Alright, Romans 10. Let's read
together starting in verse 5. For Moses writes about the righteousness
that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments
shall live by them. But the righteousness based on
faith says, do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven?
That is to bring Christ down. Or, who will descend into the
abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does
it say? The word is near you, in your
mouth and in your heart, because if you confess with your mouth
that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised
Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes
and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
For the scripture says that everyone who believes in Him will not
be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and
Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches
on all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord will be saved. How will they then call on Him
in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in
Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without
someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless
they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have
not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has
believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing
and hearing the word of Christ. So I'll stop there because we're
not going to get through all of that tonight. There are some
things that I want to bring to your attention tonight. First,
I want you to recognize that there is this motif in this section
of the text about calling, calling on the name of the Lord. And
so if I were to entitle tonight's message, it would be Calling
Upon the Name of the Lord Who Calls. Because we've already
learned that God calls. Isn't that the point of Romans
9? God calls whomever He decides
to call. God gives mercy to whom He gives
mercy and hardens whom He hardens. And it is His sovereign choice
with no respect to the individual who is called or hardened. And
then there's something else, too. I thought about doing my
first object lesson from the pulpit. I thought about bringing
a roll of toilet paper and a wrench and a balloon. And I started
to think about it this way. I should show you, and I use
the toilet paper analogy a lot in my house, because there are
certain things that we're supposed to do. And because we're supposed
to do things certain ways, in certain places, in certain seasons,
in certain segments of life, it goes by implication that we
aren't supposed to do those things in other places. For example,
when we use toilet paper, typically we're using the toilet. That's
not something we do in the living room. It's not something we do
in the kitchen. It's not something we do on the front porch, unless
maybe we live somewhere in the backwoods of nowhere, and that's
just all the plumbing we have. No, there's a specific place
and point and purpose for the use of toilet paper. Now, I know
that there may be other uses for toilet paper. For example,
some of the young people in our community like to throw it into
trees and throw it over roofs. And, you know, that's a death
sentence in my neighborhood. Don't do that to my house. But
it has been done. Maybe decor, maybe war, or whatever
it might be. You can also write on toilet
paper, if you so chose to do. You could blow your nose on toilet
paper, but it was invented for a specific purpose. Now, if I
wanted to teach you what it was and what it was for, would I
take the toilet paper and show you 400 uses that are inappropriate? No. I would show you how to use
it properly. The same thing would be for a
balloon. I wouldn't blow up a balloon and then stick it over my head
as an oxygen tank for swimming. That is not what it's for. I
wouldn't use it as a shower cap even though it may fit. It's
not what it's for. And for me to teach you what
a balloon is, it would not be necessary for me to go and teach
you 7,436 reasons why you shouldn't use a balloon in these manner
so that you would understand the proper use of a balloon.
Now we get to the wrench. There is always a group of knuckleheads
in our culture who will take a wrench and use it as a hammer. You ever seen those people? Maybe
you're one of them. You are strange. Please stop being weird and use
tools for what their intended purpose is. A wrench is used
for wrench things. A hammer is used for a hammer.
