I enjoyed that song so much. Let me, while you're turning,
say how much I appreciate the privilege you all let me have
to come down and be with you. It's a privilege to have an open
door to go somewhere and preach the gospel, to be with the Lord's
people, and just to be able to worship with them, not only preach,
just to be here. And I appreciate so much, so
thankful for your love of the Word. It's obvious you love the
Word. You love the Word of God. You love the gospel. It's so
obvious that people that love it most love to hear it the most
and are the easiest people to preach to. And thank you so much
for your generosity. I don't know how I'm going to
spend all the money you gave me. I'm not used to getting that
kind of money, so I appreciate it very much. I try not to spend
that $50 off at the same time. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
And I appreciate Greg and Trish. They make us
feel so easy to be with. Oh, so easy to be with. So comfortable
to be in their home. And if you want anything over
there, you just got problems because they really If you don't
love them and get along with them, it's your problem, not
theirs, that's for sure. But I want to bring a message
this morning on believing and confessing Christ. Believing
and confessing Christ. It says here in verse 9 of Romans
chapter 10, 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. For with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. For Paul to the apostle to come
to this place of calling on men to confess the Lord Jesus Christ,
to express their faith in him by confessing him, you've got
to start back at verse 1 and see how he arrived to this place.
The first thing he does is talking in verse 1, he said, Brethren,
I'm talking to the brethren here at Rome, all believers, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is, the people that I
was born among, raised among, that they might be saved. Oh
God, save them. Oh God, save you. For I bear
them record. I go on record here before God
Almighty that they have a zeal for God. They love to pray. They love to read the Bible.
They love the law. They love to make broad their
phylacteries. They are very zealous for God,
but their zeal for God has not based on any knowledge of God
whatsoever. They don't know God, don't know
Him. How do you know they don't know Him? Because they're ignorant
of God's righteousness. God only has one righteousness,
only one righteousness in this world that's acceptable. That's
God's righteousness. God Himself is righteous in His
character, and then He has a righteousness that He gives to men. And the
reason He knows they're ignorant and don't know God is because
they have gone to about to establish their own righteousness. And
everyone, apart from the grace of God, has a righteousness.
I don't care how... I've met a lot of bad people. A lot of bad... Well, you know,
I just... Me! But I don't care how far
fallen a man is, how far away from God they are, what kind
of lifestyle they have, they'll always have somebody that they're
better than. You go to Skid Row where they're
sitting on the streets begging you for 50 cents. You got 50
cents? Begging you, they're better than somebody else. I guarantee
you, if you start talking to them, tell them, how did you
get in such a shape? Well, then they'll start finding something
was wrong with somebody else. I've never seen it fail. Man
has got a righteousness that he's trusting. I don't care how
far off from God he is. And then he goes on to say, but
here's the reason they have not submitted themselves unto the
right. They've not bowed, surrendered, submitted to the righteousness
of God. Going about to make their own. Why should I submit to God?
I've got my own. Here's the righteousness they
don't submit to. They'll submit to a righteousness of the law.
They'll submit to the righteousness the preacher tells them about.
They'll submit to the righteousness of doing their own work. They'll
submit to the righteousness of what some preachers, some were
told. But Christ is the end, the fulfillment, the goal of
the law for righteousness, not to the man that does, not establishing,
but believes. And Moses, he's going to describe
the righteousness which is of the law. Now here's the righteousness
men are going about to establish. And Paul said, I'm going to describe
it. The man which doeth those things shall live by them. If
you're going to be saved by doing, you better never fail. You better
never fail. The minute you fail, as I said
the other night, you're gone guessing. Somebody asked me what
that is. I don't know, but that means you're gone. Moses described
that the man that doeth those things shall live by them. But
now watch this. The righteousness of the laws
of doing. Got to do it all the time. Live by them. But the righteousness
which is of faith, this righteousness that you believe Christ is the
end of the law, you believe Christ for righteousness, you embrace
Christ for righteousness, the righteousness which is of faith
speaks on this wise. Say not in thine heart who shall
ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down. The righteousness
of faith don't say what do I need to do to get Christ set in heaven? What do I need to do to get him
to come down here and save me? How can I get his attention?
