Now if you would please turn
to Romans chapter 10. And those of you with halfway decent
memories, and if you were present then, when Brother Mahan was
here in mid-May, I think I read this chapter and commented on
it as I was reading at the 10 o'clock hour that Sunday morning.
And a lot of you were not there that
day. for that 10 o'clock meeting I'm talking about. But anyway,
I don't want to deal with the whole chapter per se, but I think
we ought to read the chapter because it is one of the most
important statements in all of our Bibles in regard to how it
is that God saves sinners in our Lord Jesus Christ. But the
verses particularly that I wish to deal with at this present
hour, in the 10 o'clock hour just a bit ago, We dealt with
verses 9 and 10, so I'm going to deal with those again, but
not in the manner that I did then. But I simply want to begin
at verse 4 and take us through verse 13, which is a fairly small
portion of the overall chapter, and put some questions to you
from those verses of Scripture. The first question is, what does
Moses say? That means, what does the law
say? Second question is, what does the gospel say? Third question
is, what does the Bible say? And the fourth question, and
it is not by any means unimportant, what does my personal experience
say? Do I know anything about what
I'm reading? In my soul, in my heart of hearts,
have I experienced these things? Has God taught me these things
within my own soul? So let's read the chapter that
these things are found in, beginning at verse 1, Romans chapter 10. Since Paul's conversion, prior
to that time, he was a Pharisee in the Jews' religion. He was
highly decorated. He was famous, perhaps the best
known Jewish Pharisee alive in his time. But when God saved
him on the road to Damascus, unhorsed him, brought him to
his knees at the feet of Christ, everything changed. People went
out of their way to put this man in prison, to beat him, stone
him, do their best to kill him. Finally, he left this world at
the hands of the Roman emperor, being martyred for the faith
of our Lord Jesus Christ. But this man has found out something
about God, about himself, and about Christ. Let's see what
it is. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I, Paul, bear them, the Jews,
record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. Paul ought to know of what he
speaks. He used to have that very same
blind, misguided, misinformed zeal. He was on his way to apprehend
Christians in Damascus when God stopped him in his tracks. He
knows something about this zeal that is misguided. They have
a zeal of God. But it's not true. It's not genuine. It's not according to knowledge.
Here's the problem for us as well as for them. They being
ignorant. I prefer to read that, but we
being ignorant of God's righteousness. I tell you, if we ever find out
who God is, we'll have to have a Savior who is God Himself.
But nothing else will do. We being ignorant of God's righteousness,
going about to establish our own righteousness. All you and
I can do is sin and we want to talk about achieving a righteousness
of our own. Go about to establish, and I
tell you right this very moment, Thirteen minutes past eleven
on June the 29th, 2008, plenty of people are sitting in a building
of whatever size and kind and description, and they're being
taught how to do this very thing. Make a righteousness of your
own. Men are telling them, God needs
you. What are you going to do for Him today? The gospel says
we need Him. What will He do for us? That's
the real question. You and I put together ain't
worth a hill of beans, but God can change things. He uses nothings
and nobodies to accomplish his work, going about to establish
their own righteousness. That causes us to not submit
ourselves unto the righteousness of God. And this last righteousness
in that verse, there are three of them in verse 3, but this
last one is the righteousness that God gives sinners in Christ. It is the very righteousness
of Christ itself. So verse 4 declares, For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Are
you a believer? Then I tell you unashamedly and
absolutely, is the only righteousness that you have and you know it.
And if you don't know it, we're not yet believers. We're still too big in our own
sight. The Lord Jesus is too small.
There's one thing about Him, He ain't small. He's God Almighty. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. Everyone that
believes. Now here's where I'm going to
talk to you in a little bit, so I'm going to read right on
through these. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of
the law. What does Moses say about the
law? That the man which does those
things required in the law shall live by them. But the righteousness which is
of faith, that brings us in verse 6 to what the gospel says. The
righteousness which is of faith, that is the righteousness that
is ours in Christ that we read about back in verse 4, speaks
on this wise. It uses this language Say not
in your 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. The gospel speaks, and it speaks
plainly and clearly that there is nothing left to do. So if I tell you God's done all
He can do and now it's up to you, either I'm lying or this
book is lying. And there ain't no question which
is which, is there? No question at all. You see, the wonderful news of
the gospel, the word gospel means good news. The wonderful news
of the gospel is that the work of salvation, the work of redemption
is finished. And He's not left us something
to do, to put in the magic ingredient to all of a sudden make it work?
Heavens no! Look at verse 8, still speaking
about what the gospel says, but what does it say? What says it?
