10250 North Freeway @ West Road
Houston, Texas 77037
Tel: (281) 447-8484
10250 North Freeway @ West
Road
Houston, Texas 77037
Tel: (281) 447-8484
Peculiar
Misunderstandings
Written by Dr.
Lester Hutson
Copyright
- Lester Hutson - 1989
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced
without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.
Message #2
MISUNDERSTANDING
HOW TO PRAY FOR THE LOST
Text * Romans 10:1
I. MANY FINE AND SINCERE BELIEVERS ROUTINELY PRAY INDISCRIMINATELY FOR THE SALVATION OF LOST SINNERS:
A. The practice is to single out those who are lost, then, in prayer, to ask God to save them:
1. In many churches, wives are particularly encouraged to pray for their lost husbands; and some wives have solicited the whole church to pray for their husbands.
2. Some churches have special prayer lists of lost people. Included are the names of lost family members, lost neighbors, lost people at work, and other dear ones. In joint church prayer meetings and privately, the church calls their lost people by name, and pleads with God to save them. Often the wording is something like, "Lord, save John. He's lost and on his way to hell. I beg you, for Christ's sake, to save John!"
3. It's common to hear church members, especially pastors, speak of someone who has been saved, and say the church had been praying for him for years. In fact, it makes for moving and highly emotional sermon material for a preacher to tell about a dear, humble, mistreated wife who loved her mean ole husband and stuck with him for years in spite of great abuse and hardship. All the while, she prayed for his salvation, and finally the Lord heard her prayer and saved the ole reprobate, and made a great new husband out of him. So, believers are encouraged to pray for the lost as a means of their salvation.
4. It's not uncommon to hear saved people talk about how so many people prayed for them for years before they finally got saved. Their implication is strong that the prayers eventuated in their salvation.
B. The prevailing thought and implication is clearly that prayer directly for the salvation of lost people puts pressure on God to either save them or seriously consider doing so:
1. According to this procedure, the responsibility for the salvation of the lost person is mainly on God after the prayer is offered. The concerned person has prayed, and prayed to God. Now it's up to God. Yes, the concerned person will continue to do what he can, and will continue to pray; but the salvation of the lost person will now largely depend upon whether or not God decides to honor the prayer and save him.
2. Praying for the lost person to be saved then becomes a means to his salvation, just as sharing the word of God, and living a holy life before Him does. It is doubtful that anyone who prays for lost sinners to be saved thinks the prayer alone will save the sinner. It is generally regarded as just one of several things that can be done to reach the lost.
3. The genuine concern of those who pray this way for the lost is to be commended. We ought to be concerned for lost sinners; and we ought to do all within our power to reach them, using every means available to us. In fact, we ought to be far more concerned about them than most of us are.
4. The issue of this message is not whether those who pray for the lost this way are more concerned about them than those who do not pray for them this way, or vice versa. There is a misunderstanding over how to pray for the lost. The issue is not that one believer is more or less concerned about them than another, or whether or not we should pray for lost people. Almost all believers are in agreement that we should pray for the lost. The issue is how it should be done.
5. Many, who come here and encounter those of us who do not ask or pray God to indiscriminately save lost sinners, think we're peculiar or odd. After all, they've done it and been accustomed to it for years. To go to a place where it is not done, and encounter people who don't do it is different; and at first, seems very wrong. Sometimes they think we do not care about the lost like we should, and that we are not doing what we can to reach them. Sometimes people turn us off before they ever hear our biblical case for how we go about praying for the salvation of lost sinners.