What work can I do? What can I do to get him to come
here to do something for me? Faith don't say that. I don't
need to bring Christ down. Faith says Christ is seated at
the right hand of God, and that's what we're wanting. But oh, man, what can I do to
get Christ to look at me, to come to me, to save me, to do
something for me? Faith don't talk like that. Then
it says, in the righteousness of faith, don't say this either.
Who shall descend into the deep? That is, to bring Christ again
from the dead. What can I do to make the death of Christ effectual
for me? Like I said the other night, here's faith. Here's the
blood of Christ. What can I do to make what Christ
did, His resurrection and Him coming from the dead, what can
I do to make His death effective for me? Do I put my faith in
it, my tears in it, my sincerity in it, my honesty in it? No. You can't do nothing to get Christ
to come. But what does the Word of Faith
say? The righteousness of faith. What does it say? It's naive. The Word is nigh you. Close to
you. Where's it at? It's in your mouth.
Where's it at? It's in your heart. And that's
the Word of Faith which we're preaching. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to the man that believes. And oh my, that's what we're
preaching. And this is what we tell you.
This is what He's saying when we preach the Word of Faith.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, The Lord Jesus Christ
shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised thee from
the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart men believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. And before I get into this business
of believing and confessing Christ, let me give you three facts,
point out three things here. The way we consider these things. First of all, the order of them.
Believing comes first. Confession follows. If thou shalt
believe in thine heart. Believe in your heart. Believing
comes first. Confession follows. For us to
confess something we don't believe, and how many people have come
to the front and got down and preachers talked them into something,
they got up. I don't know how many people have told me over
this year, and this probably happened to you, some of you. You were
in a church when you were a kid or somewhere, you come to the
front, and you confess Christ, and you got up and walked away
knowing that you wasn't saved. Knowing that you didn't know
God. And to confess what you do not believe is hypocrisy.
To confess that you believe Christ is hypocrisy. To confess that
you know Christ and not know Him is hypocrisy. And that can
never, ever be acceptable to God. Our Lord Jesus said, He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Philip said to
that Ethiopian eunuch, When he came after he preached Christ
to him from Isaiah 53, he said, here's water. What keeps me?
What hinders me from being baptized? He said, if thou believe with
all your heart that Jesus is the Son of God, you may. You
may. So the order of believing comes
first. Confession follows. Then the connection between believing
and confessing Christ. We confess Christ because we
believe Christ. If you believe Him, you'll confess
Him. Is that not right? If you believe Christ, you've
got to tell somebody you believe Christ. Confession is the effect
of faith. If you do believe Christ, you'll
confess Christ. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. It's got to come out. It's got
to come out. And look at the results of faith
and confession. It says here 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. Thou shalt be saved. Now follow me here a minute. I don't doubt, I have no doubt
whatsoever that a man who truly believes the Lord Jesus Christ
is saved before he ever confesses faith in Christ. It's because
you do believe, it's because you are saved, it's why you confess. Huh? But our Lord puts the two
together. He puts believing and confessing
together in order to be saved. If you're ashamed of Him, what
makes you think you're saved by Him? If you don't want nobody
to know that you believe on Him, what makes you think you've been
saved by Him? And our Lord said, He that believeth,
and the confession baptized. That's the man that'll be saved.
That's the man that'll be saved. How many times, you know, when
Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost, those men said,
Sirs, men and brethren, what must we do? And Peter says, Repent
and be baptized, every one of you. You know our Lord Jesus. And
this is what we do. We take His Word. We take Him
at His Word. There's an order, faith, the connection, believing
and confessing. Can't confess what we don't believe.
