to the book of Romans chapter
10. The book of Romans chapter 10. In Romans chapter 10, I'd like
to read the ninth verse at this time for our text this morning. 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. Let me read it one more time.
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. I read in verse 1 of this 10th
chapter of the book of Romans where the Apostle Paul says,
brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. We see it to be the desire of
the Apostle Paul, not only his heart's desire, but also his
prayer is unto God for his brethren, his Jewish brethren, that they
might be saved. Now, if we have a heart's desire
to see others around us saved, brought to Christ, brought into
the fold, I think that desire can best be expressed by our
prayers unto God on their behalf. We know that God is the God of
salvation. We know that salvation is of
God from the beginning to the end. And we know that if anybody
is saved, that God must do the saving. So why should we not
ask God to intervene on the behalf of those that are lost around
us? Paul had a desire, and his prayer
was that God would save his Jewish brethren. Now Paul, in the book
of 2 Timothy, chapter 2 and verse 10, said that he endured all
things for the elect's sake, that they might obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. everything that
Paul and his ministry had to endure, he said, I do it for
the elect's sake. I do it because God has a people
that he's chosen. I do it because God has sent
his love and his affection upon a family, upon a people, a people
that he will call out of the world, and they must hear the
gospel. They must hear a preacher. in
order to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They must hear
Christ preached. And so he endured all of the
afflictions of the ministry in order that the elect might obtain
the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. You see what's at stake here.
And then in 1 Corinthians 9 and 22 he said, I made all things
to all men, that I might by all means save some. And so he always
took care, Paul did in his writing, as well as in his teaching, to
lead men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. In writing or preaching
his aim was one thing. to bring men and women, boys
and girls, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to bring them to Christ
in order that they might find peace. He sought to speak in
such a way that troubled consciences might be brought to a state of
faith and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5 and 1, he said,
therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is one of the reasons
why that he so often gives us weighty verses of scripture,
such as our text this morning, wherein he has packed together
the truth of the gospel very tightly. And this is a tremendous
verse of scripture that we've read here. And our text today,
I believe, is a little Bible in itself. It's a little Bible
in itself. It is a miniature body of divinity
in itself. That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Now, beloved, this is Paul's way. Paul had a unique ability
to capsulize the great truths of the gospel in just a little
space. And we read, I want to read a
couple of verses that shows you that this is true. In the book
of 1 Timothy, and in the third chapter, you don't have to turn
there, but listen to verse 16, where Paul said, and without
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest
in the flesh. He was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Is that not the gospel? Is that
not the whole body of truth all packed into one little space? Surely it was. And then Paul
made this statement also in the book of 1 Timothy 1.15. He said,
this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am
chief. There's another example of the
fact that Paul could put in just a little space the great truths
of the gospel aimed at sinners in order that they might be brought
savingly to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, of course, we read
further in the book of Timothy where Paul said, God who has
saved us and called us, not according to our purpose, but according
to his own purpose and grace, not according to our works, according
to his own purpose and grace, has saved us. And this is another
example of a specimen of our text here this morning, similar
to our text, how that the Lord, through the Apostle Paul, puts
the truth of the gospel right in, right under our noses, in
order that we might have them in a condensed form. And Paul
is a specialist at this. Now, beloved, as we get into
our message this morning, I pray that we may all mean business
with God here at this time. I believe this morning that we
should with judgment day honesty approach our text. I believe
that we should be very solemn in our hearts this morning and
not trifle any longer or hesitate, but that we should deal faithfully
and should deal honestly with these solemn matters that are
put before us today in our text. I think sometimes that we forget that our lives are even as a
vapor that just appears for a little time and then vanisheth away. I read this week of one who passed
away unexpectedly and was buried before he was in a meeting on
Sunday. He passed away on Monday and
was buried before the church met again the next Sunday. And you may be here this morning
and you may feel that you've got a permanent lease on life. But my friend, I want to remind
you that our life is even as a vapor that appears for a little
time and then it just vanishes away. Now if you were here this
morning and you were knowledgeable of the fact that you were not
going to be here on January the 23rd, year 2000, that you would never again ever
be able to assemble, as we're assembled here this morning,
to hear the gospel of God's grace. I wonder how you would listen.
