David Ray
Have you ever been given a “how to get to Heaven” tract? Over the years I’ve had several given to me or left at my door, and I’ve found many of them lying around in public places. Recently I’ve even begun collecting them. Why? Don’t they all say the same thing? Shouldn’t they all say the same thing (i.e., what the Bible says)? Knowing God’s plan of salvation found in the Bible, and also knowing the discrepancy between this and what most professing believers teach on this topic, it’s always interesting to me to see what these tracts will say.
If you’ve ever studied the Bible plan of salvation with someone, you’ve inevitably dealt with the differences in what they believe compared to what the Bible teaches (viz., whether or not baptism is for the purpose of having one’s sins forgiven and being saved). Countless times, with people of every denominational and non-denominational background, I’ve run into these differences and asked (even begged) these folks to provide a passage or combination of passages that would teach the doctrine to which they hold. Sadly, to this day I still don’t know where in the Scriptures to turn in order to support and teach their version of how to be saved.
And so, I read another tract on the topic of salvation, and hope it will provide a verse to support what I know it will say. Alas, it is the same as every other one I’ve read, and goes something like this:
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All are sinners (Romans 3:23).
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There is a penalty for sin – it results in bondage & death (Romans 6:23a).
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Christ died to pay for our sins (Romans 5:8).
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We must accept the free gift of eternal life by accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior (Romans 6:23b; 10:13; John 1:12).
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In order to do this, you must receive Jesus as your personal savior right now by praying this simple prayer: “Dear God, I know that I’m a sinner. I know you died on the cross for me. Here and now I give my life to you. Come into my heart and be my Savior. Amen.”
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If you prayed and received Jesus Christ as your Savior….
The above steps are actually taken from two different tracts in my possession, whose content mirrors that of almost every other denominational tract I’ve ever read on this topic. The final step (No. 6) will usually either end in a request to fill out some information and mail the tract back to the particular group that left it, or simply to go to the church of your choice…not in order to be saved, but because you are already saved.
Did you notice what was missing in these steps? If not, maybe it would help to first notice what isn’t missing – the scriptural support for most of the steps in the process.
Notice the steps again: Are all sinners? Certainly. The tracts provide the verse that says so (Romans 3:23). Is there a penalty for sin? Of course – Romans 6:23! And so on down the line. But then we come to, “Pray this prayer in order to accept Jesus as your personal savior.” And the Scripture that teaches this? Oops, they must have inadvertently messed up and left that verse out. Coincidentally, this is the case with every one of these tracts! No scripture reference is ever given for this “prayer in order to be saved”! Can anyone provide us with this mysterious verse that teaches a non-Christian to pray in order to become a Christian? Surely it’s there. Surely prayer is the point at which one is saved, right?
Actually, this is not what the Bible teaches. But never mind what I say; listen to the tract authors. After all, those who teach this, by their own claims, are “Bible-believing, Bible-following” folks, and surely have a scripture they’re thinking of when they write these things. But their silence is deafening.
When I was younger and first starting seeing these tracts left in public places, I would leave them there after marking through the “prayer” passages and writing in the passages that teach the rest of the story (i.e., Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; 22:16; Romans 6:3-6; 1 Peter 3:21, etc.). Read these verses and ask why someone would leave out such clear passages on how to be saved. This question will have to be answered by those authors.
It’s so shocking that something of such immense spiritual importance can be altered and then passed off as fact without a shred of biblical proof! And this is not something on which we can simply agree to disagree. Souls are on the line. There are so many people out there who believe they’re saved when they’re not, and the reason they’re still lost is because they’re allowing themselves to be guided by those false teachers who would pen tracts like these. This article is intended to encourage the “sheep” to open their eyes to what is so blatantly missing from these tracts and from this false doctrine in general – scriptural evidence. Why can’t these authors give one single scripture to support their idea of how to be saved? Because it doesn’t exist—and their own literature proves it!