And I remember being a child, and I'm very ept with tools and
do my own mechanicking and used to do construction before I fell. And either way, I was never taken
outside and shown how not to use a wrench. I was never given
a hammer and was told to smash my toe with it, or throw it out
like a frisbee, or to use it as kindling for the fire. No,
I was shown properly how to use each of those tools and what
they were used for. So that when I saw someone using
toilet paper inappropriately, a balloon inappropriately, or
a wrench or a hammer inappropriately, I went, that's just strange. Further, I would say, that's
just wrong. What's the point in this elongated
object lesson? There are too many people who
swear by the Lord that they are expositors of scripture and teachers
of the flock who spend all their time teaching what not to do
with a wrench and all their time teaching what not to do with
toilet paper rather than teaching the church what is true and what
is right so that by implication and obvious common sense they
will know when they hear an error. And this is the point of how
so many of us have never heard the truth of Romans 10. Because
everyone that I have ever known in my childhood that I have heard
from a pulpit have always given Romans 10 the, I don't know,
The measure of, if you want to be saved, do these things. If
you want to be saved, say these words. If you want to be saved,
go this way. Act this way. Believe this way. But it's not the point as we
saw last week. And so I could do a lot of teaching about what
this doesn't say. And sometimes when we're teaching,
a good pastor or a teacher, a good parent, when the opportunity
comes to give an explanation of application of this is the
truth, and remember when we heard this, this isn't true, that's
great. But there's never an occasion to expose people to error that
they haven't been exposed to. Don't teach your children the
false gospel of decisionism if they've never heard it. Teach
them the truth of the free and sovereign grace of Christ that
they might see it. that when they come home from
the cousin's weekend vacation Bible school and they say, Dad,
cousin's pastor said that if I say this prayer, I'm saved. What's that all about? You can
say, that's called heresy, child. What do we believe in? You reinforce
the truth. You reinforce the truth. It blows my mind the number
of Christians today that are so up to date with all of the
errors and all of the heretics and all of the mistakes and all
of the improper teaching, as if they have the encyclopedia
of stupidity and the encyclopedia of the heresy chronicles, as
Ben and I like to call it. that they know every wrong thing
and every iteration of error that's ever been devised of man
from the garden to glory. And they know it all. And that's
all that they're consumed with. Guess what? It robs God of his
glory. It robs God of his glory. When
we see it, we mark it, we move on. We teach the truth. Romans 10 is one of those places
that people have just spent so much time abusing, and then also
so much time correcting, but little time teaching. And that's
what I pray that I can do for you tonight. To teach it very
clearly, so that you would understand what it means, and most importantly,
or as important as understanding what it means, to recognize the
error when you see it. calling upon the name of the
Lord. Last week we looked at what confession
means. What is it there for? But what
does it say? Verse 8. That's the question
that Paul asked. What is it? What is it and what is happening
with it? It is righteousness based upon
faith. Remember, we talked about Paul
personifying the righteousness that's based upon faith, which
is what? True righteousness, which is what? Imputed from whom? Jesus Christ. That's what we've
learned thus far, that the gospel, the good news of God, is that
He has declared His people alone righteous through the death of
Jesus and vindicated this proclamation through the resurrection of Jesus. And the only way in which we
know it is because God birthed us anew by the Spirit as He wishes
through no means explained to us. And then by faith, we see
that it is ours. So the righteousness that based
on faith says, what does it say? It doesn't say, let's go get
Jesus. Let's work with Jesus. Let's go up to heaven. Let's
figure it all out on our own. It doesn't say, let's dig him
up out of the ground. Let's go into the abyss. Let's be, you
know, working with, there's no synergy here for justification.
There's no synergy for righteousness. There's no man working with God
at all. God does all the work. Every
time, always, for His people. And He finished all the work
of redemption in Christ. And therefore, He will make sure
that His elect come to believe in Christ. But what does the
righteousness, that what? That depends on faith, say. What
does it say? It says the word is near you, in your mouth and
in your heart. It's there. God has put it there.
The word of faith that we proclaim. This is review. We talked about
these verses last week. Because if you confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord. Now, have we had any type of
teaching thus far in Romans about Jesus not being Lord? No. As a matter of fact, everything
Paul ever taught is that Jesus is the Lord of the elect and
He is the Lord of the reprobate. He is the Lord of all people,
even those fallen angels and those elect angels, as we call
them. The ones who were not elected
to fall. He's the Lord. He is the only
Lord. But yet in this particular instance,
there is someone else who vies for the title Lord with this
particular audience. Who is he? Just say it. Who is
the one wanting to be called Lord in this day? Caesar. Caesar. Caesar is Lord. Caesar
is Lord, according to the Romans. Paul, being a Roman citizen and
also a Jew, he was always in that little funnel, that little
dichotomy that sort of put him in the place where culturally
those around him would go, Caesar is Lord. And yet in his mind,
after conversion, he recognized Caesar isn't Lord. But even before
conversion, he knew that only Yahweh was Lord. But until conversion,
he could not see that Jesus was God to do that which God had
promised, to save His people from their sins. So with our
mouth we confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart
that God has raised Him from the dead. The instance there
is you will be saved. Now this word saved comes about,
doesn't it? I will tell you this, and I don't
really want to go through it all. Maybe next week we might.
