In Romans 10, verse 1, where
our lesson begins this morning, Paul writes, Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. Now, we know from what we read in Scripture that the
nation Israel, the Jews, they missed Christ. He came to his
own, his own received him not. They hated, not only did they
miss him, they hated the Lord Jesus Christ. They rejected him,
and because of that, God blinded their eyes. And because of that,
being left to their own nature, being given this blindness, they
hated the Apostle Paul. They hated him because they hated
the gospel. They hated the gospel of Christ, and they persecuted
Paul, and he may also get their hands on who preached this gospel. Now, we know they were very religious
people, but they were wrong on every doctrinal point. They were
wrong. And the same thing is true today with people we come
across. And we don't suffer at all this
kind of persecution or the open hatred that the apostles and
early church suffered. But we see very religious people
that live in our town. They're so religious, but they're
wrong on every doctrinal point. They're wrong. You don't have
to listen to them talk long. And it's very clear they do not
see the Lord Jesus Christ. They see religion. But they don't
see Christ. Now, what's our reaction to those
people? Some of them are just playing nut jobs. I mean, I'm
telling you, they're wild, the things that they'll talk about.
But what's our reaction to those people? Do we hate them and look
down our nose at them and do everything we can to separate
ourselves from them? Probably that's our reaction.
That's my reaction most of the time, quite honestly, but that's
not what it ought to be. Our reaction ought to be what
Paul's was. Pray for them. He prays for them. He prays that the Lord would
save them by his grace. He prays that while humanly speaking,
you know, it may look like a lost cause. He prays God have mercy
on them, that he would reveal himself to them in mercy. And
this is his heart's He's not just praying for them and going
through the routine because he feels like he has to. This is
his heart's desire that the Lord would have mercy on these people.
And we should be known, like the Apostle Paul, as the people
who pray that God would save sinners. And not just our family
and our loved ones, our children, but people in our community,
even our enemies. Israel became the enemy of Paul.
He's praying for his enemies, and that's the way we ought to
be known. I'll show you that in Matthew chapter 5. Shortly
here in our pastor's study of Matthew, he's going to get to
these verses in Matthew 5. We'll look at a little preview
of it. In Matthew 5, verse 43, our Lord
says, You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecutes
you." And if we find in our heart to do that, to pray for our enemies,
to do good to them that despitefully use you, we'll have the mind
of Christ. Because isn't that exactly what
the Lord Jesus did? He died for His enemies. As His
enemies were crucifying Him, He prayed for them. Father, forgive
them. They know not what they do. And
when I say the Lord died for His enemies, I mean you and me. We're His enemies. That's what
we are by nature. That's who we were before the
Lord revealed Himself to us. We were His enemies and He died
for us. He revealed Himself to us. He
gave us His nature. We ought to be able to find compassion.
for people and pray for them. That's what Paul is doing for
Israel. It's his heart's desire. And he says about them in verse
2, he says, For I bear them record, that they have a zeal of God,
but not according to knowledge. Now you know the Jews were very
religious people. They're not atheists. They're
not somebody who's worshipping a golden idol or some idol somebody
carved out of wood. Now they're worshipping an idol.
An idol of their imagination. But they had the Word. They had
God's Word. They had God's prophets sent
to them. They had the apostles. The Lord Himself came and preached
to them. And all these things, the Word and the prophets and
the law, were very, very important to the Jews. It's not just that
they just treated these things with disregard. They were very
important to these people. Very zealous of their traditions
and the ceremonies and the laws. And they had the right goal.
They were extremely interested in righteousness. But they're
going the wrong direction. This is completely the opposite
direction. You see, zeal, religious zeal
without knowledge is a disaster. Where did it leave these people?
Zeal without knowledge of Christ leads to them persecuting the
church. Leads to them, not just in Paul's day, but throughout
their history, they persecuted and killed the prophets. They
killed every one of the apostles. Religious zeal without knowledge
led them to kill God's very Son. That's where zeal without knowledge
will lead. And when you think of that, in
light of that, you hear people say, well, it's okay as long
as you're sincere, as long as you're zealous. Well, no, it's
not. It's just not. I'll give you
an example. Spurgeon used this example. He
says, is it OK for someone to perform surgery on you? They're
very sincere. They have a sincere desire to
help you. They have compassion. They want
to see you get well. And they'll perform surgery on
you. But they have no knowledge. They don't have knowledge gained
from being in medical school. They have no knowledge gained
from learning under tutors and skilled, experienced surgeons.
