I so much want to see you at the throne of God in heaven. I so much want you to know the
Redeemer, to be born of God, to have a life everlasting. I
want more than that you should live a good, moral, upright,
commendable, decent life. I want more for you than that
you should have a good name. I want more for you and for me
than just your friendship. I want more for you than tranquility
and a life of ease until you die. I want you to know God in
his son. If you'll turn with me to Romans
chapter 10 and verse 13, I have today a simple sermon for needy
sinners, a simple sermon for needy sinners. I want to speak
to you in the plainest, simplest, clearest terms possible, and
I pray that God the Holy Ghost will speak through this worthless,
dirty instrument the words of life to your soul for Christ's
sake. Romans 10 and verse 13. The scripture
declares here, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Salvation. What a great, great
word. It encompasses the whole of God's
mighty operations by which he brings lost, ruined, doomed,
damned, cursed, hell-bent, hell-deserving sinners like you and me from
the gates of hell into heaven's everlasting glory by the merits
of his Son. And this salvation is to be had
by faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is to be had by
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This salvation is promised to
all who call upon the name of the Lord. As I approach this
subject, let me address these four things. What does it mean
to be lost? Not many people know. Second,
what does it mean to be saved? Not many people have any idea.
And third, how can a sinner be saved? Very few people have any
idea at all. And then last, I want to persuade
you to call upon the name of the Lord. First, what does it
mean to be lost? Have you ever experienced that?
Do you know what it is to be lost? The scriptures universally
declare that our race, the human race, all men and women by nature
are lost in need of Christ and of God's salvation by Jesus Christ. Brother Mahan used to tell, we'd
travel together and preach, and I've heard him tell the story
many times of the days of the Great Depression. He was raised
during that era. He said there was a man serving
in a soup line in Chicago, and folks would just come through
and get a little bite to eat, get what they could, and most
of them pretty ragged. Pretty dirty, the clothes well-worn. But the fellow spotted a fellow
back in the line that was wearing what obviously was a well-made
suit. And as he watched the other folks
come, he kept looking at this man, wondering, I wonder what
kind of business he was in. I wonder where he lived before
this happened. I wonder what he was like long
ago. And as the man approached the
line, he could see this fellow servant just looking at him.
And the man looked at him and said, I've seen better days. I've seen better days. I looked
into the mirror this morning and were reminded of that story
as thinking about preaching to you. And I look into my face
and yours, into the face of humanity, and I say we've seen better days.
Man was not created this way. Man didn't come into the world
this way. We read about the barbaric cruelty,
the filth, the degradation, the debauchery of our society. These days, drunkenness, adultery,
fornication, sodomy, theft, murder are just everyday affairs. This is what man has become.
This is what man is. But it wasn't always that way.
Turn back to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter one. How did we get in the mess we're
in? The Lord God created Adam in
the garden and looked upon him with complete satisfaction and
delight. Look in Genesis 1 verse 26. And God said, let us make man
in our image. God looked at the Lord Jesus
Christ, he who is the image of the invisible God, the God-man
mediator who would one day come into the world, having our humanity,
taking on himself our humanity, and having that nature of man
formed by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin. And he said,
let's make man just like him. Let's make a man like him. After
our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth. So God created man in his own
image. In the image of God created he
him, male and female created he them, and God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the
air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And
God said, behold, I've given you every herb bearing seed which
is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in which is the
fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you, it shall be for me. I've
given it all to you. And to every beast of the earth
and every fowl of the air and everything that creepeth upon
the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb
for meat. And it was so. And God saw everything
that he had made and behold, it was very good. And the evening
and the morning were the sixth day. I often think about Adam
and Eve in the garden And I'm always astonished at how little
we recognize the perfection in which God created our original
parents, Adam and Eve. I know that it is a, folks laugh
and poke fun, but that's all right. I laugh at them. It's
an evolution. That's a scientific fact. The
debate's over. Not hardly. Not hardly. Adam didn't evolve from some
lower species and he didn't begin on this earth as a caveman and
just barely crawling around above a dog. Adam was created in the
image and likeness of God. What a man he must have been.
