Romans 10 verse 13, everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord will be saved. Heavenly Father, this is a precious
promise and we thank you for it. And Lord, I want to thank you
for giving me one more chance to preach the gospel. And I pray that you'll remove
from my heart every other ambition but that one. that this evening
we'll hear your word, your message, and it'll be a
blessing to our heart, and that it will move us indeed to call
upon your name and find your salvation. Now, this is a promise with no
small benefit. Everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved." Now, what is salvation that we
speak of? Salvation that Paul wrote about. Salvation that occupies
the entirety of these scriptures. Well, we spoke of it somewhat
this morning, described it in this way. Its ultimate goal,
or its ultimate fulfillment, is this, that we should be accepted
of God and have fellowship with Him. that we should be such that we
are without guilt before God, that none of His wrath rests
upon us, but more than that, that we should be brought into
a loving and enjoyable union with the God of our creation.
Now, that's salvation. It's a glorious thing. It's really
more than you and I can conceive of. It goes beyond the ability
of our minds to grasp, because it deals with things that we
have not yet seen. I mean, face it, you know, most
of what we talk about in the scriptures, at least a great
deal of it. We say the words, but really, we cannot fully grasp
the things that are being told to us. We don't know what it's
like to be without seeing. Once in a while, we we catch
a glimpse or the experience of what it's like to be without
seeing inside of God, the judge of all the earth, we know the
peace that comes. from being sure that our sins
are forgiven and that God's not out to get us. We can go that
far with it, but we don't yet know what it's like to be without
sinful passions, to be without temptation, to be without sinful
directions in our thoughts and actions. We don't know what that
is. But as miserable as sin makes
us, we realize it must be a glorious thing to be without sin. We know what it was like to be
at one time rebels against God. And now we know what it's like
to be in submission to God. And yet our submission to him
is not perfect, for we've not yet been made perfect. So this salvation, often what
we're speaking of is beyond our ability to grasp, but that tells
us right away it's a glorious thing. that I could fully understand
can't be much. You know, I'm not impressed much
by what I can understand. Because if I can understand it,
I'm bigger than that. You know, whatever you understand,
you've mastered it. I think it's so silly when people
go to seminary and get Master of Theology. I say, oh, wait
a minute, bud, you haven't mastered anything yet. We don't master
the truth and those that think they have. are kidding themselves and they've
been deceived. Our hope is that the truth will
master us. Is that not so? We are submissive
to the truth. That's what we're supposed to
be anyway. We're subject to it. I know this. Everybody will be brought in
subjection to the truth one way or another. Every man is going
to deal with God as he is, not as they think he is, not as the
preacher said he was, but as he really is. And he's going
to have to confront God that way. And either God in grace
will confront him like that in his life and make him bow, bend
the knee and confess that Jesus is Lord of the glory of the Father,
or God's going to do it after his life is over. And such a pitiable man will
come in the presence of God with no covering for his sin, no blood
to put away his sin, and he'll stand there in the presence of
God and see God as he really is, see how much he's been deceived,
and he'll bow and confess that Jesus is Lord, but it will be
to no eternal value to him, no benefit to him. And he'll confess it, but he'll
grind his teeth as he does it, because he'll still hate the
truth. even though his everlasting experience is going to be forced
on him because of the truth. Everybody will be brought in
subjection to the truth. The truth is master. And that brings me to a few side
comments I want to make here before we get into this scripture.
What I have to say about this particular scripture shouldn't
take very long, but in the past year or so I've been greatly
troubled by tendency of some preachers, myself included, to
make statements, theological statements that run contrary
to scriptural statements. That happens. Sometimes the statements
that are made may be in the context in which they were made that
were OK. But here's what generally happens when we make statements
that are contrary to scriptural statements. Somebody will latch
on to what we said, forget what God said. and build a whole framework
of theology on some statement the preacher said, and sure enough,
they're out in left field somewhere. I've seen these theological statements
used to create strife and divide the sheep of God. It'll make
up a phrase, a slogan. We love slogans. Boy, if we can
condense our thoughts to four or five words or one sentence
or something like that, you know, We feel we've grasped it. We
feel we've mastered a concept and we put it in our words and
we throw it out there and we try to make people bend to our
words rather than God's words. And these words become divisive
issues among the people of God. And before long, what you find
out is if you don't say things exactly the way someone else
said it, boy, you're in trouble. And that's a shame when that
kind of thing's happened. Years ago, and here's an example, I repeated
a bold statement that I had heard. that there is no such thing as
a carnal Christian. Now, free willers, the kind of
religion I grew up in, they have a doctrine of the carnal Christian,
and that doctrine is false. That's not right. But I once
confronted one of these free willers and said, you know, there's
just no such thing as a carnal Christian. And he came back at
me with the message that his pastor just preached from 1 Corinthians
3, where Paul says, For ye are yet carnal. And whereas there
is among you envy and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal?