What does the gospel say? Oh my! And I call your attention, I
hope I have time later on to read this, but this This statement
that Paul is about to make comes straight out of Deuteronomy chapter
31. Here's what he says, but what
does it say in verse 8? The Word is near you. This Word
of Christ, this Word of the Gospel is near us. How near? Even in our mouth and in our
heart. That's pretty close. Pretty close. That is the word of faith which
we preach. That if you shall confess with
your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that
God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. And I'll
alter that slightly and tell you that if you can do that,
you're already saved. Faith in Christ, trusting Him,
is the result of being saved, not its cause. Verse 10, For with the heart man believes
unto righteousness. With the heart man, any man,
any son or daughter of Adam, unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture
says, Whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed, for there
is no difference." You can go ahead and write this down. There
is no difference between one man and another, between one
race and another, between people from one country and another,
people from one generation or another. Man is always the same,
and God is always the same. There is no difference between
Jews and Gentiles, 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. How then shall they call on Him
in whom they have not believed? There are four statements here
beginning with the word how in verses 14 and 15 and they are
important, but this morning I simply pass over them. How then shall
they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall
they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall
they hear without a preacher? And how can any man preach except
God? send Him and send Him with His
power. As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. But we have not all obeyed the
gospel. For Isaiah said, the beginning
statement in Isaiah 53, Lord, who has believed our report? Isaiah complained, Lord, who
has believed our gospel? So then faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard?
Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth, and their
words unto the end of the world. But I say, did not Israel know?
For Moses said, I'll provoke you to jealousy by them that
are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But
Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found of them that sought
me not. I was made manifest unto them
that asked not after me. But to Israel God said, All day
long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and
gainsaying people." All right, we're going to come back and
work on verses 5 through 13, hopefully. Four gospel questions. Four questions. Four gospel questions. These things are absolutely vital
to the welfare of our souls. To be confused or wrong about
these four things just may ruin our souls forever and ever. These
are not trivial matters. This has not got anything to
do with how you wear your hair. It's got nothing to do with whether
you wear a hat or don't wear a hat. It's not talking about
how you dress. It's not talking about what you
eat. It's not talking about whether
you exercise or not. These things have to do with
the soul. These are spiritual matters and
they are what matters. Paul said bodily exercise profits
little. But where is our attention? This
world is wrapped up in making this body better. And it still goes downhill fast. So we look for artificial means
to make ourselves prettier. We're crazy. We've gone plum
nuts. But these four questions I'm
telling you are worth more to us in regard to our soul than
any other set of four questions I can possibly think of. Here's
the first one. What does Moses say? Moses is God's penman for the
law. God gave those engraved tablets
of the Ten Commandments to Moses written with the finger of God
on Mount Sinai. So what does Moses say? Which is the same thing as asking,
what does the law say? What does it say? We have one
answer right here in Romans chapter 10 in verse 5. Let's make sure
we understand this answer. Alright? Verse 5, Romans 10. For Moses describes the righteousness
which is of the law. Now what kind of righteousness
is legal Righteousness, law righteousness, is just a dressy term for downright,
sorry, good for nothing, self-righteousness. That's all it is, just another
word. It's not God's righteousness. It's a righteousness of our own
making by our supposed obedience to the law of God. Yet the Scripture
everywhere proclaims both Old and New Testaments. You can find
this one in Joshua 24, 19. He asked Israel. Joshua was preparing
to die. He asked Israel, whom are you
going to obey? They said, we'll keep God's laws. And Joshua said, you cannot keep
God's law because God's law is holy. Our Lord Jesus, John 7 verse
19. Hey, I might have had that verse
wrong in Joshua 24, but it's in that chapter, but I'm sure
about John 7, 19. The Lord Jesus said to a bunch
of Jews of His day who prided themselves, and wherever they
went, they had signs all over themselves. They didn't call
them signs. They're called in our Bibles phylacteries, religious
symbols and indicators that these people are declaring themselves
to be holy. They had Scripture verses hanging
all over their garments. And our Lord said to that bunch,
He said, none of you keeps the law. You don't keep it. And it doesn't matter who says
they do. They don't. Only one has kept this law. And
He did not do it for Himself, but for the persons that He represented,
namely His church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why on earth did He come
down here to live? If all He came to do was to die,
why didn't He just come into this world as a 33-year-old man
and go to the cross? Because God's law must be kept
and honored and obeyed. And we have the obligation of
doing that. And since none of us are capable
of that, the Lord Jesus did it for every last one of His people.
What does the law say here in verse 5 of Romans chapter 10? The man which does the things
listed in the law. Use the Ten Commandments if you
want to, that's fine. What does the Ten Commandments
say? It says, the man which does those things shall live By them! Now listen, you cannot live before
God on the law and Christ. It has to be one or the other.
