The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:12–13
Every altar, every page of this book, every word and prayer we’ve shared so far has been leading to this moment. God calls us to repent. He calls us to abandon our way, confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. He calls us to preach His Gospel and build an altar for the salvation of others. Everything leads to that moment of decision. Each altar points to the altar of salvation.
Consider Jesus’ first followers. Peter, having walked with Jesus, having witnessed His miracles and teaching, having watched Him die and then be raised to life, having eaten with Him after His resurrection, having watched Him ascend to heaven, and having received the power of His Holy Spirit poured out on them, stood before a crowded street and declared that Jesus was both Lord and Messiah (see Acts 2:5–36). Everything he had seen and experienced culminated into that moment of clarity, that moment of public proclamation. It had all built toward that moment when the Church took up its new work.
They built an altar and called the world to repent and receive Christ. They called the world to an altar of salvation. Acts records, “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37). Peter knew exactly what they should do. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (verse 38).
That is why Jesus came. That’s why His Spirit was poured out. That’s why the Church experienced miraculous signs and wonders. That’s why they had been praying. Everything had been about that new possibility of salvation. Peter, filled with a new Holy Spirit boldness, called them to repent. It is a message that has echoed throughout time and reached the farthest corners of the globe. We are in on it, too.
We have been called to preach the Gospel and to make disciples. Every altar we build is a preparation for an altar of salvation. Each moment of prayer crescendos into an opportunity for others to receive Christ. We do not pray simply for our own benefit. We pray so that God might move and the Church might be built. Our prayers make way for others to pray their own prayers of repentance. But this altar of salvation depends on us making an intentional space for others to receive Christ. As Paul explained, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14).
What have we gained if Christ is not proclaimed? What have all our prayers and miracles accomplished if we do not call others to repent and receive Christ? Did Jesus come only to pass out bread and fish? Did He come only to heal broken bodies? Was Jesus sent only to hand out advice for a better life? No, He came preaching a new Kingdom. He came declaring salvation and invited people to follow Him. Peter had it right. Christ came that we might repent and believe. He came so that souls might be saved for eternity. Everything leads to that moment of decision.
We cannot neglect the altar of salvation. If you and your church work diligently to build each of the altars I have previously described and yet fail to create this final place where people meet Jesus, you’ve missed everything. Your work has been in vain. Worse, you’ve risked turning prayer into self-obsession.
All the work we have been doing has been a preparation for what God wants to do through us. We have set the table. We have prepared all the ingredients. We have placed the utensils and carefully folded the napkins. All the food is set out at the center of the table. The feast is prepared, but we’ve neglected to invite anyone to the meal. What good is all that preparation if there is no one to enjoy it? The food grows cold and spoils. Eventually it begins to stink. So, too, any church that fails to invite others to the feast risks all the preparations rotting and stinking the place up. We cannot neglect the invitation.
Think back through each of the previous chapters. Why do we build our personal altar of prayer? We do it so that we might practice repentance and offer our lives in service to God. Why do we build a core altar of prayer? So that others might join us in supporting the work of ministry and empowering the preaching of the Gospel through prayer. Why do we build a community prayer altar? So that we might pray not only for one another but so that we move the Kingdom forward into the world’s darkness. And why do we build an altar for miracles? So that the preaching of the Gospel might be confirmed by signs and wonders.
Each altar exists so that the Gospel might be preached, supported, and empowered. Each altar exists so that the message of salvation might be clearly presented to the world. Each altar exists so that we will be emboldened to call others to a moment of repentance. Each altar exists so that it might support the altar of salvation.
A good biblical example of how these altars build toward that final work is found in Elijah. I believe Elijah spent much of his time alone in prayer or with his fellow prophets in prayer. As we follow Elijah’s ministry, we discover that the word of the Lord came to him again and again. “Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah” (1 Kings 17:2). This demonstrates that Elijah was listening and praying even when no one was watching. Elijah’s prayer life wasn’t for his own sake. As a prophet, he stood between God and the nation of Israel. Building upon Elijah’s faithfulness in personal prayer, God also called him forward into moments of public prayer and miracles. You can clearly recognize that he had both a private altar of prayer and a public altar of miracles.
On Mount Carmel, Elijah gathered Israel and urged them to watch. Elijah did not need to put on a show like the prophets of Baal. He didn’t need to wake God up or earn His attention. Elijah knew God. He lived in constant communion with God. He knew he only needed to ask, and God would respond publicly.