And walk as men. For while one saith, I am of
Paul, and another, I am of Paulus, are you not carnal? What was
I going to say to this fellow now? I just said there's no such
thing as a carnal Christian, and Paul just said there is.
Now, what the free willers say about the carnal Christian is
wrong. But what happens is, is we'll react to a false doctrine
that we hear, and we'll make up a statement Like there's no
such thing as a carnal Christian. And the Bible says there is. And what we need to do is instead
of denying the statement, explain it. What did Paul mean when he
said, are you not carnal? I'm not going to get into that
subject. That's just an example. But I was put on the spot because
I had made a theological statement that ran contrary to scriptural
language. Let me give you a couple, three
more examples here, things I've heard, things I've maybe said
along the way that really may be in the context. I said that
they were true, but we need to be careful because they run contrary
to what the scriptures say. How about this one? Baptism does
not say. Now, there are religions that
says baptism saves and what they mean by it is wrong. But if we
go out there and say baptism does not save, you know what
they're going to do? They're going to read to us 1 Peter 3, verse
21. And this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you. There's
a scriptural statement that in some sense or another, baptism
saves. And again, I'm not going to try to explain it. In fact,
I think I have explained it before message, but here's the point.
The scripture says that there is a sense in which baptism saves.
We better not go out there and make a blanket statement that
baptism doesn't save. I've heard someone once say this,
we don't tell people that if they do this or that, they will
be saved. We don't even tell them that if they believe God
will save them. And yet right here in Romans chapter 10, verse
nine, it says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. See, what happens is. What I
found in my own experience and what I think happens a lot, like
I said, we'll see how someone abuses a truth and we think we're
going to go out there and save the truth from their abuse by
altering it. People will go out there and
twist the scriptures to their condemnation and we think that
what we need to do to remedy that is to try to twist the scriptures
to their salvation. No, what we need to do is just
untwist the scriptures. Untwist them. Tell them what
this means. See, they get afraid that if
you say something like, if you do such and such, God will save
you, that that's somehow opposed to the sovereignty of God and
salvation. It's not. It's a scriptural statement,
if a man believes the gospel. If a man believes the gospel,
God will save him, and if he doesn't believe it, God won't
save him. That's what the Bible says. One of our brother preachers
being confronted by Well, a heretic, that's just all I can call it.
But this heretic was, he's one of these, he wants to twist everything
up, make a mess out of everything. And he was saying, you know,
we can't say this and that other. And this brother preacher responded
to him and says, well, if God said it, can I say it too? My
friends, if God said it, we can say it. It's okay. It's true.
And it's true that maybe when we repeat God, someone will pick
that up and twist what God says and destroy themselves in the
process. But that doesn't mean we need
to change what God has said or deny what God has said. We just
need to keep saying it, knowing this, that while some will twist
what God says, what God says is going to twist some people,
His sheep. until they bend, until they break,
and bow to what he has said. They'll understand it. I've heard people say, faith
doesn't save, but the Lord Jesus says in Luke 7 verse 50, your
faith has saved you, go in peace. I know what men mean when they
say faith doesn't save. And they're trying to battle
the whole concept of this decisional salvation. But rather than changing what
God has said, let us simply explain what he means by it. Now, to bend to the thoughts
and words of men is to fear men rather than God. And that's wicked. You know, back in May, when I
preached that I quit message, one of the things that I'm trying
hard to quit is the effort to force the scriptures to fit my
theology. We all do it some. And if we
do close examination, you'll be surprised probably how much
we all do it. Rather, we must twist our theology
to fit the scriptures. We must not force the scriptures
to fit our theology or the theology or words of any other preacher,
whether he be friend or foe. It must always be the scriptures.
