Let's open our Bibles again to
Romans chapter 10. What I am confident is a message
from the Lord for us this morning. I began looking at this passage
this week. I read through it once and I
read through it twice and I just saw the message. and just began
to write, and the message just tumbled out faster than I could
write. That don't happen very often, does it, Eric? And I'm
just confident this is a message from the Lord for us this morning.
I pray that He'll bless it to our hearts. I've been very anxious
to preach it. The title of the message is a
question. Have you been saved? Now, I'm not asking, did you
get saved? Have you been saved? If someone
says, I got saved, that kind of implies that you could do
something to make this work of salvation happen. That's not
what I'm asking. What I'm asking this morning
is, has God done a work of salvation for you and in you? And it's
my desire to preach this message in such a way this morning that
you who have been saved will know it and that you'll find
comfort. assurance and confidence in Christ. And if you have not been saved,
I want you to know that too, so that you'll be left with no
option but to seek the Lord Jesus Christ as all of your salvation.
And our text this morning gives us a description of how God saves
sinners. And this is how God saves everyone
he saves without exception. If I've been saved, I'll recognize
this is what God did for me. And if I think I've been saved
some other way, other than this, what God's word says, I'm not
saved. I'm left with no option but to
seek Christ. I need him. So my first point
is this. Have you been saved? This work
of salvation is the work of God alone. Verse one of Romans chapter
10. Brethren, My heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Now there
are obviously people who are not saved. Every religious person
we know is not saved. The Jews are the perfect example
of that. Most of them, scripture said,
most of them were not saved. Now they're very religious, they're
very zealous, but most of them weren't saved, which is why Paul
prays for them. You know, we just looked in Romans
chapter nine. There's no doubt that the apostle
Paul was what today we would call a Calvinist. Believing in
God's electing grace, believing in the fact, the truth from scripture
that Christ only died for his elect. He didn't die for everybody,
he died for his elect. Do you know if you believe that,
that will make you pray. If you believe that, that will
make you beg God for mercy. You know, God's elect never think,
oh well, you know, God's gonna save his people, there's nothing
I need to do about it. No, if we believe in sovereign mercy,
if we believe, if we really believe this, God will have mercy on
whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he'll harden it.
If we really believe that, you know what we'll do? We'll pray,
and we'll beg God for mercy. And whenever someone's saved,
somebody else is always praying. Somebody else is begging God
for mercy. And we have to beg God for mercy,
don't we? Because God is the only one who can save a sinner.
Salvation is the work of God alone. That's why we ask him
to save. Salvation is the work of the whole Godhead, the three
in one. Salvation is the work of the Father in election. The
Father chose a people to be saved before time began. If it weren't
for God's electing grace, nobody would be saved. Because with
our sin nature left to ourselves, we would never choose God. So God had to choose us first,
didn't He? The end salvation is the work of God the Son. God
the Son came to this earth incarnate. And that's just a big word that
means He came in the flesh. He came as a man. And as a man,
He did what no other man had ever done before or since. He
obeyed God's law perfectly. And He gave that obedience to
His people so that it's theirs. That's how they're made righteous.
They did everything Christ, their federal head did. So they're
righteous. Just in the exact same way we did everything that
Adam did in the garden. That's how we became unrighteous.
And then Christ took their sin and he took it away from them
and made it his. And he died to put their guilt
away, to wash all their sin away under his blood. Now only the
son of God and human flesh could do that. Redemption is the work
of Christ alone. You and I could never obey God
and we would never have anything to contribute to pay for our
sin debt. Redemption, putting away of sin,
must be the work of the Son alone. Then salvation is the work of
God the Holy Spirit. He comes and gives life to his
people in the new birth. Now in the new birth, there's
a new man born. There's a new nature born in
a believer. that wasn't there before. And there's two different
natures inside of every believer. There's the nature of sin. It'll
never be anything but the nature of sin. It's the flesh. And there's
the nature of holiness. That's the spirit. It'll never
be anything but perfect holiness. Now you and I can't give ourselves
this new birth. We can't will ourselves to be
born again spiritually any more than we could will ourselves
to be born physically. When I was born physically, I
had no input in the matter whatsoever. Somebody else had to do that
for me. The exact same thing is true of spiritual life. We
can't will it to happen. We can't make it happen. Somebody
else has to do that for us. That's the work of God, the Holy
Spirit. He comes and gives his people life. This matter of salvation is the
work of God alone. When did the Apostle Paul say
he was saved? when it pleased God. That's when,
and that's when you and I will be saved too, when it pleased
God. This is the work of God alone. All right, now second,
nobody will be saved in ignorance. Verse two, for I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God, but it's not according to knowledge.
