Romans chapter 10 and verse 1. Brethren, My heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God, but 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.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness
which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things
shall live by them. But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine 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. 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, that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference
between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Amen. May God bless
to us this reading from his word. We touched at the end of the
service last week upon the opening verses of this chapter, and I
want to return to them briefly just to make a little bit more
mention of this desire that the Apostle Paul is expressing, this
prayer to God that he has this burden upon his heart and in
his affections for the people of Israel. And I don't think
that we should find it altogether strange that the apostle has
this feeling towards his own people. A gospel minister has
a desire that all who hear him preach, all who hear him declare
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ might be saved. We want to see the gospel going
forth with power. When we declare that message,
we want to see it having an effect. on those to whom it is declared. And a believer desires that others
will discover in the Lord Jesus Christ the same peace, the same
forgiveness that they have found for themselves. You know, It's
like a parent that has another child when they already have
one. And they say to the little one
that's there, you know, mommy's going to have a new baby, but
don't you worry, I won't love you any less because there's
now two children in the house. All that happens is that the
love gets more. And we feel that as far as the
Lord is concerned. We're not diluting the love of
God if somebody else experiences it as well. We're not diminishing
as far as the grace of Christ towards us is concerned should
a hundred or a thousand more experience that grace. We long
to see our families, our friends, our neighbours coming to a knowledge
of peace with God, learning something, discovering something of what
it is to have sins forgiven. And I say to you, and I trust
that it's as true and as genuine as it can be, that every time
that door opens at the back of the church and somebody walks
in here that I don't recognise, I'm putting up a prayer to the
Lord. Lord, Might this be one of your
little ones? Might this be one of your children? Might this be one of your elect? We long to see the gathering
in of the Lord's people and we know that the means by which
that happens is the preaching of the gospel. And therefore
it is our desire to see the arm of the Lord bared, the work of
the Lord being accomplished in the gathering in of his people
through the preaching of his word. And the Apostle has been
graciously allowed to pray this prayer. to God on behalf of his
people Israel. He has just said at the end of
the previous chapter that not all of the people of the Jews
would be saved, that it would be a remnant, just a remnant. And we spoke about that. The
remnant is the bit that's cut off. When the beautiful garment
is being produced, the remnant is the bit that's cut off. But
the reality is that it's that remnant. The off-cutting that
the Lord is pleased to love and to own, to cherish as his people. And Israel, there would be a
remnant in Israel also, not the whole nation, but a remnant would
be saved. And yet Paul is graciously allowed
to distinguish between that which he knows to be true that there
will be a judgment falls upon the nation Israel for all of
its sin, for all of its waywardness, even for the very fact that they
slew the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, He has this desire
that the people of Israel would be saved. And I think that's
lovely because it kind of reflects that ambiguity that we feel. We know that God is holy. We know that God is just. We
know that sin must be punished. And we, as believers in God and
as those who know something of the nature of God, we say it's
right. The judge should judge. It's
right that condemnation should fall. And this would be a terrible
world. This would be an anarchic world. if there was no accountability,
if there was no justice. And yet, at an individual level,
we look into the face of the worst perpetrator of the sins
in this world, and we say, Lord, you could save him. Lord, you
could save her. Lord, your grace is sufficient
even for a person like that. Do you know what the Apostle
Paul said? He said, I'm the chief of sinners. And if he's the chief
of sinners and he tasted of that grace, then how can any of us,
knowing our own hearts, withhold that grace from those around
about us? God must judge sin. God will judge sin. The very nature of God, the holiness
of God, demands that there will be a day of accountability. God's righteousness has been
offended by man's sin and iniquity. In fact, if you think about it,
in the whole of creation, who has treated God worse than men
and women like us? God has been offended. His law
has been transgressed. And many people shrug their shoulders
and say, well, that doesn't matter. God can forgive. That's the kind
of God that he is. He's a loving God. He's a forgiving
God. He's a merciful God. Grace characterizes
God. Grace and love. Is this not going
to flow despite all of the wickedness, despite all of the iniquity? Let us be clear. God's holiness
is unbending. God's holiness demands retribution. It would be a denial of the character
of God if he did not judge sin. And many, many people, I'm sad,
I'm sorry to say in these days, misrepresent the nature of God
by majoring on the fact of God's love. Yes, God is a loving God. But firstly, God is a holy God. And if we speak about God's love
outside of his holiness, We disrespect the revelation that God has made
of himself. Isaiah speaks about the angels
in heaven crying before the face of the almighty God. Holy, holy, holy. That is the testimony of the
angels in heaven. Whether we are thinking about
the angels or whether we are thinking about the apostolic
testimony, we discover that the holiness of God is that which
prevails in our individual consideration of who he is. God is first, holy, but he is also gracious and loving. And therefore, whomsoever his
grace and his love rests upon, will discover that that mercy
abounds to them. But it is not free mercy. We speak about free grace, and
it's always as well that we think about and explain what we mean
by phrases that we use. It's an indication of sloppiness
if we just use phrases without thinking what they actually mean.