So, Elijah repaired the broken altar. He set twelve stones up, one for each of the tribes of Israel, and he prayed a simple prayer. When he did, fire fell from heaven. When the Israelites witnessed the miracle, they fell prostrate before the Lord and cried out, “The LORD—he is God!” (1 Kings 18:39). It is all in this story: Elijah’s private prayers, the miraculous sign, and the moment of national repentance is all connected.
Elijah intentionally created a small altar on which God could manifest His power and where Israel could repent before God. And they did! If we pray, we will have opportunities to present the Gospel, and we will see miracles. And if we are faithful, we will call people to repent, and they will come to know Christ. We will build an altar of salvation, and upon it, lives will be eternally changed, and the Church will be built. Christ has promised it. He will build His Church.
Perhaps of all the altars we have discussed, the altar of salvation is neglected because it is most assumed. We all know we are commanded by Scripture to share our faith. We know that preaching the Gospel is at the heart of the Church’s calling. Our work, of course, is leading others to Christ. It sounds so obvious that you might have been tempted to skip this chapter. “Tell me something I don’t already know,” you might have said to yourself. But perhaps our familiarity with this responsibility has allowed us to grow complacent in the actual work. Anything we assume can be soon forgotten.
In my various leadership roles with the Assemblies of God, I have had the opportunity to visit hundreds of churches and sit through even more services. It seems to me that some churches are offering fewer altar calls and are less focused on calling people to an altar of repentance. We may believe in it, but we don’t seem to make it a priority. Pastors have a lot to cover in sermons these days. There are questions about faith, challenges from culture, and false teaching spreading amongst believers. I understand how wide those challenges can be. But all the answers and all the carefully nuanced theological sermons matter very little if pastors don’t provide an opportunity for people to repent and receive Christ.
Perhaps we assume that we know our congregations and all the people seated in front of us. But we often assume too much. We never fully know what is going on in a person’s life. We never fully know how the Lord is at work convicting and calling them forward. Worse, we risk communicating that salvation is not our priority. Our people assume that what we prioritize in our services is what matters most. If the altar of salvation is not a priority when we meet, our people may neglect it all together.
We can’t allow the busyness of our churches or our crowded Sunday service orders to keep us from making room for repentance and salvation. Our priority is to preach the Gospel. If we do that, Christ has promised to build His Church. That is the pattern of the early Church. They prioritized the preaching of the Word. They prioritized calling their neighbors to repentance. God built the Church. He added to their numbers daily. They didn’t neglect the altar of salvation.
Though the altar of salvation should be a consistent feature of our time together in worship, I believe this altar must be more prominent than only the occasional concluding moment of some Sunday morning services. We need to give people the opportunity to receive Christ wherever we are and wherever we go. If you look at Israel’s moments of repentance, they weren’t always in the temple or in a worship service. God moved on His people, and they responded with repentance in all kinds of settings: mountaintops, valleys, battlefields, and farmlands.
Read the Bible closely and you will find God’s people repenting all over the place. Everywhere they went, they stacked up stones as altars and marked moments of repentance. It is the same in the New Testament. The apostles often preached the Gospel in the synagogues first, but they went on to preach in markets, streets, along the roads, and in rented lecture halls. As Jesus’ parable once put it, we are to go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in. The Church has never waited for people to come in to hear the Gospel. The Church has always gone out to them. The Church has built altars in homes, in workplaces, and on street corners and backyards. Wherever the Gospel is preached, there should always be an altar for salvation.
As the old adage puts it, we should always be ready to strike while the iron is hot. I encourage pastors to build this altar of salvation at every possible event: midweek ministries, youth services, fun nights, small groups, barbeques, and block parties. Build this altar both within the church and outside of it. Work this altar into services as well as everyday conversations. And always be ready to abandon your plans when a moment is presented. When the Spirit creates a divine moment, grab whatever stones you can find and build and altar.
One Sunday, as I was wrapping up our opening worship, a person in the congregation began to speak loudly in tongues. Our church, which often experienced the public expression of Pentecostal gifts, grew quiet. We waited and prayed for discernment, wondering if what we heard was meant to be a personal moment of worship or if it was a message to the whole congregation.
When a person feels the Spirit leading them to speak out in words they don’t understand, it is often what the Bible calls a message in tongues. “To another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:10). When words in a Spirit-inspired unknown language are spoken publicly as a statement from the Spirit, our response is to listen with our spirit and wait for the Spirit to offer a public interpretation. As I listened to that worshiper’s message in tongues grow louder and bolder, I sensed the Spirit was giving me the interpretation.