But you know, our Lord told Simon Peter, they had just got through
fishing all night, and the Lord got in the boat with them, and
He said, launch out here into the deep, let down your net,
and you'll catch a great raft of fishes. Simon Peter said,
Oh, Lord, we fished all night. Fished all night. We know about
fishing. If anybody around here knows about fishing, it's us.
And he didn't have to look on a computer to find out the best
time to go. But he said, oh, and he said, but nevertheless,
and this is the way we are, nevertheless, it don't look like it makes sense
to me. I don't understand it completely. But I agree. Nevertheless, it's your word.
It's your word. This is what you said to do.
This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to let down this net.
And that's what I'm telling you. If you believe his word, Nevertheless,
it's your word. It's your word. Let me give you,
let's look at several things here about believing and confessing
Christ. What is it? What is it that we're
to confess? Well, from the verse of scripture
that I read here, it's obvious that we're to confess openly
and publicly what we believe secretly in our hearts. If you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart,
What's in your heart is what you confess. What you experience
in your heart is what you confess. What's going on in your heart
is what you confess. I don't know what's going on
in your heart right now, but if God has saved you and Christ
has revealed Himself, what's in your heart is what you tell.
Huh? Oh, that which our hearts truly believe and sincerely rest
upon for salvation before God, that's what we openly and publicly
declare before men. And what is that? The Lord Jesus
Christ, if you believe the Lord Jesus Christ, that's who we're
talking about. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that
we confess. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that
we believe, and that's what we're to confess. The person of Christ,
the work of Christ, the character of Christ, the name of our Lord
Jesus, the offices of our blessed Lord. You know, when you talk
When we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, you've seen these pictures
of Him. That's not Him. If you've got Him in your house,
get rid of Him. Get rid of Him. If you've got Him in your house,
throw Him away. We're not supposed to have no image of Him at all.
We don't know what He looked like. Do we? But when I describe Christ to
you, I don't describe a physical person. We don't say He was 5'10",
had dark hair, dark eyes. No! We describe a character. Mercy. Grace. Power. Wisdom. God manifested in the
flesh. We describe His works. What He
did. Raised the dead. He spake unto
him that was dead. And He came forth. If I could
touch the hem of His garment. And He had compassion on the
multitude. He fed the hungry. He embraced the weak. Gave sight
to the blind. We describe a character. We describe
a person. A personality. A personality
that'll look into your heart. A personality that can reach
out and embrace you. A personality and a person who
can come to where you are and touch you. And touch your infirmities. Has compassion on you. A person,
that's what we describe a person. And that's what we confess as
a person. A person that's as real to me
as you are sitting there in front of me today. Oh my. We look to Him. We rest in Him. We bow to Him. We receive Him as our hope, our
only hope of eternal life. And so what is it we're to confess?
I confess Christ. I confess Him before the whole
world. People nowadays, they say, you
know, this business that they're trying to teach people how to
pray without using the name of the Lord Jesus. Bruce got a preacher,
and you tell me about it, but where you live, a preacher put
in a newspaper how to pray without using the name of Jesus. The
Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, Jesus Christ offends
people. We've got so many religions now,
we don't offend any of them. There ain't but one true religion,
ain't but one true gospel, ain't but one salvation, ain't but
one Savior, ain't but one God. And that's what we're going to
confess. We're going to confess Christ. What do I confess about
Him? That there's an everlasting covenant,
and Christ is the surety of that covenant. He entered into a covenant
with God to take all the debts and all the obligations of God's
people. And he himself would take them
obligations upon himself and pay them away. And they would
owe nothing. And oh, we confess that he's
the Son of God. Eternal Son of God. He didn't
become the Son of God when he was born in Bethlehem. He was
always the Son of God. Eternally the Son of God. He
was God Himself that came down into this world. He's the Wonderful. He's the Counselor. He's the
Mighty God. He's the Everlasting Father.
