July 7, 2002
Romans 10:1 - 10:10 (KJV)
1Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. 2For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. 4For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. 5For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. 6But 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:) 7Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) 8But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9That 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. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
A short parable:
There was once a mouse who really longed to be a lion. He told himself that if he could learn to walk like a lion, talk like a lion and prowl where lions prowl, he would be a lion. So he practiced stalking and swishing his stringy little tail in grand and majestic sweeps. He worked hard at turning his pitiful little squeak into awesome, bellowing growls.
Finally, the mouse convinced himself that he really looked and sounded like a lion. "Now," he said, "all I have to do is roam where lions roam." So he marched into lion territory one day about lunchtime, loudly announcing his presence; And (as the mother hen used to proudly say she had many of her offspring enter the ministry), the mouse did indeed quickly enter into lionhood!
The scriptures say that we are created for God. Like it or not, we are His creation! Whatever we may long for, we are the objects of a holy and mighty God that has a prior claim on our lives. The claim is absolute. God is in control.
There are those who rebell, saying, "I’ll live my own life. God, you stay out of it!" There are those who say, "I fear God, I want to obey Him." The reality is that, no matter which of those camps you are in, there is no way to please God. The scriptures affirm that:
All we like sheep have gone astray....Isaiah 53.6
There is none righteous, no not one....Romans 3.10
All have sinned and fall short...Romans 3.23
In preparing for a crusade, Evangelist Billy Sunday wrote a letter to the mayor of a large city, asking for the names of individuals the mayor knew who had a spiritual problem, needing help and prayer. How surprised the evangelist was when he received back in the mail a city directory.
There is a word in verse 3 of our text that blows me away..."RIGHTEOUSNESS"! The word literally means "the condition which is acceptable to God." There is a standard by which God judges man, and determines man’s acceptability to God. The standard is God’s own character, His righteousness. God spoke through the prophet Isaiah to tell us that "...all OUR righteousness is as filthy rags ." In the background of this realization is the awful wrath of God. When God judges unrighteousness, terrible punishment is the outcome.
In the 18th century evangelist Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon entitled, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." It was about the consuming fire of God’s wrath and punishment. That sermon was the springboard for the greatest revival this country has ever seen to date.
We sorely need a fresh wind of revival in our country. America will wake-up one day; And it will be in the midst of revival, or it will be in the midst of the judgment of God for our national and individual sins. Judgment will rain-down on an unsuspecting, apostate land.
Men and women who love the Lord and this country have been praying, "Lord, do it again. Send us Holy Ghost revival!"
Now, if you have stayed with me so far, you are aware of the "bottomless pit" this word "righteousness" presents. If we have to come up to God’s standard - His righteousness - in order to be acceptable....Yet God says that is impossible....WHAT can be done? It seems like a dead end.
Have I got some good news for you! If you have pondered that question, and you are worried about the answer, you are not far from the kingdom. You have moved into the position from which God wants you to start! That position is the realization that HE calls the shots OUR job is to respond.
The good news about becoming acceptable to God is that He has made a way for that to be accomplished. In verse 9 we find the word "if". That little conjunction is the basic word of conditionality in Greek. It means, "on the condition that".
The last word in the verse is "saved", meaning to be released from judgment. The sentence couldn’t be plainer:
"On the condition that you believe and confess,
you are released from judgement."
I tell you that is a whole lot firmer footing than some theories I’ve heard about getting right with God. Some are pretty wild, like the little boy who was caught doing what he shouldn’t have been doing. His mother asked him, "How do you expect to get to heaven?" He thought for a moment and said, "Well, I’ll just run in and out and keep slamming the door until they say, ’For goodness sake, either come in or go out.’ Then I’ll just go in."
What we will look at this morning is the gospel highway. Some have called it the ROMAN ROAD to salvation. Verses 9 and 10 of our text tell a man very clearly how to be saved…
9That 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. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Three truths about people who have traveled the Roman Road…
TRUTH #1. A CHRISTIAN IS CONVINCED
Although a man becomes a believer by faith, it is based in fact. The difference lies in the relative value of the reception of those facts. As one preacher said, "It is a FACT that you are sitting here in the sanctuary. It is also a fact that I am standing here speaking. But it is FAITH that makes me believe that you might be listening to what I have to say."