I wonder if you would listen differently if you knew that
you were going to be in the grave before next Sunday, before we
meet together. How would you listen? Would you
pay attention? Oh, I think that you would. I
think that you would. I think that you would run in
the way of the gospel if you could just see it, if it was
just set before you. I think you would grasp at the
truth of the gospel and that you would, with all of your heart,
lay hold of it. And so I wish this morning that
we would deal just that way with the message today, like it was
the last time, maybe, that some of us was ever going to be under
the sound of this precious message of the gospel. Beloved, I prayed
for you I have prayed earnestly for you, others have prayed for
you, and we wait before God to the answer to our prayers. May
God save sinners this very day. Now in our text in Romans 9,
In Romans 10 in verse 9, the gospel as Paul sets it forth
here in this chapter is a gospel of faith. It is a gospel of faith
and not of works. It's a gospel of believing on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we read in verse 6 where,
but the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise. So, beloved, this morning we
want to talk about this gospel of faith. The gospel of faith
is evidently intended for lost men. Evidently it's intended
for lost men because in verse 9 it says that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. Well, nobody needs to be saved but those who are what? Those who are lost. The gospel,
beloved, it does not presuppose or regard us as having life. It presupposes that we're dead
in sin, that we're lost, that we're separated from God, and
that we're in a state of nature wherein we need to be born again,
wherein we need to have resurrection life given unto us. We need to
be raised up. We need life, and we need to
be kept in that life. We're to be saved by this gospel
of faith. There is no other way to be saved
in this dispensation. Never has there been any other
way to be saved except by faith. When it is said that we shall
be saved, it implies that we have fallen into a loss, into
a ruined, into an undone condition. And out of this, the gospel is
to reclaim us, it's to save us, it's to redeem us out of this
state that we're in by nature. I am to declare plainly this
morning to whom this gospel is sent. It is sent to you who need
it. Why would we want to preach a
gospel to somebody who did not need it? I say to you, the universal
need of the sons of Adam is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're told in the Great Commission
to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Because every creature needs
to hear the saving message of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is sent to the lost. If you're
not lost, you do not need saving. The Bible says that the Son of
Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. My friend,
it's because you're lost today that we preach this message. And this is the reason, this
is the purpose of God, that those that are lost, that they hear
this message of faith. Now, if you've not fallen, then
you do not need to be restored. Did we not all fall in Adam?
Every one of us. There's not a soul here that
did not fall in Adam. And if we're ever going to rise,
we're going to rise through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. And so we all
fell in the first Adam and we must rise in Christ through faith. Now if you've not sinned, you
wouldn't need any forgiveness, would you? But yet the Bible
says in Romans 3 and 23 that all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Every one of us. Every one of
us have turned out of the way. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to our
own way. Now if you were not far off from
God, you would have no need to be brought nigh by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But oh my friend, you are far
off this morning. You're far off. You're dead in
sin. You're lost for the one of faith
and love in the Lord Jesus. And it's only the blood, only
the blood that we sang of. a little earlier today, that
can bring us nigh, that can bring us nigh unto God. Only the blood
can blot out our sin. Only the blood can wash us and
make us clean everywhere. The gospel of salvation is sent
to those who are under the curse of the law and are condemned
to pay its penalties. In the book of Galatians chapter
3, Paul said, Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things
that are written in the book of the law to do them. And so
there's a penalty that is placed upon the law when broken, and
all of us has broken the law because we've not continued in
all the things that are written in the book of the law. And so
the gospel of salvation is sent to you today, those of you that
must suffer the penalty of God's broken law if you remain in your
unbelief. And if you die in your sin, then
you must suffer the penalty, which is eternal wrath and the
judgment of God upon your soul for all eternity. Now some think
that we're to preach a milder kind of law. that we're just
simply to water the law of Moses down until people are able to
obey it. But my friend, that is not the
gospel. Or to speak of it in this way,
a more easy way of works. In other words, just to tell
folks, you do the best you can. God will accept it, you do the
best you can. You don't do this, you don't
do that, you do a few other things, and God will accept that. But
on the contrary, beloved, we preach not demands, but gifts. The gospel is not about demands. The gospel is about gifts. Not
law, but it's love. Romans 6 and 23 says the wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. In John 10 and 27, Jesus said,
I give. I give. You can't get it any other way.