He's the Prince of Peace. And the government shall be upon
His shoulder. Not shoulders. He don't need
shoulders. One shoulder. The government's
going to be on his shoulder. We confess that he's the Messiah.
He's the Christ. He's our prophet from whom we
learn of God. He's our priest who offered a
sacrifice and atoned for us and went into the presence of the
holiest of holies. He's our king to rule and reign
over us. He's the apostle and high priest
of our profession. I confess that that's my apostle.
This is my profession. That Christ is everything. Oh,
is that to you? Oh my, He's my wisdom. Oh, bless
His name. He's my wisdom. How am I going
to know God? How am I going to understand
the Scripture? How am I going to understand myself? How am
I going to understand human nature? Christ is my wisdom by which
I understand these things. Oh, I've got to have a righteousness,
the very righteousness of God. He's my righteousness. I need
to be made holy. I've got to be holy. I can't
have no sin. I've got to be holy to come.
He's my sanctification. I've got to have somebody to
come and get this old body and take it to glory and change it.
He's my redemption. He's my sin offering. He's my
atonement. He's our acceptance. He's my
mediator between God and man. I don't need Mary. I don't need
a saint. I don't need the church. I don't need nobody else. I've
come to God through Jesus Christ. He makes intercession for me.
He's my coming bridegroom. We confess Him. And listen to
me now. At whatever point the character
of our Lord Jesus Christ is debated and questioned in our day, exactly
at that point we confess Him the loudest and the boldest.
They preach Him as this poor old helpless fellow that's standing
with outstretched arms and tears streaming down his face, standing,
walking the banisters of heaven, trying his best to get somebody
to accept him, trying his best to get somebody to let him into
their heart. We're going to stand up and tell men and women that
he is the Lord of glory. And he absolutely owes you nothing.
He don't owe you, don't owe you the next breath you breathe.
You're a worm, you're a grasshopper. Your flesh is grass. There ain't
nothing good about you from the top of your head to the sole
of your feet. And if you're saved at all, He's the one that's going
to do it. He ain't begging leave to get into your heart. If you're
going to do any begging, it's going to be you. If there's going
to be any salvation, it's going to be Him. And like we said, we're going
to try to pray without praying about Christ. Somebody tells
me, I can't mention Christ. I'm going to shout it that much
louder. God Himself said, and our Lord Himself says, no man
comes unto the Father but by Me. And He says that when you
pray, say, My Father which is in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
And if you ask anything, it's My name! Not Mary's name, not the church's
name, not the preacher's name, not St. Joseph, St. John, St. nobody else. It's His name! And boy, if I ever get a chance
to pray publicly, I mention His name every chance I get. Oh my,
and then we confess His Word. We confess Him, then we confess
His Word. Why do we confess His Word? Not
only do we confess Him, you remember what our Lord Jesus said? You
can look it up yourself in Mark chapter 8. He said, Whosoever
therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words, and this sinful
and adulterous generation of him shall I be ashamed. in the
presence of my Father. Now, beloved, it's easy, it's
easy to confess Christ here among all these people. It's easy for
me to be bold here. It's easy for me to confess Christ
here. Not be ashamed of His words here, but out there. Out there. That's another story. When I hear Christ belittled,
I hear Christ shamed, and I hear His name put way down here. Him
put way down here and man put way up there. That's another
story. Can you look a preacher in the
eye and say, after you talk about him and you don't agree and he
says to you, you say, well, we're brothers anyway. Can you say,
no, we're not brothers. Can you say, we don't even worship
the same Christ. Your Jesus wants to do something,
mine didn't. Yours is trying and failed, mine
neither is discouraged, neither does he fail. There's a preacher
at home, and I don't want to sound pious here, but he's a
doctor. You know, every preacher now
has got to be a doctor. I don't even make a good nurse.