But they're willing to, they're very zealous to perform surgery
on you. Is that OK? Absolutely not. In your wildest imagination,
their sincerity wouldn't mean anything to you. Well, religion
without knowledge of Christ is just as deadly. It's more deadly
because a surgeon with zeal but no knowledge will kill your body.
Religion, zeal without knowledge of Christ, will kill your soul.
It will damn you. So, no, zeal is not good in and
of itself. Zeal without knowledge certainly
isn't. Well, verse 3, here's where that comes from, that zeal
without 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.
Now this shows, I thought about this this week, the importance
of sound teaching. Very, very important. And not
just sound teaching, but sound teaching without learning is
of no value. Sound teaching and learning.
And we need sound teaching. We need God to give us a teachable
spirit because we're ignorant by nature and darkness. And people
can be, and they are, very religious, very zealous in their religion.
They're very involved in the things of their church and religious
activities. But they're so ignorant. They've
been left in ignorance largely because there's no teaching.
They're ignorant, Paul says, of God's righteousness. They're
ignorant of the holiness that God requires. God doesn't just
require an outward holiness, physically doing the things you
ought to be doing. God requires holiness in your
thoughts, in your intent, in your motive. You do the right
thing with the wrong motive, God says you're just as guilty
as if you didn't do it. And they're ignorant of that.
They're ignorant of the fact that God doesn't require the
best you can do. God requires perfection. And again, not just
in deed, but in motive and your intent. They're ignorant of the
fact that God's holy. And that means God must punish
every sin. He cannot let one sin go unpunished. He never will because He's holy.
The Pharisee praying in the temple was a perfect example of that.
He thanked God. I'm not as other men are. I'm
not an extortioner. I'm not unjust. I'm not an adulterer. I'm not like that publican. He
thought he was righteous. And that just shows his ignorance.
Men are ignorant of how God makes men righteous. That's what they're
ignorant of. They're ignorant of Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord our righteousness. They're ignorant of the fact
that righteousness is not earned. It's imputed. That's what we're
ignorant of. And because they're ignorant
of the fact that we're made righteous through the imputed righteousness
of Christ, they're going about to establish their own righteousness.
And Paul uses this phrase, going about to establish. That phrase
shows an inherent weakness in their righteousness because they're
constantly going about to establish it. They're constantly propping
it up. It's like trying to stain a dead carcass up on its feet.
It won't do it. And you keep having to prop it
up. You keep having to put it back and put it back. It's like
Sisyphus pushing that rock up to the top of the hill and it
falling back down. It's a constant activity. You didn't think I
knew what that was, did you? But pushing that rock up the
hill. And that's that constant going about to establish their
own righteousness. It shows their ignorance, but
I feel sorry for them. What a waste of effort and anguish
when they could rest in Christ. And I tell you, it makes me thankful
for sound teaching. How blessed, God has blessed
us unspeakably, putting us under the sound of sound teaching.
All my life, I mean, I can't remember a time that I was under
sound teaching of the Word and being pointed to Christ. How
thankful we ought to be God didn't leave us in our ignorance, in
our darkness, because if He didn't, Paul would be talking about you
and me if it wasn't for God's grace. But these religious people,
the Jews in Paul's day and our neighbors in our day, they think
their efforts at producing our righteousness is good enough.
And because they think that, they won't submit themselves
to the righteousness of God. Now, I'd imagine one of the hardest
things for a human being to do is submit. Submit. Especially for a religious person.
I mean, it's just impossible. But we've been told, lay down
your shotgun. Submit yourself. Fall at the
feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and kiss the Son lest He be angry.
And I know this. Salvation involves submission. Submitting yourself to Christ. Unbelief is not submitting. Thinking that you can do on your
own what God says you can't. Not submitting yourself to His
way. That's unbelief. All unbelief
is is rebellion. It's not submitting yourself.