The gospel is about gift. It's not about demands. It's
not about you doing something. It's about God giving you something. And the scripture says, I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand. So our gospel is in very
deed good news. It's good news to those of you
today and we are come here to tell men We're not come here
to tell men what they're to do for God now beloved if you hear
a preacher tell you What you ought to do for God before he
tells you what God has done for you That man is a false prophet
We're not here this morning to try to get you to do something
for God. We're here to tell you what God
has done for you in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that is the gospel. It's the fact that God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them, but unto Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, making
Him to be sin for us. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. It's not what you're to bring
to Jesus, but what Jesus has brought down to us. And that's
why the old song says, nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to
thy cross I cling. We don't bring anything. We just
come and receive of what the Lord has been pleased to provide
for us. And thank God the table, the
banquet of the gospel, the feast is well spread and all things
are ready. Come ye to the feast. Come, come,
come and dine, come and dine, because all things are now ready. Hear me! This book and its message
is for those who need saving, those who need the Lord, those
who need everything that was provided for them in and through
the person of Christ, His work, and His glorious person. The
Christ whom this book sets forth, He's a Christ for sinners. He's
for sinners. Let me make sure that you understand
that. The Christ of the Bible is approachable
by sinners. He is for sinners. The whole
need not a physician, but the sick. needs a physician. Paul says by the Spirit of God
that believers shall be saved. They shall be saved. Salvation. Saved. What a word. It's a short
word, but it's long on meaning, my friend. Long on meaning. What is it to be saved? It means
to be saved from the punishment of all your sins. Now, I really
rejoice in being able to say these things. It rejoices my
heart to preach the gospel of free sovereign grace. Save, what
does it mean? It means to be saved from going
down into the pit everlastingly. It means to be saved from the
blackness of darkness forever. Saved from the everlasting wrath
of the Most High God. That's what it means to be saved. Saved from the second death,
which is the hell of hell, if you please, my friend. That's
what it means to be saved. It means to be saved from sin
itself. It means to be saved from the
criminality and the guilt of your sin. It means for the stain
of sin to be washed away until you're whiter than snow, until
you're clean every whit before God. It is written, I have blotted
out as a thick cloud by transgressions and as a cloud by sins. I've
blocked them out. It is a blessed salvation of
which the apostle speaks here. It's an all-around salvation. It's for the present. It's for
the past. It is for the future. It's an
all-around salvation. It covers us from the cradle
to the grave. It is a complete salvation. It's
a salvation that began in old eternity, in the election of
grace. It's a salvation that will last
for all eternity. Now that's what this gospel is
all about. This is what we're to testify
of this morning, that this gospel is a saving gospel and it's a
gospel of faith. Now we could not have a grander
message to present to the sons of men than that of being saved. Oh, the completeness of it. Hebrews
7.25 says, He is able to save to the uttermost all that come
unto God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession
for them. The completeness of this salvation
which is by faith. And then we're told in Colossians
that we're complete in Him. Complete in Him, nothing to be
added. We don't have to add anything.
Nobody else is called upon to bring anything to the banquet
of salvation. It's not a potluck dinner. No,
the Lord Himself is the host of that banquet and He provides
all that needs. Now this comprehends heaven itself
and all its bliss. To be saved means that one is
going to heaven when they pass out of this life. They're going
to be forever with the Lord. Thou shalt be saved, I believe,
reaches from the gates of hell to God's throne and it lifts
up the sinner. It lifts him up from between
the jaws of death to the white-robed orchestra of the New Jerusalem,
if you please. God's people are saved, saved
thoroughly, and saved for all time, saved for eternity. And those of you who cannot say
one good word about yourself, you may feel your own worthiness
unworthiness this morning. Hear me. I want you to catch
hold. I want you to hear me this morning.
You that are sinking far from the peaceful shore, hear me this
morning and reach out and grasp the rope of the gospel of this
salvation, which is by faith. This is a message. There is a
message for us in this chapter. So lean forward, my friend, and
don't miss a word. As sure as you're lost, There
is a word for you here today in our text. This is a gospel
of faith, believing in a God who has done all things for us.
