12. Chapter 11: The Plan Of Salvation According To Ray Comfort And Kirk Cameron

Chapter 11 The Plan Of Salvation According To Ray Comfort And Kirk Cameron

According to the Way Of The Master Website, Ray Comfort is a best-selling author of many books and is a co-host of a bible-centered television program along with actor Kirk Cameron. He is a sought-after speaker who lectures in various venues across the country. Kirk Cameron is a well-known actor that most people in the US will recognize from his role on the hit show “Growing Pains.” Kirk admits to being an atheist before his conversion to Christianity. Together, both Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron form a powerful team that asks many thought-provoking questions about the topic of God’s holiness, mankind’s sinfulness, and the wrath of God to come. Foremost to their credit is their ability to reason with people in such a way as to get them to admit by their own volition that they are, in fact, guilty of crimes before a holy God in a very compelling and effective manner. I applaud them wholeheartedly for their ability to get lost people to see their own sinfulness and to see their great need of a savior; however, the purpose of this chapter is to show you beyond any doubt that the plan of salvation they present to lost people is not found in the bible and cannot be substantiated or defended by any verse in the bible. I will accomplish this by first presenting to you a paraphrased version of the plan of salvation according to Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron and secondly by presenting to you what Jesus Christ says about salvation. Let us now examine some of the characteristics of their plan of salvation by clicking on the link entitled “Are you a GOOD person?” on their Way of the Master Website. When you click upon the “Are you a GOOD person” link on the Way of the Master homepage, you will be presented with a slide show about salvation. On the first slide the question of whether or not you are good enough to go to heaven is raised. To find out if you are good enough, you must click “continue” in order to go to the next slide. On slide two, we are asked if we have obeyed all of the Ten Commandments. On slide three, a commandment is given and you are to choose “guilty” if you have broken it or “innocent” if you have kept it. Then, the series of slides in the show ask whether or not you have broken or kept each one of the Ten Commandments. As a side note, let me just say that this technique is brilliant in terms of getting a lost person to see his or her sinfulness. Now, as the slide show moves on, we are told of God’s holiness and that the place of eternal punishment for all liars, murderers and rapists is hell. On the last slide we are shown that God is rich in mercy and in compassion and that He does not want anyone to perish in hell. We are told that God wants to give us the free gift of everlasting life, that He has a free pardon for us all, that we cannot earn it, and that we do not deserve it. We are told that God commands us to repent and turn away from sin, to desire to have nothing to do with sin, and to surrender your life to the one who can save you. We are told that if we confess and forsake our sins (repent) and trust in Jesus to be our “Savior” and our “Lord” that God will forgive us and save us. We are then urged again to turn away from sin and to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ. The salvation prayer they suggest that we pray says to actually name all of your sins and then trust Christ as our “Lord” and “Savior,” the implication always being that, if you do not follow what they say to do, you will not make it to heaven. That, reader, is the plan of salvation according to Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. In just a moment I will provide you with the plan of salvation according to Jesus, the Author of Salvation Himself, and you will see that the aforementioned plan offered to us by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron differs significantly from the plan of salvation that is offered to us by Christ Himself.

Before I do, I would like to share some relevant and interesting information with you.

After I trusted Christ as my only hope of reaching heaven, I wanted to tell the “world” exactly how easy it really was to be saved. I inadvertently ended up making a hobby out of hunting down and challenging Internet ministries that advertise a false gospel message on their Internet sites. As a result of this venture, I gained a lot of needed education in terms of witnessing to people during this time because I encountered every type of personality imaginable while doing so, but through it all, God granted me a fearlessness in terms of witnessing to people both over the Internet and face-to-face, as well, because the plan of salvation according to Jesus Christ is the best news anybody will ever hear in their entire lifetime. Plus, it’s the only message that will actually save anyone. Knowing the truth of what Jesus Christ said regarding His gift of everlasting life will make you bold, too, so if you believe His message, be prepared because He just might end up using “you” to tell others of His free gift just like I am doing, today. Well, one day, I found a great page about salvation on the Internet. The fellow is born again, and the true plan of salvation is easily seen on his site. Thrilled by what I had found, I contacted the owner and we began a pen pal friendship. His Internet site is massive, with many links to different pages as well as other sites. I found one very interesting link about everlasting life, clicked on it, and was immediately taken to Ray Comfort’s “Living Waters” site. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. So, I wrote my new friend, who is born again, this very same note you are about to read:

“I need your prayers. I appreciate your statement of faith, too; but you have a link on your resource page that takes you to a man who promotes salvation by ‘works.’ How, how, how can you allow their link on your site when everything they say is in direct conflict with what Jesus Christ said concerning salvation? You must remove their link from your site, else, you are in conjunction with a counterfeit gospel that cannot save anyone — you are giving home to blasphemy — you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy — Living Waters’ salvation stance is directly opposite of Ephesians 2:8-9. Christ said in John 6:40 that the will of the Father is for everyone that recognizes the Son as the Messiah and believes on Him alone will have everlasting life — in John 6:47 Christ said, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on Me has everlasting life.’ Notice there are no works here. Ray and Kirk are calling God the Father a LIAR with their false gospel. You must remove it.” About a day later, my friend wrote me back in complete agreement. He put up a page on his site that condemned the false plan of salvation according to Ray Comfort. The plan of salvation according to Ray Comfort and his cohort Kirk Cameron defines repentance incorrectly. In the most elemental sense possible, their plan of salvation is based upon an academic flaw. Repent, as Christ meant it to be in terms of salvation, means to change your mind from trusting in what you can do for God to trusting only in what He can do for you. Neither of these gentlemen use the original Greek meaning of the word for repent which is metanoia. As defined in the Greek language, metanoia is “meta”(change) and “noia”(mind). Metanoia is simply a “change of mind.” That is all it means. Nothing else is added to it. If someone says it means a change of mind about bananas, they would be wrong. If a crafty pastor who claims salvation is by faith “plus” works and deeds of the law (under the clever guise of “committing your life to Christ”) says that metanoia means a change of mind about sin, he would be wrong. Metanoia, by itself, simply means a “change of mind.” When Christ used the word “repent” He was always referring to “a change of mind.” In proper context, Christ used “a change of mind” to refer to what people were trusting in to get them to heaven. Jesus would tell people to “change their minds” from keeping all the established laws of righteousness to instead trust upon Him alone in terms of Him being the sin-bearer, that He would “solve” the problem of sin once and for all by His death and subsequent resurrection from the dead. You see, Christ took care of the sin problem. When we, in any way whatsoever, attempt to remedy the problem of sin by turning our backs on it, forsaking it, or promising God that we will quit certain things that we know bring Him grief, we are essentially telling Christ that our faith in His death and resurrection from the grave is “not enough” to save us. If there was any way at all we could save ourselves by our works and behavioral changes, Christ may not have had to die on that cross; however, we know that God says in Romans 6:23 that the “wages of sin is death.” That means one sin, such as a small lie, condemns us to the spiritual “death penalty.” And because the wages, or payment, for that small lie is death, the “only way” we could pay for it is to be cast into the eternal lake of fire. We “cannot” pay for a single sin by promising God we will change our behaviors, or by “turning from sins.” It will not erase the “death sentence” that God has passed upon sin. For us to be able to enter into God’s heaven, we must be “as righteous” as God is righteous. In no way can our works, deeds, discipleship or promises ever make us “as righteous as God.” That is precisely why we need a “savior” and that is precisely why Comfort and Cameron’s plan of salvation will not work — it is not the gospel message of the bible; therefore, it is counterfeit. But that is not to say that these are not good men, for they are good men. They are moral, they espouse many biblical doctrines correctly, and they are masters at getting people to see their sinful natures before a holy and righteous God; however, because of one academic flaw — the misinterpretation of the word repent — their plan of salvation does not match with the plan of salvation that Christ offers to us in the bible.

According to many verses in the bible, especially those warnings God gave to us through Paul in the book of Galatians, you should never listen to anyone’s message that runs counter to the message given to us by Christ, and you should never attend a church where the pastor tells the flock that they must add works of discipleship to faith in Christ’s “finished work” as the way to enter heaven. That’s exactly the reason why I no longer attend any of the local churches in my current hometown. The other churches here are either Catholic, who equate Mary as being equal to Jesus, or Jehovah’s Witnesses’ churches that deny the deity of Christ, as well as other non-believing apostate churches which have rewritten the bible to suit their needs for power and dominance. Please do not misunderstand me. These are “good people” and they would give you the shirts from off of their backs. They are all wonderful people, but they have been deceived by unbiblical plans of salvation, and unless they “change their minds” and trust Christ alone as their savior, they have no hope. Believer, it’s people like you and me who have to reach them.