For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. And no one's going to be saved
in ignorance. But let me make this perfectly clear. Salvation
is not knowledge. It's not. You can't be saved
by memorizing the doctrines of grace. I mean, I can tell you
that from the word. I can tell you that from my own
experience. That's not salvation. You can't be saved by reading
and understanding the scriptures with the natural mind because
this book is a closed book to the natural mind. We cannot understand
it with our natural faculties. You can't look at God and study
God and figure God out to be saved. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. The natural man doesn't
receive those things. He doesn't have anything to put
them in. Joyce, you came with an empty bucket, you said this
morning. That's not the bucket of the flesh. The flesh got nothing
to put these things in. No, they're foolishness unto
the man of flesh. Neither can he know them because
they're spiritually deceitful. They've got to be revealed. Now,
there are several spiritual truths that the natural man is completely
ignorant. Paul says they're ignorant of
God's righteousness. Now, we'll get to this in a minute.
Primarily, this means the righteousness of Christ. But your man is ignorant
of God's personal righteousness. Now, everybody will say God's
righteous. I mean, I don't think you can
find somebody that wouldn't say that God's holy, that God's righteous.
But men have no idea that God is perfectly, absolutely holy. And God requires absolute perfect
holiness. God will not accept anything
less than perfection, perfect obedience to the law of God.
It's got to be perfect, not just outwardly, not just in deed,
but it's got to be perfect in heart and motive. Even if I do
the right thing, but I really don't want to, that's sin. It's a sinful motive. And I don't
care how zealous you are. God's not impressed with zeal.
You and I are impressed with religious zeal. But religious
zeal leads a person to strap on a bomb and go blow himself
up in an auditorium somewhere. Zeal will not bring us to salvation. God's not impressed with zeal.
You want me to tell you what God's impressed with? Holiness. God's only impressed with His
Son. So if somebody tells you, oh, it doesn't matter what you
do, what you believe, as long as you're sincere, God will accept
you if you're just really sincere. No, He won't either. Don't fall
for it. God is holy and He requires perfect
holiness. If you go the wrong way, you'll
never get to the right destination, no matter how zealously you go.
The Jews showed us that. We saw that last week in verse
31 of chapter 9. But Israel was followed after
the law of righteousness have not attained to the law of righteousness.
They tried to be righteous, but they weren't. Why? Because they
sought it not by faith. They didn't seek it the right
way. They sought it, as it were, by the works of the law. And
you know the Jews. They were very, very zealous
about the law, weren't they? It didn't matter that they were
zealous. They were seeking righteousness the wrong way. And somebody tells
you, well, you know, just do your best and God will do the
rest. Just do your best and God will accept you if you just try
your best. Don't fall for it, because he won't. Again, the
Jews that Paul is praying for here showed us that. What did
our Lord say then? Your righteousness had better
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. It's not
good enough. God is holy and he required perfect
holiness. Man by nature is ignorant of
that. But then here's what Paul really meant. Men by nature are
ignorant. of how God saves sinners, of
how God makes a sinner righteous. It's through the righteousness
of Christ given to them so that they're made actually righteous.
That God's holy. He can't just justify His elect
by overlooking their sin and ignoring it. So He makes them
actually righteous by making them righteous in Christ. God
can't justify His people by pretending. It's just, well, it's just like
they're righteous. No, God's got to make them actually righteous,
because God sees everything as it is. He can't pretend. So God
makes his people actually righteous. God imputes. He counts. You know, that word imputes is
an accounting term. He counts his people righteous
because they are righteous. That's what he's made them in
their federal head, the Lord Jesus Christ. They did everything
Christ, their federal head did. So they are righteous. Now, man's
ignorant of those truths by nature, left to our own devices. We would
never figure that out. All of man's religion goes every
way in this world, but actually finding a way to make a sinner
righteous because they're ignorant of how God does that. If we're
going to know those things, how will we know? God's got to reveal
them to us by his grace. Now, salvation is not education. Salvation is by revelation. God's
got to reveal these things to us. But when he does, there's
some things we'll know. No one is saved in ignorance.
