I've printed out an article, this is from soulwinning.info, soulwinning.info is one
of the most popular soul winning web pages.
It's run by a guy named David J. Stewart, David J. Stewart.
Now this guy also has a popular website called Jesus is Savior, he has another site
called Jesus is Precious.
If you've ever been to one of his sites, you know if you've been to one of his sites.
It looks like you're on an LCD trip, okay.
It's like the most insane website, there's just links everywhere and crazy pictures and
just there's no organization whatsoever.
But this person who, you know, I've kind of been neutral on because a lot of the information
he has is pretty good, but the article I'm going to be reading that he wrote is one
of the worst articles I've ever read, it's wicked.
The title of it is The Heresy of Having to Pray, quote unquote, to be saved.
He says the heresy of having to pray, quote unquote, to be saved and he attacks calling
upon the name of the Lord in this article.
It's an identifying moment in time when you said, hey, you know what, I believed the
gospel and then I decided to pray and I decided to call upon the name of the Lord.
That's why when I go soul winning, this is what I say, this is how you believe.
Because here's my question, if it's not by calling upon the name of the Lord, how
do you believe then?
What's the signifying event that you did?
I believed.
It's like, how do you know that you really believed it?
There is no evidence at that point.
Now this is what he says in this article, he says, he talks about how the word repents
not in the book of John, which it's not, and how that's dangerous and a slippery
slope and teaches a false gospel and then he compares that again to praying.
He compares repenting of your sins to praying and he says this, do you see the potential
problem of leading people to pray a sinner's prayer?
I don't.
He says, not one verse in the Bible teaches us to pray to be saved.
He says, not one verse, okay.
Now the next sentence, this is what he says, the word call in Romans 10, 13, so he brings
up the most obvious verse right away, right?
The word call in Romans 10, 13 means to invoke not to pray.
Let's fact check this for a moment, okay?
Let's just see how truthful this type of person is, all right?
So what I did is I went to Merriam-Webster's dictionary and I put in the word call and
just to see like what pops up.
The first definition of call in Merriam-Webster, to speak in a loud, distinct voice so as
to be heard at a distance, shout, that was the synonym.
That sounds like talking to me, if I were you to try and figure it out.
The second definition, to make a request or demand.
Now that's an important phrase because we're going to see this phrase in a lot of different
other words, to make a request, to make a request.
He says calls to make a request, all right?
I actually searched and I mean it was like 18 pages that I could print from the
definition of the word call.
You know a word I never found in any of them was invoke.
But I did find the word ask, I found ask in all this, I never found the word invoke.
Here's other ways that it can be defined.
It says to call upon, so it then throws in the word upon and says when you use the word
call but with the word upon, this is what that means.
It says to make a demand.
Here's another one, an instance of asking for something, a request.
I mean I don't feel like I'm misunderstanding the word call here, okay, or call upon.
I looked at the verb, it says to tell, order or ask.
Now this is important, why?
Go in your Bible to 1 Samuel chapter 1, 1 Samuel chapter number 1, and I'm going to show you
something here.
But the word pray in the Bible means ask.
They're interchangeable in fact.
But look at 1 Samuel chapter 1 verse 27, the Bible says, for this child I prayed
and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of him.
Notice what he called praying, asking.
Notice what he called it, a petition.
So it's a petition, it's asking, it's praying, it's all used interchangeably.
Go to John 16, again we're going down the folly.
He claims that the word call doesn't mean to pray, it means to invoke, okay, which
then it tries to basically support his idea that there's no verse in the Bible that
says to pray to be saved, which we've already read, we already understand is false.
We're just proving how stupid this truly is and how biblically ignorant this person is.
John chapter number 16, look at verse 26, the Bible says, at that day ye shall ask
in my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you.
So notice he says, hey, when you ask, it's like me praying.
Why?
Because it's the same word.
What does it mean to pray?
It means to ask.
What does it mean to ask?
It means to pray.
A lot of times in your Bible, people are just asking someone something politely and they
just say, I pray thee, tell me.
It's not like they're actually getting down and kneeling, it's just the word ask, okay.
Go if you would to 1 John, 1 John chapter number 5, 1 John chapter number 5, look at
verse 16, the Bible says, if any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto
death, he shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.
There is a sin unto death.
I do not say that he shall pray for it.
So notice he's saying, hey, when you ask for life for your brethren, that's praying for
it.
Why?
Because the word ask means pray.
So when I look up the definition of the word call and it says ask, but it doesn't
say invoke, you know what that tells me?
It's more similar to the word pray than it is to the word invoke.
But I'm going to prove to you that it actually means both, all right, because this
guy is just really a fool at this point.
I looked up the word invoke in multiple dictionaries, I could never find it.
But then finally, I thought of this and I was like, well, sometimes people go to the
1828 Merriam-Webster, just because that's like one of the oldest dictionaries, even
though that's pretty far removed from 1611, okay.
But I looked up in the 1828 Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word call, it does have
the word invoke.
It says this, to invoke or appeal, it's the 12th definition.
So the 12th one down, it says to invoke.
And many of the other ones are to make a request, to ask, so it's very similar, but it does
have to invoke.
In that same one, it says to ask or to request is another definition of the word
call.
In another place, it says to call on.
So it's defining the word call in the 1828 Merriam-Webster dictionary.
It says invoke is a possible definition.
It then also gives you examples of how call is used in a sentence.
And so to use it with other phrasing, it says to call on.
So when the word call is used, to call on, this is what it means.
It says, in a theological sense, to pray.
And then it says as, and it gives an example, to call on the name of the Lord.
So if you're going to use the 1828 to find the invoke as being different than pray,
pretty big failure there, all right.
Well, then I looked up the word invoke in the 1828 Merriam-Webster dictionary, all right.
This is what it says.
This is the definition of invoke in the 1828 Merriam-Webster dictionary, to address
in prayer.
I mean, you can't even make this stuff up.
I mean, it's saying the word invoke means prayer.
Why?
Because it's the same thing, okay.
Invoke, pray, ask, call upon, it's all the same.
It's just like the difference between believe and faith.
If someone were to say, you don't believe in Jesus, you have faith in Jesus.
You're like, it's the same thing, you moron.
Okay.
Oh, no, it's trusting in Jesus, it's not faith in Jesus.
It's like it's different ways to word the exact same thing.
To call upon, to ask, to pray.
And this is the type of scholarship you get from people that start attacking the Bible.
When people start attacking the Bible, this is their type of scholarship.
Oh, the thing you don't understand that word means to invoke.
It's like when people start trying to tell you the difference between everlasting and
eternal.
It's like, you just can't reason with these type of people, unfortunately.