There is no spiritual freedom outside of absolute bondage to
the Word of God. Because the bondage to the Word
of God is bondage to God, and we're bound to Him, aren't we?
We're bound to His truth. For many of you, such a decision
to no longer fear men but to fear God, such a decision was
made many years ago, and the existence of this Church is owing
in part to that refusal. That refusal to allow the word
of men to trump the word of God. But this choice must be constantly
made. We sang that song this morning
on marching to Zion. Beautiful, beautiful Zion. And
while the imagery may not be theologically correct, but still
I know what they're talking about. They're talking about we're making
our way to glory. We're on our way. to the fulfillment of our
salvation. I visualized it. I was studying
this afternoon on this message. I just visualized it. We're going,
and all the time that we're going, there was a time There was a
time when we weren't marching to Zion. We weren't on that way,
but God put us on that way. But when he put us on that way,
we still had the grave closed. We still had a lot of thoughts
that weren't right, a lot of ways that weren't right. And
as we go along this way, one by one, these things are being
taken off. These burdens are being unloaded. These old religious
patterns are being changed. That's what Paul means when he
says, be transformed by the renewing of your minds. The heart has
already been renewed. The spirit of us has already
been renewed. And the spirit thinks like God thinks, but this
old brain is still full of all the old ways. And it takes a
long time. And one by one, they're getting thrown off. And you know
what happens? By the grace of God, they're getting thrown off,
but even as they're being thrown off, others get tagged on. Some
of them by our friends who are marching to Zion with us. It
just happens. We've got to throw them off,
too. all along, losing weight, as the Scripture is saying, throwing
off every weight and the sin that so easily beset us. And what is that sin? That sin
is to corrupt the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to change
the Word of God, to try to fit our way of thinking. And it's
going to be all your life you're going to be throwing off things
like that. God will reveal to you, this isn't according to
my gospel. You've got to throw that off. Did it to Peter. Gave him
that vision of all those unclean a beast coming down in that sheet,
you know, and it opened up. He said to Peter, arise and eat.
Peter said, I've never touched anything unclean. I'm not about
to start now. And God says, don't call unclean what I've made clean.
And he taught Peter then, by his experience with Cornelius,
that the Gentiles have been made clean. And Peter learned something that
day and he threw off. A bad way of thinking, a way
that was contrary to the gospel. But you know what happened? Sometime
later, after this, evidently, he's down in Antioch and that
old principle is still there. He's got to throw it off again.
So don't be surprised if the scriptures are constantly confronting
you. When the light of scriptures
touch you, not just confronting you on, well, you know, this
is immoral, you shouldn't do that, but confront you on matters
of gospel truth to clarify to you what His truth is. And I'll
bet you this, I'll bet you when you and I are standing together
in glory and we are known, or we know even as we are known,
when we see things in perfection, we're going to say, I never realized
it was like this. We'll see then how much dead
weight we've been carrying around all along. Not only dead weight,
but even contrary weight. Thank God He does not require
a perfect understanding in order to save. Else none of us would
obtain His salvation. In fact, He does not hearsay
in this promise whosoever. shall obtain a perfect understanding
of gospel truth, shall be saved." He kept it pretty simple. Everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. One should always look deeply
into those things which deal with eternity. You know, We go
to buy a house, and we go down to the bank, and we're going
to sign our name on the line, and it's going to involve a lot
of years. That makes us pay attention, doesn't it? You sign your name
to a 30-year mortgage. We bought the house we have now,
set up the mortgage on that thing. You know what went through my
mind? I'm going to be almost 80 by the time I get this thing
paid off. If I run the mortgage out, it's
full length. And, you know, you're going to put that pin down in
there. Well, I really want to do that. Because this is a long-term commitment. When we choose who we will marry,
and you stand there before that preacher, and he's just said,
whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder, and you
realize this is a lifelong decision. It's going to involve all the
rest of your days. You might pause, you know, and
think, well, now, do I really want this kind of commitment?