Eve taken from his side, created in the perfection of humanity. What a woman she must have been.
Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. What great wisdom. What great knowledge. What huge
minds they must have had. Adam named everything in the
world. He named it all. He named it
all. What a mind. What a grasp of
things. I had trouble remembering your
name when I've known you for 35 years, 37 years. I look at,
that's Mark, that's Mark, and that's another Mark. But I'll
pause sometimes, just trying to remember your names. Adam
named every creature of God. And he and Eve, walking with
God in the garden, walked around naked, with not a blush. Not a blush even before God. Created upright with no sin,
no corruption, no thought of sin, no inclination to sin, no
burning lust in their hearts. And then something happened.
Look in chapter two, Genesis chapter two. Eve was beguiled
by Satan. And Adam, with full consciousness,
knowing what he was doing, broke the command of God. Genesis chapter
two, verse 15. The Lord God took the man and
put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And
the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the
garden thou mayest freely eat. but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Chapter three. Now the serpent was more subtle
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he,
the serpent, said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall
not eat of every tree of the garden. Now you pause and think
about that a little bit, how different things were. Can you
imagine, Brother Rex back there, I think, probably more afraid
of snakes than anybody in the room. Can you imagine, Rex, you're
walking through the woods one day, a ride in your bicycle,
and you stop to take a drink of water, and a snake starts
talking to you out of the tree? I'm not talking about hissing
at you, I'm talking about talking to you. What a strange difference. Eve wasn't in the least bit surprised
to stand there and carry on a conversation with a snake. And I have no idea
what all that means. I have no idea what the implications
of that are. I'm telling you things were radically
different when God created man upon the earth. The serpent spoke
to the woman and he said, yea, hath God said. ye shall not eat
of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent,
we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it
lest you die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. Now God spoke plainly to Adam
and told Adam not to eat of the fruit of this tree and said,
in the day you do, you're gonna die. And Adam understood fully
with his eyes wide open what was happening. And he said to
God, get out of my way. I love this woman and I'm gonna
take the fruit. But Adam acted as a representative
man. He was made of God to be a substitute
man. God always and only deals with
all the human race in two men, just two men. He'll deal with
you in Adam, or he'll deal with you in Christ, the last Adam.
Only in those two men. God deals with all men either
by what they've done in Adam or what they've done in Christ.
No other way. If he deals with you in Adam,
you're going to hell. If he deals with you in Christ,
that's called salvation. That's the only way God deals
with men. In Romans chapter five and verse 12, we read, wherefore,
as by one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. When
Adam said to God, get out of my way, the whole human race
said to God, get out of my way, I'll take over my own life. I'll
be my own God and my own Lord. He said, well, I don't like that.
Well, you can't blame too much of your condition on Adam alone. The fact is no one was ever damned
because of Adam's sin. Those children who die in infancy
without any question at all are saved by God's sovereign free
grace through the merits of Christ's blood atonement. You see, they
are innocent of any actual transgression of their own. They are redeemed
by the blood of Christ from Adam's transgression. We're told plainly
in Romans 5 that they sin not after the submittitude of Adam's
transgression. Those dying in infancy and imbecility
don't know what they're doing. They don't know their right hand
from their left. They sinned against God in Adam,
but not themselves against God like Adam did. Unlike you and
me. You see, we're not children.
We're not children. You and I are grown up adults. And we sin against God all the
time by our own hands. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. That's the way it is with man.
Read the third chapter of Romans and you'll discover that men
and women by reason of their own sin are under the wrath of
God. Many women, by reason of their
own transgressions, suffer the wrath of God. Many women go to
hell because of their own behavior, their own rebellion to God, because
every one of us lived from our youth up saying to God, get out
of my way. Get out of my way. I will not bow. I will not obey. I'll do what I will. God, get
out of my way. Get out of my way. Because we
went forth from the womb, every one of us speaking lies, and
that's the way, Merle Hart, we lived all the days of our lives
until God stepped in. by omnipotent mercy and snatched
us from our way and put us in Christ the way. What does it
mean to be lost? To be lost is to be separated
from God, spiritually dead, totally depraved in heart, in
nature, in mind, in will, in emotions, corrupt, evil, and
depraved. To be lost is to be justly condemned
by God. Justly condemned. So that you
find yourself with the weight of God's holy justice upon you. crushing you into hell. And there's nothing you can do
about it. Nothing you can do about it.