But if we're going to submit ourselves, we're going to surrender
everything. Absolutely everything that we
are, everything that we have. And cast it all on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Cast ourselves completely and
wholly on the mercy of God. That's submitting ourselves.
Henry said this in his outline. He says, God does not require
you to produce righteousness, but to receive it. God does not
require you to produce life, but to receive it. To receive
life in Christ. And when we quit trying to produce,
and receive that submission. Submission receives the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when you receive Him, you
receive everything He is, everything He has. That's how you receive
the righteousness of Christ, by submitting yourself to Him.
Now, verse 4. What does Paul say to those who
are going about to establish their own righteousness? He says,
for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes. Christ is the end of the law.
He's the goal of the law. The law is given. The goal of
the law is to point sinners to Christ. To point sinners away
from ourselves, away from our failure to keep the law, and
to point us to Christ. I'll show you that in Galatians
3. This is the goal of the law. Galatians 3, verse 24. Wherefore, the law is our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The law was given to show us
we can't be justified by our own works, but to point us to
Christ, to show us that justification is found by faith in Christ,
in Him. The mark that the law aimed at,
this is another thing that the Jews were ignorant of, the mark
that it aimed at was not our obedience, It was to point us
to Christ, who did fulfill the law. The law is a covenant of
works. That's what the law was. But
it requires works we cannot produce. And Christ is the end of those
terms. The end of requiring you to do
all this myriad of things which we cannot do. Christ is the end
of those terms. He's the end of those terms because
He fulfilled it. Everything, every minute detail
the law ever required, Christ fulfilled them for his people.
And coming to Christ is the end of us going about to establish
our own righteousness. That's the end of that. We rest
in him and in his righteousness and his obedience. Christ is
the end of the ceremonial law. He's the end of the dietary laws.
The end of the sacrifices. He's the end of the Sabbath keeping.
He's the end of all those washings. He's the end of the priesthood.
John doesn't wear a funny hat because he's not the priest.
The priesthood's over. He's the pastor, not the priest.
Christ is our great high priest. He's the end of all those things.
Christ is the end of that unending attempt and failure to keep the
law. He's the end of that. And believers
aren't going about to establish their own righteousness. They're
resting. resting in Christ, our righteousness, completely depending
on Him. Now, verse 5, Paul says, For
Moses described it, the righteousness which is of the law, that the
man which doeth those things shall live by them. Now, righteousness
is earned through keeping the law. The only way you'll ever
be righteous is through keeping the law. God's not going to bypass
the law now. You've got to keep the law in
every detail, perfectly. And to earn that righteousness,
the law requires absolute perfection in thought, word, and being.
And the law does not require the best you and me can do. The
law requires the best God can do. And the problem is sinful flesh
cannot do that. It's foolish to think a sinful,
fallen man can perform the best God Almighty can do. Yet, that's
what the law requires. We don't have the ability to
keep the law. We don't have the desire to keep the law. Just
absolutely no desire. So if a man's going to go about
to try to keep the law, and as Scripture does say, the man that
doeth those things shall live by them, but there's a warning.
What's the flip side of that coin? What if he doesn't do?
Look over in Galatians 3 again, verse 10. Todd quoted this Wednesday
night. The man that doeth those things
shall live by them. But, here's the flip side of
the coin, verse 10. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse. For it's written, Cursed is every
one that continueth not in all things that are written in the
book of the law to do them. Now yes, if you do those things
which are in the law, you'll have righteousness. You'll live.
But if you don't continue in everything that's written in
the book of the law to do them, you're cursed. That's the flip
side of the coin. Now the good news to believers
is Christ did continue. in everything to do them. He did it all. He never stopped. He continued to do all of the
law to keep it all perfectly. He kept it as a substitute for
God's elect. Christ came to this earth and
He did do as good as God can do because He is God. The God-man. And we are saved. All of His
elect are saved through His obedience. Not through our obedience, but
through His obedience. His obedience is my obedience.