Well, when we look at things that involve eternity, How much
more serious should we be about it? We should never look at the things
of God flippantly. Like whether or not we're going
out to eat. You know, it's not going to be bad to go out to eat and spend
a little bit of money, but it's over in an hour or two. It's not a long-term
commitment. If it turns out the food wasn't
any good, it's just one meal, you've got another one coming.
Hey, this is... everlasting. This is why I don't
try to pressure people into a decision with any other pressure than
the pressure of the gospel itself. On the one hand, I tell you,
flee the wrath to come, but I know this. If I somehow or another
manipulate you into a quick emotional decision. You will probably leave
as quickly as you can. I'm one of these guys, you know,
that I am rather impatient. That's just, that's my nature.
I'm an impatient person. And I want people to hear the
word of God and I want them to submit to it right now. Make
your decision. I was kind of raised in that kind of religion.
Do it now. Do it now. But I found this. Most people
whom I have seen make quick decisions regarding the gospel, left as
quickly as they can. But those who have sat and listened
and considered and like the Bereans of old, search the scriptures
to see if these things be so. Who treated the gospel with the
dignity that it deserves, who treated the word of God with
the seriousness that it deserves, and looked at it, determined
whether or not the things that were being preached were actually
true. Once they submitted to the word of God, they stuck with
it. So we look deeply into those
things which deal with eternity. Now, this promise is a conditional
promise, and that's really what gave rise to that whole opening
statement about we've got to make sure that our theological
statements don't come up against scriptural statements. Some will
say, well, there are no conditions on the gospel. I know what they
mean by that. In other words, what they mean
by that is that we don't have to make ourselves into something,
or we don't have to do anything righteous to earn or merit the
blessings of the gospel. But when you read something like,
whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, what
does that tell you? That if you don't call upon the
name of the Lord, you won't be saved. Now, that's a condition. It's not a meritorious condition.
It's not a condition that makes us worthy, but it's a condition
nonetheless. It's not a condition that I have
any fear that any of the elect sheep of God shall ever fail
to do this. But I'm not going to tell someone
there's nothing you can do to obtain eternal life when the
scripture says there is something you can do to obtain eternal
life, or something you may do. Maybe that's the right word to
use. An unregenerate man can't call on the name of the Lord.
But I tell you, I can say this to any person in the world. If
you will call upon the name of the Lord, God will save you. If you will confess that Jesus
is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from
the dead, you will be saved. And that's not a theological
statement. That's a Bible statement. That's all it is. And there are
conditions set up for us obtaining this salvation. This promise does not say everyone
will be saved. It does not say all who are elect
shall be saved, even though that's the truth. All the elect will
be saved. It doesn't even say all for whom Christ died shall
be saved, even though that's a true statement. What this says
is that those that call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. And no matter how that may impact our theology, whether
it makes us feel uncomfortable, whether it makes us think that
we're putting the ultimate outcome of God's salvation in the hands
of sinners, no matter what we may think about it, here's the
word of God staring us right in the face, saying, everyone
that calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I'm
going to leave it right there. However, it's important that
we understand what it means. call upon the name of the Lord. According to my computer search
program, that phrase, or a phrase similar to it, is found about
14 times in the scriptures, where it refers to someone calling
on the name of the Lord. And one time, it is used, like
saying in a negative sense, where someone used that phrase and
didn't understand what it meant. I want to look at that real quick
first, because I think there's a lot of light to be found in
this man's error. 2 Kings 5. This man was a free willer. And he understood
calling on the name of the Lord the way free willers did. The
way I understood it, the way I was taught it. that it is some
kind of abracadabras, a repeat-after-me type of utterance, wherein a
person just says the right string of words, and magically the result
appears. 2 Kings 5, verse 11. Now, the story
here is when Naaman came to be healed by Elisha. And Elisha wouldn't even so much
as come out and meet him outside the house. Now, Naaman was a
man of some pedigree where he came from. He was a steward or
someplace, somebody important in the government there. And
he thought, you know, that when he came to see Elisha, Elisha
would be duly impressed with him. Well, Elisha wasn't impressed. Elisha just sent his servant
with a message, and he said, well, you just go dip in the
river there seven times and you'll be okay. And Naaman got mad,
because Naaman didn't get the dignity he thought he deserved.