Therefore, any man standing before God in regard to his law is automatically
condemned. James chapter 2 verse 10 says,
To break one commandment is to break them all. Now, that's freely
translating, but that's what that verse says. To break one
is to break them all. Now, your problem and mine is
we don't have to worry about just picking one. We've done
broke all of them, either outwardly or inwardly, either in acts we've committed
or acts we've omitted. But you know what the law says.
I know you do. If you've been coming here very
long, you're bound to know. Here's what the law demands.
You can find this in Luke chapter 10, verse 25 or 26, I don't remember. This scribe, a scribe is a religious
lawyer. That is a man who has spent his
entire life reading and understanding the requirements of the law and
the various things that have been added to it over the centuries
by the Jewish rabbis and other people, this man specializes
in that. It's not a lawyer like we have
a lawyer. This is entirely having to do with doctrinal, biblical-type
things. This man comes to the Lord Jesus
with a question, good master, what must I do to be saved? And our Lord pointed him to the
law. And he asked the man, how do
you understand the law? And the man put it very simply,
to love God with all my heart. How much of my heart? All of
it. All my mind. All my strength. And so forth. And my neighbor is myself. We
don't love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. I don't
care what you say. I don't and you don't. Uh-uh. No. No way. And the Lord said to this man,
he commends him, he said, you've answered rightly. That's a good
assessment. That's a good summary of the
law. And the man willing to justify
himself, wants the Lord to comment on who his neighbor is. Like
that's the only place he's got a problem, you know. That's crazy. And that gives rise to the parable
of the Good Samaritan. And that Good Samaritan is Christ. It is Christ. Christ alone. So in the plainest of terms,
in Romans 10 verse 5, how does Moses say that we are to live
before God? Here it is, condensed to a simple
statement. Do this, obey God's law, and
live. But what if we fail to obey it?
Then we shall surely die. You understand? Law and gospel
cannot be mixed. You cannot say, well, I'll do
the best I can and Christ will finish it for me. No, He won't.
It's all Christ or no Christ at all. He declares He must be
everything. Nothing less than that will do
a sinner any good. What we call obedience doesn't
deserve the title because it stinks to high heaven to start
with. What we think we've done, we
need to go bury it, forget it. And if we ever do any good work
in our whole life, don't tell a soul about it. Not a soul. Go hide it. Put it out of sight
and out of mind. Well, that's part of what Moses
says and the law says. Second thing is in verses 6 through
11, maybe it's 10, 6 through 10,
more like it, what does the gospel say? Let's look at it here in
Romans chapter 10. The gospel here is called in
this statement in verse 6, the righteousness which is of faith.
As opposed to what was the other kind of righteousness? A righteousness
which is of the law or of works. This is the righteousness of
faith. This is the righteousness of Christ. This is the righteousness
of the gospel. So the righteousness which is
of faith, first of all, does not say some things and then
we'll pick it up where it does say some things. First of all,
it does not say who's going to do this and who's going to do
that. Why? Because the gospel says
it's all done. It's all finished. It's all complete. You mean the Lord Jesus didn't
leave anything for me to do? That's exactly right. You mean
there's nothing I can do for the saving of my own soul? Absolutely,
that's right. That is the truth. That is the
truth. So let's don't talk about needing
to do this and needing to do that, needing to get ourselves
in the right frame of mind and the right frame of heart and
all this stuff. What do you think salvation is?
It includes all of that. The worst thing that can happen
to me is to think I can make myself better so I can be saved. That ensures that I'll never
be saved. Okay, so what does it say? If
that's what it doesn't say, verse 8. This is wonderfully surprising. What does it say? The Word is
near you, even in your mouth and in your heart." And Paul
adds, that is the word of faith which we preach. When the gospel
of Christ is truly preached, God accompanies that preaching
and He puts that message in your heart and on your tongue. And
if He doesn't do that for you or me, we won't ever be saved. I'm telling you, salvation is
of the Lord, not of ourselves. It's of Him and Him alone. Now
we come in verse 9. What does the gospel say? That
if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe
in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall
be saved. For with the heart, man believes
unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made
unto salvation. I've got three other questions
to go along with that one question. What does the gospel say? What
must I do to be saved? You know the answer? Nothing.