We can't be saved and be ignorant of who God is, can we? Because
eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ is whom he has sent.
So we can't be saved and be ignorant of who God is. A sinner can't
be saved and be ignorant of who we are. If we're ignorant of
who we are, then all we do is sin, so there's no hope in us.
Until God shows us what we really are, we're going to be ignorant
of that and we'll never seek the Savior. We can't be saved
being ignorant of our sin, our depravity. No one can be saved. This is so obvious. You can't
be saved if you don't know who the Savior is. If you're going
to be saved, you've got to know the Savior. We've got to know
Christ. How will we know Him? When it
please God to reveal Him to us and in us. That's when. We can't
be saved and be ignorant of the gospel. The gospel declares the
Lord Jesus Christ, declares salvation in Him. You can't be saved if
you're ignorant of the gospel. If you've never heard the gospel,
you're not saved because faith cometh by hearing. So heart,
faith, and true knowledge, they come together in one when God
reveals Christ to our hearts. When God saves a sinner, there's
some things we know. We know Christ is all my righteousness. Everybody who's saved knows that.
Everybody that God saves knows that Christ is my sacrifice for
sin. I don't need to sacrifice anything.
I don't need to give up anything. Christ is the sacrifice for my
sin. Christ is everything to me, my prophet, my priest, and
my king. All my hope is Christ. How do you know that? God revealed
Christ to you. That's how. Look back at Romans
chapter three. Let's go up and look at verse
19. Now we know, isn't it something we're not ignorant of this. We
know this, that what things serve the law say that say it to them
who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, The righteousness of
God without the law, without our obedience to the law, is
manifested, is made obvious, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference, for all have sinned to come short of the glory
of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. Now that's a mouthful, Paul.
How do you know all that? How does every believer know
all that? Because God revealed Christ to
my heart, verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness. that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. See, no one is saved
in ignorance. Now, if God saved us, he's revealed
himself to us. He's revealed Christ to us so
that we know him. And if you know Christ, you know
his attributes, you know his personality. It's to know him. You know things about him. Don't
know everything. But you do know some things about
him, don't you? All right, here's the third thing. Here's something
difficult for the flesh. Impossible for the flesh. Salvation
is submitting. Submitting to God. Look here
at the end of verse three in our text, Romans 10. They've
gone about to establish their own righteousness and they've
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe it. Now, salvation, this is Ed's
term, is surrender. It's surrender, surrender to
God. When you talk, think about submitting to God, it's surrender.
You just stack your arms and you beg for peace on God's terms.
That's submitting to God. To submit to God is to say God's
right And I'm wrong. Well, you know, but I thought
if I did this and I did this, Naaman thought too, didn't he?
I thought the prophet would come out here and go through some
religious mumbo jumbo. I thought, who cares what I thought? I'm wrong and God's right. Let
God be true and every man a liar. When I submit to God, this is
what I do. I get rid of my thinking. I get
rid of everything that I've done and I turn to God. Just everything
he says is exactly as I believe it. I'm lost in Adam and I'm
made just and perfect in Christ. I believe it just like God says
it in his word. It's submitted. I remember years
ago, this is a kind of a good illustration of that, when the
group at Wheatersburg first started meeting together and we were
going to observe the Lord's table there for the very first time.
It was on a Sunday night, Sunday morning, Brother Charlie Pennington
preached on the Passover. He began to touch on the Lord's
Table. That evening, we were going to observe the Lord's Table.
Everybody knew where this was leading. Nobody there had ever
had wine at the Lord's Table. They always had grape juice.
One of the older men, Bob Correll, was standing there after the
service. Somebody asked him, Bob, what do you think about
wine at the Lord's Table? And Bob said, I've always been
a juice man myself. He said, but I'm getting ready
to become a wine man. That's submitting to God's Word. God's Word says it. That's what
I submit to. I believe it. I do. Salvation. You cannot be saved until you
submit to God. Until you bow at the feet of
the Sovereign and worship Him and beg Him to do something for
you you can't do for yourself. Just like that leper, Lord, you
don't have to. I know you don't have to. I don't deserve it.