What does it mean to "believe unto righteousness" (acceptability unto God)? In one respect it is like the love that brings two people together in engagement. Believing in your heart (10:9) means you recognize the love God expressed in Jesus coming to die for you. When Mozart fell in love with Constance Weber and proposed marriage, her guardian demanded a signed document with conditions in case he changed his mind. Constance tore up the paper, and told him "I don’t need any written assurance from you. I believe your word."
A Christian is a person who has settled it that God exists, and that He came in the person of Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, and that He hung, spread-eagle on crossbeams to die because He knew OUR righteousness would never cut it with the Father!
And that person has determined that the heartbeat of God rings true from that cross, and the empty tomb. The unbeliever says that it is a nice story, but too hard to believe. Isn’t that strange in a day when grocery store tabloids outsell everything. Have you read some of those headlines?
"Mom On Chicken Diet Lays Huge Egg...
WWII Bomber Found On the Moon...
Adam & Eve’s Bones Found In Asia: Eve Was A Space Alien".
People read and believe this kind of nonsense, but question the resurrection of Jesus,
when His grave was sealed and heavily guarded by His enemies,
when more than 500 people walked and talked with Him after the resurrection,
and after 2000 years of miracles and mission.
A Christian is convinced. A Moslem interrupted a Christian street preacher, and said, "We have proof that you don’t. When we go to Arabia we can find the tomb of the Prophet. But you don’t even know for sure you have the burial place of Jesus." "True," replied the preacher, "We have no tomb, because we have no corpse."
TRUTH #2. A CHRISTIAN HAS CONFESSED
If knowing in your heart (belief), that Jesus is the Christ is like the engagement of a couple; confession - PUBLIC confession, is like the wedding ceremony. I have performed many ceremonies for couples. Afterward, there is no lingering doubt. I always look at my watch while they’re kissing, so I can note the time. Later I tell them, "You were married at exactly so many minutes past three." Most couples don’t forget that.
A Christian is one who not only has been convinced (the demons also believe and tremble ), One who has become a Christian has been convinced ENOUGH TO CONFESS.
It isn’t easy to confess - our society is so image and success oriented. Once when Frederick II (18th century king of Prussia) went on an inspection tour of a Berlin prison, he was greeted with the cries of prisoners, who fell on their knees and protested their unjust imprisonment. While listening to all these pleas of innocence, Frederick’s eye was caught by a solitary figure in the corner; a prisoner seemingly unconcerned with all the commotion. "Why are you here?" Frederick asked him. "Armed robbery, your Majesty." "Were you guilty?" the king asked. "Oh yes, indeed, your Majesty. I entirely deserve my punishment." At that moment Frederick summoned the jailer. "Release this guilty man at once," he said, "I will not have him kept in this prison where he will corrupt all these fine innocent people."
The Jews considered the mouth the launch-pad for the heart’s thoughts. And it was only AFTER the knowledge in the heart ventured out on the launch-pad, and into the air was it considered equal with a "done-deed". Our verse indicates that "confession is made". In the Greek it literally says, "confession is confessed". The belief of the heart becomes the spoken word - a transaction takes place.
A beggar once stopped a businessman on the street to ask for change for food. The man said to the beggar, "Don’t I know you?" "You should," said the beggar, "we went to school together." As the businessman recognized the man, they shared their past lives since school, and he gave the beggar a check for $1000 to get a new start. "I don’t care what’s happened in the past...it’s the future that counts now," said the businessman. Tears welled-up in the beggars eyes as he went to a nearby bank to cash the check. But he stopped short when he entered the bank, seeing all the well dressed people. "They’ll never take this from me," said the beggar, and he walked sadly away.
The next day the two men met again on the street. Seeing the beggar in his old tattered clothes he asked, "Sam, did you just drink or gamble that money away?" "No," said the beggar, as he pulled the check from his coat pocket, and explained why he hadn’t cashed it. "Listen," said the businessman, "What makes that check good is not your clothes or appearance, or anything about you...It’s my signature that counts. Go on and cash it."
And that is the promise from God. Not our character, not our gifts or good works; never our promises of being better and going to church more...It is simply His name, as we present it to Him in a prayer of confession. THAT is what makes us righteous acceptable to God)...His own name and promise on Calvary.
