I want to talk this morning on believing and confessing Christ. Believing and confessing Christ. Let me make a few comments and
then get down to where I want to go in verses 9 and 10. Paul
had a great burden to see people converted, see people saved.
He says, brethren, my heart's desire. He had a desire in his
heart and he prayed to God because of this great desire in his heart
that Israel might be saved. His brethren, people that was
flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and he wanted Israel to
be saved because they had such light given to them. But he goes
on to say, for I bear them record. And he knows this before God,
that they have a zeal of God, very zealous of God. And they
were zealous of God and zealous to witness, zealous to pray,
zealous to attend the services, zealous to read the Scriptures,
zealous to stand up in the services and tell what they've done, zealous
to fast. But they have this zeal of God,
but their zeal was not according to knowing God, not according
to knowing the Scriptures. And this how he knew that, because
they were ignorant of God's righteousness. And if you're ignorant of God's
righteousness, you'll perish. Because there's only one righteousness
whereby a man can be accepted, and that's the righteousness
of Christ. And he says they're ignorant of God's righteousness,
and how he knew was they go about to establish their own righteousness.
They go about telling, you know, thinking that good enough, and
being good, and being honest, and being upright, and being
good mothers, good fathers, and being good children, that that's
what will entitle you to go to glory, and that God will accept
you. And then, but he says, but they
establish their own righteousness. They go about to make themselves
feel good about themselves, and they think they can make a righteousness
acceptable to God by their own doing, their own acts, or their
own conduct. But he went on to say this, but
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
Well, what is the righteousness of God? Well, he says, Christ
is the end, the fulfillment, the goal, the culmination of
the law. Anything that a man is supposed
to do, or thinks he's supposed to do, it ceases to be. Because Christ is the goal, the
fulfillment, the end of the law for righteousness. Stop doing. Christ fulfilled it. He's the
end of it. Which is done. For Christ is
the end, the goal, the fulfillment of the law for anybody to do
anything to be accepted of God. For righteousness, now listen
to this, to everyone that believes. Believes. I believe. Now watch what else he goes on
to say. And he says, well Moses, he describes
the righteousness which is of the law. You want to know what
the righteousness of the law is? If you want to be saved by
doing, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
If you miss it one time, you've nullified everything. Is that
not right? If you miss it by one thing,
you've nullified the whole thing. You've made it all void. You've
made it all void. And you've got to do it. If you're
going to go by law, if you're going to go by works, you've
got to do that perfectly, completely, honestly, before God. What man thinks don't make any
difference. But then he goes on to say, but
the righteousness, which is a faith, this righteousness, where if
you believe, you have this righteousness, you believe. Christ sent the
law for righteousness to them who believe. This righteousness
of faith This is what it says. It don't have to, it don't say
well say in your heart who shall ascend into heaven that is to
bring Christ down again. What can I do? Righteousness
of the law says what do I need to do to get a blessing? What
do I need to do to get a blessing from the Lord? What can I do
to get him to come down here and do something for me? But
faith says I don't have to say go up into glory and bring Christ
down. Don't have to say that. And the
righteousness of faith doesn't say, but the righteousness of
the law says this, who shall descend into the deep? That is
to bring Christ up again to do something for me. But faith says
I don't have to come down or don't come up. Because we trust
Christ who's already come. But the man who's working by
works and by law, He's always said, what can I do to get Christ
to come and bless me? But look what He says. But what does
this righteousness of faith say? This is what it says, the word
is nigh thee. It's even in your mouth. It's
in your heart. And this is the word of faith
that we preach. This is what we preach. You don't have to
go up. You don't have to go down. You
don't have to do anything. This is what we preach. We preach
faith. And this is what we preach. That
if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved. Now listen to it. For with the
heart, this is the righteousness of faith now, For with the heart
man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Now I want to say a few things
about these things. I want to talk about believing
and confessing our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to point out
three things to start with. When a man believes and confesses
the Lord Jesus Christ, the first thing I want to talk about is
the order in which they have to be considered. It says in
verse 10, For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Look
at the order in which they've got to be considered. Believing
comes first, confession comes second. Believing, confessing. And for me or you or anybody
else to confess what we do not believe is hypocrisy. And God
can never accept us confessing and believing something, and
believing something infested that's not true, that we really
do not believe. Our Lord Jesus Christ said this,
He said, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He
that believeth not, what's going to happen to him? Going to be
damned. He said, go into the world and preach the gospel to
every creature. Wherever you go, whether you
go to New Jersey, whether you go to China, whether you go to
Mexico, whether you go to Russia, wherever you go, you preach the
gospel to them people. And he that believes that gospel
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. That's what our Lord said. And
that's why when Philip was in that chariot with the Ethiopian
eunuch, they was going along and he preached the gospel to
that Ethiopian eunuch out of Isaiah 53. And they came to a
pool of water. And that Ethiopian eunuch stopped
that chariot and he says, now wait a minute. What do it hinder
me from being baptized here? I want to confess what I just
heard, what I believe. I want to confess this. I believe
this. And he says, what does hinder
me from being baptized? He said, if thou believe with
all thy heart that Jesus is the Son of God, you may. He believed
and he confessed by baptism. So the order, believing first,
confession second. Father, and the connection between
believing and confessing Christ. We confess the Lord Jesus Christ
because we believe the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't do anything
else. If you really believe the Lord
Jesus Christ, you cannot do anything else but confess it. If you have
faith in your heart and you believe the Lord Jesus Christ, then you're
going to confess that faith. Confession is the effect of faith.
