What is the Second Biggest Mistake Made by Christian Evangelists?

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What is the Second Biggest Mistake Made by Christian Evangelists ?

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**Confessing One’s Sins Directly to God

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Code: 
  *Now some might point out the spiritual mistake of not believing or living the Gospel before trying to share it. Or they might point out the spiritual mistake of not preparing by frequent reception of the Sacraments and by offering prayer and sacrifice (to make holy) beforehand. Or they might point out the sin of omission of not even bothering to try to share the faith. However, in this article I am limiting my discussion to just linguistic mistakes of how one expresses oneself. *
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Some - “Catholics” and Protestants - will ignore a Catholic priest and claim that they confess their sins “directly to God” or “straight to God.” This I believe is the second biggest linguistic mistake. The only one that I know of that is bigger is the following.**

Most Catholic apologists (all that I know of) make the HUGE mistake of assuming that these phrases of going “directly to God” or “straight to God” appropriately describe what the Protestant is doing.

How straight or direct can I go to God using only my own abilities ?
What can I do perfectly ?
Should I arrogantly assume that my understanding of how I am to receive God’s forgiveness is God’s way, or do I search out to discover His Way and what He has Instituted and come to know what He has revealed ?

If I want to excel at anything I need all the help of God’s grace that I can get. The more grace I get the more “direct” and the “straighter” my path to Him can become.

**The Protestant response, “that I go directly to God” is an answer to the question of “What do I do?” A more humble question is to ask, “What does God do?” The second question is much more important because what God does is always more important than what we do.
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God comes to us in many ways and through many different people. So the question is, “Do I want to receive all the grace that He wishes to share and give to me through others?”

It would be arrogant or at least foolish for a person to assume that his way is God’s way. We need to search out and discover the Super Highways that He has built to aid us in our journey to go to Him and to grow closer to Him. The Sacraments are these highways. The Sacrament of Confession includes an Act of Contrition prayed to God as part of the Sacrament.

How can a person truly claim that he is going directly to God if he is rejecting the help that God died to give to him ?

The more of His grace that I receive - through the Sacrament of Confession and through the Priest that has been validly ordained - the more directly I can direct my steps toward God.

The Sacrament of Confession is the most direct way of taking our sins to God and receiving His forgiveness and His healing power because He instituted that Sacrament. If we ignore it we are ignoring His will and His way. And that would be a much less direct way of going to Him.

Often a Protestant - who while rejecting the Sacrament of Confession, or praying to Mary - justifies himself with the claim that he is going “directly to God” or “straight to God.” It is a huge mistake for the Catholic evangelist to fail to explicitly correct this mistaken claim.

Why is this error on the Catholic’s part so huge ?
There are several reasons why this mistake is so huge.

1. It wrongly confirms, at least in the mind of the Protestant (or non-Catholic), that the he is accurately describing his actions. He needs to hear the Catholic emphatically declare that he, the Protestant, is not going as direct or as straight as he thinks, and for the sake of his salvation he needs to investigate this further.

2. The Protestant is likely to think : Since I am going “directly to God” or “straight to God” there is no reason why I should even consider the Catholic position which is (sic) “obviously less direct and less expedient.”

3. It misses the opportunity to point out to the Protestant that he is making an assumption about what going “directly to God” or “straight to God” means. And consequently, he is unable to consider the possibility that his assumption might be wrong. A person cannot evaluate the validity of an assumption if He Does Not Even Know That He is Making an Assumption.

See Diagrams at
http://www.defendingthebride.com/direct/conf.html

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In each and every recorded incident in the scriptures, the sinner heard Jesus tell them “Your sins are forgiven” No bible Christian has ever heard those words, thus they assume their sins are forgiven. OK, so if their sins are forgiven, why do they participate in altar calls time and again? Where are altar calls in the bible? Where is the “sinner’s prayer”? Amd they accuse the Catholic Church of making things up. Saint Paul forgave sins in the person of Christ. Does pastor? If so, from where did he get that authority? Saint Paul told us that we have one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. Do they backdoor Jesus by ignoring Him and going “directly” to the Father? Just some questions that have no answers.
 
This was a very helpful post to me and I will remember these points in future discussions with protestants
 
po18guy said:
In each and every recorded incident in the scriptures, the sinner heard Jesus tell them “Your sins are forgiven” No bible Christian has ever heard those words, thus they assume their sins are forgiven. OK, so if their sins are forgiven, why do they participate in altar calls time and again? Where are altar calls in the bible? Where is the “sinner’s prayer”? Amd they accuse the Catholic Church of making things up. Saint Paul forgave sins in the person of Christ. Does pastor? If so, from where did he get that authority? Saint Paul told us that we have one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. Do they backdoor Jesus by ignoring Him and going “directly” to the Father? Just some questions that have no answers.
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Often the Evangelical will go up the front (altar call without the altar) and discuss “things” with an elder of the church who will then pray for them over that situation. I don’t get why that is okay, but the approach of the Catholic Church which is very historical is considered wrong. :confused:

If it is really just “direct to God” why is this even going on in Evangelical churches. Just stay where you are and go direct to God, in fact stay at home and go direct to God.
 