But if you will, you make me clean. That's submitting to his
will. To submit to God is to take sides
with God against myself and say, God would be right. He'd be just
to condemn me. God, don't give me justice. Don't
give me what I've earned. Don't give me what I deserve.
Don't give me what I got coming to me. I'm begging you for mercy.
Oh, God, give me mercy. It's the only hope I've got.
To submit to God is to submit to God's will, His choice in
salvation. Lord, you elected a people. Lord,
choose me. You chose sinners. Lord, choose
me because I'll never choose you. Lord, you're the potter
and I'm the clay. I'm in your hands to do with
as you would. Would you make me a vessel of mercy, not a vessel
of wrath? Lord, I submit, this is submitting to Christ. You
know, this submission to Christ is not just a one-time thing,
is it? No, it's continual. Lord, I submit to you. I submit, even when trials and
troubles afflict my flesh and I do not understand, I submit. I say with judgment, though he
slay me, yet will I trust him. That's submitting to God. This
is primarily what Paul is talking about here. To submit to God
is to submit to the righteousness of Christ. Now, what's that? It's to say that the obedience
of Christ is the only obedience I have. It's the only righteousness
that I have. Now, that's easy to say. I mean, it's easy to
make your words, your mouth form those words. That's an easy thing
to say. It sounds so doctrinal and religious and something.
But when does somebody really mean that? It's when I submit
his righteousness, when I don't try to add anything to Christ
in order to be saved. I don't try to improve my standing
with God by doing something extra. Before I'm converted and after
I'm converted, none of this is a one time thing. It's constantly
throw away my rags of righteousness, constantly throw away everything
that I do that makes me think looks so good to y'all and just
resting Christ alone. I submit to Christ, to His righteousness,
when I continue just like I began, with no hope other than Christ. I don't ever expect to add to
it. I submit to the righteousness of Christ when I quit trying
to earn something myself and just rest in Christ. It's all
in Him. I submit to Christ when I quit looking to the law to
see how well I'm living. I don't need to look to the law
to see how well I'm living. See what I need to do? I need
to look to Christ. Do you want to know how to live?
Don't look to the law. Look to Christ. Just look to
Him and follow Him. Ignore the law completely. That's right. Don't be honest because the law
tells you not to lie. No. Be honest because you look
to Christ, the righteous man. Christ is the end of the law.
The goal of the law is never to get you to look at the law
and do what it says. The goal of the law is always to get you
to think, I can't do that. So you look to Christ because
you've got to depend upon Christ. Christ is the end. He's the termination
point of the law. Christ is the period that ends
the sentence. When there's a period, that sentence
is ended. That's Christ. The law required obedience, didn't
it? Christ is the end of that because
he already obeyed it. And I'll tell you what else the
law did. The law threatened punishment
and it had power to punish, didn't it? It had power to damn. Christ
is the termination, the end of that punishment because he already
died as a substitute for his people. He already took the sting
of death away. So the law does not want one
thing to do with anybody who believes Christ. So don't you
want anything to do with it either. Just look to Christ. Christ is
the end of our law keeping. It's the termination point of
our law keeping. And it's the start of resting
in Christ. We touched on this in the lesson
this morning. You got to always strive to do it. Don't you labor
to rest. put labor to enter into that
rest. To submit to the righteousness of Christ is to quit trying to
get some extra credit by living right and keeping the law and
doing religious things and just rest in Christ so he gets all
the credit. When our Lord, on that last day
of the feast, he stood up and he cried to weary sinners, what
did he say? Come to me. I'm going to give
you a lot of stuff to do in the church. I'm going to give you
some new responsibilities. We're going to start you doing
this, and start you doing this, and start you doing something else.
Start you in studying all these books so you can improve. That's
not what he said. He said, come to me. I'll give you rest. That's submitting to Christ.
It's resting him. I rest him because I trust him.
