Why Have An Altar Call?

So those eight people "received the Lord" that night?

 

What did they do to "receive the Lord", Bill?

 

Did they do what Paul was told to do in Acts 22:16?

 

Did they do what  lost sinners were told to do in Acts 2:38 immediately after they had asked, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

 

Or did they just say a "sinner's prayer", and in that way enter a "personal relationship" with Jesus, something that has absolutely no precedent in scripture as part of God's plan of salvation?

 

Tell us which of these things those eight people did when that altar call was given. Or did they do something else, entirely different from all of these?

They had spasms and "spoke in tongues".  Then they all went to eat BBQ and drink beer.

Hi Contendah,

 

Just curious.   Have YOU received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  Are YOU a born-again Christian believer?   How do YOU know?

 

If you are a believer -- WHAT did YOU do to become a born-again Christian believer.

 

OR, is that, like your church, also something which YOU are ASHAMED to share publicaly?

 

Matthew 10:32-33, "Therefore everyone who [fn]confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven."

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill

Bill, we all know you are trying to get this information so you can apply a label, and then bend your attack based on whichever organizations beliefs you perceive them to have.  Why don't you just discuss the issue at hand, like a grown up?

If billie can't control it, he ain't gonna tote it.

TWO OUT OF THREE AIN'T BAD!

 

It is such a thrill when I post a new discussion, and right on cue the "Tongue-Tripping Trio" jumps right in to prove the point I was making.  God bless these triplets for helping me illustrate my point so well.

 

From my post in another discussion:

 

But, then, there are those who are not trying to defend anything.  They are only here to argue, denigrate everyone's beliefs, and call people names.  They will attack any person or any person's family -- and, actually enjoy that.  I believe that is how some of these folks get their kicks; by defaming others -- and by trying to drive a wedge between people, doing their best to start a dispute between people who otherwise might find some ground for agreement. 

 

These folks will always be with us; that is just the dark side of our human nature.  So, we who want civil discussion must just ignore them, ignore the "spitting contests" they are promoting, and move on to more constructive discussions.

 

Now that the expected is out of the way, we can move on to more productive comments.

 

Bless their hearts!

 

Bill

 

I wanted to see if you'd post your ugly stepchildren again. And you did.

 

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Alter call in Billy's church is so he can, after a few weeks, tell the people they ain't doing it right & run them off to another church, or convince them they don't like religion after all.

C0C doesn't have an alter Bill. An alter is where you set animals on fire. Remember?

So quail, my back yard can be like a "Corky's Baptist BBQ church?"

 

Not sure about the COC for it has been many, many years since I visited one.  However, let's see what the Bible has to say about the altar of God:

 

Psalm 43:4, "Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God." 

Hebrews 13:812, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.  We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.  For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.  Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate."

Matthew 5:23-24, "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering."

 

So, now Jesus Christ, our Sacrificial Lamb, is our altar.   Do you have any problem with folks being called to His Altar, Himself, to seek His free gift of eternal life?  Isn't that what we are called to do, point folks toward Jesus Christ?  So, what is wrong with asking them to come to Him?

 

Seems to me that ALL Christian churches would be doing this -- for He has given us the Great Commission:  "Go, Make disciples, Baptize them, Teach them -- be My witnesses in all the world" (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8, Mark 16:15).

 

So, my Friend, when you say, "C0C doesn't have an alter Bill" -- I believe you are mistaken.  

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill

COC Church. Looks empty to me.

 

That's because you think a building is THE church dumbazz.

Bill the altar you are referring to is an altar used for animal sacrifice. Christ is already offered. No need for going to any alter to take anything at all. Prayer and being good to the folks is the only offering.

Alter call is to play on people's emotions. And the more people that go to the alter, the better it looks for the Preacher.

 

The animal sacrifices were precursors of the final, once for all time, for all people, sacrifice which would be considered "paid in full" by the judge, God the Father.   Our sin debt was marked "paid in full."  Now, all folks have to do to receive eternal life -- is to accept His "paid in full" pardon.  If a person does that, by accepting Christ as his/her personal Lord and Savior -- that person had salvation, that person has eternal life in Christ.

