Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. - Acts 20: 26-27 (ESV)

One hundred years ago preachers were concerned about the state of the sinner; today they are concerned about the state of their church. The Pastorpreneur is someone who uses titles from days long past but no longer adheres to what they were meant to be. Andy Stanley was once quoted as saying the word "shepherd" was no longer culturally relevant and that churches become strong through the leadership of the CEO and not the working of the Lord. The true state of the church in this country is that the majority of churched people are actually unsaved. They are goats who are trying to be taught how to act like sheep, as Paul Washer once famously quipped. There are a lot of moving parts that contribute to this problem. Being more concerned about herding than shepherding is only one such part. Preaching a watered down, sugar coated, seeker friendly gospel is another. A gospel that never costs the listener anything. Likewise we see the new wave of "worship" music contributing as well. Purpose driven teaching prefers entertainment style worship, where the congregation are spectators, to participatory worship, where the congregation are actually worshiping God. Throw in the "friend of God" theology of most modern music and the deception is nearly complete. That leaves the altar call theology to examine.

If you have been in nearly any church you know to which I speak. As the motivational or self help message starts to wind down, the Pastorpreneur begins the altar call stage of the service. If you want to know when this begins, listen for the sappy music to start playing in the background,designed to make the atmosphere seem spiritual as the speaker employs the textbook altar call. There are the usual parts of the call:

"Everyone bow their heads and close their eyes"

"No one is looking around"

"If you want a better life raise your hands"

"I see that hand, thank you for that hand, hands are going up everywhere!"

"If you raised your hand I want you to be bold as the team comes to sing again"

"Meet me at this altar because I want to pray for you"

The Pastorpreneur then leads the folks in a very short, benign "prayer", and then proclaims they have been saved from hell - glory hallelujah! Except in most cases they really are not. Now let me be clear. Altar call theology can work. People can be saved. I was saved during an altar call. I was not saved however merely because I went to the altar and said a prayer. I was saved because I genuinely was seeking God and He is not difficult to find. I was saved because the Word that was brought before the altar call was the true Gospel, which included a frank discussion of my sin and need for repentance. I was saved because the weight of my sin became unbearable. With those things in place, the altar call was merely the means of my asking Christ for forgiveness; which He mercifully granted to me. I had said the sinner's prayer four years earlier but was not saved. Without repentance, there is no regeneration.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, - Titus 3: 4-5 (ESV)

Let us now take a look at the standard altar call prayer of the three most influential Pastorpreneurs on the planet today. First up is Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life. Besides his dominionist tendency and clear leaning toward ecumenicalism, Warren is largely responsible for a great portion of the apostasy in churches today because of his lesser known book, The Purpose Driven Church. This is the Bible for the pastorpreneurs of this day. It teaches them among other things how to view the unsaved as merely being unchurched, an eternally dangerous distinction. It teaches them how to get rid of sheep that disagree with purpose driven theology. Ignoring Acts 2, it teaches them that they are responsible for the horizontal growth of their church instead of the vertical growth of their sheep.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. - Acts 2: 46-47 (ESV)

It is the Lord that is supposed to determine the number to be added, not the CEO/Pastor. The job of the leader is to shepherd them; sorry Pastor Stanley. On page 58 of the Purpose Driven Life, we find the only reference to salvation in the entire book:

I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity: "Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you." If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the family of God!

What's wrong with this? How about everything! Jesus I believe in you and receive you? That's it? God's ultimate plan to redeem all of mankind by sending His only Son to die a horrifically brutal death on the cross for our sins reduced down to less than 10 words? Not only that but not even a mention of sin and repentance within these nine words? What good does it do to merely believe in Jesus:

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder! - James 2: 19 (ESV)

As if the prayer was not bad enough, what follows is just pure arrogance. To proclaim to everyone who reads his book and says these nine words that they are in the family of God is simply put; pastorally negligent. To give people a false sense of eternal security is reprehensible at best. Especially when you never gave them the Gospel to begin with. Look at Warren leaves everything to - "if you sincerely meant that prayer." All of eternity and the tenuous line between heaven and the fires of hell resting upon how we feel about something we said. Left up to our wickedly deceptive heart. How criminal. This is the new standard now for judging salvation. If you doubt your eternal position and ask a pastor they will inevitably ask if you were sincere when you said the sinner's prayer. As if your assessment of your feelings determines your salvation.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it. - Mark 11: 12-14 (ESV)

