I
was born in the southern suburbs of Chicago where my father was starting a
church. I could never begin to remember when I first heard the gospel of Jesus
Christ. My mother tells me that she explained the story of Christ to me while I
was still in the hospital. Of course I have no recollection of that(!), but from
my earliest days, when I was still so very impressionable, I knew it was right
and good to love and obey God. And I knew that Christ was the only savior of
sinners. My parents taught me in the ways of God, and it was in every respect a
Christian home - one for which I am eternally grateful.
My earliest
memory is from age two, in 1960, when we moved to Bartonville, IL - a suburb of
Peoria, where my father was called as pastor of the Oak Grove Baptist Church. I
heard him preach every Sunday and every Wednesday since before I could
understand. In those days he gave an altar call after he preached. It was
never the extreme practice of so many, but I saw many, many people step forward
to talk to him about their spiritual concerns. It never really moved me much -
the preaching or the altar calls - but somehow I knew that I too needed to do
business with God. I knew it, but the thought really never bothered me
either. I recall talking about these things in general terms with my parents in
conversation, but I do not recall ever feeling lost. It was something I guess I
knew, because I had heard it preached well enough and often enough, but somehow
the thought just never bothered me. I did not rebel against it - in fact I would
have told you in my childish terms that I had a very favorable disposition
toward God and Christ and the Church and all that. But so far as my personal
lostness was concerned, it was something I guess I would have admitted if asked,
but I do not recall it bothering me.
I do recall one day my dad asking
me, "Fred, when are you going to be saved?" Wisely, he never pushed me for any
kind of decision, and the conversation did not continue more than just that
moment or so. But it did get my attention. Sort of. At least it got me to think
about the issue a bit. But I really was not all that bothered by
it.
Until one day in 1964 - a Sunday morning, while my dad was preaching
- I all of a sudden knew and felt that if I died I would perish in hell and
deservedly so. Understand, I was only 6 years old, but I was suddenly and
unexpectedly overwhelmed - crushed with an awful sense of my lostness. For the
first time ever I saw my need of a Savior, and I knew that only Jesus would do.
Only He had died for sinners, and only He could save me. And that day I began to
look to Him. When the congregation stood to sing the "invitation hymn," I
turned to my mother and asked if she would walk with me to the front. Before she
could put the hymnal in the rack I had gone. I was desperate. I was shaken and
torn to the deepest part of my soul. And that morning I knelt and did business
with God. I told him I was lost. I told him I needed to be saved. I cannot
emphasize enough how desperate and crushed and broken I felt. I understood and
felt that I was lost. In later years I became acquainted with the Biblical
doctrine of "irresistible grace." My own experience was such that I had no
trouble understanding the doctrine, and I could scarcely have even questioned it
- it matched my experience all too well. God had made me feel desperate, and no
one in the world could ever have kept me back from going to Him. That morning
I ran to Christ with all of my might. I knew that if I did not have Him as
my Savior I would perish. With tears and with faith I begged God for mercy. I
acknowledged in the words of a six-year-old my spiritual poverty and asked him
to save me. I laid myself before Him in complete brokenness and submission. I
knew and felt that I deserved hell, and I cried for rescue. I do not set up my
experience as a model for anyone, but my conversion to Christ was the most
dramatic moment of my entire life, and I have never got over it. God had
overwhelmed me with the most awful sense of sin and judgment. And then, in a
moment, he overwhelmed me with a great sense of His love and grace - and with a
sense of my new-found safety in Jesus Christ. I went home with a solid and
happy assurance of my good standing in Christ - a confidence which (I say this
honestly) has never been shaken to this day. I didn't know much theology at
that point - I was only six! But I knew that Jesus Christ was my Savior, and I
knew that with Him I was safe and would be safe forever. God had saved me, and I
knew it. And I was one very, very, very happy boy. Such a powerful sense of the
love of God was so poured out in my heart and so filled it to overflowing, that
it was more than a match for that awful sense of lostness. The subject of
Christian joy has never been difficult for me to grasp at all. Ever after that
day when I would read or hear from the Scriptures that statement about a
Christian's "first love," I knew very well what it meant, even if I could not
explain it. I cannot say it too strongly - when God saved me, he made me know
it. And I loved it. I loved Him, and I knew He loved me.
And it was
this experience, which I never got over, that God used to call me to
preach. From as far back as I remember - before even a serious thought of
preaching - the line from Wm. Cooper's hymn has been a favorite -
"E'er
since by faith I saw the stream,
Redeeming wounds supply,
Redeeming love
has been my theme,
And shall be till I die."
I am almost embarrassed
to talk like this, because it seems to many so unbelievable that a
six-year-old boy could experience all this and think like this. But I
knew on that Sunday morning that my entire existence had been changed - my whole
outlook, my whole life, my whole being was different. I had been born again.
I had new life. I was a new creation in Christ. All these Biblical
expressions were after that day immediately understandable for me, even if not
explainable. Things would never be the same. I would never be the same, and I
knew it. I had fallen in love with Christ. In that moment He became my unrivaled
treasure.
>>
Isn't that a beautiful conversion story?