You see, that's part of the problem in natural man, is he thinks
he's worthy of some dignified treatment. He thinks that his
rights must be protected. He thinks the preacher's supposed
to treat him right. He thinks that God owes him something. And that if he'll just come to
him and say something, act like he's interested, that God is
somehow obligated to do things for him. That's the way Naaman
felt. In verse 11 it says, Naaman went away angry and said, I thought
that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the
name of the Lord his God wave his hand over the spot and cure
me of my leprosy." I thought we were going to have
us an invitation. Damon was going to come, I mean, Elisha would
come out here and he'd stand before me and I'd be there in
all my glory. Damon. Big shot. And he'd call on the name of
the Lord. He'd say the magic words, whatever they were. and
he'd wave his hand over this spot of leprosy, and I'd be cleansed. Hallelujah! That ain't calling on the name
of the Lord. There are no special words involved in calling on
the name of the Lord. If you've ever been to one of
those services or seen it on TV as you are now, repeat after
me. I dare say this, if a man doesn't
know what to say, It's because he has no clue what his problem
is. Those who know what their problem is, they know what to
say. Man doesn't go to the bank and
the banker says, well, what do you need? Okay, repeat after
me. I'm poor. I'm poor. I need some
money. I need some money. Will you give
me some? Will you give me some? You go to the bank and you go
there because you know what you need. And like fashion, man that calls
upon God does so from a knowledge of what he needs. It's his need
that has compelled him to call. And he's gotten past the formalities,
and he doesn't think God's some genie in a bottle that if he'll
just form the right words, say the right formula, that poof,
what he wants will appear. Calling on the name of the Lord
involves a confession of one's own sinfulness. We're back in
Romans chapter 10. Here's six things quickly involved
in calling upon the name of the Lord. Calling on the name of the Lord
involves a confession of one's sinfulness and need because it
says, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. Now, why in the world would a man call upon the Lord
to be saved if he didn't have any understanding of his need? of salvation. Now, none of us
fully understands our sin. None of us has ever come to grips
with the totality of our depravity and wickedness. And I don't know
that we could stand the truth about us if it were fully revealed. But everyone who's called upon
the name of the Lord has been impressed with a sense of his
sin enough to know that he can't fix it and that he needs God
to fix it for him. There is no particular virtue
in understanding your sinfulness except this, that it would compel
you to call upon the name of the Lord. Now some of us, when
the Lord began to reveal our sin and the Spirit of God began
to convict us of our sin, it didn't take much. Right away
we could see that we needed Him. And without a great deal of wrestling,
We relented and called upon the name of the Lord. Others of us
were more stubborn. It was just in our nature to
fight the issue. We were more invested in self-righteousness.
And when the Spirit of God began to convict us of sin, we kept
saying no. And he just convicted more. He
revealed more. But he revealed until you called.
Because that's all that the revealing is for, is to make you call.
But those who call upon the name of the Lord and think that that
call is something worthy and good to do. People will talk
about believing the gospel as though that makes them better
than somebody else. Do you know of anybody that goes
around bragging that they, you know, I believe that two and
two is four? And if they posted in that, you'd
think, well, you idiot. If you didn't, it'd just prove
you're stupid. There's no glory in believing that two and two
equals four, because that's just the way things are. And there's
no glory in believing the gospel, because that's just the way things
are. Everyone should believe it. So the man that thinks that he
has gained some kind of merit for himself or some worthiness
before God because he believes the gospel, he doesn't understand
what the gospel's about. He hasn't called on the name
of the Lord. He that calls on the name of
the Lord is confessing his sin. Secondly, to call upon the name
of God is to call upon him in the office of Savior. Look over
here at Psalm 116. Out of those 14 times when it
talks about calling upon the name of the Lord, three of them
are here in Psalm 116. Verse four, it says, Then I call
on the name of the Lord, O Lord, save me. I bet you didn't have to tell
this man to repeat after you, you know. I'm sorry, but sometimes,
you know, I think about this man-made religion and how it's
carried out. And if you tried to apply that
to some of the circumstances in gospel, in the scriptures,
it looks so silly. When I read this here, I call
upon the name of the Lord, Or call upon the name of the Lord.
