Turn with me, if you would, to
Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. We've been
going through Romans. We've been in Romans 12. But there is a verse of Scripture
here in Romans 10 that we know well and we quote
often. We know it very well, we quote
it very often. Many people know it, many people
quote it, and many people look to it for their hope of salvation.
They honestly do. Many people claim this as their
hope of salvation. But I got to thinking about this
verse, and it struck me that we can look to this verse. This word from God, we can trust
what this is saying. As long as we understand what
it's saying, we can, as long as we understand what it's saying.
So that's our goal for this. Bible study, I'd like for us
to enter in to what this verse of scripture really means. What it really means. I pray
the Lord might open our eyes and open our hearts to this.
I sincerely do. Our kids are with us here in
this Bible study this morning and I'm so glad. I pray the Lord
will teach you something in this. Pray the Lord will teach all
of us something in this. All right, let's see what this
really means. Romans 10 verse 13. It says for whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now that is the truth, buddy. That is the truth. That's the
absolute truth. We can literally hang our souls
on that. Don't you want to hang your soul
on something, your eternal soul. We can hang our souls on that.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This same thing is said in Acts
chapter two, turn with me over there to Acts chapter two. Verse 16, Acts 2 verse 16, it
says, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,
both Acts chapter two and Romans 10. They're both quoting the
book of Joel. That's where this came from.
This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, verse 17.
It shall come to pass in the last day, saith God, I will pour
out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your
old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my
handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit and
they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven
above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable
day of the Lord. Verse 21 says, and it shall come
to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. Whosoever. Whosoever, whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That versus in the word of God,
three times, Joel, they're quoting Joel, Joel, acts and Romans. If it was only in here one time,
it would stand forever. But it's in here three times.
Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Bank your soul on it. But our
Lord said something in Matthew 7 that we need to pay close attention
to in regard to calling on Him. All right, turn with me over
there to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter seven, verse
21, it says, our Lord said, not everyone 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. He said,
not everyone who says, Lord, we want to be saved. will be saved. Not everyone who
says that is going to be saved. Not everyone who says, Lord,
we want to come into heaven. Not everyone who says that is
going to enter into heaven. Not everyone who says, Lord,
Lord, do you hear me? I'm calling on you. I'm calling. Not everyone will be heard and
answered. Now, our Lord does not lie. And he does not contradict himself
ever. Never, never, never. So if he said, whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And if he said,
Not everyone that says, Lord, Lord is going to be saved. Well
then clearly that must be two different things. That has to be two different
things. If saying, Lord, Lord, we want to be saved. Lord, we
want to enter into heaven. If that was calling on him. then according to His own word,
that soul would be saved and that soul would enter into heaven. But because according to His
own word, not every soul that says that is going to be saved
and is going to enter in, clearly, saying that is not calling on
Him. It's absolutely not. Saying,
Lord, we want to be saved is not calling on Him. All right, then what is calling
on Him? What does call on the Lord mean? I'm going to tell
you, call on the Lord. Here's the message. Call on the
Lord. What does call on the Lord mean?
Whoever calls on him shall be saved. What does it truly mean
to call on him? Well, Joel, where it is first
mentioned, that'll give us a little insight to this. Turn with me
to the book of Joel. If your Bible's like mine, it's
page 1139 in the Old Testament. If it's not, it's after Daniel.
It's between Hosea and Amos. 1139 in my Bible, though. Joel chapter 2. Now all of what we read in Acts
chapter 2 is mentioned right here in these last few verses,
but verse 32 says, And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered. For in Mount
Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath
said, And in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Now, this is the first thing
we can see right here. Only the remnant that the Lord
calls. will call on Him, truly call
on Him. The only reason that any sinner
truly calls on Him is because the Lord first called on the
sinner. So we could say it this way.
Only God's elect will truly call on the name of the Lord. Whoever
does is going to be saved, but only the called who the remnant
that the Lord calls only the called will call only God's particular
whosoever's. And that's all I want to know
is, am I a whosoever? Only God's particular whosoever's
will truly call this declaration goes out to the whole world.
It goes to the whole world. I don't know who God's elect
are. So he said, you tell it to everybody. You preach it to
everybody, but only those particular souls that God has chosen to
arrest and chosen to quicken and chosen to draw to himself. No man can come to Christ except
the father, which sent Christ, draw that man to Christ. And
only those souls that God makes to call will call. That's the first thing we need
to understand about it. That's the very first thing. That's who will call, that's
who the whosoevers are. All right, now, what is it to
call? What is it to call? When you look these words up
in a concordance, I have a concordance in my study. I have a concordance
on my phone. That concordance is a dictionary. that'll tell you what the original
Hebrew word was. The Old Testament was written
in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek. And it'll
tell you what the original Hebrew word was or the original Greek
word was. I don't know Hebrew and Greek.
So I look them up and it'll tell you what word was originally
used when The Lord wrote this through the writer. They were translated into English.
And even, even in our English language, you know how you can
listen to old English and hear them use words that we know,
but they don't mean the same thing they used to mean. Right?
So that concordance will tell us what the word was and what
it meant at that moment in time when it was used. When we know that, sometimes
we get a much clearer understanding of what is being said. So in looking up the two words,
call on, whosoever shall call on, looking up those two words,
call on, this is what they mean. Five definitions were given.
