Exposing False Conversions from Easy Prayerism

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Today, it's really a problem when local churches fall away from the complete Gospel in exchange for a watered down presentation of the Gospel.  So many times, the problem is with the evangelism via easy prayerism.  Easy prayerism is when somebody says, "Okay, you want to get saved, just repeat after me.  Do you want to receive Jesus into your heart?"  Now Romans 10:13 is true that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved but that is not just the only point!  It's time to really expose how false conversion from easy prayerism.

How does easy prayerism cause so much of false conversions?  Easy prayerism presents a very diluted presentation of the Gospel.  The problem is it's a very, very incomplete picture of the Romans Road.  More often than not, it's just no preaching against sin, no preaching about the Law of God, no showing the person's true need of salvation and that they cannot save themselves.  Instead, they are led to say a few simple words then poof, they are supposedly declared Christians even if there was no real conversion happened.

As the Bible says, it's either a true conversion or a false conversion.  True they said the sinner's prayer, true they got baptized but the problem is do they truly possess eternal security?  Now don't get me wrong, Calvinists like me reject the idea of sinless perfection and losing salvation every time you sin, I believe salvation cannot be lost one way or another.  However, the lifestyle of the person can show whether or not that profession of faith alone in Jesus Christ was genuine or not.

When you think of the parable of the sower, we have the problem of the soil's condition.  The hard soil, the rock underneath the soil and the thorns were the representation of false conversion.  As long as people haven't repented of their sinfulness, as long as they haven't seen the gravity of their sin they have not become true converts.  Evangelism requires that sin be attacked and God's Law be presented.  Galatians 3:24 calls the Law as the schoolmaster that teaches us the necessity of salvation by faith in Christ alone.

Because of flimsy evangelism, we get false converts who soon fall off one way or another.  Maybe they attend church but later, they will be swayed away.  I have noticed how somebody supposedly got saved, baptized by a Baptist pastor and later returned to Roman Catholicism and converted his wife who was supposedly an Evangelical to Roman Catholicism.  It was a double false conversion one way or another - the man only made his profession of faith but never got saved.  The wife was supposedly from a "Christian" home but was only a result of a shallow conversion.  The evidence of false conversion on the wife's family are the moral degeneracy they suffered from in spite of the fact they professed to be Christians.

It just reminded me of somebody who claimed to be a Christian but his lifestyle was so much different.  Matthew 7:15-20 warns that by their fruits that they shall be known.  It is true that he made a profession of faith, it is true that he got baptized but his lifestyle was different.  He was a womanizer, drunkard, gambler, he operated a brothel with two of his older brothers which is the heavy evidence of a false conversions.  Another one I know supposedly claimed she was a Christian, she attended a Baptist church but she was a terrible woman who always bullied others and complained against Christian conservatism like modesty as "old fashioned" and was pretty much a modernist while she was a horrible workplace dictator at the same time.  Now while I do believe Christians can sin, sometimes even horribly but they do not continue in sin and revel in it.

A Christian may sin but he or she can no longer live like the rest of the world.  While Romans 4:5 says that to him that does not rely on good works but trusts Christ, that faith is counted for RIGHTEOUSNESS not wickedness.  True faith is counted for righteousness, not wickedness that is it brings a changed life.  James 2:17-18 says that faith without works is dead and that good works are necessary to validate faith.  The cry of the Protestant Reformation has always been, "We believe in salvation by faith alone but it is not a faith that is alone."  A Christian also cannot live like the rest of the world as Hebrews 12:5-6 says that God will chastise the Christian who at that moment becomes disobedient.  1 Corinthians 6:11 says that after salvation, one no longer lives like the rest of the world.

I could talk of examples of backsliding vs. apostasy.  If one has to think of it Lot, Samson and Solomon didn't really give their all.  While Lot was foolish enough to enter into Sodom, he was distressed by the sin of his day.  Samson may have been foolish but he is a hero of faith.  Solomon may have backslid so horribly yet he repented before God as evidenced in Ecclesiastes.  In the New Testament, Peter denied he was ever a Christian but after the cock crew twice, he repented of his denial and wept bitterly.  A backslider only stumbles down temporarily but God's chastising power brings them back.  Apostasy is when a person is supposedly saved but they later leave like Judas Iscariot and Demas.  Judas Iscariot's actions proved he was not even saved to start with.  Demas later left because of worldly temptation proving he wasn't even a convert.

Also the idea of having an ex-believer is absurd.  Notice that 1 John 2:19 says that those who left the flock were not of the flock but were only sit-ins.  That is, if they were truly saved, they would have continued in fellowship but instead, they showed that they were not saved to start with, in how they behaved as people.  It would also be absurd to re-disciple false converts because they aren't even disciples of Christ to begin with.  Every Christian like it or not is a disciple or student of Christ, fellowship is only momentarily lost for a Christian but the apostate had no real fellowship at all.  The apostate is nothing more than a stand-in, his life then shows that they weren't even saved to start with.


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