Often when I sense God giving me the public response, I don’t know the entirety of what He wishes to say. God gives me the beginning and I speak by faith as He continues to offer His words. As I began to give the interpretation, I felt the Spirit leading me to speak to a single person who was planning to commit suicide. I spoke what I heard the Spirit saying.
“I know you,” I heard God say. “And I know the plan you have to end your earthly life. I want you to know this morning that I have a better plan for you if you are willing to trust completely in Me. I promise to repair your broken life and give you eternal life, if you will accept it.”
I didn’t have to think very hard or long about what to do next. I gave an altar call. I made an opportunity for the person to respond. Really, it was the Spirit who had made the moment. God had prepared this heart to respond. He had made the moment “hot” for salvation. My job was to present the altar, the space for that person to respond.
Almost immediately, I saw a hand go up in the back row. And just as quickly a person began to move across their row and come forward down the aisle. She was well-dressed and appeared to have her life together; however, inside she was desperate enough to be seriously contemplating suicide. How easily we make assumptions about people without knowing the true state of their hearts.
As I watched her make her way forward, I began to see other people moving as well. Others were responding. In a moment, several were standing at the altar, and many received Christ for the first time that morning. It was a very special Sunday that many of us still remember.
Later, I had a chance to speak with the woman who had first responded to that call. She explained that she had made up her mind to attend church one last time before ending her life. If something meaningful had not happened or changed her, she had been determined to make it the end. God did something that day—but He went on to do more. He changed her and reworked her whole life. She continued to follow the Lord, and God has fulfilled His promise to give her a new life.
She did not get saved that day because of a special segment of service we had predesigned for that purpose. We didn’t have a chance to present Christ over a series of social events and get-togethers. She was coming one last time. That was our one and only chance. Because our church had been focused on praying for the miraculous, God moved and did a miracle. God spoke directly to her. And we prepared to stop the service and provide her the altar where she could receive Christ.
Who knows how many people sit in our services facing moments just as desperate. Who knows what they walk in carrying and what decisions they have already made. Who knows if that one Sunday will be the only chance we get. If we are not sensitive to every move of the Spirit, it might be too late. They may leave still lost and hurting. They may never come back. Worse, they might not get another chance.
When the Spirit moves, He should know that we are willing to listen and willing to respond. God can count on us to build an altar of salvation. But it doesn’t take a miracle. Wherever people encounter us, they should encounter Christ. They should encounter an opportunity to receive Christ. Everywhere we go, we build altars of salvation. As we pray and as we teach our people to pray, I believe we will see more miracles. With those miracles, we will see a revival of repentance.
We must be willing to pray. There is no shortcut. What we do in private prayer, like all the altars we have listed, has a profound impact on the public witness of the Church and the public preaching of the Gospel. Each altar builds toward that decisive moment in which a lost soul comes to know Christ. There is no greater miracle than the moment of repentance, salvation, and divine regeneration. Our altars become another person’s personal altar to receive the miracle of salvation through the prayer of repentance. That altar is where we welcome God to earth and new believers into our larger ministry of prayer. They begin to build their own altars, which in turn contributes to even more people coming to know Christ.
So, how can we begin to be more intentional about building this altar of salvation? As pastors, we should model the call to repentance in every service so that our congregants learn to do the same everywhere they share their faith. Often our sermons create the opportunities. At the end of your message, offer the congregation a chance to respond.
For some, it might be their first prayer of repentance, but for others, God may be calling for them to renew their commitment to Christ. We will never know if we don’t give them that opportunity. Even when your sermon doesn’t naturally conclude with a clear call to salvation, there are still ways to provide the opportunity.
Over the years of preaching, I worked out three repeatable ways of presenting the Gospel in a short and concise statement. I had these brief explanations ready for whenever an opportunity presented itself. Sometimes I would take a moment after worship to present the Gospel. Sometimes I used one to conclude a service. Those repeated segments allowed people to respond, but they also trained my congregation to do the same. Anyone who sat under my preaching for even a few months heard me make these presentations and would soon have them memorized. By modeling these statements, I was giving my people a chance to learn how to present the Gospel. I was teaching them how to build an altar and lead a friend or neighbor to a moment of repentance.