He's all I need. He's enough. John Chapman said
this. Always remember this. Christ
is enough if He's all you've got. Just rest in Him. Quit from your work and rest
in Christ. He's enough. All right, here's
the fourth thing. Salvation is accomplished by
Christ. It's by His work alone, by the
work of the Godhead alone. And salvation is received through
faith in Christ. Verse four, for Christ is the
end of the law to who? To everyone that believeth. Christ
is the end of all the laws demands. Christ is the end of the laws
threatening punishment to everyone who believes Christ. Faith is
believing Christ. Believing that he's all it takes
to save a sinner like me. Hang on to your seat. Do you
know you don't have to do anything to be saved? You don't have to
do anything to be saved. You, as a matter of fact, you
can't contribute anything to your salvation. You must contribute
nothing to your salvation. You must do nothing in order
to be saved. That's right. I can show you that. Acts chapter
16. You must do nothing. You must
simply believe Christ. Acts 16 verse 30. You know the
story here, the Philippian jailer. How Paul and Silas had been so
abused and thrown in there in that dark dungeon, prison, all
beaten and battered and their hands and feet all in these shackles.
The Lord sent that earthquake. And then look at verse 30, Acts
16. And that jailer, he brought them out and said, Sirs, what
must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house and anybody
else too. Anybody who believes on the Lord
Jesus Christ shall be saved. Now, you know, jailer, he's trembling,
he's getting ready to kill himself. He'll throw himself on his sword
and he brings him out. He's full of fear and trembling.
He would have done anything that they said, wouldn't he? Anything
Paul and Silas told him to do, he'd have done it. And they didn't
say, you better let us out of this jail. You better start treating
us right. You better get out here and start serving the Lord
and giving your tithe. As a matter of fact, you better
make up for all those tithes you're missing by giving us the money, you know.
You better quit this job and go out there and get something
more respectable because it's shameful. They didn't say any of that,
did they? What'd they say? Believe. Just believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That means you and
me too. God saves everybody He saves,
exact same way. Just believe. The gospel never tells us to
do something in order to be saved, ever. That's the message of the
law. Look back in our text, verse
five, Romans 10. For Moses describeth the righteousness
which is of the law, the righteousness people try to get by keeping
the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
The law says do, and the law does not care what you did in
the past. No matter what you did in the past, even if it was
perfect, you better do more. You've got to do more, and it
better always be perfect. If you ever say, do, or think
one thing that's not perfect, you'll be damned. That's what
the law says. The law also does say, if you do perfectly, you'll
live. But our problem is we can't do. We can't do and live. We can't obey God's law perfectly
because we have a nature of sin that's opposed to God's law.
So all the law can say to you and me is guilty and convenient. That's the very reason Peter,
all those men got together, that's the very reason Peter told them,
don't preach the law. Don't put this law on people.
Just preach Christ. Peter knew this. If we preach
the law in order to get people to act right, in order to get
people to do right, in order to get people to live the way
they're supposed to live, all we're doing is putting a burden
on people which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. Peter
said, don't put that burden on people. We're to give them rest
in Christ. Just preach Christ to them. Righteousness
can never come by us keeping the law. But if we have faith
in Christ, we quit listening to the law. because we know Christ
is our righteousness. I don't need to look to the law
to find out I'd be righteous. I already know Christ is my righteousness. Now verse six, faith starts to
speak. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on
this wise, say not of mine heart who shall ascend into heaven.
That is to bring Christ down from above or who shall descend
into the deep. That is to bring up Christ again
from the dead. Now here, this is what this is saying. Faith
never says, what do I need to do? to make the work of Christ
effectual for me. Faith never asks that. Faith
doesn't say, what do I need to do to get Christ to come down
from heaven as a man and save me? Faith doesn't ask that. Because
Christ already came. Faith doesn't say, what do I
need to do to get Christ to rise from the dead to justify me?
Faith doesn't ask that. Faith just believes Christ, who
already did that, who already finished all the work of salvation
for his people. Faith just believes that Christ
is all of my salvation. His death, His burial, His resurrection,
His ascension back to glory. It's all it took to save a vile
sinner like me. Now that's what faith doesn't
say. Faith never says, what do I need to do to make the work
of Christ effectual for me? If you ever hear somebody say
that to you, you run away from them. Because you've got it on
the authority of God's word, they're telling you a lie. Faith
never has to say, what do I need to do to make Christ work effectual
for me? Well, what does faith say? Verse
8. But what sayeth it? The word
is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the
word of faith which we preach, that thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Now when there's faith in the
heart, there's going to be something in the mouth worth saying and
something worth listening to because out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaketh. If there's faith in Christ in
the heart, something in the mouth is going to be worth listening
to. Faith just believes the gospel. That's all it does. It just believes
the gospel. Listen, don't try, don't, people
fall into this, don't think you've got to understand every detail
about the gospel before you can believe it, were never called
on to understand. Think of salvation. This is the
work of God, right? How God can be just and justifier.