Two of them really were the same thing. So, so four main definitions,
I'm going to give you each one. And then under each definition,
there was an explanation. I'm going to give you the explanations
that the concordance gave for each one. And I honestly believe
after seeing this, we'll have a better understanding of what
it means to call on the name of the Lord. Here's the first
and second definitions. They're really the same thing.
Call on means to surname to be named after. Now a surname
is a last name. That's what they say over in
England. What's your surname? Okay, that's a last name. And
then if somebody is named after somebody else, a lot of times
we'll name a child after a grandfather or something like that. It's
generally the first name or the middle name. So any of those
three names, both of those definitions mean to take the name of. That's what both of them mean
to take the name up, to call on the name of the Lord is to
take the name of him. It's to plead him and his name. It's to identify with him. It's to acknowledge union with
him. Every time Hannah tells somebody
that her name is Hannah Stoniker, it wasn't at first. But now every time she tells
somebody, my name is Hannah Stoniker, she is identifying with me. That's what she's doing. She
is pleading my name. Well, to call on the Lord is
to plead union with Him. It's to plead submission to Him. It's to plead His name. It's to cry His name. It is a denial of my own name
in order to plead His. That's why the wife takes the
husband's name. That's the whole reason. When
we get married, I cringe at ladies who don't want to take their
husband's name. This is the whole reason why the wife takes the
husband's name. It's a picture of how the bride
of Christ denies her own name to plead His. That's what it
is. I'm not coming in my own name.
I'm not standing before you in my own name. I'm standing in
the name of another, and I'm pleading his name. She cries,
precious name, oh, how sweet. His name is the hope of earth
and joy of heaven. She cries, neither is there any
other name given among men whereby we must be saved. What do you
have to say for yourself? Jesus Christ. That name is above every name. Every knee must bow to that name. So to call on the name of the
Lord is to, number one, plead His name, is to plead Him. All right, that's the first definition
that was given. The second one is, it said to
call on is to call something to one. Now here's the concordance explanations
that were given to that one. It means to cry out upon or against
one, to charge something to one as a crime or reproach, to charge
that to that person, to summon on a charge To prosecute one for a crime
to blame one for. Can we not see the substitution
of Christ in that though? He knew no sin. He knew no sin. He was made sin
for us. All of the blame for our crimes,
all of it was laid on him. All of it. He was charged with
it. To call on the name of the Lord
is to cry. He was charged with all of my sin. It's to cast it
all on him. Acts chapter eight says he bore
the humiliation of it. He stood there and bore the humiliation
of it. And like a lamb done before his
shearers, he opened not his mouth to call on the Lord is to say
he was blamed. He was summonsed. The judge summonsed
him. He was prosecuted and He was
convicted of all of my sin. My sin was charged to Him. That's my only hope, is that
my sin was charged to Him. My sin, oh, the bliss of this
glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the
whole, was nailed to His cross. And I bear it no more. Praise
the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul.
That's what it is to call on the name of the Lord. Here's
the third definition. It means to invoke. To call upon
for one's self. In one's behalf. As my witness. As my judge. to appeal unto. What that means is, for Christ's
sake. That's what it means. For Christ's
sake. It's to say because Christ was
my advocate. Because Christ was my mediator. Because I was judged in Him. Because I was judged in Him.
Because all my sin was charged to Him. and I was judged in Him,
have mercy on me. For Christ's sake, have mercy
on me. That's calling on the name of the Lord. It's pleading
Him, pleading your substitution with Him, and pleading for mercy
because of Him. Now the last definition that
the concordance gave was, To call upon by pronouncing the
name of Jehovah. It means to call upon God. To call upon God. If a sinner
is going to truly call upon the Lord, then that sinner is going
to call upon God Almighty. It's when that heart cries out,
that heart is crying to the Almighty God of heaven and earth. It's to call saying, not my will,
but thine be done. Free will, oh dear God, God forbid. Not my will, but thine be done. It's not what I'm gonna do for
you. In Matthew 7, they said, we preached in your name. We
cast out demons in your name. We did these, we had these church
groups and these work things and these missionary trips. Clearly
that was not the Father's will. He said, whoever does the Father's
will is gonna end. That wasn't his will. He said, that's sin. And to call upon Him is to cry,
it's not what I'm doing for you, it's what you have done for me. You're not in my hands like so
many people think. I'm in yours. You're God and
I'm not. I'm at your mercy. I'm at your
mercy. I'm begging you for I'm begging
you to be gracious to me and to show mercy to me. I'm calling
fearfully. Men, in their words, think they're
approaching God just so flippantly. Oh, I'm coming fearfully. I'm
coming low. I'm calling reverently. I call bowing before you. I am bowing as low as this heart
can get. That's how I come. That's what
it is to call on the name of the Lord. And according to the
word of God, this will most certainly hold true, most certainly. Any
sinner, any sinner who comes calling that way, if
any heart cries, I want to come that way, You can, if any sinner is drawn
that way, pleading Christ, pleading his suffering for what I've done
and pleading for mercy because of his suffering and pleading
the Lord that called me to him. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Shall, shall, shall. Now, may God make us one of the
ones who calls. I am more serious than a heart
attack. Let's not let that go in one
ear and out the other. In your heart, call on him. I plead your name, not mine.
I plead your work, not mine. I plead your suffering, not mine.
I plead your judgment, not mine. I plead your perfection, not
mine. I plead your will, not mine. You're God, not me. God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Call that way and you'll be saved. All right, you're dismissed.