 

Christ was sacrificed for all of us; His altar was the cross.  Haven't you ever heard someone say, "Meet you at the cross"? 

 

But, my Friend, when it all boils down -- call it what you like; we go forward to show that we have decided -- by God's grace, through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ -- to turn our lives over to Him, to follow Him for the rest of this mortal life -- and into eternity. 

 

So, you can say that you met Christ at the altar, or at the cross, or, for some, maybe even at Walmart.  It does not matter where you met Christ.  What is important -- is that you have met Christ and have become a Christ Follower.

 

If you recall the story I have told before, of the young White Supremacist I met at the Emergency Room.  While he was still was a White Supremacist, tattoos, buzz cut hair, muscle shirt, and all -- some devout Christian approached him on the street in Southern California -- witnessed to him about Jesus Christ.  And, that day, on the street of Riverside, California -- that White Supremacist became a follower of Jesus Christ.   So, what was his altar?  It was the city street in Riverside.

 

As I said, call it what you like -- but, do not neglect to point folks toward Jesus Christ -- no matter where you happen to be.

 

Just curious.  Where was your altar?  Mine was the home of Christian Friends where we held Bible studies in the late 1980s.  After six months of worship in our church and Bible study in my Friends, Ed and Ligaya's, home -- I  made a decision to follow Jesus Christ.  That home was my altar.

 

A few months later, I was baptized at the home of other Christian Friends.  Their swimming pool became the pedestal from which I proclaimed to the world that I am a Christ Follower, that I have followed Him in baptism.

 

Where were you when you made the decision to follow Jesus Christ?  That is your altar!

 

You tell me, "Prayer and being good to the folks is the only offering."

 

My Friend, you can do a million good deeds for a billion people -- and still go to hell.   No amount of good deeds will get one into heaven.

 

So, what will get a person into heaven?  Glad you asked.  That is easily explained with three Scripture verses:

 

John 3:3, "Jesus answered and said to him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' "

 

John 3:16. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

1 John 5:12, "He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life."

 

But, you are right about the prayer part.  That is a good way to start seeking Jesus Christ. Start by asking God to show you the way to have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, ask Him to send the Holy Spirit into your heart and life.  And, if a person sincerely does prayer such a prayer -- I promise you that God WILL send the Holy Spirit into him/her.

 

THEN, once the person has become a born-again believer -- those works become like gemstones in a Crown of Life.

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bil

 

This discussion of an "altar call" could be simplified by looking to scripture.  When was the first "altar call" following the death of Jesus?  I place it within that time frame simply because there could be no "altar call" until after His  DEATH. The "altar call" or "invitation" or whatever you wish to call is a public urging on the part of a preacher or teacher to the lost sinners to whom he is speaking.  An altar call   is premised on the fact that Jesus was sacrificed on the cross to save lost sinners.  Anyone answering that altar call does so on the basis of believing  that Jesus Christ, the very son of God, died for their sins.  A person responding to an altar call does so repenting of his/her sins and publicly confessing Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

 

Back to the matter of that first altar call ever in the history of the Christian church. You can read about it in Acts 2: 36-41 (see below).

 

When the apostles of Jesus were gathered together on the Day of Pentecost following his ascension, they were endowed with power from heaven and filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2-4). Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter delivered a message that indicted his audience with the heinous sin of crucifying the Son of God (Acts 2:36). Hearing this, they were "pri cked in their heart", and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

 

Here were lost and condemned men and women, asking an inspired apostle of Jesus Christ what they must do in order to escape the condemnation that they had brought upon themselves through their sin. They are desperately asking, in effect, "What must we do to be saved?"  Every lost sinner from then until now desperately needs an answer to that question?  Peter gave them an answer. That answer is found in Acts 2:38:

"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

 

Peter did not subscribe to the widely held notion that no "altar call" or "invitation" is necessary. That unscriptural notion proceeds from the Calvinistic concept that God has already decided who will be saved and who will be lost and that therefore in  His good time He will act to bring faith into the hearts of the “elect”, i.e.those predestined to be saved.  Those who subscribe to this foolishness   believe that an "altar call" somehow meddles with the plans of God and might even be harmful if it leads a person to believe that God is calling him/or her when, in fact, God is not doing so.  They have even coined a term by which they disparage those who support any concept of an altar call. They call it “decisional regeneration”, implying that those who are responding to an altar call (instead of the direct operation of God upon their hearts) are practicing “decisional regeneration.”

