One of the greatest heresies

If you haven't seen the Paul Washer videos, then you need to watch them. If you watched part of them and then got offended by what he was saying, then you need to see the rest, do some research and find out if what he is saying is true. I'll bet that you'll find that what he's saying is the truth, even if you don't want to. You'll also notice that he likes to point out one of the greatest heresies in his sermons.

One of the greatest heresies that Christians teach is that if you pray a prayer to God then you will be saved, forever. This is wrong. Anyone can pray, but there are few that actually mean it. In James 2:14-20 it says, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?" If you pray and you don't have faith or works, then you cant be saved. By praying that prayer it is like having faith without works, and works without faith.

I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer. He said that a lot of preachers these days give 30 minute sermons, and 25 of those 30 minutes sermons are funny stories, finally after they finish their last five of minutes of their sermon, they ask people to pray and become Christians. Those people who pray probably weren't getting saved. They just thought that if they prayed they might look good, or maybe they thought they were getting saved and that was their first sermon, they ever heard. I must say though, if they did get saved then God was really working in their hearts, because there is no way someone can get saved after hearing 25 minutes of jokes, and a small 5 minutes sermon. When I heard Paul Washer preach on that it actually reminded me of one of my the old churches I went to.