Nothing. You can't lift that load. You
can't escape that weight. Lost. Lost. When I first moved to look out
West Virginia, I went out hunting one day. I could step off my
front porch and go hunt rabbit or squirrel or deer and just
go a little ways, hunt some bear and just anything more than wild
turkey. Just right off my front porch,
stepped into the woods and the mountains. But I wasn't raised
in the mountains. I was raised in Flatland down
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And all the hunting I'd ever
done was in flatland. And I never got lost. Anytime
I was a boy growing up, I'd just find my way, knew how to do it.
But in the mountains, I'd crossed a ridge and then another ridge
and another ridge and went another way and crossed another ridge
and it got close to dark. And I started home and realized
I was lost. I couldn't find my way home.
I didn't know what ridges I'd crossed and what I hadn't crossed.
I could hear traffic off in the distance on the highway, but
I couldn't find my way home. And it was almost pitch dark
when I finally crawled out of the woods onto the side of the
highway, lost. But when I found out 50 years
ago that I was lost, I couldn't find the road. I couldn't hear any noise. It
was all pitch black, and the weight of hell was on my shoulders,
crushing my soul into hell, lost, utterly lost. Oh, God, make you
to know what it is to be lost. Until you're lost, you'll never
be found. Lost, like that lost coin. Lost, like that lost sheep. Lost, like that lost son, until
at last he came to himself. Oh, now there's hope. When God
steps in and causes you to know you're lost, I'll go to my father
and I'll beg mercy of him. or you'll remain lost like that
son who refused to trust the son, refused to trust the lamb,
refused to come to God clinging to his own righteousness. To
be lost is to be without God, without life, without Christ,
doomed, damned, cursed, helpless, without hope in this world. Sometimes I see people in my
travels who are obviously hopeless people, and I pity them. I know what it is to be hopeless
before God. Hopeless before God. That's what it is to be lost.
Second, what does it mean to be saved? Our text talks about
being saved. What is salvation? There are
lots of ways I can answer this. Let me summarize it with four
things that are involved in this thing of salvation. Salvation
involves at least these four things. First, redemption. Now we use the word redemption
in scripture it's used, and we use the word redemption in many
different ways, but commonly when we think about redemption,
we're talking about it in the way I'm using it this morning
with regard to atonement. In order to be saved, you must
be redeemed. You must have an atonement for
your sin. And that atonement is in Jesus
Christ, God's darling son, the sinner's substitute. There is
no atonement for sin, but by the shed blood of Christ, who
bear our transgressions. in his own body on the tree,
who suffered the wrath of God in the room instead of his people.
He died that we might never die. He died the just for the unjust
that he might bring us to God. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
made sin for us, took on himself that awful mass of iniquity. He who knew no sin was made to be sin in such a
real way that He was identified with sin and
identified by sin so that He cried to God and said, thou knowest
my guiltiness. My iniquities are not hid from
thee. And God Almighty, finding sin
on his son, poured out on his son all the horrid vengeance
of his holy wrath until justice was fully satisfied in his son. Salvation also involves regeneration. Regeneration. We read in Genesis,
how the God warned Adam, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die. But man did not die physically. He walked around for a long,
long time after eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. What's
that mean? died spiritually, and the human
race died spiritually. The new birth, regeneration,
is a spiritual resurrection from the dead. Blessed and holy is
he that hath part in the first resurrection. That is blessed
and holy are you who are born again. Old such, the second death
hath no power. There's no judgment for you,
no hell for you, no damnation for you. You've been born again,
regeneration. Man was created, body, soul,
and spirit. When he died in the garden, Since
the day of Adam's transgression, all men are just body and soul
until they're born again. And then they're made whole,
body, soul, and spirit. A new spirit is put in you. God, the Holy Spirit, made partakers
of the divine nature, a new man created in you in righteousness
and in true holiness. And that new man is Jesus Christ,
the Lord. We are resurrected from the dead
spiritually in the new birth, and then being reconciled to
God, or being redeemed and regenerated, we must be reconciled to God.
