Frequently Asked Questions

“But isn’t prayer a work? I heard Colossians 4:12 and Romans 15:30 say praying is labouring.”

Let us look at those verses first.

That is a prayer which requires labour. But would you believe there are verses where the heart works too?

If you can condemn a sinner’s prayer because there are instances in the Bible where prayer is described as labour, then you have to condemn belief in the heart, because the Bible says the heart works just as much as a prayer can labour.

If both the heart and prayer are works, then how does anyone get saved? The logical conclusion is that no one can meet the standard and everyone must be saved regardless, which is universalism.

I will not state it about every argument raised on this page, but the major objections to the sinner’s prayer that we have gone over here lead to universalism when taken to their logical conclusion.

“But what about Matthew 9:21?”

The King James Bible always specifies between internal and external speech. Notice: within herself.

Paul explicitly in Romans 10:8–10 hammers the point that it is a physical action.

The point being that yes, a person can speak within themselves — and the King James Bible, such as in Matthew 9:21 and similar verses using the phrase in his heart, always specifies whether a speech act is internal or external. Paul in Romans 10 constantly restates the physical action of a mouth, never qualifying it as internal.

I have made twelve Bible studies covering every verse in the Bible containing in his heart or heart and lips to demonstrate that this distinction is consistent throughout Scripture.

“Didn’t Peter Ruckman change his position on the sinner’s prayer later in life?”

No, he did not. Any “proof” you will find for this claim relies on taking his quotes about confession or the blood or a letter entirely out of context, deceptively editing his sermon videos, or using fabricated quotes.

There are hundreds of hours of recorded footage of Dr. Ruckman preaching the necessity of the sinner’s prayer. I have personally created video compilations proving this from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, alongside footage of him teaching it right up into the 2010s.

The person who popularized the idea that Dr. Ruckman “changed” is Robert Breaker (pastor of the Cloud Church). His greatest “proof” for this claim is that his father audited classes at PBI in the late 70s and early 80s, and that he himself attended from 1995 to 1998.

We have hours of full, unedited video documentation of Dr. Ruckman preaching the sinner’s prayer throughout both of those exact decades. The empirical video evidence proves the narrative is false.

“What about people who trust in a prayer to save them rather than in the death, burial, and resurrection, with the prayer simply being how to receive that?”

That is sad and it is a problem, but it is a soulwinning problem. What is a soulwinning problem should not become a theological doctrine.

Consider this: if someone is presented with the Milton Gospel and instead of trusting Christ, they simply acknowledge the facts about his blood, remove the sinner’s prayer and you will still have people not believing what they should. The problem is the soulwinner, not the method.

You might respond to that by saying:

Exactly. And a soulwinner who preaches the two conditions of Romans 10:9 can clarify to a soul that they must believe and receive. Belief without receiving cannot get you the gift of salvation, and claiming the gift without faith cannot save you either.

You have to believe and receive.

“Why does Romans 10 matter so much? Doesn’t God know what is in the heart?”

God explicitly said Romans 10:8–13 and 2 Timothy 2:22.

The Lord inspired Paul to write the instructions of a physical mouth and faith in your heart.

Christ said in Matthew 4:4:

The Lord Jesus himself said every word matters.

1 Samuel 16:7 is a great verse, but God explicitly said the mouth, and with what Christ Jesus said, every word counts.

God said the mouth and heart, and it is a strict order from God.

A great illustration of why every word counts is how the fall from Eden occurred.

This is how Satan removes a word of God.

Eve changed God saying “thou shalt not eat of it” to “neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die,” when God never made a rule about touching. And God said “thou shalt surely die,” which Satan changed to “ye shall not surely die.”

Every word of God matters, whether it is the word “mouth” or the words “thou shalt surely die.”

“But what about the people who do not feel saved when they believe and do a prayer?”

My heart goes out to those people, but let us make it clearer.

If you have doubts about your salvation, you likely have anxiety. And from someone who has a family history of anxiety: your brain finds things to be anxious about.

If we had a verifiable way to say someone was or was not saved, the brain of the anxious person who was believing and praying would then find something else to worry about.

Peter Ruckman documented Robert Breaker going around America and saying that if you doubt your salvation, you have never really been saved.