C. Most of those who pray for God to arbitrarily save lost people use Romans 10:1 as Bible support for such a position:
1. This verse says, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."
2. What Paul did in this prayer was ask God to do speedily what God had long before promised to do.
Hundreds of years earlier, God had promised a national conversion of the nation of Israel. God knew that Jews here and there down through the centuries would be saved; but that as a whole, the nation would reject the Messiah, which they did, and do. But, God promised, the day would come when the nation as a whole would turn to the Saviour and be saved. Ezekiel 37:1-28 is one of the most complete, dramatic, and clearcut passages on the subject. Not only is the demise and dispersion of the Israeli nation seen; but their regathering to full strength in the homeland is also promised. This regathering to the homeland is predicted in Amos 9:11-15, Isaiah 43:5-6, and several other passages; and we've seen the partial fulfillment of the promise with Israel's current regathering, and the 1948 establishment of the Israeli state.
The promise of God did not stop with Israel's regathering; it also included prophecy of a great time of national tribulation for them followed by a personal appearance of Jesus Christ to fight for them in triumph over their enemies. Zechariah 12:9 and 10 prophesies, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." When they see Him, as a whole, the nation shall turn to Him, and as Jeremiah 23:6 says, "Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely." Isaiah 45:17 clearly says, "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." This is what Romans 11:26 is referring to when it says, "so all Israel shall be saved." We're talking about the national conversion of the nation of Israel in a monumental, spontaneous glorious event. These scriptures are not promises of sporadic Jewish conversions down through the centuries prior to that day. These scriptures are direct references to the one-time, future national conversion. Though Jews have been sporadically saved down through the years, those conversions have nothing to do with the national conversion; and are not at all a part of the fulfillment of those prophecies related to the national conversion.
The apostle Paul was an authority on the prophecies of the Old Testament. He knew of God's promise of the coming national conversion of Israel as is evidenced by his statement in Romans 11:26 that "all Israel shall be saved." When he said in Romans 10:1 that his heart's desire and prayer unto God for Israel was that she might be saved, he was not implying that one can arbitrarily pray lost people into salvation. To the contrary, he was acknowledging that he desired and prayed for the national conversion of the nation of Israel as a direct fulfillment of God's promise that it would happen.
3. To use Romans 10:1 as support of arbitrary and indiscriminate prayer for the salvation of lost people is to wholly misuse the scripture. It gives no support to such a practice, for Romans 10:1 is related to a wholly different subject and event.
II. THE BIBLE IS VERY EXPLICIT THAT NO ONE WILL BE SAVED SHORT OF HEARING AND BELIEVING THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST:
A. Until a person believes in Jesus Christ as personal Saviour, he can pray and do anything else he pleases, and others can pray for him or do all they can for him; yet he will still be lost:
1. The Bible says, "He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God," John 3:18. John 3:36 continues, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."
2. It is absolutely impossible to be saved apart from believing on Christ as Saviour; and Romans 10:17 says believing or "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," and Romans 10:14 and 15 make it unmistakably clear that one can not believe until somebody gets the word of God to him.
This divine argument is made in the very same chapter where Paul expressed his heart's desire and prayer unto God for Israel's salvation. Lest someone mistake what he meant by his statement expressing his heart's desire, he makes clear just a few verses later that one is saved only by knowledge of and faith in Christ in view of his great sacrificial work on the cross.
3. There is one and only one way to eternal salvation from sin's penalty, which is death: and that way is through personal faith in Christ. When men hear and believe the gospel of Christ, they are saved; but not until that point, regardless of whatever else happens.
B. To pray to God to save someone who has not heard, or who has heard and rejected the gospel, is to ask Him to circumvent His own predesigned plan by which the lost are saved:
1. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates God will arbitrarily reach into a man's life and break down his will; and make him believe, just because someone is praying for him.
2. The initiative is upon us who are saved to tell the gospel to lost people, Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:19-20, etc. Once a lost person hears that glorious message, the initiative is upon him to believe it, Acts 16:31, John 5:24, etc. If we fail to tell him, God will hold us accountable. If we tell him and he rejects Christ, God will hold him accountable. Ezekiel 33:2-6 makes this point beyond refuting. But, in no case is God accountable for men who die and go to hell. For us to conceive a concept that lost people will get saved only when God comes down heavily enough on them, and that He will only do that if we pray fervently and frequently enough for them, is very wrong and unscriptural, and points a very accusing finger at God. It implies that He just arbitrarily saves some and arbitrarily damns others, and that he does it because of pressure or lack thereof which we put on Him by prayer.