His righteousness is my righteousness. Everything He is is mine through
faith in Him. Salvation is found in Christ
through His obedience, through faith in Him. And that's what
Paul is talking about here in verse 6 and 7. Faith in Christ. But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart he 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 Paul talks about the righteousness
which is of faith. That's a whole lot different
than the righteousness which is by doing the law. It's receiving
the righteousness of Christ through faith in Him. You lay hold on
Christ by faith. And when you have Him, you have
everything He is. Faith in Christ lays hold on
the righteousness of Christ and claims it as mine. And that kind
of faith, that God-given faith knows where righteousness comes
from. It knows. Faith knows we don't
contribute any of our own works to our righteousness. Faith knows
that. Faith knows there's no need for
us to do something to make Christ's work effectual. You don't have
to go into heaven and bring Christ back down here to make Christ's
work effectual. You know He's already done. Everything
God requires, everything that's necessary, He's already done.
There's no need to ask who shall ascend into heaven and bring
us back knowledge of how God can be just with man. We already
know that in Christ. There's no need to ask who's
going to ascend into heaven and bring us a Savior, because faith
knows Christ has already come. He's already performed salvation
for His people. He's already performed justification
and sanctification for His people. And faith doesn't need to ask
who's going to descend into hell and pay our sin debt, because
Christ has already done it. Faith doesn't need to ask who's
going to descend into the grave to bring Christ up again from
the grave, because He's risen. Not only did He come and be my
substitute and suffer and die, faith knows He's risen. Faith
knows Christ came down. Unspeakably, He came down to
become a man. And as a man, he was made sin. Just like his righteousness is
imputed to me, my sin was imputed to him. He was made sin. And
he suffered and died under God's holy wrath for my sin. And they
laid him in a grave. And he rose again. Justification
complete. Because those sins are put away.
Salvation is complete in him. So we know what faith doesn't
say. But what does faith say? Look
at verse 8. But what saith it? The word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the
word of faith which we preach. Now the word of faith is the
gospel. And faith says what the gospel says. Faith agrees with
everything the gospel says, and faith says what the gospel says.
When faith hears the gospel, it says that's it. That's it. The gospel is all faith wants
to hear or needs to hear. Just Christ. And the gospel is
in the mouth of every believer. Because it's in the heart of
every believer. What's in the heart comes out
the mouth. Now you might not fancy yourself very eloquent
or very well spoken, but here's what I know. You enjoy talking
about your Lord. You enjoy talking about the Savior. The gospel is in your mouth because
it's in your heart. And that's what Paul says here
in these next two verses when he talks about confessing Christ.
He says, "...that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Now, Paul's not putting conditions
on salvation here. Don't mistake what he's saying.
He's not saying that you have to confess Christ publicly in
order to make Christ's sacrifice effectual for you. He's not saying
that at all. What he is saying is that confession
of Christ is evidence of salvation. It's just a natural by-product,
for lack of a better word. If you have truly believed in
the heart, whatever it is you truly believe in your heart,
you'll confess with your mouth. You'll confess with your actions,
because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And the very first act of belief is confession. And this belief
now, belief on Christ, is a whole lot more believing the doctrines
of grace. You know, believing the five
points of Calvinism and make sure you've got all your ducks
in a row, you know, doctrinally. This belief is belief in a person. Believing Christ. Not just believing
in Him. Not believing that He was and
believing that He lived. Believing Him. Believing He is
who He says He is. is to believe, Paul says, that
God raised him from the dead. Now, again, this is more than
just believing God raised him from the dead, kind of how God
raised Lazarus from the dead. You know, we read in Scripture
many people were raised from the dead. But to say we believe
Christ was raised from the dead, we first have to believe that
He became a man. God's Son became a man. If He wasn't a man, He couldn't
have died. God can't die. He had to become a man. He became
incarnate. And we have to believe, if we
believe God raised Him from the dead, we must believe God made
Him to be sin. Because if there was no sin on
Him and in Him, He never would have died. God had to make Him
sin. We believe the holiness of God.
Even when that sin impured His Son, the Father killed Him. Injustice
He killed Him. And if we believe God raised
Him from the dead, we believe the sacrifice of Christ is enough
to save my soul. His blood washed away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
He put that sin away, and God raised Him from the dead. Because
He justified. He justified all His people.
