There are many evangelistic tracts on the market today. Some of these are written well and are helpful to get across the Gospel. There are others that are harmful and destructive to the Gospel and the souls that read them. If we are to be faithful in the proclamation of the Gospel, the literature we hand out must be faithful to the Gospel too. The article this week is a critique of a tract that is being handed out in at least the Manhattan and Lawrence areas of Kansas. This tract is an example of what to do if you want to get people to pray a prayer and become an intellectual convert. It is also an example of a tract that is a virtual denial of the Gospel. It is entitled: HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM KANSAS.
This tract gives us three things to realize. The first thing is to “realize you are a sinner. No matter where you are physically, everyone starts the same place spiritually. All are sinners. ‘For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’ (Rom 3:23). Man comes short of Heaven (the glory of God) because of sin!” The second thing: “Realize there is a penalty for your sin. Not only does sin keep you out of Heaven, but it also condemns you to Hell. Romans 6:23 says, ‘For the wages of sin is death…’. Sin brings both physical and spiritual death. ‘And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.’ (Rev. 20:14)” The third thing: “Realize Jesus paid the penalty. Jesus Christ´s death, burial, and resurrection provided a way for you to go to heaven. ‘But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ (Rom. 5:8). Since Jesus was the only One who could pay for our sin, He is the only Way to Heaven.”
Then it gives us one thing to do: “Repent of your sin and receive Jesus as your Saviour. The final part of Jesus´ directions is to repent and receive Him. Acts 20:21 says, ‘Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.’ In order to go to Heaven from KANSAS, you must accept Christ by calling on Him in prayer. He tells us in Romans 10:13, ‘For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Follow Christ´s directions by praying in faith the following prayer, or one similar to it, to receive Him now: Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, please forgive me of my sin, and take me to heaven when I die. I believe that you died and rose again for me. I am trusting you completely and nothing I can do. Thank you Jesus!”
It is sad to think of people being deceived by tracts like this because of the great danger to souls who are misled about the Gospel by such teachings. It is hard to imagine, but people leave solid churches to go and hear this deceptive “gospel.” If Paul were here today, what would he say? Is this a different Gospel? Remember what Paul said in Galatians 1 about teachers of a false Gospel. A love for the Gospel demands that we point out such serious errors. I am not making fun of those who write or hand out such things. This is an attempt to expose the egregious errors presented in this tract and help some see that a tract is not necessarily a harmless thing.
Observation 1: People need more than a realization that they are sinners; they need to be convicted of sin. This tract does not teach the truth about sin and only once attempts to define sin. That attempt is wrong. If no real concept of sin is given, then how are people to repent? The text (Rom 3:23) defines sin, but the writer of the tract defines sin differently than the text. The text says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The writer says that “man comes short of Heaven (the glory of God) because of sin!” Indeed man misses heaven because of sin, but that does not make God´s glory and heaven the same thing. Coming short of God´s glory is the definition of sin. God created man for His glory and man has lived for his own honor and glory instead of God´s. When man falls short of the glory of God (glorifying God), man commits sin. Scripture also tells us that sin is lawlessness (I John 3:4). But there is nothing in this tract to even give a hint of these things.
There is nothing in this tract that gets beyond the outward aspect of sin. This is what the Pharisees did. They focused on the outward acts and never arrived at the true intent of the law which is the heart. In doing this, the tract is not dealing with sin of the heart. This means that the Gospel is undermined and the focus is on seeing or recognizing that one has sinned rather than dealing with the issues of the heart. True evangelism deals with the heart. Souls are misled if they only given a passing reference to sin and that to some outward actions. Only those souls that the Spirit convicts and gives a real conviction and sorrow for sin really fly to Christ.
Observation two: simply realizing that death and hell is the punishment of sin does little if anything. Hell must be explained and driven into the hearts of people. Simply mentioning hell does not give any sense of the real idea or meaning at all. Just realizing that there is a penalty for sin does not get across any meaningful information and anything that would reach the heart unless many other things are dealt with. Just hearing of a penalty does not assure a person that he or she will suffer that penalty even if they do many good works. Many people do not believe that God will actually enforce the penalty for sin, and perhaps at any moment.
Observation three: simply realizing that Christ died is to do no more than the devil. Just because Jesus is the only one who could pay for sin is no evidence that He did. It is also a very impoverished view of the Gospel since there is no mention of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Even if someone did pay for sin, that delivers a person from hell, but does not obtain heaven. The only mention of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is that the events happened. This is to skimp on the truths of the Gospel that even believing them is not a belief in the Gospel. Anyone handing out this tract should realize that it does not have enough information to do anything but make people like me sad and deceive others who think that it is the Gospel.
When we reach the directions on what should be done, we are told to repent of sin and receive Jesus as Savior. First, there has been no concept of sin given so no one could possibly know from this tract what sin is and how to repent from it. Repentance is not explained and so no one would know about it either. The Bible does not tell us to “accept Christ by calling on Him in prayer.’ Throughout Scripture we are told that we must have faith in Christ in order to be saved. A prayer is not a sign of faith, but to really pray one must already have true faith.
Ironically enough, what is given here is a works gospel. Jesus never told people to pray a prayer of faith, He told them to believe (have faith). Salvation by prayer is not the Gospel of grace. One must have faith in Christ and not faith in a prayer to Christ. Romans 10:13 does not contradict Romans 3:11 which tells us that “THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.” No person really seeks God in and of himself. A person must have faith if he is going to pray in faith. So if a person prays with true faith, then the person is already saved. Romans 10:14 says “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?’ You do not call or pray unless you have believed already. The deceptive thing about this is that if a person has head knowledge of facts and prays this prayer, he will believe that he is praying in faith. If the message of this tract is followed, a works Gospel is the result. A person is told that he must pray in order to accept Christ, but in the prayer he is told to pray that he is trusting in nothing of himself. This is utterly and frightfully deceptive to naïve souls.
This tract falls far short of the Gospel and its corresponding truths in many areas:
- It does not present the truth about sin and repentance as from the heart
- It does not present the truth about Christ and the cross
- It does not present the glory of God and of Christ
- It does not speak of justification by grace alone through faith alone
- It does not speak of the new birth which is utterly necessary to enter the kingdom
- It speaks of salvation as being a decision or a prayer rather than by faith alone
- It does not make any demands on people such as self-denial, taking up the cross, or counting the costs
This tract is a classic example of how to deceive souls by making intellectual converts. This method, however, is one that many people (even Reformed?) follow as the basic model of evangelism. Why do I say that? Some basic information is given and then pressure for a decision is applied. We don´t see anything like this in all of Scripture. What we see in Scripture is Jesus telling people to count the cost. We see a true repentance from sin taught and a real hell proclaimed. We see sin and the heart being dealt with. So any evangelism that does not deal with sin and repentance from the heart is mirroring this tract in some way. A type of evangelism that pushes people to pray a prayer mirrors this tract in some way. Do we see a sinner´s prayer in Scripture? This should lead us all to examine the way we do evangelism. Surely the great and glorious doctrines of Scripture would lead us to do evangelism much differently than this tract sets out. For some really good tracts, go to www. intoutreach.org.
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