Valse bekering, of ware werk van die Gees? Daar is ‘n Skriftuurlike oproep tot bekering, en daar is ook valse vorme daarvan.
“Die wind waai waar hy wil, en jy hoor sy geluid, maar jy weet nie vanwaar hy kom en waarheen hy gaan nie. So is elkeen wat uit die Gees gebore is.” (Joh 3:8)
Lees GI Williamson se goeie artikel hier. Hier is ‘n paar uittreksels:
But what do we mean when we speak of the ‘altar-call’ method? We mean every effort on the part of an evangelist or minister to get an overt and immediate reaction to the gospel in some humanly appointed way. It can be an appeal to ‘come forward’ to some arbitrarily designated place in front of the pulpit. It can be an invitation to stand, raise the hand, sign a card, or something similar. The variations are no doubt legion, but the basic features are these—(1) an immediate response is insisted upon—(2) the response is registered in some visible way—and (3) the manner in which the response is registered is prescribed in the directions that are given….
“What the Arminian wants to do” says C. H. Spurgeon “is to arouse man’s activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all—to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, ‘Lord, save, or we perish.’ We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, ‘I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,’ marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow.”…
“If Jesus Christ were to stand on this platform tonight” said Spurgeon…. from Isaiah 53:10, “what would many people do with him? If he were to come and say, ‘Here I am, I love you, will you be saved by me?’ not one of you would consent if you were left to your will. He himself said, ‘No man can come to me except the Father…draw him.’ ‘Ah! we want that: and here we have it. They shall come. They shall come. Christ shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands.”
Some years ago the writer was teaching a group of people the basic doctrines of the Calvinistic system. In that group was a person who had long resisted the overtures of grace. Urging and persuading were to no avail. Invitations were refused. But then came a study of this doctrine of the total depravity of man. We got into this awesome truth that sinful man can do nothing to deliver himself. Now human wisdom would surely say that this was the wrong approach—the surest possible way to turn such a person away, once and for all. But such was not to be. No, but rather was it the sovereign pleasure of God to use this very truth to set her free. Suddenly she stood up—quite literally—and, without any direction from anyone, said, ‘if this is true, then there is no hope for me!’ But of course there was hope at last because she had come to see that she could not do anything to save herself….
If we preach the Biblical system of truth, there will be no need for the altar-call method. It is in truth nothing but a poor humanly invented means of getting people to respond to a powerless gospel. And this is not the gospel that we should want to preach. If our preaching has no power, let us face it. Let us lament it. Let us get down on our knees and cry out to God because of it. And let us stay there until he anoints us with the unction of the Spirit to preach the gospel of the grace and power of our sovereign God.
Volle artikel hier.