But there are 13, if I remember correctly, times where Paul uses
this idea of saved or salvation in Romans. And unless I'm just
dumb as a bag of potatoes, which is possibly true, I could be,
I am trying to remember if any of them refer to being justified. I don't think they do. In fact,
there's no context in where Paul uses the word salvation or saved
in the sense that someone is justified. Now, are those who
are saved justified? Yes. But in our vernacular, we
use the word saved more than Paul does in an improper way. Just like we would use the word
sanctified, sometimes improperly, according to how Paul would use
it. And for us in our culture, to be saved means to be granted
eternal life. Surely true, those will be saved.
But in this teaching of Paul, what is he talking about here?
Why all of a sudden does he use salvation and saved in the same
way he's already solidified redemption through the righteousness that
comes from faith? Or that depends on faith that
comes from Christ. So the righteousness of God is
manifested apart from the law. Who is Jesus? We spent two weeks
dealing with that. Jesus Christ is the righteousness
of God. The fullness of the glory of God revealed so that we see
Him by the Spirit of God as He wishes to show us the fullness
of God in redemption. And as we've just learned over
the last few weeks on Sunday morning in John's Gospel is that
Jesus is glorifying the Father and Himself being glorified as
God in His death for the sake of the elect. His sheep that
hear His voice. So this saved is something we
need to recognize is not about justification. It's not about
something that's taking place in the spiritual realm, but it's
something that God has promised for those who have been justified. For what? If you confess with
your mouth that Jesus is Lord, the confession is that which
is true to you. I've always used this example.
If there was a crime that took place, let's just say someone
robbed the drugstore over there, and one of you confessed to the
authorities, I did it. They would arrest you based on
your confession, but your confession would not be a confession, it
would be a what? A lie. A confession is a statement
of truth. That which is true. Jesus Christ
is my Lord. He is my Savior. He is my Redeemer. He is my Righteousness. He has
proven His authority in redemption because in His work He has been
raised from the dead. And my faith that I have, believing
in my heart, in the core of my soul, my soul has been granted
the faith to know that that assurance is mine in Christ. This is believing
that God has raised Him from the dead. I talked about that
last week. Everything that Christ says about Himself, every preacher
and prophet that ever prophesied and exclaimed and exposited the
teachings of Christ throughout the Scriptures from the beginning
to the end, have said the doctrine of Christ is who He is and what
He came to do and that He accomplished it and that it was effectual
and who it applies to. This is what we believe. If you
remember last week, I said those who would teach a gospel different
than the one that we believe as Grace Truth Church believe
a false gospel. Because it is about how we are
made and declared righteous before God and that is that we have
a righteousness that is not our own. And in verse 10, for with the
heart one believes and is justified. With the mouth one confesses
and is saved. This expressiveness that Paul
gives. And if we stopped there, we could
culturally dictate an eisegetical manure to this and make it grow
whatever we wanted it to grow. We can fertilize it with all
sorts of things. Sprinkle seeds of works and seeds
of self-righteousness and seeds of social righteousness and seeds
of social justice and seeds of whatever other type of combination
you want to put there. And we can make it say what we wanted
it to say. But by the mercy of God, Paul says next in verse
11 for. It explains what he's saying
there. And these promises that we're
about to see, these are the promises guaranteed only to the believing
ones, who are also then the confessing ones. And see, people go, that's
not what it says. Read verses 15, 16, 17. No one confesses Jesus as who
He says He is. and believe that He truly finished
the work He said He would, except they've been born of God and
called by God first, powerfully snatched out of the domain of
darkness into the light of Christ. It's already settled. There's
no greater abuse of scripture than to pretext this section
of the Bible and say, here's what you got to do to be saved.
