EVANGELISTIC INVITATIONS
AND ALTAR CALLS:
To call or not to call…That is the question.

Rev. James M. Harrison
Red Mills Baptist Church
CB Spurgeon Fellowship
Mahopac Falls, NY


Although I come from a tradition of invitations every Sunday, regardless of the subject of the sermon, and though I used them myself on an ever decreasing basis, over the last couple of years I have ceased to issue invitations all together. There are three primary reasons for my doing so.

1. The Invitation System isn't in the Book.

Many of us talk a good game when it comes to Sola Scriptura, but we often end up instituting our own extra-biblical practices in place of those things that we avoid because we don't see them in the Bible...like Baptists not having a liturgy. But just try to mess with the order of service!

When I began to examine the invitation system, I could not find any biblical foundation. Those who support the practice generally use two "proofs" for the validity of the system.
The first are the "Follow me" and "Come unto Me" passages in the gospels. But what is really going on there? Surely Jesus isn't calling simply for a physical movement on the part of those He is addressing. He is calling them to repentance and faith. Now that He is no longer physically present on the earth, this is even more clear. There can be no other sense. Is Jesus present in a greater or lesser degree in one part of the Sanctuary or arena than He is in another? Of course not.

The second defense is attempted by referring to Matt. 10:32, "...everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven." But what is Christ teaching here? Is He teaching that by this ACT of confession we become Christians? Or, is He teaching that one inevitable mark of those who ARE Christians is that they openly acknowledge Him in their lives and speech? If one says that Jesus is teaching the former, we have just destroyed the gospel by adding to it a work.

We make a very interesting discovery when we examine the Scriptural examples of men and women who come to faith in Christ. What we find is the exact opposite of the invitation system. It is not the preachers who ask the questions, it is the listeners.
In Acts 2:37, Peter has just concluded his Pentecost sermon, and we do not find any kind of invitation from Peter. Rather, it is the hearers who have been convicted by the Spirit of God through the preaching of the Word that ask, "Brethren, what shall we do?" What is Peter's response? He doesn't call them to the front of the room or ask them to raise their hands. He tells them to repent and be baptized.

We find a similar event in Acts 8 regarding Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Philip preaches Christ to the Eunuch. We then read nothing of Philip pressing the Eunuch for a decision, but rather, we are told that after Philip preached Christ to him, they were going along the road, and the Eunuch himself raises the subject of baptism.

Acts 10:44ff. is another example. Peter is preaching to the household of Cornelius. The text says, "While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message." We find here not a word concerning an invitation or an altar call. Peter wasn't even finished preaching when the Holy Spirit, in the sovereignty of God, saved them through the preaching of the Word.

As we read Acts 13, we see that Paul comes to Pisidion Antioch and stands in the synagogue to preach. At the end of his sermon, we read of no call for a response on the part of Paul, but we do read this, "As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God." What we see here is that through the preaching of the Word, these Jews and proselytes were converted, so that Paul had no need of any kind in invitation. He merely urged them to "continue" in the grace of God.

Acts 16 is another example. Paul is preaching to Lydia, and in v. 14 the text says, "A woman named Lydia, from the city Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening and THE LORD OPENED HER HEART TO RESPOND TO THE THINGS SPOKEN BY PAUL." No altar call, invitation, or call for a decision. God, through the instrumentality of His Word, caused her to believe.

Later in the same chapter, we have the account of the Philippian jailer. Again, who asks the questions? The jailer does! "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And the answer? "Believe."

There are other passages to consider, but that should be sufficient to make the point.

2. The Invitation System Does Not Comport with Biblical Theology (specifically, with the sovereignty of God in salvation).

The invitation system is based on the assumption that salvation is merely a matter of one's own personal decision. If one takes seriously the doctrine of human inability (total depravity) then one must reject the invitation as incompatible with the biblical truth of passages such as...

Rom. 3:10-11 "there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD ...
1 Cor. 2:14 "But a natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and HE CANNOT UNDERSTAND THEM because they are spiritually appraised."

2 Cor. 4:3-4 "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case THE GOD OF THIS WORLD HAS BLINDED THE MINDS OF THE UNBELIEVING SO THAT THEY MIGHT NOT SEE THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

If all this is true, then it doesn't matter how many verses of Just As I Am we sing. Either God is going to regenerate a person, causing that one to be able to understand and believe, or He will not, and they will remain in their state of blindness and deception. The point is that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. The preaching of the Word is that which is instrumental in conversion, and conversion is subject to the sovereignty of God, not the manipulations of men.

Acts 13:48, "When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; AND AS MANY AS HAD BEEN APPOINTED TO ETERNAL LIFE BELIEVED."

I think it is very telling that the Invitation system has only been around for about 150 years, and that it began with Charles Finney, who was a 19th century version of a full-blown Pelagian. He denied total depravity. He denied the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and held instead to a view of the atonement that makes Christ's death nothing more than a moral example for us. According to Finney, the atonement had no actual saving affect. The altar call makes sense only when one denies key biblical and theological principles.

3. The Practical Consequences

Practically speaking, it should not be difficult to see the futility of the altar call, and the confusion that it often causes.

Billy Graham has denied that coming forward equals salvation. He has said, "There's nothing about the mechanics of coming forward that saves anybody's soul. Coming forward is an open acknowledgment and a testimony of an inward experience that you have had with Christ, (isn't that supposed to be baptism? JMH) This encounter is the most important thing."

But listen to his actual invitations…

"I am going to ask you to come forward. Up there-down there-I want you to come. You come right now- quickly. If you are with friends and relatives, they will wait for you. Don't let distance keep you from Christ. It's a long way, but Christ went all the way to the Cross because He loves you. Certainly you can come these few steps and give your life to Him..."

"God is speaking to you. Get up and come right now...a little voice says 'You ought to come to Christ.' Come quickly! You may never have another moment. You have to come by faith. You need Christ, you get up and come..."

So which is it? These last two statements sure make it sound as if I have to leave my seat and walk up to the front of the auditorium in order to be saved. Imagine the confusion this would cause for one who is not well-grounded in the Word of God.

What are the results that we see from this system? Churches full of people who demonstrate no evidence of true conversion, but simply point to "a decision" as proof that they are saved. That's not where Scripture points us for assurance. Instead, Paul tells us to "Examine ourselves to see whether we be in the faith." John wrote his entire first epistle for that purpose. One of the bases of our assurance, according to Paul and John, is whether or not the process of sanctification is taking place in us. "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" Phil. 1:6. If one is truly saved, then God WILL change them. But it seems obvious that we have evangelical churches full of unchanged people. These same people can point to a decision, and so believe that true conversion has taken place even in the absence of spiritual fruit.

The Southern Baptist Convention is a great example of this. Rev. Bill Ascol, a pastor in the SBC and a leader in the SBC Founder's Movement sees the problem clearly. The SBC is said to be 14 million strong, a number arrived at largely on the basis of their altar calls. But there is a problem, says Ascol. They can't find 7 million of those people. They have no idea where they are. Of the 7 million that remain, three and a half million never or rarely attend a worship service.

I must conclude by clarifying the fact that none of this implies that we do not preach the gospel or appeal to men to come to Christ. We must, however, trust the power of God's Word to convince, convert, and change lives (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18, 1 Peter. 1:23; Rom. 10:17). When we preach that gospel, we preach it to everyone. It is a universal call. And we preach it urgently. Today is the day of salvation. We call men and women to come to Christ. Christ commands all men, everywhere, to repent. But we call them to Christ, not to an altar. And we do so acknowledging the sovereignty of God in the conversion of His elect, rather than the manipulations of men.