Darryl_B said:
Often the Evangelical will go up the front (altar call without the altar) and discuss “things” with an elder of the church who will then pray for them over that situation. I don’t get why that is okay, but the approach of the Catholic Church which is very historical is considered wrong. :confused:

If it is really just “direct to God” why is this even going on in Evangelical churches. Just stay where you are and go direct to God, in fact stay at home and go direct to God.
Click to expand...
The logical extension of this is that you have recited the sinner’s prayer and have accepted Jesus. Therefore, you need no bible and no church. It’s simply “Me and Jesus”
 
Thank you for sharing this beautiful post! 👍

If they were to ask us this question about ‘going directly to God’, we can reply: “Yes, I’m going directly to God - in the confessional!”

I did not appreciate the Sacrament of Reconciliation until recently. But after frequenting the sacrament, I do feel much closer to God. Salvation is a never ending process. Jesus died once on Calvary, that is true. But God is not bound by time and space, so His mercy is ever present. It’s not the priest who forgives sins, but rather, Christ Himself.

Confession itself is also difficult to do. You have to let down your guard, swallow your pride and let someone else into your deepest, darkest, most intimate side of you. How is that an easy way out or get out of jail free card? No-one who’s done an actual examination of conscience will tell you that!
 
Some other thoughts and approaches to this subject:

Since:
  1. God sent Nathan to David to condemn the latter’s sins …
    … and then forgive him in the name of God after David confessed his guilt
and since
  1. Jesus on the night of the Resurrection appeared to the apostles and conferred
    upon them the power to forgive (and retain!) sins …
Shouldn’t every Church claiming to be the real Church have this ministry?

(Actually, it’s about as it should be. As some Churches do not have apostolic succession and the seamless passing on of sacramental power from the Bishop to a newly ordained priest - it is well they don’t pretend to a power they don’t have.)

Going “directly to God …” in prayer and repenting immediately is not a bad idea. But it does not have to compete with the sacrament of reconciliation instituted by Jesus Himself. Jesus is the High Priest and can and did forgive sins while on Earth - but He has delegated the sacramental authority and ministry of forgiving sins to the priests. There are sacramental graces that can help keep one from sinning again. There is counsel should one confess in a sloppy or flippant manner.

Critiquing contemporary Catholicism (in a positive way), there should be more Confessions. Some Dioceses have millions of people in them, but the number of penitents coming to confessions during the narrow hours the sacrament is offered runs to the hundreds (only) sometimes. One or two priests for an hour and a half to hear a parish’s sins on a Saturday … what are the percentages? Are people so good that they are effortlessly resisting any and all mortal sins for long periods of time? 🙂 That’d be great if true. Or are they making many a sacrilegious reception of the Eucharist by expecting to be excused of their deadly sins without confession and piling sin upon sin?

"Confess your sins to one another " a counsel of James’ epistle; would seem to be best when that OTHER had the power to forgive your sins in the name of Jesus.

When faced with the “Isn’t Christ sufficient?” gambit from some inquisitors of Catholics,
it may be good to remind them that after Christ healed the 10 lepers he (for SOME reason(s) ) told them to “show themselves to the priests,” in keeping with the law though they had been healed prior to their arrival at the priests. And why did Jesus delegate the sin forgiving power to the apostles as Thing # 1 on Resurrection night?

People might make a bad, insincere, or a sloppy confession and NOT get called on it I suppose. And it’s possible a not so good priest might administer the sacrament badly (accidentally so or deliberately so). And in that case Going to God (which is never a bad idea if you are NOT trying to circumvent the gate and climb in elsewhere) might give one peace.

Per that last paragraph I had a personal incident in mind. I went to confession, opted for the privacy screen, and during my confessing of sins the priest turned his face directly toward mine and coughed hard through the screen (no wetness, but substantial “wind”).

I was surprised but rather involved with completing my list of sins. He said not much and was barely audible. It COULD be he was just sick and did JUST the wrong thing at the wrong time accidentally (I’d rather think that); or it could have been something deliberate (and sinister?). I said my act of contrition while he inaudibly spoke the words I hoped were my absolution. I did hear what my penance was (a few prayers) and so when I exited, I did the penance and never looked back.

If in the worst case he never pronounced the words of absolution right or in some ways made the sacrament technically deficient per the rules and canons – I felt confident that God knew the truth of my heart, my intention in coming and that my subsequent communions would not be sacrilegious.

I remember Fulton Sheen likewise remarking that a penitent could not really fool a priest and gain absolution by being convincingly sincere but actually fraudulent. God knows and would retain such sins regardless of the otherwise valid absolution. I couldn’t find that quote to post so this from Sheen applies to the thread in its place:
“Far better it is for you to say: “I am a sinner,” than to say:
“I have no need of religion.” The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.”
― Fulton J. Sheen
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So is asking for anything to God in Jesus’s name bad? If it’s not bad to go straight to God then I fail to understand the article’s point. Is the article simply saying “Going straight to God is good, but going to a Priest is better”?

I’ll gladly tell a Priest my sins so that he can pray for me, but doesn’t it take more courage to confess your sins without care for the consequences?
 
JohnR77,

Thanks for that great post! You make some great comments. I hope I am able to post here in depth tomorrow…to dronald as well. 🙂
 
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