If you do believe, you will confess. That's why our Lord says this,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, he's a new creation,
and a new creation's got to let everybody know about that new
creation. That's just the way it is, ain't
it? Oh, the connection between we
confess, we cause, we believe the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
third thing is the results of faith and confession is what
is it say? Thou shalt be saved with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness with the mouth confession is
made unto salvation. What's the result of it? Salvation
is. Oh he says if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in thy heart
God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. Now I don't doubt for a minute
that a man truly believes in Christ before he confesses. But
our Lord always puts these things together. He never separates
faith and confession. Never separates faith and believing. Believing and confessing never
did separate that. Our Lord always made to put those
two things together. And I know this, beloved. There's
some things we confess and there's an order to it. Believing, confessing. There's a connection to it. If
what you believe, you've got to confess. If you believe in
your heart and what you believe, if you do, you will. And the
third thing is the order in which it's done. And the connection
of it. And look what I tell you what
we do. I tell you some things we confess. First thing, we confess
His Word. This Word right here, we confess
His Word as well as our Lord Jesus Christ. Is this what we
preach? Do we leave anything off? Do
we leave anything out? We confess His Word. I confess
His Word as well as we confess Him Himself. Our Lord says this,
you know, remember, whosoever shall therefore be ashamed of
me and my words in this evil and adulterous generation. He
said, I'll be ashamed of him before my father, which is in
heaven. So to be ashamed of Christ and his word. He said, I'll be
ashamed of you when you face me and you come before me. That's
why John said, let's not be ashamed before him at his appearing.
I confess His Word. Huh? I confess His Word. A true believer, a true belief
and confession of Christ involves a faith and confession of what's
revealed in this book. This idea that a man can walk
into a service without ever hearing anything about Christ and hear
anything about the Gospel and just walk into a service and
hear a message and then all of a sudden come up and be converted,
that's not the way it happens. Everybody in the Scriptures heard
the Gospel. You can't find anybody that ever
did not hear the Gospel and know something about the Scriptures
before they confess their faith. Is that not right? God had pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed. That's
why this idea of this easy believism come into a service and somebody
talks you into coming up and accepting Jesus and that's just
as contrary to the scriptures as it is from the heavens to
the earth. A man is going to hear the gospel.