But they all got to have a doctor
in front of their name. Well, this doctor, you know, I was
talking to him, this fellow was talking, we was talking about
the gospel, talking about faith in Christ. Well, he decided he's
going to jump in, this doctor was, this preacher was. He's
going to jump in and tell us where we both was wrong. And
he started, and boy, he just aggravated me to no end. And finally, when we got through
talking, he said, well, we may not agree on everything, but
we're still brothers in Christ. And I said, oh, no, we're not.
I told him that in front of a whole bunch of people. I said, we're
not. We're not brothers at all. Your God and my God is two different
gods. Your Savior and my Savior is
two different saviors. And I just saw him Wednesday
afternoon. He said, how you doing Donnie?
You know, he can go ahead and be just happy as a... But I'm
like, I can't call him brother. I can't acknowledge him as a
preacher. A man that's lying on God needs to be shut up. And
he needs to be told he's lying on God. And if you... Jim Byrd.
He heard a preacher get up and preach one time, and when he
got through, he says, you know you never mentioned Christ? He
said, you had this glorious opportunity to preach Christ and talk about
Christ, and you didn't do it. He said, you're going to answer
for that. We're not playing games in this business. We're not playing,
you know, and I had a preacher do me that way years and years
ago when I was in my 20s, early 20s and mid 20s. And he looked
me right square in the eye and he says, there ain't but one
gospel and you're going to have to decide which one you're going to preach.
You can't mix it up. You can't talk out of your mouth
on one side of your face that that, you know, this is what
we need to do and this is what we got to do. And then over here
to the other side of your face, talk about the grace of God.
It's either going to be all grace or none of grace. It's going
to be nothing but the gospel or just forget it. That's what
he told me. and did not bat an eye when he
told me that. He didn't pull no punches with
me. And that's why I say when we're out there, it's another
story about this business of confessing Christ. It's easy
to do it here. Let me show you something. Look
over here. Look at 1 John. 2i John. 2 John. A true belief in confession of
Christ involves a faith, involves confidence of all that's revealed
in Scripture concerning Him. Oh my, we have a faith and a
confidence of everything in this Scripture revealed concerning
Him. I mean, beloved, my mother-in-law, she's been gone now, she'll be
gone next Wednesday, she'll be gone eight years. But I remember
her saying, she said, always sat in the second row Little
old chubby legs, she'd prop them up on the back of the puke. And
she was a very simple-minded woman, no education, barely could
read, write a little bit. And I don't know how many times
she says, I don't, I don't know much about the Bible, very little
I understand about it, but that's not any of it I don't believe.
You know, you tell me what it says, I believe it. And that's
the way we are about Christ. You tell me about it, and I can
see it there, I'll believe that. And that's what he says. But
look here, what he says here in 2 John, in verse 9. Oh, a true belief and confession
of Christ involves a faith and a confidence. Whosoever transgresses
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ. You mean there's a
doctrine of Christ? Yeah, it's called the Bible.
It's called the whole Word of God. And I'll tell you something
about doctrine. Doctrine is singular. That means
all the Word of God, all the truth of God is singular. It's
one. And whenever you find doctrines
in the plural, it's always the doctrines of man or the doctrines
of devils. They've got to mix it up. They've
got to have different doctrines. God's got one truth. One truth. And then he goes on to say here,
if you transgress and abide not in the doctrine of Christ, he
don't have God. He don't have God. He that abideth not in the doctrine
continues, abides and lives and dwells in the doctrine of Christ,
or who does that? He has both the Father and the
Son. Now watch this. If there come unto you and bring
not this doctrine, what? The doctrine of Christ. The doctrine
that God gave. The doctrine of truth. Receive
him not into your house, neither say, God bless you. For he that
says, God bless you, is a taker of his evil deeds. Now you say,
boy, what in the world does that mean? That means this, if somebody
comes to you bringing another doctrine, other than Christ. Other than Christ. Just the other
day, I seen this new vehicle pulling up the driveway, I was
outside working, you know, I live on a farm, I was out there working,
fooling around in my truck doing something, and this new car comes
pulling up the driveway, and I thought, well, that's somebody
coming here to see Mary about her genealogy. Well, this old woman comes rolling
out of the car, and she said, I've got something I'd like for
you to read. And I said, oh, get back in your car. Just get
back in your car right now. What? Why? I said, I just want
you. I said, I don't want it. I don't
want nothing you got. I don't want to hear your word.