Free grace. This is a free grace church.
You know what it costs? Free grace. It costs the Lord
Jesus Christ his life. That's what free grace costs.
It costs the Lord Jesus Christ his life. And yes, if God will
give us free grace, it's because Jesus Christ has paid the price
in order for that grace to come to us. That is the holiness of
God. Yes, he gives his grace and his
mercy to individuals, but the holiness of God demands that
sin be paid for, either on the account of the perpetrator or
upon the shoulders of a substitute. And we only begin to talk about
the grace of God and the love of God as we see the person of
Christ lifted up under the judgment of God and that holy sword of
God's wrath being set against the beloved sacrifice and substitute. Nevertheless, as we look at a
particular individual, as we look at a relative or a friend
that we love, a neighbour or even a stranger, is there not
something akin to that which the Apostle here expresses rises
in our own hearts? That we have an empathy towards
them in their lost state, We have a sympathy towards them
in their condemned condition. The men and women around about
this church, the men and women with whom we work, the men and
women that we meet in our communities, they have the greatest need imaginable. And we do well to preach the
gospel of God's grace to sinners in need. There's a story about
a man called John Bradford. He was an English reformer. He was an evangelist. He was
a preacher. I looked up a few details of
him because I was trying to find support for this particular phrase. You know what I discovered? I
discovered that he was born in 1510. and he died in 1545. Sorry, 1555.
He was martyred. He went to the stake in 1555. at the direction of Queen Mary. In England, she has the term,
her bloody Mary, for all of the reformed men and women that she
sent to their deaths. But John Bradford is credited
with this little phrase. There but for the grace of God
go I. There but for the grace of God.
And apparently it was said in the context of him watching a
group of felons, a group of convicts being led one day to the scaffold. And he said, there but for the
grace of God goes John Bradford. And is that not how Paul must
have felt? Is that not how all believers
feel? When they see that the goodness
of God and the grace of God has been granted to us, and yet there
are so many more outside. We know that there is a judgment,
we know that there is an accountability, but we long to see men and women
saved from their sin. The remainder of this chapter,
the apostle Paul uses in order to set forth the Lord Jesus Christ
as that substitute by which men and women can receive the righteousness
of God for themselves. By the righteousness of God,
we're speaking about peace with God because that which causes
animosity, that which causes wrath, that which causes enmity
between God and man has been removed. there has been a reconciliation
taken place, there has been a justification granted, there has been a redemption
made, a price has been paid, the blood has been spilled, and
there is cleansing obtained. And when we speak about the Lord
Jesus Christ as the way of salvation, we are speaking of him as that
one who has accomplished that which was needful to make us
just with God. He carried our sin. That sin
that we committed, that sin for which we were culpable, that
sin for which we must be condemned, we must give account, has been
taken from our shoulders and placed upon Christ. And he has
suffered in our place. So here we find that the Lord
Jesus Christ is set before us as the way of salvation. And it's important again for
us to remember that when we talk about Christ and we talk about
faith in Christ, that it is the person of Christ himself who
is the effectual cause of our salvation. It's Christ who saves. It's Christ's death, it's Christ's
sacrifice, it's Christ's blood. It's the fact that he went to
the cross on our behalf that saves us. Faith is the appropriating
means. Christ's death is the effectual
means or the effectual cause of our salvation. Faith is what
goes and gets the benefits of Christ's death and applies it
to our consciousness and our awareness. Don't ever imagine
that we are saved by faith in the sense of our faith saving
us. It's Christ's sacrifice that
saves us. Our faith is simply God's gift
whereby we're able to appropriate and obtain and experience all
the benefits and blessings that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished
for us. It is faith that goes out in
order to take hold and lay hold upon that salvation and bring
to us the personal experience of God's goodness. We speak here
about righteousness and we're speaking about an acceptable
righteousness in these verses that are before us. In verse
four, we see there that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. And then it speaks about the
righteousness, which is of the law in verse five, that the man
that doeth those things shall live by them. So if you want
to live by the law, if you want to have righteousness by the
law, you've got to fulfill what the law demands, everything that
it demands. if you're seeking to have righteousness
with God based upon the law. Moses said that. But then in
verse six, the apostle speaks of another righteousness, the
righteousness which is of faith. And here he's speaking about
faith. Here he's beginning to speak
about that faith that reaches out, that faith that goes to