That's why our Lord Jesus Christ said, if a man denies my word,
is ashamed of my word, you've got to know something about the
word before you'll be ashamed of it. You've got to know something
about what Christ said before you can be ashamed of it. Is
that not right? And oh, listen, I tell you what,
all that's revealed in the Scriptures concerning Him and all the things
that we say about Him, you keep Romans 10, look with me over
in 2 John. You know where the little Johns
are. Look in 2 John with me for just a minute. Just a minute,
2 John. That little 2 John. I want you to seek two verses
of Scripture. And I tell you, this is something that that I've
heard men say over the years, you know, there's some things
that people just can't, they can't take. There's some things
we've got to hold back from them. Well, there's nothing in the
scriptures that should ever be held back from anybody. You know, God's absolute sovereignty. Why would anybody not preach
God is sovereign, God is almighty, is God who controls and orders
all things that happens in this world. That everything God does,
He does on purpose. Who would hold that back? Because
if you don't trust a God like that, you're not trusting God
at all. Who would hold back the sinfulness, the inability, the
powerlessness of man and his desperate need of God to do something
for him? Who would hold that back? Because
a man would think that he has the power and the will and the
ability to come to Christ and accept Christ on his terms instead
of on the terms of the Scriptures. Who would hold back God's electing
grace? As he sung this morning, who
would hold back God's electing grace? that we was as a child
throwed out into the open field with polluted in our blood. And then God passes by in the
time of love and He washes us and He cleanses us and He covers
us and He dresses us and He puts His jewels on us. Who would ever
hold back the salvations of the Lord? All these blessed truths When
you hear those kind of things, your mouth will shut up. And
you say, oh, listen, I thought about you and I heard about you
in the here and the there. And now, I see you. What am I going to do? I'm going
to bow down. I'm going to get down. I'm going
to worship. I'm going to fall before Him. And I'm going to
submit to Him. And I'm going to bow before Him
and say, Lord, whatever pleases You, it pleases me. We don't want to hold nothing
back. And look what he said here in 2 John verse 9. Look what
he says here. Whosoever transgresses and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ. What's the doctrine of Christ?
Genesis to Revelation. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning,
the ending. I am he which was, which is,
and which is to come. He don't have God. He that abideth
in the doctrine of Christ. Everything that God teaches you
about Christ. He hath both the Father and the
Son. And look what He says now. If
therefore come any unto you, and bring not the doctrine of
Christ. Salvation of Christ. Christ's righteousness, Christ's
justification, Christ bearing our sin, Christ being our substitute,
Christ being our sacrifice, Christ being our all in all. If a man
brings any other doctrine than that, receive him not in your
house, don't let him in. If he comes with a watchtower,
slam the door, don't even open the door. Pull him straight back
and say, go on away from here. If they come with a little old
track, I want to give you the seven steps to get to Jesus.
You don't get to Jesus by steps. You get to the Lord Jesus Christ
by faith. I want you to know that ABC's
is salvation. There ain't no ABC's salvation.
Salvation is in Christ. It's in a person. So just tell
them to go along with it. Don't say God bless you as you
go either because you're asking God to bless a man who's lying
and deceiving people. So that's what I'm talking about.
We confess His Word. We own His Word, what He says,
the doctrine of Christ. And I tell you what else, not
only do we confess His Word, but I confess what I believe
about Christ. When we confess Christ, we confess
what I believe about Christ. See, I can't believe for you,
and you can't believe what I believe. This is what you believe about
Christ. It's not what the Puritans taught,
not what John Flavel taught or John Newton taught, and though
we think highly of these men, it's not what the Puritans thought
and what they taught. No, no, no. It's not what the
Puritans taught that we're to confess about Christ. It's not
what even our fathers believed that we confess. Well, this is
good enough for my daddy, it's good enough for me, if it's good
enough for granny, it's good enough. I like that old time
religion. Well listen, you have to believe for yourself. You
believe what Christ, when you believe Christ, what you confess
what you believe about Christ. Not what my preacher preaches,
not what the church believes, not you believe. You've got to
come for yourself and confess what you know and what you believe
about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Paul said, I know
whom I have believed. Then what I believe, whom I believe. Us, a lot of men teach a lot
of wonderful things, but you have to come to this place where
I confess what I believe about Christ. That's why, you know, Joshua
said this, and all them fellows was back across the river, and
they was all worshiping all them idols over there. And Joshua
said, you all go ahead and do what you want to do. God is so
holy. He said, as for me and my house,
we're going to serve the Lord. That's why we're going to confess.
We're going to serve the Lord. And when Thomas saw the Lord
Jesus Christ, he said, I'm not going to believe except I see
the prince of the nails in his hand and in his feet, and that's
splitting his side. He said, I'm not going to believe.
And just as quick as our Lord appeared before him, you know
what he confessed? He didn't confess anything but
unbelief until he saw the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he fell
down to the floor and said, My Lord! My God! What, he believed? Huh? The rest
of them fellas, you know, they was already worshiping God. But
that fella... That's the summary of what we're confessing. Him.