I don't want to hear nothing you got. Get back in your three
old women. They send out old women so you
think they'll be nice to them. Listen, I'm not going to be nice
to anybody that's not bringing the doctrine of Christ. And she said, well, what's the
problem? I said, you're a Jehovah Witness, right? She said, yes.
I said, you all wouldn't know God from a goat. And this is
the truth. I'm telling you exactly what
I said. You all wouldn't know God from a goat. She said, what makes
you say that? Because you started with Charles
Page Russell back in the 1920s. You can find when doctrine started. And if it started any time past
this Bible, it's a lie. She said, well, why don't you?
And I said, because you don't know God. Just get in your car
and leave and don't come back. She said, you want us to put
your name on our no visit list? I said, yes. Don't visit me. And I didn't
say God bless you as you went. You say you don't treat people
that way. Would you? Listen, if somebody hands you
a glass of tea and they put a drop of poison in it, it still looks
like a glass of tea. It'll taste like a glass of tea,
but the minute you put poison, it ceases to be tea. It's poison
and it'll kill you. And don't you let anybody bring
you anything besides Christ. Don't support them. As old Barnard
said, you know, the fellow sitting out in the car, driving the car,
getaway car, when they get caught, when every fellow goes in with
a gun to rob the bank, the guy in the car is going to go to
the same jail the guy with the gun did. And if you support them
fellows that's robbing the bank, robbing God of His glory, and
you help them drive the car, you're going to go to the same
hell they're going. You say, boy, you're awful hard, preacher.
I don't mean to be. I don't mean to be. But we've
got to know. We've got to know these things.
And oh my, well some have the idea that some truths that we
look back over in our text should be kept in the background. Don't
bring these out because certain people don't believe them and
they won't accept them. Well somebody come in and say, well
they don't believe in election. Well, we've got to say election. Tim
James went someplace to preach down in Alabama and the preacher
told him when he got there, he says, you know, I said, I don't believe
in particular redemption. I don't believe, you know, and
I won't make an issue out of it. Tim said, well, you just
did. You know what Tim preached? He
preached on the predicted redemption of Christ. If that guy would
have never said nothing about it, but the minute he says, I
don't believe it, Tim had to preach it. Somebody says, I don't
believe that, then you've got to preach it. You've got to. You say, well, you're picking
on people. They ain't going to believe the truth if you don't
tell them. If the whole church has to stand
in defense of one word of Christ, or one part of His glory, one
phase of His glory, so be it. We're going to do it. God helping
us, we're going to do it. And then not only do we confess
His Word and we confess Him, I confess what I believe about
Christ. What I believe. Not what the Puritans taught,
Bruce. No, no, not what the Puritans taught. Not what John Flavel
taught. Not what John Owen taught. Not what Charles Spurgeon taught.
As much as we love those. Not what the Puritans taught.
Not what the so-called fathers believed. Not what my preacher
in church believed. But what I believe. We confess
what we ourselves believe. Paul said, I know whom, whom
I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I have committed unto him. Huh? Oh, my. Let a man examine himself
to see whether Christ be in him, whether he be in the faith, the
gospel. You know, you've heard about
that fellow that asked him, he said, what do you believe? He
said, I believe what the church believes, what my preacher believes.
What does your preacher believe? He believes what I believe. What does the
church believe? They believe what me and the
preacher believe. But oh, that's not the way it is. We have this
thing of faith is for ourselves. For ourselves. That's why old
Joshua said, ask for me in my house, we're going to serve the
Lord. Oh, Thomas fell down before the Lord and said, my Lord and
my God. Well, we confess Him, we confess
His Word, and we confess what we believe about Him. When and
how? When and how should we who believe
Christ confess Him? We're talking about believing
and confessing Christ. When and how should we who believe
our Lord Jesus confess Him? Now. Right now. Right now. If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt
be saved. When did those in the New Testament confess Christ?