Any man who confesses that as the prescription of how one can
be right with God is a liar. That's the third time I've said
that in three weeks. Beloved, it's important. It is
important for us to get the truth For the Scripture says, everyone
who believes in Him will not be put to shame. For there is
no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord
of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. Now see,
you see the conflation here. Oh, see, the Lord said if you
call on him, he'll give you the riches. He'll give you the riches
of eternal life. He'll give you the grace if you
just call his name. He's talking to Christians who
have already believed. What do they got business calling
on the name of the Lord? It's a confession of what they
believe in the gospel. In what circumstance? Any circumstance.
Sometimes it's in the quietness of our own soul. When we're struggling
to wonder if there is hope in this life and the only thing
that we know to do by the mercy of God, by the spirit inside
the center of our core, we just concede by the Lord's mercy. Jesus Christ is my righteousness.
This is all I have. It is all I know. All I have
is Christ. There is nothing else but Christ. And it's not something that we
extrapolate to this academic beauty, but it's something that
we just hold fast by faith in a spiritual sense sometimes. And in this particular context,
there is a lot of things happening in the midst of these people. They are having a very rough
life as Christians. Not only are the Jews in this
region being persecuted, are persecuting
the Christians, but now the Roman government are persecuting Christians. And then all over the world,
Christians are persecuted. The Bible here gives us promises
in verses 11 and 12, and it is a direct quotation from the book
of Joel. It is not a new doctrine. And Joel chapter two, verse 32,
it says, and it shall come to pass. But everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord shall be saved, future thing to look
forward to. Not a condition, if you call,
then you will, then you are saved, then I will save you. Those who
call the name of the Lord will be saved. It is an allusion to
that text. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
there shall be those who escape. Escape what? The enemies of God. Is this not a fitting allusion
for the Christians of Rome, both Jew and Gentile? They're suffering
greatly for the sake of their faith. And Paul knows this. So
pastorally, Paul, as an apostle, though he never became an elder,
as an apostle, he is a pastor at heart. Without a pastor's
heart, we shouldn't teach the Bible. And he has a pastor's heart.
And this teaching that Paul gives these believers, most of which
didn't even understand where it came from. Comes from that place where there
will be those who escape the enemies of God, escape those
who persecute them, escape those who come after them, escape those.
But listen to the chapter two, verse 32 of Joel, listen to the
incompletion. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and
in Jerusalem, there shall be those who escape, as the Lord
has said, and among the survivors who were the survivors, those
who escape shall be those whom the Lord calls. Changes the tune, doesn't it?
It's not about calling on the Lord for salvation. In a spiritual
sense, it's not about calling the Lord to give me justification. My calling doesn't cause God
to save me spiritually. It is because he has. And the
occasion for calling is when it feels like we have just lost
the war. With a mindset that we will be
saved, there is a salvation that comes, and I'll talk about that
in a minute. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will
be saved. It is not a condition of justification,
but a promise thereof. Faith alone. Verse 11. Those who believe, believe. Everyone who believes will not
be put to shame. Everyone who believes will not
die. Everyone who believes will live
forever. Everyone who believes, though
they die, they will live. Faith alone, faith alone in what
in what God has revealed concerning his son, about how he saves his
people before him, for him, for himself and by himself through
Jesus Christ. We believe because God, the Holy
Spirit, has opened our eyes and gifted us faith. We will not be ashamed. What
is a shame? How was Christ shamed? Christ
was innocent. Christ was taken into the public
square and he was stripped naked and he was beaten 39 times. The
Bible says that he was unrecognizable as a human being. And he was paraded through the
streets of Jerusalem and he was carrying for a short season,
for a short minute, his own crossbar that he would die upon. And when
he could no longer bear it, someone else was forced to carry it for
him. And they took him to the hill of skulls, Galgotha, and
they nailed his arms and his feet through the nerves of his
wrists and ankles into the tree, and they tied his hands onto
the wood, and they raised him up, and when that bar moved down
into the earth, it shuddered as it did with every person,
and with every ounce of his physical human life, he survived. and excruciating pain. You know
what the word excruciating means? Excruciate from the cross. It's a word that was coined for
the pain that came from Roman crucifixion out of the cross. Your back was laid open, the
ribs and the muscles of your back were laid open. And your arms held up to such
a degree that you could not breathe. So the only way you could breathe
was to pull up through the pain of the nails of your wrist and
push against the pain of the nails on your ankles and push
up so that you could take one more breath that you could live
three more minutes when your back was laid bare. And this
is the Creator of the world who came into the world, yet the
world did not know Him. And He subjected Himself to the
cross because it was the will of the Father to crush Him, because
in the crushing of Jesus Christ in His flesh, in His human flesh,
God the Father is satisfied and pleased. Listen to this, pleased. Because in that, He is our propitiation. There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus, because Christ was put to shame