Confess Him. His Word. and confess Him for
ourselves what we know about Him. You know our Lord Jesus
Christ, when He was at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, and this
is the way it is. His mother said to them at the
wedding, whatever He says to you, all you do it. And when
Simon Peter was in that boat, and they had fished all night,
now Lord Jesus said, cast the net over on the right side for
a great big draft of fishes. And old Simon Peter said, oh
Lord, we fished all night. And we ain't taking that. We're
so weary and we're so tired. But, nevertheless, at your word,
I'll do what you tell me to do. That's what I'm going to do.
I'll drop down that net. And it is just like the Lord
said. Just like the Lord said. He took water when they said
bring me six cups of water, big six big jugs of water. Fill up
these pots. Put water in it. Stuck a cup
in there and got out wine. Dropped down an empty net after
fishing all night. Caught a bunch of fishes. Why?
Because they believed what Christ said. Huh? And now let's look
at four things about believing in confessing Christ. What is
it that we're to confess? What is it we're to confess?
It's clear from the scriptures that I'm talking about here that
we're openly and publicly to confess what we believe secretly
in our hearts. What you believe in your heart,
secretly in your heart, that's what you're to confess. You're
to do that openly and publicly. That which our hearts truly believes,
sincerely rests upon salvation before God what we believe in
our hearts. What we believe that we rest
our salvation upon God and before God for our acceptance with God.
We're to openly and publicly declare. If you in your heart
Believe Christ you in your heart know that you don't have no hope
but the Lord Jesus Christ you in your heart Know that yes,
what this gospel is the only gospel there are that's what
you're openly and publicly to declare and What's that? What what he says? In verse 9
you confess the Lord Jesus Christ That's who you confess the Lord
Jesus Christ. I Well, back over in Romans 10,
the Lord Jesus Christ, that's who you're to confess. Not some helpless beggar. Not somebody that don't have
the power and ability to save you. But you're actually to say
that, you know, you believe the Lord Jesus Christ. You confess
Christ. You confess Him. You confess
His person. He's a person that you look to.
He's a person you're trusting in. It's not a doctrine. It's
not an ideal. It's not some psychobabble. It's not some pie-in-the-sky
thing. We actually trust a person, believe
a person. And then that person came here
to do a work. And that work that he came to
do was to offer a sacrifice for sin on behalf of those that the
Father gave him in a covenant of grace. He said to the Father,
Oh Father you gave me these people. You loved them and you gave them
to me. And I've kept them. I've not
lost one of them. And all that you give to me,
they're going to come to me. And when they come to me, I will
receive them. And I'll keep them. And I'll
preserve them. And I'll save them. And that's
why he had a work to do. And he came here and he did that
work. Did he fail at that work? Before he was ever... when he
was just born. Before he was born. You know
what the angel told his mother? He said, what are we going to
name him? You're going to name him Jesus.
Jesus means Savior. God our Savior. And you're going
to name him Jesus. Why? Because he shall, this is
for you boys now, he shall not try to, not make a valiant effort,
not make it possible, not open the door. He shall save His people
from their sin. That's what we confess. Oh, and His character. Oh, what a
blessing. Grace, truth, love, power, mercy,
righteousness, justice, all the characters that he manifested
in his life. He looked on them with compassion
as sheep not having a shepherd. And then it is so righteous,
he said, I told the Pharisees, how are you going to escape the
damnation of hell, you serpents and vipers and your generation
of damnation? How are you going to escape?
And he'd turn around and they'd get mad at him, because your
master eats Republicans and sinners. And hell, he just had this wondrous
compassion about him. When he saw a lost sheep, you
know what he did? He went and looked and looked
and looked until he found him. And when he found him, he laid
him on his shoulder. And they brought a woman to him,
take him in adultery. They didn't bring the man. You
notice all religions always cause the woman to be punished and
they never do punish the man. In Islam, they'll stone a woman
to death, they'll cut off her hands, they'll cut off her head,
but they never ever punish a man. Ain't that right? It's always
the woman. But our Lord Jesus, they brought
a woman taken in a duck. He didn't bring the man. And
they said, now I'll tell you what we'll do. Moses said in
the law to stone her. What says that? Oh, we got him
now. He'll have to let this, he'll
have to say stone this woman because that's what the law says.
And our Lord Jesus Christ stooped down. I'll tell you what he did
the first time he stooped down. You know what he wrote? Thou
shall love the Lord thy God. That's what I believe he wrote.
