about to sacrifice one of the Baptist\u00a0 sacred cows on the altar tonight….I don’t advocate using the Romans Road for\u00a0 leading people to Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 A major problem with America today is lost and saved alike do not fear … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/etvfc.org\/wp-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}