When they heard and believed the gospel. They followed us
straight to the river and baptized him. Straight to the lake and
baptized him. Oh, men and brethren, what must I do? Repent and be
baptized. And go away they went. You know what it would be like
to baptize two or three thousand people at a time? That's what
they did, didn't they? When they can believe and confess,
right then. Right then. When they heard and
believed the gospel. There was no waiting period.
There was no proving time. Let's wait and see. You know, we joined the church
and said, well, let's wait and see if you know anything before you join
the church. They didn't do that. Arise! Call on the name of the Lord
and be baptized. No waiting period. No proving time. And so we confess
Him right now. Right now. I mean, it wouldn't
bother me if Christ done something for you, you jumped up and said,
Preacher, I believe it right now. I've had that happen to
me two or three times. Somebody said, Brother Donnie,
I believe Christ is my Lord and I believe Him now. Confess Him
in the two ordinances that He gives to us. Confess Him in baptism.
Confess Him in the Lord's table. Take the bread. Take the wine.
And confess Him at all times. You see, confessing Christ is
not over when I'm baptized. Not over when I tell the church
that I believe Christ. Oh my, we unite with His people.
Oh, we confess Him by mouth. I witness what I believe. If
I believe Christ, I tell people about Christ. I can't help but
speak what I've seen and heard. Oh, and I confess Him by faithfulness
to the people and those that are identified with Him. You
know how well you confess Christ? By faithfulness right here. Faithfulness
to this preacher and his message. Faithfulness to attend. Faithfulness
to be identified. Where do you go to church at?
Oh, I go to church up there at that Grace Church up in Apopka. Oh. Oh. Oh, you go up there where
they believe that babies go to hell. That's what they say about
us down home. But, oh, be faithful. Paul said,
don't be ashamed of me and the gospel. Oh, be faithful to the
people and the things identified with him. And then, beloved,
we confess Christ by our attitude. We confess Christ by our conduct.
Oh, graciousness and love and mercy and compassion and generosity
and walking up right before the world, watching what comes out
of our mouths. We adorn, we dress up the doctrine of our God. Dress
it up. Dress it up. Oh, why should I
confess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Why should I? When should
I now? Why should I? Why should we confess
faith in Christ? Well, I shouldn't have to say
much here. Every believer here feels the
same as the apostle who says, we cannot bespeak the things
which we've seen and heard. But let me give you a few reasons
why we should confess faith in Christ. why we should, and I
hope that some of you do today. Let me give you a few reasons. First of all, my praise and confession
is due Him. It's due Him. Yeah. My praise
and confession is due Him. All that I am, all that I know,
all that I'll ever be, and all that I possess right now is because
of Him. Because of His grace. That's
everything I have. Let me show you something. Is that worth anything? Has it
got any values? What is that? Just three zeros
in it. Now we've got six zeros. The zeros are zero, how many
of them you have? Now watch this. Put that one in front of it and
it's got something, means something there. That's all we are, just
a bunch of zeros. Zips, nothing, nada. But Christ. And that's what takes a zero. That's it, ain't it? That's it. Oh my, why should I confess him?
Because I'm nothing. He's everything. I don't have
anything. I'm just a zero. But with him,
I'm wealthy. I'm rich. I have everything. I have everything. And secondly,
not only does my praise and confession do him, I truly believe what
I confess. If I doubted his ability, doubted his willingness to save
sinners, like myself, then I'd be shy and timid about confessing
him. But, oh, do I doubt his willingness? Do I doubt his ability?