instead of us. And there is no distinction. No distinction, Paul says. None
whatsoever. Between Jew and Greek. For those
of you who are the believing ones who are Jews and those of
you who are the believing ones who are Greek, I am speaking
to you. Paul is writing this to them. Jesus. Is the same Lord of all of us. There is no Lord of the Jews
and then another Lord of the Gentiles. There is no redemption
of a Jew and then a redemption of the world. There is only one
Christ, and He only does one work, and He only accomplishes
the work of God the Father in salvation one way, one time,
forever. Hebrews. Once and for all, He
sat down. There's one way, and this is
the finished work of Jesus Christ. That is the confession with the
mouth of the true believer. That is what Paul is teaching
here. So that no matter what we are facing. As believers, by the mercy of
God, we confess Christ as our hope, we confess Christ as our
life, we confess Christ as our Lord. You're not the Lord of
me, Caesar, and you can hang me on a cross and put me to shame,
but I shall not be ashamed. Because my Lord, the one and
only Lord, took my shame. That's what's being taught here. It's obvious. It's very, very
obvious. This cross work of Christ is
the point. And only the believers can confess
it. There's no distinction there. See, only faith proves that one
is justified. And just because we die, just
because we suffer, faith alone proves we are justified in Christ.
The elect ones of all the peoples of the world will believe. Only faith qualifies us to hold
to this promise. We do not believe in the finished
work of Christ, but we believe in us. We believe in our work.
We believe in our mouth. We believe in our words. We believe
in our faith that we're not believing in Christ. And if that's the
case, then we cannot hold to the promise of Christ right here
through Paul. We will be saved. There is no
judgment for us. There is no reward and penalty
for the believer. We will receive it all. Christ
is all and in all. Christ is ours. And we are his. Faith alone produces a crying
out to the Lord in a time of need. True spiritually given conversion
creates a crying out to the Lord in our time of need, in our time
of despair. so that I can say, I know this
is the confession with my mouth because I believe his work is
finished in my heart. You see how that works? It's
so simple. I know that I have eternal life because of Christ.
I know that I'm justified before God because of Christ. I know
that Jesus is Lord, no matter what man may do to me. And I
know that no matter what they may do to my body, I will live. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. What
does Paul say there? Paul cries out in his pain. This is just almost an insane
list of things. We are afflicted in every way,
but we're not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.
Always. See, Paul doesn't change his
song depending on the letter that he writes. He never changes
his teaching. His theology is so solid, you
could throw it on the floor and sweep it up in different places
and it would all fit. always carrying in the body the
death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested
in our bodies. For we who live are always being
given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus
may be manifested in our mortal bodies. So death is at work in
us, but life in you. Now, listen to what Paul says
there in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 13. Since we have the same spirit
of faith, according to what is written. We also believe and
we also speak knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will
raise us with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
Sound familiar? If you confess with your mouth
that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised
him from the dead, you will be saved because you are justified. You are his. For it is for your
sake so that His grace extends to more and more people that
may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. But we do not
lose heart. Though our outer self is washing
and wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day for
this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison as we looked at the things that
are not to the things that are seen, but the things that are
unseen. And we know that Paul is talking about the human body,
the torture of the flesh, the destruction of the flesh, those
who think they lord over us with authority and power and with
the sword, with snide comments, with persecutions of any sorts. They are not our Lord. But our
Lord rules over them. And we shall live, though we
die, yet we live. I know that I have been declared
righteous because of Christ. So even if the world says that
I'm guilty, even if the world says that I'm a heretic, even
if the world says that I'm insane, even if the world says that I'm
a terrorist, even if the world says all sorts of things in all
manner of ways against us, We know that Christ is the King
over it all and that we will be saved. There will be a day
when we will stand glorified in our new bodies with Jesus
our Lord and we will look out over the multitudes of His enemies
who have been destined and set apart for destruction. And they
will not scoff, and they will not point, and they will not
laugh, and they will not say, remember when we stripped them
down and killed them? Remember when we put them to shame? Remember
when we shut their mouths? Remember when we did this? No,
they will say, Jesus is Lord, and they will be cast into everlasting
punishment. We are vindicated. So that I can say and confess
with my mouth that no matter my suffering, I live in Christ. And because of that, I have this
promise that all the riches of the glories of God are mine. All of them. And that should
take us, in our minds, to Ephesians 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has already this day blessed
us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as He chose us in Him. This is included in this blessing.
Chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Even as He chose
that we should be holy and blameless before Him. even that He chose
in love to predestine us for adoption to Himself as sons through
Christ, even though He chose us from the foundation of the
world according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of
His glorious grace, which He has blessed us and the beloved.
In Christ we have redemption. Through His blood, the forgiveness
of our sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He
has lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. Listen to verse
9. Making known to us the mystery of His will, that we have been
made righteous and declared so, because the righteousness of
Christ has been given to our account. We now know by faith
this is a finished work so we can cry out to the Lord and the
promise of riches and glory belong to Christ. And he has promised
to give them to us and has given them to us all grace, all hope,
all life, all peace, and only to those who are the believers,
because only the believers who have been made alive in Christ
can call upon the name of the Lord in any circumstance. Remember the teaching of the
soils, beloved. There are not weak Christians,
and sad Christians, and worldly Christians, and all these other
illustrations here. There is one true believer, and
it is the one whose heart has been prepared beforehand to receive
the seed of light. All the others? All the others. Yes, it's all
about Jesus, man. Life is hard following Jesus,
man. Forget Jesus. Never belong to God. Oh. It's so painful. There are other things I'd really
like to accomplish, man. I'm just going to move on and
do something. I'm still a Christian, but, you know, whatever. Some people to spring up with
joy. The word of God even goes on the hearts. Then God sends
the devil to take it away. That's the teaching of Jesus
in that parable. None of those people receive his riches. None
of those people. They can call all they want to.
Lord, Lord, Jesus, God, help me, Lord. Like we say on a roller
coaster. Or in terrible traffic. or any
other ridiculous use of the phrase, but we say it's a culture. Call
on him all you want. Confess him all you want. But
if you have not been made alive to know for sure that his atoning
work is complete and your only hope, you have not been made
alive. You do not belong to God. That is the teaching of Paul. So the call is not the condition
of receiving these riches. Calling out to the Lord is not
what causes Him to give us riches. Calling out to the Lord is not
what causes Him to justify us. Calling out to the Lord is not
what gives us faith. Calling out to the Lord is not
what moves His heart toward us. Before there ever was a world
or an us to behold, God had called in His decree the Son to come
and to die for us. And it is a finished and completed
salvation. So the calling is evidence of
those on whom he has bestowed his riches. Imagine a debtor's prison through calamity and through
trials and through persecutions. As in those seasons, many Christians
were persecuted in that way. Couldn't get them on anything
else. So people would call in debts and have them arrested
and put into prison until they could pay their debts. And the
only way they could pay their debts is to work, but they couldn't
work because they were in prison. So it's a life sentence. Imagine
that prisoner crying out to the Lord and saying, Oh God, My Lord,
my Savior, my King, I thank you for the riches that you've given
me." And the people hearing that and mocking him. Look at this
pauper who'd die of starvation because his family can't even
come bringing food, talking about all the riches he has. What an
idiot. You see that? Put that picture
in your mind. God has bestowed his riches. And the calling and the crying
out is the confession of the heart that is tuned by grace
to the truth and to the way and to the life who is Christ. God has mercy on whom he has
mercy, and he hardens whoever he decides to harden. And in
the same way, He bestows His riches only on those He wishes. Those who live are those who
survive. And those who survive are those
whom the Lord calls, Joel 2.32. And then some people might argue,
well, Tip and Jew are really twisting that text. I'm so thankful
that Paul asked questions. How, verse 14, then will they,
who? The believing ones. How will the believing ones call
on whom they have not believed? See how stupid that question
is? Because it's impossible. You can't call on whom you can't
believe. How can you call out in confidence that Jesus is the
ruler, sovereign savior of our soul if you've never been given
faith to believe that he is? So Paul punches this traditionalism
in the nose and rolls it down the hill. How will they call on him whom
they have not believed? That tells us right there that
the call has nothing to do with faith. It's not faith. Call is a result
of faith. Call is in the life of the believer
because they've been given faith. They have already believed, and
only the ones who believe are calling on the name of the Lord.