Christ told His disciples that in the last days churches would not adhere to His doctrines, mainly that of salvation, which is by faith alone in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection from the grave, alone. He paid for our sins. We cannot pay for our sins. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). When a pastor says that in order to be saved we must first repent of our sins and then ask Christ into our heart, I want to stand up and quote verses from Christ’s own words that refute such satanic-inspired flaws because Christ never, never, never said to quit sinning or to ask Him into your heart. The bible says the OPPOSITE of what 95 percent of these pastors tell us, today. First of all, the bible never tells anyone to stop sinning in order to be saved, nor does it tell us to be willing to stop sinning in order to be saved. That is a LIE because God never said to stop sinning. The phrase “repent of sin” is not even in the Bible, nor is it ever implied when it comes to salvation through faith in Christ. These are clever lies of Satan designed to provide people with a heavenly way to go to the eternal lake of fire with him and his fallen angels.

Christ said we must be born again, and to be born again, according to Him, we must believe that He paid for “your sins” and for “my sins” when He died on the cross. On that cross, He paid for your sin, for my sin, for Hitler’s sins, for everybody’s sins. When we realize that we are hell-bound without Jesus, and when we realize that we are sinners who cannot enter heaven based upon any combination of faith in Christ “plus” how we live our lives, all we can do is simply believe that Jesus paid for all of our sins by His death and subsequent resurrection from the grave, and when we do, friend, He erases our sins and then credits us with His righteousness. That is salvation. It’s easy...it’s too easy...yet, that’s how God the Father designed salvation to be. To “not” believe that His Son is our savior is to call God the Father a LIAR, and that’s exactly what 95 percent of today’s pastors all over America are doing, daily. They are calling God a LIAR. It makes me sick, and that’s why I’m writing a book about today’s so-called “great” pastors who nobody else seems willing to stand up and challenge. For me to attend a church where I know the gospel message of Christ has been deliberately mangled so that it cannot save a lost person, or to present myself to a body of so-called believers and passively sit by while the pastor lies to his congregation, it would be tantamount to my giving an endorsement of his flawed doctrines.

I cannot sit in any of these churches in my current home town because none of them believe what God said about Jesus. No. It’s better to stay at home; in fact, our very first president, George Washington, said that it’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. In fact, the bible tells true believers to never give money to a false ministry and to never wish an unbeliever “Godspeed.” Now, since Jesus is, in fact, God the Son, He, with an authority equal to that of God the Father’s authority, says most strongly the following truth: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47). Reader, if quitting sinning and making Him the Lord of your life were a part of the equation He would have told us so, outright, but He did not. Salvation is “free” yet the church down the road, and the cults down the road, too, both in your town and in my town, all say that we must live the Christian Lifestyle PLUS have faith in Christ, or in Mary, or a combination of faith in Him or her PLUS all the good works we can do in order to get to heaven. It’s a LIE of Satan. Christ said that in the days before He raptures His body of true believers from this world, before the rise of the anti-Christ, that there would be many, many liars concerning salvation. Although Comfort and Cameron are good men who sincerely believe in what they are doing, they have been hooked in the jaws by a flawed definition of repentance by a lure like fish on the end of a master angler’s pole. They’ve bitten the counterfeit bait that appeared so real to their hungered souls, and as they are being reeled in by the father of lies himself, they are telling everyone else to bite into the bait that they themselves have eaten, yet, they still have not come to the realization that the lure they have bitten cannot nourish them, because it contains no life-giving power. Our government has invested millions of dollars into equipment capable of identifying counterfeit money. The problem with counterfeit currency is that it looks “so real” that nobody can tell the difference. It takes special machines to be able to spot fake money, today, because crooks are becoming better and better with each passing day at being able to fool the government with counterfeit money.

Similarly, today’s false plans of salvation are becoming more and more harder to detect. Today’s false plans of salvation are very beautiful, they have great appeal to a lonely person’s innermost needs, and they do satisfy to some degree one’s deepest longings for a relationship with Jesus Christ. But because they differ from the plan of salvation that Christ provides, they are wrong, because there is only one gospel message according to the bible.

Reader, if you trust the plan of salvation offered to you by anyone other than Christ Himself, you will not make it to heaven. If you instead trust what Christ has said about salvation, He will save you eternally the same instant that you trust in Him alone. For those who place their trust in a counterfeit plan of salvation, such as the counterfeit plan I have presented to you in this chapter, you can expect to meet Christ as your “judge” rather than as your “savior” at the Great White Throne Judgement. Look at what Jesus has to say to all of those who placed only partial faith in Him and the rest of their faith in living the “Christian Lifestyle” as their means to gain entrance into heaven:

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23). From there, all who have trusted in counterfeit forms of the gospel will be sent to the lake of fire.

“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11-15). Who will you choose to believe, reader, when it comes to where you will spend your eternal destiny? Will you choose the words of men, or will you choose the words of Jesus Christ? This, of course, is up to you.