The gospel that he's given men to preach. That took the very
wisdom of God to produce. They don't expect to understand
it. Just believe it. Just believe what God says. Now
here, Paul says, if you believe that Christ died, was buried
and rose again, you shall be saved. Faith doesn't just believe
in historical fact that a man named Jesus Christ died on a
cross and three days later, he was raised from the dead. This
is what faith believes. That Christ died as the sacrifice
for my sin. That I am so vile. I'm so sinful. I'm so wretched. I am so polluted
with sin. I am so without hope in myself
that the only way I could ever be saved, the only way my sin
could ever be put away, is if the Son of God died for me. And the Son of God shed the blood
of God. It took the blood of God to wash
my sin away because I am so vile. Christ died for the ungodly.
That's me. I'm the opposite of everything
God is. And he rose again for our justification. Christ rose again because his
sacrifice really did put my sin away so that I don't have to
do anything else. Christ rose from the dead. Well, let's start
here. Christ died. You know why Christ died? He
was made sin for his people. He took the sin of his people
and his own body on the tree. The law demands death for sin.
Christ died to pay for the sin that was made his. And his death
justified me. Made me without sin. Made everyone
he died for without sin. And the resurrection of Christ
is the proof of it. Christ was raised from the dead.
Why? Because the sin he died for is put away. There's no sin
left. Nothing to keep him dead. So
the Father raised him again. He died and He rose again because
He put away the sin of His people. Now, if you believe that, if
that's your only hope, you're saved. The only way you can believe
that is if God's given you the gift of faith. If you believe
that all it took is Christ's death, burial, and resurrection,
He died for you, then you're saved. Because the only way that
can be all of your hope is if God's done a work of grace in
you and given you the gift of faith. All right, now here's
the last thing. Salvation will be confessed publicly.
Verse nine. That thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart
that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with
the heart man believeth under righteousness, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. Now the way that we publicly
confess Christ is believer's baptism. Now listen. Nobody's saved because they're
baptized. We have a baptismal service here.
That pool gets filled up with water from a garden hose. Nobody's
sins are going to be cleansed in that water. It's just water
from a garden hose. No one is saved because they're
baptized. No one is saved because they get in front of a group
of people and say so publicly, you know. We're saved when God
does a work of grace in the heart. A sinner is saved when God gives
us a new heart. And that heart loves Christ.
That heart believes Christ. And that heart will confess Christ. Sooner or later, if God's done
a work of grace in your heart, you're going to tell everybody
about it. You just won't be able to help it. You just have to
go and tell what great things the Lord's done for you. I heard
recently of a young woman. She's very shy. She doesn't ever
like to be in the public eye. She didn't want everybody looking
at her, you know. And her pastor thought, Lord's done something
here. Lord's done something for her.
He just waited, he just waited, he just waited. And eventually,
that need to confess Christ overcame that shyness. And she baptized.
She had to do it, because that heart just got to confess Christ.
Now, let me reiterate, you don't have to be baptized in order
to be saved. But I just wouldn't give you a plug-neck For somebody
that professes to believe Christ and after a long time still has
not yet been baptized, because they're just living in rebellion
against the Savior. The Savior told us when we believe
to confess Him in baptism. I mean, if we're not baptized,
it's just, you know, it's either unbelief or rebellion, one or
the other. So for you who haven't been baptized, let me ask you
this. I'm not trying to talk anybody into baptism. This is
just telling you what God's Word says. What are you waiting for? When we're baptized, we're confessing
Christ. We confess. I agree with everything
that God says about me and everything God says about salvation. I agree
with that. God's not going to change what
he says. His word's not going to change. Then just agree with him. But
again, this matter of confession, it begins with baptism. I've heard this many times. I
can tell you this from my own experience. You know, you wait and you wait
and you wait. You try to think, well, you know, how much do I
know? Should I do this? Should I have this feeling? And finally,
you just come to the conclusion, all I know is I believe Christ.