Now this reconciliation I'm talking about now, described in 2 Corinthians
chapter five, where Paul said, we beseech you, be you reconciled
to God. He's already told us God was
in the world, or in Christ, reconciling the world, the world of his elect
to himself. So that on God's part, justice
is satisfied, righteousness is brought in, but men, the men
Christ came to save, are still rebels against God. That's your
problem. That's the reason you will not
believe. You keep saying, God, get out of my way. In your heart,
you've got both fists clenched tight, and your teeth clenched,
and you're cussing God with every breath, and you hate him. You
hate him. You hate him. You hate him. You
hate the fact that God is. And you will not bow, but bow
you must, and bow you will. either in your everlasting damnation
are now by his grace to his son. And bowing to Christ is salvation. Bowing to Christ is reconciliation
to God. All to Jesus I surrender. All to him I freely give. It is a voluntary turning of
the heart to Jesus Christ. A willing, voluntary, delightful
surrender to the Lamb of God. Yes, we must be reconciled to
God. Yes, you must bow to Christ. But no sooner will you turn to
Him, then you will discover that it was He who turned you. No
sooner will you bow to Him until you will discover that it is
He who bows you. Turn back to Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah
chapter 31, let me show you. God the Holy Spirit comes and
graciously reveals Christ in the heaven-born soul, giving
you faith in Him, He bows you to the Savior. Turn thou us unto
thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned. Look at Jeremiah 31,
verse 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning
himself thus. Remember God said, I'll pour
out my spirit upon you, upon the house of David, the spirit
of grace and supplications. Thou hast chastised me, and I
was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou me, and
I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after
that I was turned, I repented. And after that I was instructed,
I smote upon my thigh. I was ashamed, yet even confounded,
because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Oh, God turn sinners
to you. Oh God, graciously, constantly,
relentlessly turn me to you. I don't have any idea who wrote
these words, but they're worth hearing. I sought the Lord and
afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him seeking me. It was not I that found, O Savior,
true, but no, I was found to Thee. Thou didst reach forth
Thy hand and mine in fold. I walked and sank not on storm-vexed
sea, t'was not so much that I on Thee took hold as Thou, dear
Lord, on me. I find I walk, I love, but O
the whole of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee. For thou wert
long beforehand with my soul, always thou lovest me. What is it to be saved? It is
to be turned from rebellion to surrender, from unbelief to faith,
from darkness to light, from enmity to love, from self to
Christ. and then salvation will be complete,
consummated in the resurrection. These bodies will soon go to
the grave, and die they must, die they must. Either in the process of age,
with sickness and disease, we will at last go to the grave,
Or when Christ comes and there's a great translation made, when
these bodies are made new in the resurrection day, even then
the body, this physical body must be dissolved. But in the
resurrection, we'll be made new. We will have bodies superior
even to that which Adam had in the garden. Imagine that. Imagine that. disciples saw the
Lord Jesus in His resurrection body, in His resurrection body
on the Mount of Transfiguration. He glowed before them like the
sun shining out of Him rather than on Him. He just transfigured
before them. And when He ascended into heaven,
He ascended up to glory in a real physical human body, that which
came out of the tomb. So too, this mortal shall put
on immortality. This corruption shall put on
incorruption, and we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, completely, perfectly conformed to our Savior. Imagine that, Mark. Body, soul,
and spirit, just like you. Just like you. Just like you. That's the whole purpose of God. A pastor, how can I have that
salvation? How can a sinner be saved? Paul tells us here, the Spirit
of God tells us here, whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. Whosoever. Any sinner in all
the world who but calls upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. The promise of the text is clear.