Raised up, that's the type of he's coming down. Raised up,
got down again, type of him going back to the tomb. And he wrote,
love your neighbors as yourself. And he got up, they saw those
two things written in the sand. And he looked at that crowd and
he said, he that's without sin, pick up the first rock and throw
it. Boy, those fellas start backin'
away. Start backin' away. Next thing you know, they's gone.
And you know what the scripture said? There was nobody left but
Jesus and that woman alone. That's what it means. Christ
is the end of the law for righteous. And oh, they asked that woman,
anybody can condemn you? She says, none, Lord. He says,
neither did I. That's what I'm talking about.
His character. Oh my. And oh, we look to Him. We rest in Him. We bow to Him.
We receive Him as our hope in our eternal salvation. Do you
do that? Oh. He's the King of Kings. The Sovereign Lord of all. He's
the Messiah. He's our Prophet. He's our Priest.
He's our King. He's our Apostle. God made Him
our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification. He's my sin
offering before God. He's my atonement before God.
He's my accepted. We're accepted in the Beloved.
He's the one that goes between me and God. He makes intercession
for me in one of these days. He's going to come and get me.
And as we sung, He'll take us all to heaven. And we'll sit
at His table. We'll sit down. Huh? We confess what's in here when Christ is the one you trust
in and hope in. Huh? Old Mr. Spurgeon was a kid,
16 years old. He was going to go to service
that morning. His granddaddy had been a preacher. And he was
going to go to service that morning. The Lord had been dealing with
him and then big snow came. You all have heard this before.
Big snow coming. He couldn't get where he was
going so he slipped into a primitive Methodist church. And the pastor,
the preacher couldn't get there that morning. And just an old
man got up. Not even a preacher. And he read
from Isaiah 52. Look unto me and be ye saved
all the earth. For I'm a just God and I'm a
Savior. And he just talked a few minutes about looking to Christ.
And old Spurgeon sat in the back and he said, it was so simple,
he said, look. And I looked. And I left there
with all the weight and all the burden gone. And by 17, he was one of the
best preachers in the world. Oh, listen. And oh, listen, so what do we
confess? We confess the Lord Jesus Christ.
Confess Him. Publicly and openly what's going
on in your heart. What you believe in your heart. Confess Him. And how, when and
how are we, should we believe on, who believe on Christ, confess
Him? How and when should we who believe
on Christ confess Him? Well, I thank the Merc that says
there, well, let's wait two or three days. Let's make sure. Let's wait a month, you know.
Let's just see what's going to happen. Does it say that in any
of those verses I read? That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth, well, let's wait two or three days. Let's wait another
month. Let's wait till I'm sure. No, I don't say that. That if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. Do you believe the Lord Jesus
Christ for your only salvation, your only hope? You believe that
God raised him from the dead? That he sits at God's right hand
right now? For with the heart man believes. And he believes only righteousness.
He believes that Christ is his only righteousness, his only
hope. And when he believes that in his heart, he says, I want
to confess the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Lord, my God,
my all. When are you supposed to do that?
Now. Now. I confess Him right now. Confess Him right now. When did
those in the New Testament confess Christ? You don't ever find anybody
waiting. Nobody waiting. When did those
in the New Testament confess Christ? When they heard and they
believed. In a straight way. Straight way. No waiting period, no proving
time. Arise and be baptized, calling on the name of the Lord.
Right now. Right now. As they say in the
country, right now. Right now. Like you said, right.
Right now. Right now. And how are we going
to confess Him? When? Right now. How? Confess
Him in the two ordinances that He gave to us. And I want you
to see them. You look back over here in Acts
chapter 2. Let me show them to you. Acts chapter 2 and verse
41. Now keep Romans in your left hand. Look in Acts chapter 2
and verse 41. Confess him in the two ordinance
that he's given to us. Our Lord gave us two ordinance
and there's no grace given to us in these ordinance. These
are not sacraments. Grace only comes to us through the Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace don't come through taking
wine. Grace don't come through being baptized in water. You've
already had grace given to you. That's why you confess these
things. Look what he said here. In verse 41, Acts chapter 2. Then they that gladly received
his word, when they heard the gospel now, were baptized And the same day there were added
unto them three thousand souls. That's how confession was made,
baptism. Secondly, and they continued
steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship in breaking bread,
taking the Lord's table, taking the Lord's table. That's what
it talks about, taking the Lord's table, breaking bread. breaking
bread. That's what we do. We confess
Him in baptism and take Him to the Lord's table. Until a man
has confessed his faith in Christ and has been baptized by that
confession, he's not fit to take the Lord's table. If he's not
fit to take the Lord's table, he's not fit to die. Ain't that right? If you can't
take the Lord's table, take that bread, and say this body when
that bread is broken and this body is broken for me broken
for me and this blood this wine this
blood which was shed for me and do this in remembrance of me until you can do that I certainly
I'd be afraid for you. I'd be afraid for you. And oh,
why do we confess Him? Confess Him at all times. Confess
Him now. Confess Him in baptism in the
Lord's table. Confess Him at all times. You
know, when we get baptized, when a believer gets baptized and
unites with his people, confessing faith is not over. Oh no, no. It's not over. You know, when
you get baptized, And you unite with the Lord's people. Your
confession, that's just when it's really getting started.