I'm just going to be baptized. And you're baptized and you think,
I wish I'd done this so long ago. Well, you know what that's
going to start? That's going to start a lifetime
of confessing Christ. The believer continues to confess
Christ all the days of our life. We continue to confess Christ
by identifying with His people. This is God's people. This is
who I want to be with. We confess Christ when we're
here when the gospel is preached. Not because somebody has taken
attendance, but because I need to worship. I need to hear the
gospel. I need to meet together with the brethren and sing the
praises. We confess Christ when we give out of the abundance
that the Lord has given to us. We confess Christ when we serve
the Lord. What can I do to help? Just out
of a thankful heart. See, that's confessing Christ
is a continual thing. Now it begins with believers
baptism, but it doesn't end there. Anyone, God's sake, is going
to have to say so eventually. Henry said, it'll leak out on
you eventually. Let me give you this in conclusion.
Real salvation is in the heart. You know, don't think, well,
just because I got up in front of a group of people, confessed,
you know, I believe Christ, I'm saved. Well, you left out what
Paul says here. With the heart, man believe it. under righteousness. Salvation's
in the heart, but it's also in the head. We're not saved ignorantly. And when someone confesses Christ,
we're not ignorant about what we're doing, about what we're
confessing. It's a matter of head knowledge and heart faith.
People that leave it to their own human reasoning are going
to get it wrong every time. Head knowledge without a heart
faith. You know, with heart faith, There's
emotion. There's rest, there's trusting,
there's love, there's adoration, there's worship. Head knowledge
without a heart faith, the emotion that goes with that is just dry,
dead doctrine. And it's the most boring preaching
you'll ever hear. And the effect of that on the
life of a person is to make them just cold and hard and unfeeling. And you listen to them long enough,
they'll confess to you what they're trusting in. They'll confess
to you the books they've written and the books they've read and
all that stuff, you know. Just listen, they'll confess.
But a so-called heart work where there's all kinds of emotion,
you know, and without any head knowledge. Now, that can look
exciting to the flesh, but there's no truth in it. All that is is
ungoverned emotion. And ungoverned emotion is the
best example I can think of. Blow up a balloon and hold the
end of it and let it go. It's ungoverned, it's undirected,
isn't it? That kind of belief, that emotion without any head
knowledge is just foolish. If somebody's trusting in that
kind of emotion, that kind of experience, you just listen,
they'll tell you. It won't be hard to see. But head knowledge
with heart faith. Head knowledge that comes from
heart faith. That kind of preaching feeds
us all. That kind of preaching comforts the heart of God's people. That kind of preaching will lead
us to Christ. It'll lead us to worship in spirit
and in truth. People will confess, that's the
Christ I'm trusting. That's the only Savior that can
save me. You just wait. Just wait. You
don't have to push them. Just wait. They'll tell you. They'll tell you. Because God's
done a work of grace in your heart. And how I pray He'll do
that for each of us this minute. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank You
for this precious portion of Your Word. This declaration of
how You save sinners. Oh, how we thank You for Your
mercy and grace in saving sinners. How we thank You for Your goodness
to Your people that You've given us this gospel to preach. and
to give your people a heart faith to believe, to rest, to run to
Christ. Oh, how we thank you. How we
thank you for a Savior who puts sin away, who makes his people
righteous. How we thank you for a Savior
that gives real, eternal life to your people. Father, I pray
you bless your word as it's been preached this morning. Bless
it to the hearts of your people, those that you have done this
great work of grace for them and in them. Father, cause it
to comfort their hearts. Cause us to come to Christ again
this morning, to bow at his feet, to worship him, to find our rest
and our joy and our comfort all in him. And Father, I pray you
bless your word to the hearts of those who are here this morning
that do not believe. Father, cause it to pierce the
heart. Cause it to break through that stony heart of rebellion.
give a new heart of grace, give a new heart of faith, looks to
and rests in and submits to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, we pray these things for your glory, for the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, for the good of your
people. It's in his precious name we
pray and give thanks.