This is not to be used to tell people, if you come up and you
confess Christ with your mouth in front of a group, that He'll
save you for eternity. Those who confess Christ know
they're saved for eternity. And know that no manner of death
shall take them away from Jesus. How do we know that? He just
said it, the latter part of chapter 8. What shall separate us from
the love of God? Nothing. Nothing. God will not separate
us from His love. And those who are not in His
love, He has never put in it. For God is the only one who can
take us out of His love. But He won't. Because He does
not lie. He doesn't lie. If you have faith
in the finished work of Christ, no matter what, you will have
final salvation. Because the Lord has called you
to life. You will have final salvation. no matter how good
or bad your Christian walk looks, no matter how strong or weak
your faith is, no matter how bold or quiet you are in the
proclamation of the faith, no matter what personality that
God created for you before the world began, you will be used
by God for His glory when He calls you and justifies you because
He has foreknown you. And when you are glorified, you
will not be ashamed. So how then will they call on
Him who they have not believed? How will they have confidence
if they don't believe? How will they know to resolve
to confess Christ as Lord in the face of death if they don't
believe in Him? The elect will believe in Him,
but how are they to believe in Him if they've never heard of
Him? And how are they to hear of Him
if someone hasn't gone and proclaimed Him? And how are somebody going
to go proclaiming if they've not been sent? Blessed be the
feet! How beautiful are the feet of
those who preach the gospel! Make sense? Isn't it so simple
that it almost seems deceptive for someone to make it say something
else? Because it is. It's deceptive. See why I talked about the object
lesson? I could talk about improper uses of a wrench for a long time.
And get excited about it. And then you'd leave here excited
about it. I want you to be excited about
the glorious riches of Christ. And that nothing can separate
you from them. Nothing can take it away. But as Isaiah, as Paul says in
Romans 16 and 17, how in the world are they going to be given
faith? If confession is what comes in
the life of the believer, the cause of a new life, the cause
of the gift of faith throughout the believer's life. Paul says, but they have not
all obeyed the gospel. even Isaiah, Lord who has believed
what He has heard from us, God will not permit everyone to believe. Only those who God calls will
believe, and only those who are called by God can ever call upon
Him by faith. So, faith comes from hearing. Okay? Can't everyone hear? Sure. If you have real ears,
you can hear the noises that my voice makes. If they operate
in some syntactical way, it becomes language to those who can grasp
it. But that's not the type of hearing that Paul's discussing.
It's not about human ability to listen to words and come to
a conclusion. It's about the Word of Christ
who gives spiritual hearing that they might know that they have
eternal life. And in that knowledge, they have
hope and assurance. And we'll stop there. Father, we are thankful that
you have given us ears to hear through the words of Christ.
Father, the evangelism of our culture has made a grand wreck
of everything glorious about your gospel. Have subjected all sorts of error
against you. Father, you have ordained it
before the world began. Let us not lose sight of that.
Nothing will stop your gospel. The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness will not overcome it. So help us, Father, to proclaim. Help us to teach. And when those
in our lives misuse the gospel, misuse the Bible. Let's correct
them and show them that it's wrong and teach them what is
right. Help us to know, though, that only the proclamation of
the truth. Will you only through the proclamation
of the truth, Father, will you ever call the elect to life?
Let us be about that business. God, it's in Jesus' name we pray,
amen.