Such an innocent-sounding statement, but one that betrays an
anemic theology.
How so? Read the following paragraph about one who was rescued
from the Titanic:
See what I mean? God loved you with an everlasting love. He saw
your lost state, the grip your sin had on you, your utter helplessness. He saw you, adrift on the sea of life. In love, He wooed you
to Himself. You were made to see your desperate condition. But,
alas, you looked everywhere but to God for help. God, however,
was not to be denied. His Holy Spirit revealed Christ to your soul.
He quickened you, made you alive in Him. By faith, you embraced
the Son. God granted you repentance, and became the Author and
Finisher of your faith.
"I have never regretted becoming a Christian," indeed. God wants
the glory. He is a jealous God. If you have saved yourself, He gets
no glory whatsoever. If He has saved you, however, give Him the
glory.
--David R. Heesen
Appendix:
What a terrible thing to say! ‘Never regretted it!’
[from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, pp. 279-280. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1971]
I go on to assert as my tenth point that no sinner ever really ‘decides for Christ’. That term ‘decide’ has always seemed to me to be quite wrong. I have often heard people use expressions which have disturbed me, and made me feel very unhappy. They have generally done so in ignorance and with the best intentions. I can think of an old man who often used the following expression: ‘You know, friends, I decided for Christ forty years ago, and I have never regretted it.’ What a terrible thing to say! ‘Never regretted it!’ But that is the kind of thing people say who have been brought up under this teaching and approach. A sinner does not ‘decide’ for Christ: the sinner ‘flies’ to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying—
No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God’s holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory. If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more ‘decides’ for Christ than the poor drowning man ‘decides’ to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape. The term is entirely inappropriate.