That is a devastating thing to tell an anxious person who did not choose their anxiety. You want to talk about someone who is hurting anxious people? Him.

There is an idea in Christianity that when you are saved you are supposed to feel something, but nowhere in the Scriptures does it state that you will feel different upon salvation.

In the words of Dr. Ruckman, addressing the idea that salvation must produce an immediate feeling:

“Feeling, that is not even connected, that is not the root, that is the fruit.”

Dr. Ruckman

Let us say you purely teach no vocal Romans 10:9 and it is purely internal to an anxious person. They would then feel anxiety about whether they truly believed or not. Anxiety will be there whether they vocally asked God to save them or purely assented to it.

I agree that most pastors are not properly equipped to deal with an anxious person, however do not throw the baby out with the bathwater and condemn Romans 10:9.

What is a pastoral problem should not become a theological problem.

Most people and institutions do not know how to handle anxiety, and I mean anxiety the mental disorder, which is who we are discussing.

If you feel anxiety, I truly feel sorry for you and here is my advice.

You need something to redirect your anxiety. Go soulwinning, evangelizing, spreading tracts, something to occupy yourself so that your salvation is not all you are thinking about. It really helps when you start working for God.

“But what if I have been working for God and it does not help?”

Anxiety is merciless. What works for some does not work for everyone.

Please watch this video from Dr. Ruckman where he gives assurance of salvation.

If you go to a church, ask the pastor to help assure you that you are saved after an altar call. Show the pastor a resource about anxiety and how it works.

I am not endorsing secular psychology as a framework for understanding the soul. I am sharing it so that pastors and loved ones can understand what is happening in the brain of an anxious person so they can help rather than harm.

Watch it yourself too if you do not understand why anxiety works the way it does.

The following is from Don Nesbitt at his YouTube channel w46try7, and it is good advice.

“1) Try to win OTHERS. 2) Realize that a lost man does not care if he is saved, has no split nature within him struggling, has no genuine taste for truly spiritual things. 3) Believe what you read in Paul’s epistles to the church. If you did what it SAID, then either God is lying, or you are calling Him a liar. 4) Do not apply things in the Bible to yourself, such as most of James or Hebrews, that do not apply to you.”

Don Nesbitt, w46try7

“What about the mute? They cannot vocally confess.”

God has them in a special exemption, but the exception does not form the rule.

Mentally disabled people with Down Syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, and similar conditions cannot mentally comprehend the gospel enough to be held accountable. In the same way that a baby cannot be held accountable.

Does that mean because mentally disabled individuals cannot believe the gospel, no one should believe?

You cannot condemn a vocal reading of Romans 10:9 due to the mute, because if you take that to its logical conclusion, it teaches universalism, because you have to condemn belief for the mentally disabled who cannot believe.

God has special favour towards certain groups: the fatherless and widows.

Is God a father to a man who has an earthly father in the same way he is to the fatherless?

Is God a judge to a married woman in the same way he is to a widow?

God forms special rules and exemptions towards the outliers: the fatherless and widows.

The special rules and exemptions cannot apply to the standard.

The non-mute and non-mentally disabled are the standard. The man with an earthly father and the married woman are the standard.

When you start applying the exception to the rule, the end result is a universalism where anyone can get to Heaven and Christ is not the way, the truth, and the life.

To restate it more clearly: Jesus Christ is the door. There are some people who cannot physically reach that door, such as the mute, and there are some people who cannot walk through that door, such as the mentally disabled. Does that mean we should say there are many doors aside from Christ? No.

The average person is held accountable to the two conditions of Romans 10:9: believe and physically say the Lord Jesus.

God gives grace and special provisions to those who need it, whether the mute or the mentally disabled, but you do not need those provisions if you are able to believe and vocally use your mouth.

“Isn’t God giving grace to the mute two plans of salvation?”

The mentally disabled cannot believe in God. They cannot believe in the Milton Gospel.

Do you believe they will burn in hell?

No?

Why? Because you believe God gives them grace. If you say that God does not damn the mentally disabled to hell and they are an exemption to believing, you are a hypocrite to say there are two plans of salvation when we apply that same exemption to the mute.