the Lord God. and brings back the blessings
and the benefits of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
is an acceptable righteousness. This righteousness of faith is
the righteousness which is acceptable to God. It's acceptable to God because
it's God's righteousness. It's God's own righteousness
which is imputed to sinners, which is laid upon sinners, which
is given to sinners. And here the righteousness of
God is called the righteousness which is of faith. Comes only
by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is not the doing
of the righteousness of the law, But it is a believing and it
is a trusting in the promise of God's gift of grace and mercy
to sinners through the efficacy, the effectiveness of the death
of the Lord Jesus on the cross. So here's the two righteousnesses,
as it were, being set in contrast to one another. You can try and
earn a righteousness with God by fulfilling all of the law
of God in its entirety, or you can simply accept God's free
gift of his grace and mercy. And in verses six through to
10, the apostle uses an interesting figure of speech. He derives
it from Deuteronomy, and he uses it in order to explain Let me
say it like this. He uses it to explain how easy
the righteousness of faith is to obtain, to secure. It doesn't require the accomplishment
of impossible things, which the righteousness of the law did. It looked for 100% absolute obedience to the law
of Moses, not only in outward actions, but in inward motivation. It was never meant to make people
righteous with God. It was only ever meant to show
how far short of righteousness people were. But the righteousness
which is of faith is different and it doesn't ask for impossible
things. It doesn't say to people, here
is the righteousness which is of faith and all you've got to
do to get it is go to heaven and bring Christ down. Which one of you could go to
heaven and bring Christ down? It doesn't say here is the righteousness
of faith and all you've got to do is go into the deep and bring
Christ back from the dead. And which one of us could do
that? These are impossible things. And that's the point that the
apostle is making here. When he says, who shall ascend
into heaven? That is to bring Christ down
from above. Or who shall descend into the
deep? That is to bring Christ up again from the dead. These
are impossible things to do. He says in verse eight, but what
saith it? This righteousness of faith. The word is nigh thee,
even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith
which we preach. It's an easy thing. It's an easy
thing. This isn't difficult. This isn't
impossible to accomplish. This is the words that's in your
mouth. This righteousness of faith is
the righteousness that God gives to sinners who have nothing else
to give, who've got nothing that they can do, who realize that
they are sinners and there's nothing that they can do in order
to please God or to move themselves out from under that condemnation
that they are in. Salvation, rather, and the justification
of grace, and the righteousness which is of faith, the acceptable
righteousness of God, is to be experienced in the merest, simplest,
easiest way imaginable. It's just a word. It's just a
confession. It's just a profession of faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all that's sought. That's
all that's looked for. Just that recognition. Just the
reflection. Just the expression. of what
has happened, what has transpired in an individual's soul and in
an individual's heart. Just the statement of what has
become the settled position of our mind. It is simply this. It is with sincerity affirming
what we believe to be true. And that's all that's sought.
That's all that's sought. What do you believe to be true?
You know, we tell each other constantly what we believe to
be true. We're always telling, you know,
unless we're inveterate liars, there are people like that, I
guess. But we tell people, we tell people what we've experienced. We tell people where we've got
a good deal. We tell people what we recommend. We're always eager to pass on
good advice, right, Chris? But this is, we just tell it,
just say it. Just express what you've come
to see, come to understand, come to know about God's grace, about
the person of Christ. Do you remember, we spent a little
bit of time talking about Elisha a few weeks ago with some of
the young people on a Sunday morning. And you remember the
story of Naaman. and how he was a leper and he
was out of Syria and he'd come up to Elisha and he stood in
front of Elisha's door and he expected that Elisha would come
out and maybe there would be a sort of dramatic roll of thunder
in the background and Elisha would lift up his hands and he
would smite that leprous patch on Naaman and he would invoke
the name of God and he would cleanse Naaman of his leprosy. That was what Naaman thought
might happen. Instead, Elisha sent his servant
to the door and said, go and wash seven times in Jordan. And Naaman said, no, no, I'm
not going to do that. I can't remember the second name.
It's Abana and Faraz. Farfar. Farfar. The two rivers in Syria are much
better than the Jordan. Why would I go to the Jordan?
Dirty, stinking place that it is. No, I'm going home. Remember what his servant said
to him on Naaman? My father, if the prophet had
bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?