Now my second point is this, that saving faith concerns itself
with Jesus Christ only. Now this is the point that I
want to make as clear as I possibly can. Paul, in beginning this
book of Romans, the first three verses, he made this clear, what
his gospel was all about. He said, Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle separated under the gospel of
God, which he had promised to for by his prophets in the holy
scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. So this
gospel, and let me tell you, the faith that is a gift of God,
that God gives to his people, it lays hold of, it concerns
itself with Jesus Christ only. The gospel concerns Christ. It doesn't concern a little bit
of doing or don't doing, but you. It concerns Christ. It doesn't
concern you keeping a list of rules. It concerns Christ. It
concerns Christ, His glorious person and His Word. Now back
here in the 10th chapter of Romans, I want to read beginning with
verse six here and read through verse eight. 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
sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even in
thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which
we preach. Now the point that is made here
in this part of the scripture is that unbelief says things. Unbelief says things. Now I want
you to listen to what he said. Say not in thine heart. in verse
6, say not in thine heart. There are many things that you
say in your heart that you ought not say. And Paul suggested that
there will be some when the gospel is preached, preached plainly
because unbelief is always bringing up and exaggerating the obstacles
and those things that unbelief would put in the way of a soul
coming to Christ. Always bringing up things. For
an example, who's going to ascend into heaven? Somebody's got to
go up to heaven and get Christ and bring him down from above
Christ as far as they're concerned the cause of their unbelief They
don't know that he's come and they don't believe that he's
come They don't believe God sent him on a mission to this earth
and that he came down here and accomplished that mission They
don't know anything about it. They say well Who's going to
bring Christ down from above? Somebody's going to have to get
him and bring him down here or we can never be saved. Well,
listen to this. Who shall descend into the deep?
Another will say. That is to bring up Christ again
from the dead. Who is it that's going to bring
Christ up from the dead? Raising all of these issues,
you see, which God already has solved. All the issues to which
God has already given answer. And that is, the word is nigh
thee. What word is nigh thee? It's in your mouth, it's in your
heart. That is the word of faith that we preach, that Christ Jesus
has already come into the world. He was sent of God. He came into
the world to establish everlasting righteousness. He came into the
world to save His people from their sin. He has been down here,
and He has suffered and died on the gory tree of Calvary,
and He has been raised from the dead, and He's been taken up
to be seated at the right hand of God. It's already happened.
All the doing's been done, and all these little petty issues
that you're saying and talking about in your heart, God has
already dealt with all of them, and we need to be aware of it.
True faith, saving faith, concerns itself wholly about the glorious
person of Christ and his His work, and listen to me, Bethlehem,
Gethsemane, and the right hand of the Father is the sphere of
the true sinner's faith. What I mean by that is what took
place in Bethlehem, the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. You know how that he trod this
earth in his ministry in Gethsemane, how that he sweat bloody sweat
in the garden of Gethsemane when he anticipated being made sin
for us. And then after his death, how
that he was taken home to be at the right hand of the Father.
And we believe that about the Lord Jesus. Listen to me, true
faith is where Jesus was and is. I can tell you where he was
and I can tell you where he is. And true faith concerns itself
with where he was and where he is. I'm telling you that He was
with the Father before the world began. I'm telling you that He
came down. God invaded this earth in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm telling you that in the womb
of the Virgin Mary, the Lord Jesus was given a body and He
came into this world and He had a glorious ministry, a powerful
ministry, doing good, going about doing good. And then we know
the Lord Jesus. came to that time when the Father
would make Him to be sinned and where He must be punished as
a common criminal upon the cross. That's where my faith is. My
faith is in the fact that God sent Him down here and that He
accomplished His work and that He died on the cross. Faith is where Jesus was and
is where He is. He was with the Father. as we
said, ere the world began. Faith takes its stand where Jesus
is. He's now at the right hand of
God, making intercession for us. It takes its stand right
there. We're not looking for anybody to go get him, bring
him down. Anybody to go get him down below and bring him up. No, it's already happened. All
the doing's been done. That's what the message is. If
salvation is to be had, it's to be had in the person of Christ. Faith observes him, as we said
earlier, from Bethlehem to the accursed tree. She says, my life
is here. If ever I'm saved, I must be
saved here. Upon a life I did not live, upon
a death I did not die, hangs my whole eternity. And if I'm
going to be saved, it's got to be by him who has already done
everything that's necessary. Faith resolves to look only to
the Lord Jesus her all, for she's persuaded that beside Him there
is none else. There is no salvation, there
is no other way to be saved except through God's provision. When
you come to that point, I believe you are saved. When Jesus is
all your salvation and all your desire, the work of grace most
surely has begun in your soul. Jesus is our Boaz. and we've come to the right conclusion
about him when we resolve never to glean in any other field but
his. Faith concerns itself with Christ. Faith has an eye on the facts,
her eyes on what Jesus did and what Jesus suffered. She reflects
that he died, he rose again and gone into glory and is coming
again. Faith My friend, I said, sets
itself on facts, not fiction. Fiction cannot be a comfort to
our soul. It's the facts of the gospel
that brings comfort to our never-dying soul. The weight of sin is not
to be borne by theories or speculations. Only actual transactions can
meet our dire necessity, and these are to be found only in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, He was made to be sin for
us. And God exacted from him all, all that was due the justice
of God and he paid the bill. That's a transaction, that's
a fact. Jesus paid it all. All this talk about going up
and down and doing this is a slur on the Lord Jesus Christ. The
fact is all that can be done has already been done. All that
needs to be done, certainly that is all that needs to be done.