Oh, Lord, save me. And I immediately thought of
Peter walking on the water. And he starts walking on the
water and then he starts sinking in the water. Now, can you imagine
him blubbering there, you know, and then the bubbles come out
to the surface and the Lord says, all right, Peter, repeat after
me. Peter knew what he needed. And
there wasn't any flowery language. He didn't go home and put on
his suit and tie. He said, Lord, save me. And in
so doing, he called on the name of the Lord. Called on Him as Savior, Rescuer,
Deliverer, the one I need. Calling upon the name of the
Lord involves this thing of salvation. Look here at verse 13. of Psalm
116, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name
of the Lord. So to call upon the name of the
Lord is to confess one's sinfulness, is to call upon him in the office
of Savior, is to call upon him as an act of worship. Look over
here at Genesis chapter four. And this is actually what made
me start thinking along these lines of what it means to call
upon the name of the Lord. To call upon the name of the Lord
is an act of worship. Genesis 4, verse 26. I just read in Genesis 4, the first
part of that awful story of how it came. Tried to, or did kill his brother. Killed him over the gospel. Exactly
what he killed him over. Killed him over the gospel. And so, Adam and Eve had another
son, they named Seth, which means substitute, because they looked
at it as God's replacement for Cain. Then in verse 26 it says,
Seth also had a son, and named him Enosh. At that time, men
began to call on the name of the Lord. I don't know how many
men there were at this time. It doesn't tell us. We don't know. You know, Adam
and Eve lived roughly 900 years. Well, Adam lived 930 years. Maybe
this was 500 years into it, and they already had a bunch of kids
who'd had a bunch of kids who'd had a bunch of kids. There might
have been a lot of people in the world already by then. Maybe
it was just a single tribe. But we know this, here in this
third generation, Adam, Seth, and then Enosh. And
at the time that Enosh was born, men began to worship God. They
began, I suppose there were some who had individually done it,
but I get the impression what's meant here is they began to gather
to call on the name of the Lord. And call on the name of the Lord
is just a synonym for worshiping God. I don't know what the others
were worshiping, probably like Cain there, worshiping themselves.
These men began to call upon the name of the Lord and worship. And if you look over Genesis
26, verse 25, I think we'll find something here that's very important
in what it means to call upon the name of the Lord. It's in
the life of Isaac. When it says, Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord, it does not mean that whosoever
shall at one individual point in their lives call upon God
and ask for his salvation, that they shall be saved. Because
that's not what it is to call upon the name of the Lord. It
involves, yeah, there'll be a single time, there'll be one notable
time, probably a memorable time, when from your heart you call
out to him for his salvation. But calling on the name of the
Lord is not one of these one-time issues. It's an act of worship. It's the whole attitude of the
heart. And look here what happens in the life of Isaac as he's
traveling around. Finally, it says in verse 25,
Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord.
There he pitched his tent and there his servants dug a well.
What's that talk about? Why did he put this business
about pitching his tent and digging a well? Isaac found a place, made a place,
built an altar. And at that altar, he called
on the name of the Lord, and he didn't move on. He stayed
right there at that altar, calling upon the name of the Lord. He
said, fellas, unpack the tent. Here's where we live. Dig a well. Here's where we're staying. Now,
there are some who in a fit of fear and stricken conscience
will call out to God. for his salvation, but they wake
up the next morning kind of with an attitude, what in the world
did I do? And they never pitch a tent there. They don't dig
a well. They just go right back to what
they were doing. It might be the next morning.
It might be the next week. It might be five years later. But Isaac lived here. He didn't call on the name of
the Lord once and move on. He built an altar. He called
on the name of the Lord, and he said, this is where I stay.