Ain't that right? That's when it's getting started.
Huh? We don't just get up and make
our confession and go on back to the world and act like nothing
ever happened. No, no. You know, we confessing. It's
not over when I'm baptized. By now, if I confess and witness
what I believe. I witness what I believe. I cannot but speak what I have
seen and heard." If you've seen the Lord Jesus Christ and heard
His Word, and you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll
confess that, you'll witness to that. You'll proclaim Christ
when you get the opportunity. And then you'll identify with
the Lord's people by faithfulness to the people and being united
with them and united with them and identified with them. When
you identify with Christ, you identify with His people. One
of the most blessed things that we do is having a place to go
and worship with the Lord's people of light, precious faith. That's
one of the most blessed things to do. It's not a burden. It's not a
heaviness. It's enough to get up on Sunday
morning and know we're going to come. And we don't get up
and say, oh boy, we get to go hear the gospel today. Oh, boy,
I hate it. We have to get up and go to church.
You know, what do people think if I don't go to church? We're not going to church. We're
coming to worship. We're coming to hear the gospel. And if something hinders us,
what are we going to have to take? We're going to be late
or something. We get, oh my, this won't happen next week and
Lord help me, it won't happen next week. Ain't that what we
say? Oh my. Paul says, don't be ashamed of
the gospel. Don't be ashamed of me and the
gospel. And I'll tell you how else we confess Him. Not only
by mouth when we witness what we believe. By faithfulness to
the people of God and identified with the Lord Jesus. But we also
confess Him by our attitude. And we confess Him by our conduct.
Ain't that right? Our attitude. What's our attitude? Kindness, graciousness, gentleness,
love, patience, forbearing one another in love, forgiving one
another in love, even as God for Christ's sake forgave us. Somebody I was talking to the
other day, they got a little upset with me and then got on
to me one evening and the next day I was talking to them and
said, I have to confess to you, Sid,
I was really wrong the way I talked to you. I was wrong the way I
thought about it. And I was wrong the way I reacted. And I'm sorry. Please forgive
me. One day they was pretty upset
with me. The next day they said, I'm sorry. And I wasn't upset with him because
he was upset with me. I was just, I felt sorry because
I felt like I hurt their feelings. So we both said, I'm sorry. That's
the way believers are, ain't it? It hurts you to think you
even hurt somebody else's feelings. It hurts you to think that you've
offended somebody. It hurts you when you see people
suffering. It hurts you. And when people
are blessed, you're blessed with them. When they're happy, you're
happy with them. When they weep, you weep with
them. Is that not right? Oh, so I taste by our attitude
and our conduct. And oh, well, I shouldn't even
have to bring you something to look back over in Romans 9. Or
10, excuse me. Why? Why should I confess? faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Why should we confess our faith
in Christ? Well, it don't seem like, you
know, it almost seems useless to even talk about this. But I know this, that every believer
is like the apostle said, I cannot help but speak what I believe,
what I've heard and believed. What I've seen and heard, that's
what I have to speak. I tell you one reason why we
confess Him, why we confess our faith in Christ. My praise and
confession is due to Him. Is not our praise and confession
due unto Him? Is He not to have all the glory?
All the praise? Is it not right that I confess
Him and own Him to be who He is? Huh? All that I am? All that I have,
all that I know, and all that I ever shall be is by His grace. I absolutely have nothing that
the Lord did not give me. I absolutely have nothing that
Christ didn't give me. I didn't know that for years,
but I know it now. All that I am All that I have, all that I know
is by His grace. Look what He said here in verse
12 here of Romans 10. He says, There's no difference
between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is
rich. Rich unto all that call upon Him. Boy, He's been rich
for me. He just keeps giving me riches
and more riches and more riches. Don't He, you Brad? By the time
you think that Jesus gave you everything He can give you, He
gives you some more. He never runs out of riches. Now I mean you can run out of
them pretty quick. Some of us quicker than others.