 

But Peter obviously did not entertain that warped concept of an altar call.   Read his words and decide whether that apostle was reluctant about calling the lost to Jesus.  THIS describes his altar call:

 

<<<Acts 2:

 

³⁶ Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

³⁷ Now when they heard this, they were *****ed in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

³⁸ Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

³⁹ For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

⁴⁰ And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

⁴¹ Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.>>>

 

If there are questions to be asked about the altar call, these seem to be pertinent ones:

 

1) Why are there so very many evangelists on television, on the radio, in tents, in tiny country churches and in enormous and elaborate cathedrals, who tell lost sinners that  all they need to do is to "ask Jesus to come into your heart" or "take him as your personal Savior," or "say the 'sinner's prayer'"? Why do they not give lost sinners the same answer Peter gave when they implored him, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" What is so wrong with Peter’s altar call that so many fail to model their own altar calls after it?

2) Is there anywhere in the New Testament's record of the conversion of sinners where any apostle, elder, teacher, evangelist or other proclaimer of the Word of God told any lost sinner to say ANY prayer--let alone the "sinner's prayer" so ardently promoted in our day? I must submit a resounding "NO!" in answer to that question. If you disagree, then please kindly show me the error of my way. Cite me to the scripture where any lost and alien sinner is told to pray for anything--sinner's prayer or otherwise, and I will recant my position.

 

 

I very much prefer Peter’s altar call.

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And the more money the church makes.

 

I agree with you -- and like the name "invitation" better.  To expand upon that thought, I have begun a new discussion title "Invite Them All!" -- and I invite you to take a look.

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill

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And do you think that the apostle Peter, your alleged "First Pope," was trying to raise money when he made the first altar call ever?

 

Please note that it is an "altar" call,"not an "alter"call.

 

John 21: 15-17./..21-23

      [15] When therefore they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter:

Simon son of John, lovest thou me more than these? He saith to him:

Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my lambs.

 

[16] He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? He saith

to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith to him: Feed

my lambs.

 

[17] He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?

Peter was grieved, because he had said to him the third time: Lovest

thou me? And he said to him: Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest

that I love thee. He said to him: Feed my sheep.

 

Peter is told to teach and take care of his flock and the apostles.

And Peter ask Jesus what does he expect of him. And Jesus said:

 

[21] Him therefore when Peter had seen, he saith to Jesus: Lord, and

what shall this man do?

 

[22] Jesus saith to him: So I will have him to remain till I come, what is

it to thee? follow thou me. [23] This saying therefore went abroad among

the brethren, that that disciple should not die. And Jesus did not say to him:

He should not die; but, So I will have him to remain till I come,

what is it to thee?

 

And the succession of the leaders of the Church was established.

Jesus fulfills the promise he made to Peter in Matt16: 17-19

 

      [17] And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona:

because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is

in heaven.

 

[18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my

church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

 

[19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever

thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever

thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

 

If Peter is the alleged Head of the first and only Christian Church

Jesus created, then so is the Bible and Christian faith.

Alleged, really?

 

 

============================

You're such an arrogant pr*ck. The CoC is so lucky to have you.

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Once more:

 

And do you think that the apostle Peter, your alleged "First Pope," was trying to raise money when he made the first altar call ever?

 

 

Hi Vic,

 

Just curious.  Why did you feel the need to post the same writing TWICE in the same discussion.  I have seen you do this before.  And, I always wonder if it is like some small child pulling on daddy's pants leg, crying, "Look at me!"  Just a thought.