But can you imagine, in your wildest imagination, that this same
Brother Zaspel is now preaching and teaching against "the altar
call," or what is known as the "invitation"? He was saved during an
invitation, but now he is against them!
I printed out Brother Zaspel's article
against invitations and read it recently, and it is surely a "speckled bird" in
contrast to the above account of how he was saved -- saved during an
invitation -- and yet in his article against invitations he alleges that an
invitation "offers no help at all but ONLY HARM"!
Most of the
arguments Brother Zaspel sets forth for his post-conversion opposition to the
public invitation I have already commented upon in a former article in which I
replied to similar arguments, ALLEGED DANGERS OF "INVITATIONS" [04/23/04],
so I will not be repetitive on those. However, I do wish to comment on just
a few items in Bro. Zaspel's article.
(1) He apparently has become an
advocate of the "pre-faith regeneration" theory. This seems to be the
essence of his following remarks:
>>
Man "dead" in sins must be brought to life by God before He
can do anything at all that is of spiritual good (Ephesians 2:1-5). These who
believe unto salvation first were born of God (John 1:12-13).
>>
This is the same notion we have been refuting in
our articles concerning James White. It is the same theory taught by
Louis Berkhof and some other pedobaptists and has been adopted by some
"reformed" Baptists. It is also taught by Hardshell Baptists. This theory has
the lost sinner born again before he ever experiences the power of the Gospel
applied by the Holy Spirit in the creation of faith. It has the sinner being
a regenerated unbeliever.
There is no such creature. The one born
of God is the believer, and one not born of God is the unbeliever (1 John 5:1).
There is no such thing as an unregenerated believer, nor a regenerated
unbeliever. When the Holy Spirit blesses the Gospel unto the creation of
faith, then one has been born again, and not before. He that believes has
life, and the unbeliever does not have life.
I think this "pre-faith
regeneration" theory may lie at the root of Brother Zaspel's repudiation of the
public invitation. He may have been sidetracked by reading Berkhof, or Sproul,
or some other pedobaptist or semi-Pelagian who teaches that "command implies
ability."
(2) He also misrepresents the views of Spurgeon. While
Spurgeon had some remarks to make against some of the excesses, abuses, and
misuses of various methods used in his day, he never once repudiated the
"invitation system," raising hands, going to inquiry rooms, or the such
like.
Brother Zaspel claims that Spurgeon "often warned against the
invitation system." If he did, I have never read it. I have recently cited
several instances of Spurgeon's views and practices on this matter, and to my
knowledge he never once rejected either one or all methods of a public
response to the Gospel. I have shown, for example, how he came to the
defense of the evangelism of D. L. Moody.
(3) Brother Zaspel alleges that
"Saving faith is not a decision that is made." The fact is, Brother
Zaspel himself has given a testimony of his own conversion wherein he surely
made a "decision." In his testimony he says, "For the first time ever I saw
my need of a Savior, and I knew that only Jesus would do. Only He had died for
sinners, and only He could save me. And that day I began to look to
Him."
Then he asked his own mother to go forward with him: "When the
congregation stood to sing the 'invitation hymn,' I turned to my mother and
asked if she would walk with me to the front. Before she could put the hymnal in
the rack I had gone. I was desperate. I was shaken and torn to the deepest part
of my soul. And that morning I knelt and did business with God. I told him I was
lost. I told him I needed to be saved. I cannot emphasize enough how desperate
and crushed and broken I felt. I understood and felt that I was
lost."
Now, if that was not the most important series of
"decisions" Brother Zaspel ever made in his own life, it is beyond my
comprehension of what it was. As much as he now has a distaste for the word
"decision," HE MADE SOME DECISIONS! He decided he was lost; he decided he
needed to be saved; he decided to ask his Mom to go with him to the front; he
decided to do business with God, etc. Under the powerful influence of the Word
of God and the Holy Spirit, he made the decision of his life and
eternity!
And how Brother Zaspel can now read Spurgeon and somehow
close his eyes to Spurgeon's emphasis upon decision is surely an enigma. Has he
never read where Spurgeon preached on "An Urgent Request for an Immediate
Answer" (Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit, Volume 37, #2232), and he says, "Well," says one, "I am glad you
have spoken to us; I will think it over." "No, friend," Spurgeon admonishes, "I
do not mean that. I do not want you to think it over. You have had enough of
thinking; I pray that God's Spirit may lead you to AN IMMEDIATE DECISION."
Did not Brother Zaspel feel the need of an IMMEDIATE DECISION, so
strongly that he "ran to Christ," as he also says further on in his
testimony?
You read that sermon by Spurgeon, Brother Zaspel, and then
tell me that Spurgeon did not believe in the need for an IMMEDIATE DECISION to
accept the Gospel and be saved.
Shame on you, Brother Zaspel! for
repudiating the very method -- the public invitation -- by which the Lord
in His wise Providence chose to extend to you his "irresistible grace" and bring
you to make an eternal decision to run to Christ for salvation!
But you
need not feel like the Long Ranger, Brother Zaspel. If you will ask around, I
suspect that you will find that a whole lot of your anti-invitation brethen
were also converted during a public invitation! -- Bob L. Ross
***************************************************************************
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