But we can spend what we got pretty fast. God ain't never... The world
is His and everything that's in it. Can you not listen? Just hold out your hand and take.
Hold out your hand and take. And I'll tell you something else.
Our praise and confession is due Him. And I truly, truly believe
what I confess. I truly believe what I confess. If I doubt it, Our Lord's inability
and unwillingness to save sinners like me, I'd be shy and I'd be
timid about confessing Him. But oh my, I don't have no doubts
about His ability or His willingness to save. Do you? None whatsoever. And I tell you what, when you
confess Him, you burn all your bridges behind you. Where are
you going to go after you come to Christ? Where are you going
to go? Where are you going to go? Huh? You burned them bridges. Can't get back across the bridge.
Can't go back. So I truly believe, I confess
what I truly believe. And thirdly, I confess Him for
your sakes. I confess Him for your sakes. You know why? Because the only
way to God is through the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord says, no man comes unto
the Father but by me. And the way to God is the way
through Christ. And you know what? The way to
glory. Everybody wants to go to glory. Everybody wants to
go to heaven. But the way to glory is the same way Christ
went to glory. You've got to go to the cross.
Our Lord suffered before He entered into His glory. And we, before
we go to glory, before we ever have any title to glory, we've
got to go by that cross and partake of what our Lord Jesus Christ
did on that cross. You ain't going to get there
no other way. And that's why we sing that song
this morning. Oh, when my face shall be sight,
when the Lord shall descend. When the Lord shall descend. And I'll say, even so, even so,
it's well with my soul. Oh, my. And if you Don't find
out these two things. You'll perish. You'll perish.
Now I want to show you this and I'm done. 1 John chapter 5. 1
John chapter 5. And oh my! Do you remember? Do you remember? Everybody saw
that movie, Titanic. You know that ship that was never
supposed to sink. Be impossible to sink. Everybody
that was anybody was on that. The wealthiest men in the world
were on it. And some of the poorest people in the world were on it.
People had to be on there to shine them rich people's shoes. Somebody had to be on there to
cook them people's food. Somebody had to be on there to
clean their cabins. But when it sunk, when it went
down, They posted two things up on
the board. Two things that they said. They
had a list over here that said saved. Didn't say any saved. And over here is a list that
said lost. It didn't say anything about
the class or their position in life. or
who they were, saved, lost. And look what John said here.
1 John 5.11. And this is what I'm trying to
preach. This is what I want you to confess. And this is the record. What's
the record? Right here. This is the record. This is the record. You know,
you go buy a piece of property, you say, well, I got to go up
to the courthouse and get it recorded. When somebody gets
born, they record it. Somebody dies, they record it.
Somebody gets married, it's recorded. Well, God recorded this for everybody's
son. This is his record. He recorded
What he would be before the world was? What he'd be when he got
here? What he'd do when he's here? Where he'd go when it's
over? And what he'd do when he came back? And who he's gonna
do it for? And why he was gonna do it? Huh? But now look what else he said.
This is the record. That God hath given to us, given
to us. We haven't earned it. We didn't
deserve it. Hath given to us eternal life. And listen now,
and this life is in His Son. Listen to what He says now, He
that hath the Son, He has life. Has it right now. Not going to
give it, He's got it. And listen to this, He that hath
not the Son of God, He don't have life. that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thine heart that
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For
with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of Christ our Lord, thank you for allowing us to have this
time together. Thank you for allowing me to
preach the gospel. Thank you for your abundant mercy given
us in Christ before the world ever began. Oh, Lord, you know
who's yours. You know what you've done in
the hearts of people. And Lord, enable them to do what
they find so hard to do sometimes. But I know Your grace is sufficient,
Your power is great, so Lord, Your will be done. We ask these
things in our Lord Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. 53. Is that amazing
grace? I think that's amazing grace. No, no. 236, 236. Let's stand
together. 236. All of this when it's out works
Oh, I brought it up here raise my fears away Oh, grace brought me. Well, if the Lord enables you to confess
Christ and you don't want to say it publicly, you can come
to me.