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill

__________

Sure he was. God told ole Peter they needed money raised to pay those men digging the giant fire pit that God needed to throw the non-perfects in.

Hi Chick,

 

God could create the heavens and the earth, i.e., all the universe -- and He could not create a warm haven for all who reject Him?  Now, does that make sense?   That's like saying that Henry Ford could invent and build cars -- but, he couldn't pump gas.  Just a thought.

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill

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Once more:

 

You're an arrogant pr*ck

 

YES, SIR, I JUST KNOW THE ROMAN CATHOLICS

WHO READ THIS FORUM ARE SAYING TO THEMSELVES,

"SURE HAPPY HE IS ONE OF OUR PEOPLE!"

NOT!!!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They Know, they are thankful they aren't one of you. 

Great responses Vic and Contendah. I agree- I will follow Peter's lead. God can take the worst sinner and make Him the greatest disciple. Just look at Peter's life! My goodness he denied Jesus- not once, but 3 times. Jesus allowed him to confess/repent in like manner? ( Peter, do you love Me...feed my sheep) Y'all know the one. So by the above scriptures cited by Vic, and by really thinking about Peter's life, we are shown how we are called to repent. It couldn't be more clear. But He sure did make Peter repent! and I think the osas person would recognize that one "Lord you know I love you" was not enough.... Nuff said in my book.

Hi VP,

 

Just a thought.   Peter was married.  How could he be the first pope?  

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill

According to the Bible, we only know Peter was married at some point. His wife may have died by the time Jesus is talking to him. Also, even if Peter was married, since Jesus accepted that, who are you to question it?

Agree, crumbpicker. Don't know who is using the weak argument that Peter had once been married- probably bill- but he is on block- it's a weak argument.
And you're right- who questions The Lord? Who presumes to know more than He? Sheesh......
Jesus could not have been more clear when He asked Peter to repent 3 times and declare his love for Him. Having done so? He simply said "Feed my sheep".
Shows us how He can take the most sinful, strayed person (Peter had in fact denied Him) and He can repent and become the holder of the Keys to the Kingdom!!!
Kinda reminds me of the "the last shall be first, and the first shall be last".

 

What does Scripture tell us about Peter?

 

Matthew 8:14-15, "When Jesus came into Peter's home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever.  He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him."

Paul speaking in 1 Corinthians 9:5, "Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas (Peter)?"

 

You tell me it was okay for Peter to be married and still be Pope -- because Jesus accepted it.   However, the Roman Catholic church tells us that their Pope is the Vicar, or direct representative, of Jesus Christ on earth -- and what the Pope declares in the name of the church -- IS INFALLIBLE!

 

Well, the Roman Catholic church and the recent Popes have adamantly declared that priests and Popes CANNOT be married.  So, since the Pope is the Vicar for Christ on earth (at least for the Roman Catholics) -- what he says, which is infallible -- MUST override whatever Jesus accepted.

 

Therefore, Peter COULD NOT be a Priest or Pope -- for he was married; according to Matthew, Mark, and Paul.

 

So, no Pope Peter, no papal succession -- since there is no original Pope from whom to succeed forward.  In my Bible, the ONLY one with absolute authority is God -- and ALL Christian believers are His representatives, or ambassadors for Christ:

 

2 Corinthians 5:20, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

 

Since all Christian believes are ambassadors for Christ -- there is no need for a Pope.   Works for me!

 

You see, Crumb, my Friend -- when we stay with the Bible, all 66 books, we cannot go wrong.  God has revealed it all to us.  And, we just need to follow His instructions.  

 

Where man goes wrong is when he decides that he does not like what God has written in His Bible -- for it does not fit the theology he desires.  So, man, such as the Roman Catholic church and many Protestant denominations, start reading things INTO Scripture (Eisegesis) to fit their desired theology -- instead of reading FROM Scripture (Exegesis) what God has written there. 

 

I think a good rule of thumb when studying the Bible is to accept that, in the Bible, "God said what He meant -- and He meant what He said."   If we stay with that, we will have solid Christian fellowships.

 

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

 

Bill