This is known as the cursing of the fig tree and many may pass it by as interesting but uninformative until you recognize what Jesus is trying to teach us here. The key to the lesson of this story is "in leaf." This indicates that the fig tree had advanced to the point that leaves were present. The fruit of the fig tree is supposed to grow before the leaves. Thus when Jesus saw the leaves He assumed there would be fruit. Finding none, He cursed the tree. Today there are many Christians "in leaf." They have the appearance of being right and being saved but when you peel the leaves back, there is no fruit. Salvation is not based upon our feelings of our sincerity, when we said a nine word prayer that never even addressed our state as sinners before a holy God. We can dress ourselves up all we like. We can play the part and sound the part. Wear our Sunday best and shout out hallelujah at all the right times. All that does is produce leaves that indicate there should be fruit. Without that fruit however, we are just as deceptive as that fig tree Jesus came upon on His way to Jerusalem that day. The worst thing however, is we are only deceiving ourselves. Next up we come to Joel Osteen:

Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins, come into my heart. I make you my lord and savior. Friends if you prayed that simple prayer we believe you got born again.

If you watch any Joel Osteen telecast, this is how he now ends every message. The good in this sentence is the word "repent." Many altar calls skip this, which is the entire point of going up for an altar call. "I make you my Lord and Savior" is pretty good too. The "come into my heart" line is unbiblical but forgivable. So what is the larger problem? Besides the simplistic quick-fix nature of this "prayer" the problem exists in the larger context of how and what Joel Osteen preaches. I have watched entire sermons where he never even mentions the name of Jesus and then he is going to ask people to invite Him into their hearts? How exactly does that work? You never hear him preach about sin, which is always re-branded as "mistakes" or the need to repent. Osteen is on record as saying he often will not even bring a Scripture into the message until the end and doesn't need to apologize for that. The problem? Joel Osteen does not contain the words of eternal life - only Jesus does:

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, - John 6: 66-68 (ESV)

It is the Gospel that has the power of God unto the salvation of men, not Joel Osteen or any other pastorpreneur. You may ask if this is really that serious and the answer is a definitive yes. Read the key verses for today taken from the farewell to the Ephesian elders by the Apostle Paul. He declares that their blood is not on his hands because he did not hesitate to proclaim the whole counsel of God to them. What does this teach us? First of all that their blood is at stake! Secondly, the listeners we have as preachers need to hear the whole counsel of God - not just the warm and seeker friendly parts. It does no good to spend a half hour telling people that God wants them blessed and rich or how to forge more meaningful relationships and then look in the camera and offer them salvation. Lastly from Osteen we see the same arrogance as with Warren to declare that merely saying the prayer results in being born again. This brings us to Joseph Prince:

Lord Jesus, thank You for loving me and dying for me on the cross. Your precious blood washes me clean of every sin. You are my Lord and my Savior, now and forever. I believe that You rose from the dead and that You are alive today. Because of Your finished work, I am now a beloved child of God and heaven is my home. Thank You for giving me eternal life, and filling my heart with Your peace and joy. Amen.

Now, let me first say that there as far more meat on this bone than the two predecessors. Christ loves us and died on the cross for us. His blood washes us clean. We do need Him to be our Lord and Savior. We need to believe He rose from the dead and is alive today. We are saved through His finished work. What is missing though? Our part! There is no mention of our need to repent! What good does it do to mention that His blood washes us clean of every sin and never mention that we need to turn from those sins? What it actually does is present a false impression that salvation is accomplished through a series of correct declarative statements followed up by no change whatsoever on our part! Following this model, we still end up as a fig tree with leaves and no fruit. This representation of the sinner's prayer is a microcosm of all that is wrong with Prince theology. So much of it sounds right but the leaven running thought it will send you right to hell.

But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, - Acts 3: 18-19 (ESV)

Matthew 7 tells a frightening truth from the mouth of Jesus about what it will be like on the day of judgment. How many will come to Him saying "Lord Lord." These are clearly churched people. They may even be purpose driven people. They cast out demons in His name. They performed many miracles in His name. Yet despite this He never knew them and they are thus consigned to eternal damnation. How much more for the everyday average churchgoer? Lord Lord did we not go to church ever week? Did we not tithe as demanded? Did we not find our ministry purpose and put our hands to the plow? Did we not feel sincere when we repeated after the pastorpreneur in reciting the sinner's prayer? Look at all these leaves we have!

These are not small matters beloved. They are the heart of Christ's work on the cross. They are at the heart of the plan of God to redeem us. Not to sit in a pew. Not to serve in a ministry. But to be born again. To understand our sinful nature before a holy God and freely accept the gift that is being offered to repent for the forgiveness those sins. To be regenerated and a new creation in Christ Jesus. The true Gospel demands something from us and it is more than a wink, a nod, and a nine word prayer.

Reverend Anthony Wade - June 30, 2014