How much rather then, when he saith to thee, wash and be clean? It was an easy thing, but you
see, the easiness of it was the hurdle to the greatness and the
reputation and the self-worth and the self-opinion of Naaman. He couldn't do it. Well, I'm
glad that he had servants who were as faithful to him as these
servants were. But Paul goes on to say in verse
nine, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved. Oh, glorious truth. Oh, amazing truth. Salvation. What do you want? What do you want for your eternal
soul? You want salvation. You want
to spend eternity with God. You want to receive all the good
gifts that God has for the people that he loves. You want to enjoy
this life knowing that your soul is safe, that you are saved,
that salvation is yours. Confess with thy mouth the Lord
Jesus. Believe in thine heart that God
has raised him from the dead and you shall be saved. I don't know if it gets any better
than that. You don't have to go up to heaven and bring Christ
down. You don't have to go down into
the deep and bring him back from the dead. You just need to confess
the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in your life and
you will be saved. Now let me point out a couple
of things with respect to this statement and what it encompasses. Because it's much more than saying
that the Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. And I'm
not going to make the statement that this is easy and then slowly
and sort of subversively dismantle that again. But listen to me,
just hear me out on this point. There are a number of things
implicit in that statement. If you believe in thine heart
that God has raised him from the dead, then you must also
believe that he was dead, right? You must believe that he died.
And if you believe that he died, you must believe that he lived. And the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ, it presupposes his death and his death presupposes
his life. And the fact that God raised
him from the dead, because God doesn't raise everyone from the
dead, but the fact that God raised him from the dead presupposes
that that which he did in his life was acceptable to God. That there was a successful conclusion
to his work. The resurrection presupposes
that the Lord Jesus Christ is alive today and that it is possible to have
a living relationship with him. So while there is an easiness
in the statement, to say that with an earnestness, to say that
with a sincerity, not just with a casualness which is thoughtless,
but to say that and to be convinced of that, it presupposes a number
of things that we understand of who this person Jesus Christ
is. And it is more than this glib,
shallow profession that is often solicited by preachers who imagine
that the mere expression of these words is in itself enough to
save. In the same way as, I don't know,
the Roman Catholic Church assumes that if you take a little baby
and sprinkle some water on it, then that little baby is now
free from original sin. And it's not only the Roman Catholic
Church that takes that line. So there is a depth of understanding
inherent in this statement. It's not just, here's a piece
of paper, recite these words and go and find a church because
you're a believer now, you're a Christian, you're saved. It's speaking about heart belief. It's speaking about something
deep, something sincere, a conviction that has entered into the heart,
the mind, the soul of the individual. It's a confession, not just a
statement, a confession. You confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus. It originates in the soul. It
progresses via a settled view in our minds and it manifests
itself in an expression or a profession of what has transpired inside
our lives. It's a public testimony. It's
a vocal declaring of what we believe God has done within us. And it's also recognising that
it's not the confession that saves us. Christ saves us. The way of salvation, the covenantal
promises of God, that's what brings us into this state of
reconciliation with God. It's not the confession that
saves, but rather this confession supplies the evidence of the
saving work of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
in the life of the individual. and yet it is the easiest thing
in the world to do. It's the most straightforward,
it's the most outward indication of that divine blessing and acceptance. It's just a word, it's just a
word spoken, a profession, a confession made. It is the outward evidence
of an inward change. And it's the mark of conversion
in the life of a sinner that is saved by the grace of God. It speaks of a divine transformation
in the soul. That confession is an informed
confession. It's informed of the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ, It believes the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It professes the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ to be true. It's a heartfelt confession,
and it brings genuine peace and comfort to the soul that so confesses,
because that confession is the experienced evidence of the grace
of God in my life. Before that profession is made,
the individual is going around convicted and concerned for the
sin that they have in their soul. but upon the dawning realisation,
upon the application of the work of Christ to the heart and mind
of that convicted sinner by God the Holy Spirit, upon the realisation
that the work of Christ was effectual in saving sinners by the sharing
of his cleansing blood, the testimony that comes forth is the testimony
that brings with it comfort and peace and joy in the Lord. For we see and we declare that
what the Bible says about Jesus Christ is true. And it is a confession
that is affirming. because it opens doors. It opens
doors to participate in the fellowship of the Lord's people. It opens
doors to bring us rightly to the ordinances of baptism and
the Lord's Supper, that we can engage upon them and we can take
blessings and comforts from them. It is a confession not to obtain
by itself, not to secure by itself grace, but rather to attest that
that grace has been given and that that salvation has been
received. Look at verse 10. For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. Here we're reminded that salvation
is a hard work, that it is performed by God, the Holy Spirit, who
opens the sinner's heart to believe the gospel. Righteousness is
not done by believing. but it is received by believing. Together with the benefits and
the blessings that that righteousness, that justification, that peace
with God brings in its wake. And notice this, what the apostle
says here. We make confession. We're not confessing our sin. We're confessing the Lord Jesus
Christ who has taken away our sin. We're not looking inward
to the things that we've done wrong. We're not looking at the
things that have caused us to be convicted, caused us to be
depressed, caused us to be anxious before a holy God for the wellbeing
of our soul. We are confessing the one whom
we now believe has taken all that away. Again, there are other
churches that make their make their whole raison d'etre, their
reason for existence, giving people the sense that once they've
spoken in a confessional through a little piece of gauze on a
wall, their sins to a priest, that
that priest is able then to forgive them and give them some peace
from that sin. No, we're confessing Christ.