Nothing. If we're ever saved, God will
do the saving from beginning to end. Second question, what
must I feel to be saved? Now some of us grew up in the
South. Well, a lot of you grew up in the South, but you're not
really Southerners, you know, you're just sort of on the outside
looking in, maybe. But some of us were raised in
just plain old country Baptist religion in the South, and we
were fed a weekly diet of emotional religion. And people thought,
you know, if the hair didn't stand up on the back of your
neck, you know, you weren't saved. If you don't weep a bucket full
of tears, you've not been saved. I'm telling you, Martin Luther
was right. Feelings come and feelings go
and feelings are deceiving. You cannot trust them. They change. They're human. Therefore, they're
rotten not to be trusted. So it's not what must I feel
to be saved? And then there's an even deadlier
form of missing the gospel, and you won't believe what that is.
How much do I have to know to be saved? Hmm. We're all into learning,
aren't we? What do I have to know to be
saved? Salvation is not based on knowledge.
Salvation is by grace. It's not what I know, it's whom. Paul said, I know
whom I have believed and am persuaded, not that I'm able, that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. That ain't where it is. Salvation is rooted in this glorious
truth, God knows me. And if I'm His, He's not going
to let me go. This gospel has a message for
my soul. And it says, with the heart man
believes unto righteousness. Not with the head, with the heart. Man believes unto being righteous
in God's sight. So it's not what must I do, it's
what God has already done. It's not what must I feel, it's
what God Himself has declared. I'll write the third question,
and this is taken care of in verses 11, 12, and 13 in Romans
chapter 10. And that is, what does the Bible
say in regard to these matters? Verse 11, for the Scripture says,
That's like saying the Bible says, this book is the Holy Scriptures. The Scripture says, what does
it say? Whosoever believes on him shall
not be ashamed. Paul has already addressed the
subject in verses 9 and 10 of confessing Christ with the mouth,
so here it is declaring, whosoever truly believes on the Lord Jesus
Christ, is not ashamed of Him. Not ashamed to confess Him. And then there's a precious little
word there that I probably don't use as frequently as I should,
and that's the word, whosoever. Anybody in all the world. Anybody
in all the world that believes on Christ shall not be ashamed. Now that not only means that
we won't be ashamed of Him, but what is far more important is
that He's not ashamed of me. That's worth something. Whosoever believes on Him shall
not be ashamed. All right, the second time that
the Scripture speaks, What does the Bible say is in verse 12.
This is a wonderful statement. There is no difference between
any one person and another one. I'm telling you now, I know this
sounds strange, but I'm telling you this is how it is. There
ain't a nickel's worth of difference in any one of us in this room,
or this whole county for that matter. There is no difference. God saves
every last one of His children the same way. It is unmerited
and undeserved grace. That's all it is. And it's always
that way. There's no difference between
Jew and Gentile. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon Him. Oh God, help us to call
upon His name. And the other statement is found
in verse 13. Three times now the Scripture
speaks. Verse 11, verse 12, now verse 13. For whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now the issue is this. When will
we call? Sinners always call on Christ
as a result of God calling on me first. If you keep that straight
in your mind, you'll understand this plainly. I know we're born and bred to
know this. I learned it in a Baptist church when I was just tiny.
God reacts when we act. And that's totally reversed from
the truth. God acts and we react. That's how it is. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, I've saved one question and in some respects it's the
most important question. What does my experience say about
these things? Forgive me, I've got to get personal.
I mean, I'm not going to embarrass you, but I need to ask you some
questions. What does our experience say
about the law, about what Moses said? Does our experience Line
up with what this book says about ourselves and the law. All the law can do for you and
me is condemn us. It is designed, Galatians 3.19,
it is designed to be to poor sinners a schoolmaster unto Christ. And that word schoolmaster is
not a teacher. It's a truant officer. who causes
little boys and girls that want to skip school to change their
mind and attend school. So it causes sinners who want to look in themselves
for some reason why they should have hope before God, and the
law drives us out of that refuge. Our only hope is to be found
in Christ and in Christ alone. Now, if the law hasn't done that
for you, you're still lost. May God open your eyes and your
heart. And if I'm mistaken about myself, may He open my own. Sometimes
I'm the most lost person I know. All right, the second question
about our personal experience. What does Moses say? What does
the gospel say? You remember when I summarized
it into three words? Do and live in the law. Summary of the law. Do and live. Well, can you summarize the gospel
in three words? Believe and live. Trust Christ and live! That's just how it is. It's that
simple. What does the gospel say to my
personal experience? One more shot at it now. Does
it say to you, Christ is my all and in all? Does it say Christ
is everything? And there ain't nothing else. That's what it says. And the third part of what does
my experience say, oh, I'll just do a commercial. I'll
see you tonight and talk about it then. Because I was going
to ask you, I got to look and see what it was. I was going
to ask you, our third point earlier was what does the Bible say,
remember? So here's the question about
personal experience. What does this book say to me
about these things that are so vital to my soul?