Why do you want to do that which has already been done? You say,
well, I'm working on my salvation. Give it up. It's already been
done. All that can really be felt has
been felt. Why do you want to feel something
now? Say, I'd just like to feel something,
preacher. Well, it is finished, says Christ. Why do you want to do it over
again? Why do you want to work on it? Well, you want to feel. Are not his feelings enough?
How do you suppose he felt when the nails were being driven into
his hand, into his feet, when the crown was being pressed onto
his brow. Do you suppose he did not feel?
I tell you, he did feel. And there's been enough feeling. You say, well, I just like to
feel something. Well, why don't you just believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and confess him with your mouth,
and you'll be saved. You want to work? Are not his
workings enough? Why is it that you want to add
your little workings to His? Oh, that's a slur on the Lord
Jesus Christ. All your doings and all your
willingness and all your feelings are your attempt at self-salvation. That's what it's all about. Say
not in your heart. I've got to do this. I must do
that. I've got to wait for a different
day. No, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day. This is the day of grace. This
is the day when a sinner can look to Christ and live. This
is the day when a sinner can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and his sins will be put away. All your doings and all this
desire to feel and all is your attempt to save yourself. It's
all a mistake, I tell you. All the doing's been done. Jesus
did it all long, long ago, my friend. It's all been done. Here
that your soul may live. Well, that brings me to my last
point. We'll spend a few moments on this. Saving faith, once it's
come into the soul, it has a confession to make. Saving faith, once it's
come into the soul, has a confession to make. If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, mouth and heart, and believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. Now when our Lord sent his servants
out to preach, He said, He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved. Now baptism is the confession
of our faith, no question about that. However, that is not the
confession that is spoken of here in our text this morning.
That's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about
baptism in this verse. Constantly in the scripture,
the faith to which salvation is promised is a faith which
makes confession of itself. It is not a dumb faith that believing
sinners have. It is a faith that speaks. It
is a faith which owns its existence. Paul says, confess with your
mouth. How can I know what you believe
in your heart, my friend? How can I possibly know what
you believe in your heart? How can your friends and brothers
and sisters here in Christ, how can they know what is in your
heart? If you do not open your mouth,
I've got to hear it from your mouth. And if you have living
faith in your heart, that faith must confess Christ. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the Bible says, the mouth speaketh. Speak that we may see you, my
friend. Speak that we may know you, my
friend. Speak that we may take comfort
in the salvation that Christ has given unto your heart. Listen. Listen to me and listen carefully.
You'll not receive the comfort of the work and the death, resurrection
of Christ, till you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus." That's
a very important statement. I'm talking about the obedience
of faith, taking up your cross and coming out and confessing
Him with your mouth. Now there are a number of you
here present today who, I think, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
but you've never obeyed His rule and owned his name before men. You've never done that. The Spirit
of God as a comforter has not, will not, bear witness with your
spirit that you're a child of God because you have never borne
witness to your Lord. You've never confessed the faith
of the gospel. The comfort of believing with
the heart is hindered by the absence of confession with the
mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we desire to be saved. I think we all want to be saved. We all, as I explained it earlier,
I told you what it meant to be saved. We all desire that and
we all want that. And I will not preach, but listen
to me, I will not preach a back stairs gospel for cowards. A secret lane of salvation which
you can travel and never be seen. I'll not do that. I didn't write
this text. I did not write these words.
