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The Choice
By Robert
There's a lot of wrong thinking out there nowadays...
One concept that I have run into on several occasions is the one of "decisionism", that a person can '"decide" to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. This seems to be popular amongst many in today's evangelism, that they have a choice between Christ or Hell. This gives the appearance that both options are equal, and that a person is neutral until they choose one option or the other...
Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
Allow me to explain...
Scripture tells us that we are all sinners:
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.... For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; " (Romans 3:10-12,23 KJV)
Scripture also tells us where sinners will go after they are judged:
"And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:15, KJV)
"But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8, NASB)
This means Hell is not an option; it is the DEFAULT.
Salvation CANNOT be a "decision" for two reasons: the first is that a "decision" is made in one's head. Salvation is NOT a head issue, but a HEART issue. Scripture clearly delineates the problem:
"And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth;" (Genesis 8:21a, KJV, emphasis mine)
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV)
"What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." (James 4:1-3, NASB)
Scripture is clear on the matter that it is a man's heart that is the source of his wickedness. It therefore stands that the HEART must be dealt with before anything else. the mind may fashion reason, but the heart is the seat of a person, and whatever they are in their hearts, they are as a person.
Salvation is not a change of MIND, but of HEART.
The second reason is this: a decision is made from a neutral standpoint between two options that are presented equally, and that are both judges on their merits and detractors. In that instance, a decision for neither option exists, and both may be disregarded equally if neither is acceptable to the preference and criteria used by the person who is making the decision.
This is not the case here.
Hell is the DEFAULT DESTINATION for mankind because of his sin nature; as such, it is not a decision from a neutral standpoint. Salvation is a option that can be chosen, but it has to BE chosen; otherwise, Hell remains the default destination. And this is the problem with a lot of evangelism today: presenting the two as side-by side choices. It gives the illusion that a person has to decide between one or the other, and that robs the person of the immediacy and danger concerning their choice. They do not get the sense that they are ALREADY going to hell, as scripture clearly points out:
"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. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." (John 3:18-20, KJV, emphasis mine)
By making salvation a "decision" that has to be made in the mind, a person can rationalize and argue, and distort and twist things, and can end up saying they are saved on a cerebral level, but with no change in the core of their being, which is required for true salvation.
The essential fact is this: Salvation is an option that HAS to be chosen in PLACE of Hell, not as an option alongside it. When we reach out to the lost, we have to convey the message that they are already heading to Hell, and that heaven is their only ALTERNATIVE. In this life, no one is sitting on the fence, no matter what they tell themselves; no one is "neutral" and no one gets away with not choosing. This is a problem in many churches because the unsaved get the idea that because it is presented as a 'decision", they somehow have time.
They don't.
No one's life is guaranteed; no one has even 2 minutes promised to them, let alone two hours, days or weeks.
"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." (James 4:14, NASB)
That being said, putting off salvation would be a grave mistake, and decisionism allows them to do that by presenting damnation and salvation as equal choices in a "decision":
"for He says, "AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU, AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU." Behold, now is "THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,"behold, now is "THE DAY OF SALVATION"— " ( 2 Corinthians 6:2, NASB, emphasis mine)
A final note: as I said earlier, making salvation a "decision," renders it a head problem instead of a heart problem, and allows the person to 'rationalize it". Because of this, it becomes an intellectual debate rather than a matter of the heart where it belongs. When we attempt to debate intellectually, we are not allowing the Holy Spirit to work ii us, but are instead using our own means and devices to attempt to witness.
Paul ran into this problem in Athens:
"Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,"—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? "For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean." (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this." So Paul went out of their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them." (Acts 17:16-34, NASB, emphasis mine)
As long as Paul appealed to the reason of the Greek gentiles there, they listened, but when he brought in about Jesus Christ and the resurrection, they sneered and mocked him for it. It pretty much ended the conversation right there, and only a few came forward to accept Christ. Yet at Corinth, Paul chose not the smooth debates or cunning words, but instead:
"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." (1 Corinthians 2:1-5, NASB, emphasis mine)
And a church was founded at Corinth.
This isn't to say Paul was ineffective, but like all of us, Paul was human. And so are the people we witness to. We need to keep the message as God gave it to us, and not make it a "decision" but instead let it remain a heart matter that the person's heart has to come to terms to. It may not be popular to tell someone that they are going to hell already, but we are doing them no favors if we try to act in our own power or "improve" the message we have been given.
Hopefully, I have made at least a tiny bit of sense in all of this, and not gone off the tracks.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Robert
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