A Prayer of Salvation?

So I'm engaged in another series of blogging debates last week, and the issue is the so-called 'prayer of salvation.' I guess I have been living under a rock for the past few years, but I was dumbfounded this week to discover the number of people who honestly believe (can you believe something dishonestly? :) ) that a prayer must be voiced before salvation can take place. I really had no idea that so many people - and some very learned scholars - believe that a prayer is even one part of the salvation equation - much less the 'determining' part.
So I asked myself, 'Is this really a big deal? Does it really matter whether or not someone thinks you must say a prayer in order to be saved?' And the answer I've been forced to embrace is an emphatic 'YES'. It does matter. It matters because it affects how I see myself in the evangelism equation. It matters because it affects how I view prayer. It matters because it affects how I see God. It matters because it affects how I see other Christians.
How does it affect my evangelistic outlook? If I believe that prayer is a necessary component of salvation, then by necessity I must believe that I can 'persuade' someone to be saved. If salvation is dependent on someone voicing a prayer, then, by default, I must believe that they have the ability to 'choose' to voice that prayer. And if they have the ability to choose to voice 'the prayer', then they have the ability to be persuaded. And if they have the ability to be persuaded, then I should have the ability to persuade, no? And if I have the ability to persuade, then their salvation becomes dependent on my oratory skills, yes? The interesting part of this kind of thinking is that God has been completely left out of the equation. Salvation becomes an issue about whether or not someone will choose to say a prayer and whether or not someone else is able to persuade them to do so. God becomes an inept bystander 'hoping' that I have good oratory skills and 'hoping' that 'I.B. Choosen' will say the prayer. If evangelism is nothing more than persuasive oratory, then why are we able to persuade some and not persuade others? If, indeed, people can be persuaded into Christendom, then I should be a staunch advocate of emotional manipulation, 'fear tactics', and other such ploys in my efforts to 'lead others to Christ'. But I am not! I abhor emotional manipulation. I abhor preaching designed to scare people into heaven. In addition to being unscriptural, it presents a perverted picture of God as either an inept boob who is wringing his hands in the hopes that someone will choose to be saved, or as a vengeful potentate who is impatiently waiting to throw you into a burning hell - unless you stand at the Jesus counter and buy your ticket into heaven.
I believe that the 'prayer of salvation' issue can be solved in just a few words as follows: there is no Biblical warrant for such. This simple resolution, however, fails to address the larger problem of how we see God. Aside from the obvious Biblical issues inherent in holding a 'freedom of choice' view of salvation, I think the more serious flaw is the distorted idea of God that such a philosophy engenders. If I believe that someone can, at any time they want, just 'choose' to be saved, then I - by definition - believe in a God who is not totally omnipotent and omniscient. The God I believe in, however, IS TOTALLY omnipotent and TOTALLY omniscient. All men are not created equal. Some are created by the only True Creator to be a display of God's wrath and power and some are created by the only True Creator to be a display of God's mercy (Rom. 9). And what is the motivating factor for who is created for which purupose? It is nothing more than God's good pleasure! Those who are created to be a display of God's mercy were created for such a purpose simply because God, in His own counsel, chose to do so (Eph. 1).
But what about the prayer? Where does that fit in? If we are 'predestined' to be either vessels of wrath or vessels of mercy, can we change our predestination by saying a prayer? If not, why? Well, first of all, I believe that God doesn't hear the prayers of the wicked (John 9:31), so it must follow that it is impossible for a 'wicked' person to voice a 'prayer of salvation' that God can hear. Secondly, even if we could voice such a prayer, we don't have the spiritual understanding to do so (I Cor. 2:14). Things of God are 'foolishness' to the lost person - they don't understand those things and have no desire to understand them. Thirdly, before being spiritually reborn, we are spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1) - and dead people don't do ANYTHING - much less offer up a prayer to be made alive. Before glorious conversion, we simply do not seek after God (Rom. 3:11) - and to imply (by imploring us to say a prayer) that we can somehow find that which we are unable and unwilling to seek is to distort the gospel.
Henceforth, I shall be opposed to encouraging someone to 'say a prayer' in order to be saved and shall lovingly stand opposed to those who would preach such an offer.

Sola deo Gloria,

Post Tinebrae Lux