So if I don't doubt his willingness and his ability, there ain't
no reason to be shy or timid, huh? Oh, we burn our bridges! Y'all heard that story about
the, I forget where they went, the Roman soldiers going to military
campaign. They brought all the wheat and
the corn and everything with them to feed them while they
was on that campaign. When they got there, the captain
went out there and burned all them ships so they couldn't go
back. And that's what we do when we confess Christ. We burn our
bridges. We burn our bridges. Who are we going to go back to?
Who are we going to go back to? Who are we going to go back to?
What are we going to do back there? Go back to Arminianism? Go back to freewillism? Go back
to putting the crown on our head? Oh, like Job said, the hand of
God has touched me, He has stripped me of my glory and taken the
crown off my head. And I confess Him, not only what
I truly believe, my praise and confessions do Him, I confess
Him for your sake. For your sake here, and you confessing
for the sake of your children, the sake of your employees, the
sake of the people you work with, your family, your friends, your
neighbors, we confessing the way of God is the way of Christ.
There's no other way. The way to glory is borne by
the cross. You've got to go where that blood
was shed, where that sacrifice was offered, where righteousness
was established. Sin was put away. And oh my,
if you don't find it, you'll perish. And let me show you this
in closing, over here in 1 John chapter 5. Let's just look at
this just a minute. This is a good place to take
somebody when you're witnessing to them. I confess Him for your
sake. I confess Him for my children's
sake, my son's sake, the people I preach to's sake, my neighbor's
sake. Look what it says here in 1 John 5. In verse 11, this
is a wonderful first scripture to take people. This is the record.
This is the record. God's got a record. We go to
the courthouse to get our records. We go to the larder to get our
records. Everybody's got a record or something,
and they want it, and they want to keep it. It records your marriage,
and your births, and your deaths, and your... We have a record.
This is the record that God has given to us eternal life. Given
it to us. Didn't earn it. Didn't deserve
it. And this, watch it, this life, is in his Son. Now listen, he that hath the
Son, he's got life. He's got it! Not going to get
it, he's got it now. And he that hath not, if you
don't have the Son of God, you don't have life. And why did
you write these things to us, John? For you that believe on
the name of the Son of God, that you may know, know, that you
have eternal life. And knowing this, you may believe
and continue to believe on the name of the Son of God. We confess
Him for your sake. Well, what spirit, what spirit
do I confess this faith in Christ? What spirit? Well, I do it with
self-examination. I examine me, not the fellow
next to me. You reckon he believes? What
about me? Let a man examine himself whether he be in the faith. That
word, being in the faith, means do I believe Christ? Do I believe the things revealed
about Christ in His Word? Faith and the gospel is the same
thing. And I do it willingly. I do it willingly. Nobody's pressing
me to do this. Nobody's making me do this. If
I do it, I'm going to do it willingly. Because it's the truth. It's
what I know. It's what I see. It's what I believe myself. And
I do it boldly. I do it boldly. I'm among a bunch
of sinners and Christ came to save sinners. I want to confess
among the rest of these sinners that Christ saved me. Come boldly
to the throne of grace. We confess Him sincerely. Sincerely. Oh, God, deliver us from hypocrisy. Deliver me from hypocrisy. Do
it sincerely, Lord Jesus. Simon Peter, do you love me?
Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me?
Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me?
Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter,
do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me?
Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord,
I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you.
Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon
Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon
Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord,
I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I love you. Simon Peter, do you love me?
Yes, Lord, I love you. He's my all, huh? You know the gospel's
only complicated when I complicate it. It says if you're thirsty, He's
our water. It says if you're hungry, He's
that bread which came down from heaven. Say you're sinful, there's
a righteousness provided. Say you're guilty, there's mercy
appointed. Huh? Mercy appointed. Oh, my
soul. Do you believe? Do you believe
Christ? Do you believe His righteousness? Do you believe He's the Lord? With your mouth, you say, I believe
that. I believe that. I believe that. God bless you. The Lord help you to confess
your faith in Christ. Amen. Thank you so much for letting
me come.