And he who calls on the name of the Lord in a saving way stays
right there at the altar of Christ Jesus, and for the rest of his
life, he calls on the name of the Lord. And when God returns,
when Christ returns, you know where he's going to find that
man doing it? He's going to find him calling on the name of the
Lord. We call on the name of the Lord
all the time. And you know why the believer
is always calling upon the name of the Lord? Because he's always
in trouble of one sort or another. Call on me in the day of trouble
and I'll answer you. There's always some kind of trouble going
on. And he realizes there is this unending trouble of his
unending sin. The only way I can illustrate it,
and it's kind of a flippant illustration, but I think it's applicable. You may ask, Bonnie, this is
true. We're sitting there in the evening, you know, we're
done with our work and everything, we've had dinner. At least three times
in any given evening, I'll walk over to the refrigerator and
open up and look in. Why? I want something. I call on the
name of Whirlpool. I think that's the brand we got,
Whirlpool Refrigerator. I open that thing, I call on
the name of Whirlpool, I want what's in there. I'd love to
see if what I want is in there anyway. Unfortunately, you know,
because we're trying to watch what we eat, but generally not
any sweets in there, which is good. I'd be a lot bigger than
I am if there were. But I'm always calling on the
name of Whirlpool because it's always feeling I have a need
of what's in there. All right. That's kind of a silly
illustration, but you see the point. I'm always hungry for
God. I called on the Lord this afternoon
as I was Preparing this, why? Because I looked at the scripture
and everything, and a few days ago I thought I saw something,
now I can't see it. I feel I got nothing to say. Call on the name of the Lord.
I got a need, Lord. Whatever the believer's in trouble, he
may be foolish enough to try a few things, but he'll always
end up calling on the name of the Lord. That's just the way
it is. He pitched his tent there, he dug a well there by the altar
of the Lord, and he never intends to leave. Calling on the name of the Lord
is always associated with sacrifice. That is, it's always associated
with Christ. There's always an altar there.
When you see in the Old Testament, there's always some kind of altar
or ceremony pointing to a sacrifice. Because there's no way to call
upon the name of the Lord other than through and by the Lord
Jesus Christ. We call on him because He gave
us a place from which to call on God, the altar of his sacrifice. Notice it says Isaac built an
altar there and called on the name of the Lord. You read in
the life of Abraham several times, he built an altar and called
upon the name of the Lord. In other places it says he came
back to the altar and called on the name of the Lord. The
story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, he told the prophets of Baal,
you build an altar and you call on the name of your God, I'll
build an altar and I'll call on the name of my God. always has to do with the sacrifice
of Christ. And then lastly, calling on the
name of the Lord is the expression of a thankful heart. Psalm 116. Here's the other time it mentions
calling on the name of the Lord in Psalm 116. Verse 17, I will sacrifice a
thank offering to you. and call on the name of the Lord,
that heart that is thankful over God's salvation. And think
of it now, shouldn't we be? Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all
your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. Oh, when we give thanks to God,
when our heart is full of thanksgiving and our mind is turned towards
Him, we say, thank you, we're calling on the name of God. I find it interesting that when
Paul is describing the false religion in Rome, and he's in
the kind of false religion that really can be found everywhere,
but it says, even though by the creation, by what you can see,
They knew there was a God. They could see his eternal power
in God. A Godhead, it says, they didn't
acknowledge him or give thanks. Oh, my, an unthankful heart is
an unregenerated heart. It's that simple. None of us
give God thanks as we should, but I know this, everybody saved
by the grace of God, give thanks. And when he does so, he is calling
on the name of the Lord. And whoever calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Heavenly Father, thank you for
your promise. Thank you for your word that
explains it to us. And thank you that it's such
a simple matter. We call on you this evening,
not by any magical formula. Lord, you've given us no abracadabras. No special words to say. But
in simplicity of heart, Lord, we say, Lord, save us. Deliver us from all our sins.
Forgive all our iniquities. Save us from all our troubles.
Save us from our foolishness and pride. Save us from all our erroneous
thoughts about you. Lord, save us. And we give you
thanks that you've already begun this work. and that you're continuing
it, and that you will perfect it until the day of Christ. Thank
you, God, that all these things are in your hands, and all these
things have been purchased by Jesus Christ. And all we need do is call. And
so we do, Lord. Bless us with your salvation,
and say unto our souls, I am your salvation. Blessed be your
name, both now and forevermore. Amen. You are dismissed.