If I call on the name of the Lord, I'm saved. If you call
on the name of the Lord, you're saved. Now some years ago, it's been
a long, long time ago, I had some missionaries in the house
over in Junction City. And they took a little exception
to my insistence on free grace. And they said if there was a
man struck down on the highway out here who never knew God,
had never heard of Jesus Christ, and had never known anything
about the Bible or religion or Christianity. He said, could
you go out there and tell him to be saved by calling on the
Lord and be all right? I said, if what you're asking
me, if I went out there and stooped down over him like a priest administering
last rites and slip a little cracker in his mouth, pour a
little wine in his mouth and say, now say, I believe in Jesus,
everything's all right. No, no. Calling on the name of the Lord,
Jesus saved me out of desperation is not calling on the name of
the Lord. What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord?
We'll look at this more closely later, but let's let the word
of God speak and speak clearly. We read in Genesis chapter four,
that men began to call on the name of the Lord. That is, they
began to worship God. That's what it is to call on
the name of the Lord. To call on His name is to worship Him. To worship Him. To bow to Him. Kiss the Son lest He be angered.
To worship Him. like a servant bows before his
king and kisses his hand. That's what it is, to worship
him, to call on the name of the Lord. It is to bow to God as
he reveals himself in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, worshiping
him. To call on the name of the Lord
is portrayed for us in 1 Kings 18, where Elijah prayed. The prophets of Baal called on
their gods, they worshiped their gods. They worshiped their gods. They jumped around and danced
and screamed and hollered and sang and cut themselves and put
on a big show and waved their hands and clapped and say hallelujah
and all the horse manure that goes on that's called worship.
But Elijah called on Jehovah. He prayed. He said, Lord, let
it be known that you're God. To call on the name of the Lord,
Claus, is to believe God, calling on Him in prayer with a sincere
heart, trusting Him. What is it to call on the name
of the Lord? It's to call on Him like that
leper who came and fell down before the Lord Jesus in Matthew
8. and he worshiped him. He worshiped him, surrendered
to him. Lord, if you will, you can make
me. I can't do anything. Here I am,
a doomed, damned, lost, stinking, rotting, leper, unclean, and
I can't change a thing. But if you will, you can make
me whole. I bow to you. Venture on Him. Venture wholly. Let no other trust intrude. None
but Jesus, none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good. Cast
your soul on Him like that leper. And you'll hear Him say, I will
be thou clean. And immediately, leprosy will
be whole. What is it to call on the name
of the Lord? It's to confess Christ. In Acts
22, Ananias came to this new convert, this Saul of Tarsus,
now made Paul, and he said to this new convert, arise, be baptized,
and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. To call
on the Lord is to worship him. to pray, to trust Him, to confess
Christ as Lord and Savior, confessing your faith in Him. Now, let me
do what I can. Oh, Spirit of God, speak and
persuade sinners to call on the name of the Lord. If you call
on His name, if right now, Bobby, if right now you find yourself
trusting Him, worshiping Him, bowing to Him, it's because He
redeemed you. Your faith is the fruit of redemption. If right now you find yourself
bowing to Christ, trusting Christ, worshiping Him, praying to Him,
surrendering to Him, it's because you've been born again by His
Spirit. Your faith in Him is the fruit
of His grace in you. If you call on Him, believing
Him, trusting Him, that means your name's written in heaven.
Because those who believe on the Son of God are those whose
names are written in heaven. If you call on the name of the
Lord, you shall be saved. Because the Son of God has gone
to heaven prepare a place for you. And soon He's going to come again
and receive you into that very place He prepared for you. And there'll be no vacant places
in Heaven's glory. Believe on the Son of God. Call
upon the Savior. Come to Him like that woman with
the issue of blood If I can just touch the hem of his garment,
I'll be made whole. She'd tried everything there
was to try. She'd been everywhere there was to go. And now, bowed
in her body, she's bowed in her heart, and she hears that Jesus
of Nazareth's passing by. And she said, if I can get to
him, everything will be all right. And she touched him. And immediately,
virtue, power, life, flowed from him to her. For she called on
the name of the Lord. Lord, if you will, you can make
me whole. I'll bow to you and wait right
here at your throne and seek your mercy. Lord, remember me. me. Remember me." Like that thief, oh. If from your heart, where you
sit, you call on the name of the Lord, Lord, remember me. Hear His Word to you. Are you
listening? Are you listening? Today shalt
thou be with me in paradise. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Amen.