We're not confessing our sins to one another. That's already
been dealt with. We confess our sins to God and
God shows us Christ as our saviour and we confess Christ. We confess
what He has done, we confess all His glory, we ascribe to
Him all honour and praise as that God-man Jesus Christ who
has delivered us from our guilt and our condemnation. Look at
verse 11. Verse 12, just take these two
together. For the scripture saith, whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference
between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon him. The Apostle is citing, he's
referring here to Isaiah chapter 28. And it's interesting because
he did that already at the end of chapter nine. So this is the
second time in the space of a couple of paragraphs that the Apostle
has referred to Isaiah chapter 28 in verse 16. And he says in
the end of chapter nine, verse 33, as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling
stone and rock of offence, and whosoever believeth on him shall
not be ashamed. But that's not exactly what Isaiah
says. What Isaiah says is, he that
believeth on him. The apostle changes that slightly. He says, whosoever, or everyone,
who believeth will be blessed. And what he's doing here is he
is showing, remember how he started this chapter 10 speaking about
the Jews? Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. What he's
showing here is that even if you are a Jew, Doesn't matter
whether you're a Jew or a Greek, a Jew or a Gentile, whether you
had this heritage, history, tradition of all the Jewish laws to keep
that would give you a righteousness with God, this salvation of grace,
this righteousness of faith, It's available to you too. It's
available to whosoever. It's available to Jew and Greek,
Jew and Gentile. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. There is no difference between
the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord is over all and rich
unto all that call upon him. You call upon the name of the
Lord and you will find just how rich he can be. You call upon
the name of the Lord. You profess the Lord Jesus Christ
as saviour. You confess the Lord Jesus Christ
as your Lord and you will discover just how rich he is. It doesn't
matter who you are. doesn't matter who you are, doesn't
matter how big a sinner you've been, doesn't matter where you
come from, doesn't matter what your religious background has
been, you confess Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That's
an amazing statement. That's a wonderful truth that
we've got to declare, that we've got to preach, that we've got
to share with one another. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Just as easy as that, as easy
as that. He says, none shall be ashamed.
And we won't be ashamed in this world, and we won't be ashamed
in the next. Nor in time, and not in eternity. There will be no shame at the
judgment seat of Christ. No shame at the great white throne. we will not be ashamed if we
have confessed the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour. All the
righteousness of God is the free possession and inheritance of
those who confess the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. All their
sin is carried away. All their sin is planted in the
sea, never to be remembered against them anymore. All their condemnation
has been removed because the Lord Jesus Christ, as the sacrificial
lamb, has carried it away and it is out of sight and it is
out of mind. And we are holy. We are justified. We are righteous
with the righteousness of faith imputed by God himself. Verse 13, and now we're finished.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. There's one of those memorable verses. That's one worth underlining
in your Bible, worth putting a little cross beside in your
Bible. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. What a beautiful promise that
is. to sinners like you and me. And what rich mercy it speaks
about. What encouragement it gives for
us to seek, to pursue that gracious gift from God that he speaks
about here. No sinner on the face of this
world, no sinner on the face of this world need be reluctant
to call upon the name of the Lord. And whether that's for temporal
help or eternal help, for practical needs or for spiritual needs,
those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Salvation,
the Lord told Jonah, is of the Lord and it flows to all who
come and seek it from God. We come seeking, we come asking,
and we come believing. And they who do so shall find
God to be the faithful Lord. We call upon the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ because he is the enabler. Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He is the enabler. He is the facilitator. He is
the bringer of every blessing to his people. His is the name
which is above all names. He is the anointed Saviour, the
Messiah, the one into whose hands and whose care God the Father
committed the well-being of all his elect. He is the one to whom
we come. He is the great Deliverer. He
is the mighty God. He is the King of Glory. and
he shall freely give to all who come and call upon his name all
those things which he is able to bestow. We, brothers and sisters
in the Lord this evening, are richly blessed indeed to be able
to call this one our Lord, our God, our friend, in the knowledge
that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Amen. May God bless to us these
thoughts.