You cannot blame me for it. 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. The fearful
and the unbelieving shall have their part. in the lake of fire. You say, I can't do it. I won't
do it. Well, the fearful and the unbelieving
go to hell. Fearful and unbelieving. You're
ashamed of Jesus. That dear one that died in your
room and stayed in place. Ashamed of? The Bible says that
whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. And if you believe on him, you
won't be ashamed. You will confess him. We must
not be moonlighters. Let's follow Jesus in the broad
daylight. He that confesseth me before
men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven.
But he that denieth me, which means that he does not confess
me, will I deny before my Father which is in heaven. Hear the
text, hear the text, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth.
Well, what must we confess? The Lord Jesus. That is, Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is my master. I have enlisted under the banner,
the blood-stained banner of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am hiding
away my poor defenseless soul is hid in the wounds, the five
bleeding wounds received on Calvary. I am trusting in the blood of
Jesus Christ to wash me from my sins. I'm a soldier under
Him. He's my commander and my leader. I bow to Him. I surrender to
Him. I take down my flag. I raise
the flag of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm on His side. I've surrendered
entirely, completely to Him. That's what all of this is about.
Now note, if you will, how very definite this confession must
be. how very definite it must be.
You may say, Preacher, I don't want to go out on a limb. I don't
want to do that. I don't want nobody to think
I'm a fanatic. Well, you say, I do believe in Christ. I do
believe in Christ, and I will try to live like I do, but I
cannot see where I need to say yea or nay in public about it. Well, note, however, the confession
required by the text is expressly said to be with the mouth. Now
again, I want to remind you that I didn't write these words. Don't
blame me for what this text says. They're here. You are vocally
to own Jesus Christ. You're definitely and distinctly
to say with your tongue, your mouth, your lips, that He is
the Lord and Savior of your soul. You're to testify that my faith
and confidence is in Christ. I love the Lord Jesus, I testify,
I'm believing on Christ. Put it in whatever words you
want to, however you want to do it, but it's necessary for
you to do so. It's not to be, hear me now,
an inference drawn in silence, an inference drawn in silence
from your life, but it's to be a declared statement of the mouth. What other meaning can the text
have? If thou shalt confess with thy mouth. What other meaning
can it possibly have? If he would have meant something
else, then surely he would have said what? Something else. What did he say? He said, with
thy mouth. If he did not require a spoken
confession, then why? Then why did he say it? Well,
why is this confession necessary? Let me just say a few words about
this and we'll be done. First of all, a confession with
the mouth is sort of a breaking away from the world. When a person
says with a mouth, truly, I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it
is saying as it were to the world, I'm done with you. Oh world,
I'm done with you. I've had it with you. I have
drunk out of Jacob's well all these years, and I'm still thirsty,
and I'm trusting Christ, and I'm done with the world. I'm
done with the things of this world. He has come away from
the unbelieving world. He separated himself from the
unbelieving world. He stood up and said, this is
where I stand. I'm trusting Christ. Now, when
the man with the withered arm in the gospel was in the synagogue,
our Lord, before the congregation, He did not take him into a room
off to the side, or He didn't even take him into a corner.