A man is not a Christian without the confession of sin, publicly. We call that identification. We identify ourselves as sinners. That is why we offer a public invitation...By your coming you confess your inability to be righteous before a holy God without the blood Jesus shed for you at the cross of Calvary two-thousand years ago.
Convinced, confessed, and…
TRUTH #3. A CHRISTIAN HAS CHANGED
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
As you look at that verse we can explain the necessity of conviction that God exists....We believe in the heart! We explain the necessity of public confession to be saved. God requires confession of the mouth, so it isn’t just a mental exercize for spiritual midgets. Everyone comes to the foot of the cross to be saved. The ground is quite level. The same cross for rich, poor, old, young, all races, all even!
But to what end are we saved?
What’s the point?
Did God just make salvation available to us so that we won’t go to Hell?
Is it just because He is good?
Is it just because we needed it?
Why?
The point is RELATIONSHIP. We are changed, so that our new nature will make a difference in being with the God who loves us.
Did you know that it is possible to be saved, and totally useless in the Kingdom of God? It is not only possible; some Christians are actually quite satisfied with that. A pastor tells the story of traveling home from his student church in Tennessee on a Sunday night. As he neared his home the car in front of him swerved and plunged down the bank. He stopped and rushed over to the car, which was overturned. He thought everyone had been killed.
But the doors opened, and two men crawled-out. He helped them up to the road, and discovered they weren’t hurt, they were dead drunk. Identifying himself as a Baptist preacher from a local church, he asked them if he could help them. The driver said in a drunken slurred spray,
"Hey, you’re a Baptist preacher, eh?
Well, put’er there pardner, I’m a Baptist myself."
Dr. Manuel Scott once said something that ought to ring in every believer’s ear, "Make sure you’re not ashamed of the gospel, or a shame to the gospel."
Being born again should change your life. Useful believers live differently than pagans.
There is a difference in the home of a born-again person. Christian parents BRING their children to Sunday School and worship; not just to set a good example, but to set a right discipline in their own lives. Your children learn much more from how they see you live, than by what you try to lecture them with.
There is a difference in the job performance of believers. Christians give a full day’s work, and then some! Being a goof-off may be good for Beetle Bailey in the comic strip, but it is sinful for a Christian to do less than his best...no matter if he is being supervised, or not!
And there should be a difference in the spiritual life of a believer. If some of us went to the dinner table for natural food at the same rate we come to God’s house for spiritual food, there would be an epidemic of malnutrition in this country.
It would do well for every member of the body of Christ to ask the question, "If my church had to count on every member being exactly like me in every way - my giving, serving, attending, witnessing, caring... would the church be advancing? Or indeed, would the church even be able to keep the doors open?
Many people call on the church body during their time of crisis. Perhaps there would be fewer crises, and more faith if a life was truly changed!
And so, what shall we do? How shall we respond? Today each of us should ask the questions.
Have I been convinced? Am I a believer in my heart? If so, praise God...He gave you the faith to believe.
Have I confessed, publicly? Not just to God, but confessed openly before men, joined a local church body, so that my confession can have a place to be affirmed, and celebrated.
And, then…
Have I really been changed? Is my life counting for the kingdom of God? Some years ago I met Johnny Moore. Johnny is the lead singer for "His Glory". He tells his story of how he was on his way home one night before he got serious with the Lord. He’d been kind’ve "playing church".
Johnny was on his way home from a Wednesday night prayer meeting, and he was stopped by a policeman. The officer found some pills and cocaine. Johnny tried to tell the officer he was a church member, a Sunday School teacher. He sang with a gospel group, and he was just coming from church. None of that mattered. They still put him in jail.
That experience was good for Johnny Moore. It woke him up to the fact that all of his playing at christianity wouldn’t matter when he faces the Lord of Heaven some day. It was like a bucket of ice-cold water slapping him in the face; but it convinced him of his need for the One who is living water. And he made a public and lasting confession of his need. And now his life is changed, since Jesus is on the throne!
That’s what happens to sinners in the hands of a loving God. They become convinced, they confess, and then God changes their lives!
Beloved, we will each stand before the Lord someday. He will know, as we also know if we have believed in our heart, and confessed our confession, and been changed. Settle it in your heart!