And if we believe that, if God's given you faith to believe Christ,
you'll confess Him publicly. You will build up yourself. You
just will. We confess Him and believe His
baptism. And you also confess Him in your
daily walk before men. A walk of kindness, gentleness,
goodness, meekness, honesty. You'll confess Him in a changed
life. If God's given you faith to believe
Christ, you will follow His command. You'll submit yourself. You'll
follow His command and confess Him and believe His baptism.
The Lord only gave us two ordinances. Believe His baptism. in the Lord's
temple. And you'll observe both. Now,
let me say this about baptism. We don't have altar calls here. We never did when Henry was a
pastor. We don't now. We don't have altar calls. We're
not trying to talk people into doing something and making a
decision and, you know, coming down front and doing all these
things. We don't do that because we believe God. What Scripture
says, God's If He calls you, you'll answer. You don't need
me to try to talk you into doing something. If God calls you,
gives you faith to see, you'll answer. You'll come running and
no man will stop you. You don't need some man to invite
you. Because you're not coming to
a man. Go to Christ. If He calls you, you'll go to
Him. But never make this mistake that
baptism is not important. Because it is. It's the Lord's
command. I'll show you that in Matthew chapter 10. Now this
is the Lord's command. Our Lord shows us how important
this is in verse 32. Whosoever therefore shall confess
me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is
in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, Him will
I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." Now, baptism
doesn't make a person saved. Absolutely not. But I must tell
you, I doubt salvation, a person's claim, profession of salvation,
where there's no baptism. How can that be? Now, I know
the thief on the cross didn't have the opportunity to be baptized,
did he? Does that make him less saved than you are? Of course
not. But you and I aren't in that
situation. Don't hide behind him the fact that he wasn't baptized.
You and I aren't in that situation. And I'll tell you this, he missed
a blessing. He missed a blessing of being
able to publicly confess his Lord. I heard it said, I had
this written down somewhere, I don't know who said it. I've
heard it said, publicly confessing Christ is as necessary to salvation
as breathing is to life. Now, that's not saying that,
you know, you're saved because you're baptized. Just like you
don't breathe in order to obtain life, you breathe because you
have life. By the same token, you're baptized
because the Lord has given you spiritual life. It's a reflex
reaction. Don't even have to think about
it. It's a reflex reaction to God's grace. Now, we're justified
by faith. I want to make this so clear.
We're justified by faith, not because we've done something,
even baptism. Faith in Christ is the foundation,
but you can't build on that foundation until there's confession. I know
this has been my experience. I can't tell you how many people
have told me this is their experience. Finally, they go to the pastor. The time I wanted to confess
to the Lord in baptism. And they're baptized. And they
immediately say, I wish I'd done this a long time ago. I don't
know why I'd waited so long. And it's such a relief. Now,
you can start growing in grace. You can't expect the Lord to
give you a second command to obey the first. The first command
is to confess Him. Believe. Repent and believe and
confess Him and believe His baptism. One day, Every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord through the glory of God the Father.
Believers have been given the blessed privilege to begin that
theme now, to confess Him publicly. And when we do confess Him publicly,
what we're giving evidence of, Paul says, is that we have been
saved. Well, saved from what? What are
you confessing you've been saved from? We're not just saved from
hell. Everybody, I mean, unless they're
just certifiably insane, wants to be saved from hell. Nobody
wants to go to hell. But you can't find very many
people who want to be saved from their sin and from their guilt.
And in Believer's Baptism, we're confessing the Lord Jesus Christ
took my sin. He took my guilt. And when He
died, I died. When He arose, I arose. He died
because He bore my sin and I was in Him. Now verse 10, for with
the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. It's like I said a minute ago,
baptism doesn't make you saved, doesn't bring you salvation,
doesn't make Christ's blood effectual. Salvation is a heart work. You
believe with the heart, a new heart that God gives you. In
salvation he gives a new heart, a new will, a new mind, and you
receive the righteousness of Christ. And the mouth confesses
what's already happened in the heart. The mouth confesses what
Christ has already done. Baptism doesn't save. Christ
saves. But baptism is an outward confession
of an inward work of grace. What Christ has done for me.
And I'm telling you, it's a joy. It's a joy. Alright, the Lord
bless you.