I titled one of those quick presentations, Who’s Your Daddy? Satan became our father when Adam chose to follow him instead of God. From the day Adam took the fruit in obedience to the devil, we have all been born in his sin and doomed to his hell.
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44
Hell is the devil’s rightful eternal home, and all his children are going with him to be with their father when they die—unless they are born again to a new and better father; our Father who is in heaven. “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again’” (John 3:3).
When we put our faith in Jesus, we are born again into the family of God. We are no longer children of the devil and are no longer headed to his eternal home. Now we are headed to heaven, the eternal home of our new Father, God! If you are in need of a new father, meet me at this altar.
Another presentation I gave was titled, Why a Tree? “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6). It all started at a tree. The Tree of Knowledge was forbidden. They were told not to eat of it. When man disobeyed God and ate of the fruit of the tree, he fell into sin and death. Later God would say:
If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 21:22–23 ESV
Paul said it this way: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13 ESV). The curse of sin and death began at a tree and was defeated at a tree. When we put our faith in what Jesus did at the cross made from a tree, we go back to the point of initial sin and begin again, but this time without sin. By the cross we are justified and made as if we never sinned! If you are ready for a completely new beginning, come to the cross.
Finally, I would sometimes use what I call, Why Faith and Declaration?
But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:8–9
All God asks of us is that we believe in Him and trust Him. The writer of Hebrews says that without faith, it is impossible to please God; therefore, when we put our faith in Him, it pleases Him. Adam did not believe Him. He believed the devil who tempted him, and as a result, he fell from his place with God. He proved his unbelief when he ate the fruit with his mouth. Now in order for us to undo what Adam did to us by his unbelief, we must believe in our heart and put our faith and trust back in God by Jesus’ sacrifice, and we must use our mouth to confess our belief. If you are ready to undo what Adam did to you, if you believe in Jesus and are ready to be restored to God, then join me at this altar of declaration.
It wasn’t long before people started using these presentations. People would catch me on Sundays and tell me about how they had used one of my Gospel presentations to lead a coworker to Christ. They had the joy of sharing in the work of ministry and the growing confidence that they could share their faith in a compelling and honest way. So, the Gospel began to spread, not only in our church services, but also through the everyday conversations of our church.
For that to work, we have to prioritize and model our Gospel presentation. If we are hesitant to call people to repentance, if we are reluctant to work it into our services, we shouldn’t be surprised when our people neglect it in their lives. As pastors, we model it first. We teach our people to do the work of ministry by being willing to do it ourselves.
In the end, we are not giving them work to do but joy to participate in. All of heaven rejoices when a single lost soul is found. We celebrate, too. It is one of the great joys of following Christ. We get to share Him with others. It is also one of the strongest motivators to pray. When your church begins to see miracles and witness their friends and family coming to Christ, their faith is built, their vision inspired, and they are inevitably moved to pray for more.
Prayer was never meant to be a lifeless duty. It was never meant to be about only us. It is a way of joining God in doing the impossible. It is a participation in the miraculous. It is a way of changing the world. And it is one of the greatest joys possible. When we commit ourselves to prayer, lives will be forever changed. Prayer always leads to an altar of salvation.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).
Learn how to naturally present the Gospel. I recommend you either develop a few simple Gospel presentations of your own or use mine. Knowing how you can easily transition a service or conversation into a Gospel presentation is key to taking advantage of every opportunity. Having these simple Gospel presentations memorized will build your confidence and empower you to share the Gospel more often.
Be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading. Just as we learn to wait on the Lord and expect miracles, the Spirit will often prompt us to present the Gospel. He knows the condition of each person’s heart, and He knows the right moment to call them to repentance. Pray that the Spirit will direct you to these divine moments. Learn to be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading, and always be willing to interrupt your plans to state the Gospel and create an altar of salvation.
Take time to invite people to receive Christ. I believe that every service should provide an opportunity for the lost to repent and receive salvation. That means we must be intentional. It doesn’t mean that invitation must come at the end of a sermon. Often it does, but I have called people to salvation during the praise and worship part of our service as well as during announcements. What matters is that you regularly create places to do it. Don’t neglect this most critical work.
Invite those who receive Christ to begin praying. It is a full circle. Our prayers create the spiritual atmosphere in which God draws a new believer to Himself. That new believer begins his or her walk with God by prayer. Often new believers possess remarkable faith. A part of discipleship should be teaching them how to pray and inviting them into the prayer life of the church. Prayer is one of the beginning and sustaining acts of following Christ.