That's a very ugly implication to make against the just God of this universe whom Acts 10:34 declares to be no respecter of persons. The truth is, we are accountable to tell men what God has already done for them on the cross, then, they are accountable to receive it. God is not accountable to do something more than He has already done. And we can not shift responsibility back to Him in prayer, making it appear that our loved ones are still lost because God just hasn't saved them yet, when the truth is that it is our job to seek their salvation, and their job to receive salvation by faith.
3. God in Christ has already done everything necessary to the salvation of the lost. What more can we ask Him to do for them than He has already done, short of trumping their will, which He will not do. If He trumped one's will, he'd have to trump the will of every man; otherwise, he'd be a respecter of persons, which He declared He is not. He has given every person a free will to receive or reject Him. He is not going to trump that will, and there's no need for anyone to pray in such a way as to ask Him to do so. If a man will not hear and believe the gospel, He will die and go to hell; and there is nothing else that God will do to stop it. He has already done everything it takes to stop it; and if a man or woman rejects what God has already done, he's doomed. God will not save him regardless of who or how many pray that he does.
III. THERE IS A RIGHT WAY TO PRAY FOR THOSE WHO ARE LOST:
A. The way to do it is not to ask God to save them arbitrarily, circumventing His own plan of redemption:
1. We can not obligate God in prayer to do something contrary to His own will and plan. His will and plan is that men hear and believe the gospel to be saved. It is not right that we should ask God to save people by any other method, and he won't, even if we do ask Him.
2. He has commissioned us to go and preach the gospel to every creature, and He has commanded them to hear and believe. If they do, he'll save them; and if they don't, he won't, in spite of what anyone asks Him to do.
B. The right way to pray for the lost is to ask God's help as you seek to bring them to salvation:
1. In Hebrews 12:28, God promises us grace whereby we may serve Him acceptably. Romans 8:27 says He maketh intercession for the saints of God. He said He can, "make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ...," Hebrews 13:21.
2. God can give you wisdom, which you desperately need in bringing lost men to Christ. You are to pray for wisdom. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally..."
3. God can give you "a right spirit," and you are not likely to bring many lost people to Christ without "a right spirit." King David prayed for "a right spirit," in Psalms 51:10; and the Apostle Peter said by it wives may well win their lost husbands to Christ, I Peter 3:1.
4. The believers in the church in Jerusalem prayed for "boldness," Acts 4:29.
5. God controls all providential activities, Colossians 1:17. He can arrange circumstances favorable to your getting into the life of a lost person, Romans 8:28. As Paul went about seeking to win the lost to Christ, he said, "a great door and effectual is opened unto me," I Corinthians 16:9. God can open and close doors of opportunity to reach the lost, even to the point of physical events in their own lives which can soften their hearts and make them more receptive to the truth. Injuries, funerals, and such events often do that. We ought to pray to God to arrange providential circumstances in such a way as to enable us to reach the lost.
6. And, James 5:16 says we ought to "pray one for another." Let us ever pray one for another as we seek to bring the lost to Christ.
C. Every believer ought to be concerned about the lost, and pray earnestly for God's help in reaching them:
1. But, let our prayers be according to truth. Let us be careful about how we ask. Let us never ask God to do what His own divine justice will not allow Him to do. Let us ask; but only for God's grace and strength in discharging our responsibilities in accordance with God's designed plan for reaching the lost.
2. He will never arbitrarily save the lost apart from their repentance and faith in Him in view of His work on the cross. But, He will always give His children divine strength and help as they seek the repentance and faith of those who are lost.
3. Let me close with a word to you who may be lost. There is no need for you to wait for some divine power of God to overpower you and save you.
"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"