to heal him. He said, stand forth. He stood
right out in the middle of the congregation and when the Lord
said, stretch forth thine hand, he did so. Seeker, you must stand
out. You must stand out. I'm not going
to preach, like I said, a backdoor stairway. I'm not going to preach
a path through the woods that you can travel, where nobody
ever going to see you. I'm not going to do it. The Bible
says that you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that's
what the Bible demands. You must come out from your companions
and your sinful connections and say, I am for Christ. He is my
Savior. And so you're cut loose, my friend,
from the world. Next, this confession is also
a way of forming, I think, a visible union with the Lord Jesus. When
you do this, you take sides with Jesus and his cause on the earth. My friend, the Lord Jesus has
an eternal purpose. God has an eternal purpose in
Christ. God is saving a people for His
name. God will have a family. Holy
Spirit, a temple, Christ a bride. And God's going to have that
people. Are you for? Do you want the will of God to
be done on earth as it is in heaven? Do you want to take sides
with Christ? Do you want to enlist? in his
army. Now the confession of saved people
is very often the means that God uses of saving others. Now this is the way we sacrifice
ourselves to the purpose of God in Christ. This is the way we
sacrifice. The Bible says in Romans 12 in
verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed
to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove What is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God? And so, my friend, we need to
present our bodies. And how do we do that? Well,
we begin doing it by standing up, lifting up this old frame,
opening this old mouth out of which bitterness and cursing
has so often come, and give praise to the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen? Praise to the Redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, now then, your candle
is under a bushel. What would my advice be? Bring
it out. You say, I'll put it under the
bed. Your bed's going to catch on fire and you're going to be
driven out of your refuge. Bring the candle out that it
might give light to all that is in the house. It can never
be right to hide the light which God has put into your soul. It can never be right. If you
love Christ, confess Him and Stand upon the promises of God,
enlist under His banner. Now, I do not believe that I've
gone one inch beyond my text. I read in Ecclesiastes that there
is a time for everything under the sun. And while this message
might not be appropriate every Sunday, it dead sure is appropriate
right now. And I'm convinced it was of the
Lord today to bring this message. Faith has a sure promise to rest
upon, my friend. Put your ear to the phone. Put
your ear to the telephone, the voice of God speaks from heaven
today. Thou shalt be saved, if thou
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God raised him from the dead. And you know the resurrection
of Christ has, when you think about the resurrection of Christ,
you see the whole of the gospel message. If you believe in a
resurrection, you believe that Christ was born into this world,
you believe that he lived, and you believe that he died, and
you believe that he was divine because God raised him up out
of the dead. God raised him from the dead.
He had to be God, and he was no failure or God would have
never raised him up. He's a successful Redeemer, and
we believe in the whole scheme of truth that surrounds the gospel
when we believe that God raised him from the dead. Hallelujah,
he did raise him from the dead and we believe that he's coming
again. And so we have a sure promise. Put your ear to the
phone. He said that if you confess and
believe in your heart, he said, Thou shalt be saved. No ifs,
no buts. Thou shalt be saved. Do you want to be saved? Do you
want to know that your sins are put away? Then confess with your
mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart as God gives you
the ability to do it. Cast yourself sink or swim on
Him and on what He's done. This holy book is not a lie. And I'd like to give my confession
anew and afresh this morning. With my mouth, I do again confess
the Lord Jesus. For I believe Him to be God,
a very God, and my Master, He's my all. And in my heart, I do
verily and assuredly believe that God raised Him from the
dead. I believe that with all my heart, and I'm glad of it.
I'm glad of it. And it's my comfort and joy to
believe it. He lives. The great Redeemer
lives. What joy the blessed assurance gives. He is at the right hand
of the Father. I said all the way from Bethlehem
to the throne of God. That's where the faith of a believer
is. Right there. And we're not doing
or bringing up or bringing down. We're trusting in the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, you know I like those words
of the song that Mike let us in on page 400, and we sang that
song earlier today, but I want us to sing it again right now,
and we'll be dismissed. But if there is somebody here
today, you heard this message, and in your heart, listen to
me, last Sunday we had two that stepped out and confessed. stepped
out and confessed Christ and wanted to follow Him in obedience.
Obedience, baptism. And I was speaking with one of
them this week and she told me about what a tremendous load
was lifted off her soul when she just stood up and spoke to
the congregation and told them what was on her heart, what the
wish of her heart was. And I want to tell you, some
of you are in the dark. And you're going to be until
you open your mouth and confess before this congregation or some
other congregation. Now listen to me. You're among
friends. You're among friends. Sooner or later, you must confess
Christ. And will it be before a frowning
world? Or will it be in a place like
this? Where God's people are praying
for you. And where they love you. And
where they love your soul. And that's the wonderful thing
about it. You don't have to be worried about making a mistake.
That's why I keep on coming here and preaching. Because I know
that I make a lot of mistakes. But I know that you love the
gospel and that you're not going to have your ear turned away
just because the preacher stutters a little bit or because he makes
a mistake in his preaching. You're going to keep on. And
that's how it is with you. You say, I don't know how to
say what I want to say. Just get up and God will give
you the ability to say it. If you've got the faith of the
gospel in your heart, get up and say it. And God will give
you the ability to say it. And like I say, there's no back
door to this thing. damn moonlight broad daylight my friend confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus believe in your heart Mike would
you come and lead us in