Oops, guess I can't edit, but here is my reply
BibleBeliever - I find Ray's methods to be good. It's nothing new, as he himself claims, but he has made it popular, along with his pal Kirk Cameron. The presentation of the gospel is clear and biblical. As biblical as you can get. The Law, followed by Grace of God.
The two major problems I see with Ray's ministry as it stands today is this
i) His invitation is unbiblical. It is not simply "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" but focuses heavily on repentance, and puts repentance as an action, or work (although many will deny that). It makes salvation relative.
I have learnt something recently. In my endeavours to combat Lordship Salvation, I almost disregarded repentance completely, but have come to see that we must repent from SIN, not sinS. We have a sin nature, and we need to repent of that. We must come to God admitting we are sinners, and we have sinned, and can do nothing without Him. However, Ray's repentance is "God, I repent of my sins (name some of them)".
Now, what if the believer goes and does that very same sin again? Maybe it's something gross, like drunkenness, or fornication. Or maybe it's something like lying. They are all sins. So we have this dilemman in Romans 7, where the believer sincerely desires to be rid of their sin, but have been told things like "until they repent of it they cannot be saved" and they can't stop sinning until they get saved, so they remain either lost, or they are saved with confusion and doubts, and are useless either way.
His invitation is unbiblical
ii) His ministry is one of many ministries that have popped up recently that focus on DOUBT.
Basically, Ray's ministry, along with John MacArthur, Paul Washer and a bunch of others, have built up a ministry of doubt.
If you are saved by the blood and know it, they want you to not know it.
Instead of encouraging believers to simply examine ourselves to see if we are in God's will and in the faith (which is not calling into question our salvation at all), they tell believers to continually examine themselves, AND everybody else to see if they are saved. It's not enough to believe in the atonement of the blood of Christ. They claim things like "If you are not continually repenting every day, you are on your way to hell" - Paul Washer.
Their entire ministry is a ministry of doubt. Three of Macarthur's books that I know of are all about this - "The Gospel according to Jesus", "Hard to Believe - the High Cost and Infinite value of following Jesus" and "Faith Works".
Don't get me wrong, I understand the sincerity behind there position. They see the quick prayerism crowd (and I think they are wrong too), and have tried to combat it, but in doing so, have taken the opposite end of the field.
While quick prayerism removes any notion to doing any good works as evidence of salvation, lordship salvationists remove discipleship, growing in grace, the freeness of salvation etc.
|