Sugar Land Bible Church's midweek service. What a pleasure it is to be with you again this evening. As always, I'm so thrilled and delighted to have the opportunity to stand up and teach on the things of God and especially have the great privilege to do it here in this pulpit of all pulpits that I could teach at and have the privilege of being able to look out and see your lovely faces and know that, you know, in spite of having had a long, hard work day, you still showed up. And I do appreciate that so very much. And we also want to thank those of you that are listening by way of live stream. And we appreciate your participation. You're a big part of what we do here. And we're so thankful we have the blessing of being able to provide these messages that we give by live stream. So welcome to you also this evening. We're continuing this evening with our third part in a three-part series called Repentance and Confession Requirements for Salvation? Previously, we introduced this outline to you. And we've covered all but the last two sections here. So in part one, we covered section A here. We discussed three theological and doctrinal errors. The first one being that repentance has a meaning that goes beyond what the lexical meaning is. There are those that want to say it means much, much more than to change the mind. we gave a defense against that error and then we also spoke to the issue of this error that repentance and belief are two separate acts and so if you didn't have a chance to see or listen watch as the case may be those previous sessions you'll you have the opportunity to do that and go to our live stream I should say our sermon, well let's try this again, our sermon archives is what I'm trying to say. And you can find that material there if you'd like to watch or listen to those. And then the last time we met we did part two and we picked up number three there. which was the fact that in a nutshell what I had said was that the errors that we encounter in number one and number two, really what it comes down to is it's because of a failure to recognize and maintain clear dispensational distinctions. And of course, one of the things we hold to at this church is dispensational theology, not just because that's the thing to do, but because we believe that dispensational theology gives the best answers to the questions of the Bible. And for that reason, we see distinctions that are very, very important in the Bible. And we believe that God makes important distinctions, and we don't have the right to come along after God has made distinctions. and cloud those distinctions. Of course, one of the main distinctions would be what? Israel and the church, wouldn't it? Law and grace and many other things. So if you don't have that right, if you don't understand the dispensation in which you're, if you're reading the scriptures, if you don't understand what dispensation that you're in, you can import or pull out all kinds of error and try to make it applicable to a time that it doesn't belong to. So that's very, very critically important that we always take the dispensational distinctives and keep them in mind. So this evening, in part three, we're going to talk about item B and C here. First, B, which is what about confession of Christ and or confession of sin? Again, there are those who teach that in order to be truly saved, it's not sufficient to merely believe. You must make a profession of faith. And you must do that before a body of people. large group, small group, whatever the case may be. Then there are others that would also hold not onto that view, but this view that, well, if you're truly going to be believed, you have to confess your sin. And we'll talk a little bit about both of those here in just a moment. But there are real significant issues with this. Basically, the number one issue is that they're asking you to do something that goes far beyond anything that the scripture has to say about salvation. Salvation is a free gift of God, it comes through grace, and the way we receive it is by faith. with nothing else. That's it. We don't add or subtract anything to that or from that. So let's talk about public confession of Christ. Now, I don't know what your background is, but I was raised up in my early years in a Southern Baptist church, and this was one of the things that they were very, very big on. public profession of faith in Christ and you know if you don't know any different if you haven't been taught differently then you know you you just sort of accept that and there are many people who have bought into this they're not bad people you know we're not we're not meaning to castigate anybody here for this belief but what we would do want to make clear is that There's a lot of bad theology and doctrine out there that people just accept because it's kind of like the old adage, you know, why does your wife use that pan to cook that size of a roast? And she doesn't know why, and she starts to investigate. Well, gee, you know, what she'd do, she'd buy a roast. You know, ladies, you know what I'm talking about. You go buy the best, biggest, best roast you can find, and then you cut it to make it fit into your pan. And the story goes that there was a fellow, he said, well, why do you do that? Asked his wife, why do you cut that roast and put it in that small pan? And she didn't know why. And so she thought, well, I'm gonna go ask my mama why. And so she went and asked her mom and said, well, you know, I've never really thought about that, but let's go ask granny. And so they went and asked granny, well, granny, why did you teach us that? She's, well, the only reason is because I didn't have a pan big enough. And a lot of people are that way about doctrine and theology. See, grandma and grandpa, this is what they believed, right? And so that has just come forward, no one challenges or questions that. After all, you don't want to be disrespectful, do you? But the problem with that is that the scriptures have something to say, to bring to bear on the issue, and we need to make sure that our personal theology, our personal doctrine, isn't in conflict with what the word of God actually teaches. So let's look at this. Lewis Barry Chafer is one of my go-to guys, and here's what he writes. He says, the ambition to secure apparent results, listen to this wording, and the sincere desire to make decisions for Christ to be definite, see, that's what we want. We want to make sure that when we share the gospel, that we want some evidence, we want some result, we want to know for definite that that person's saved, So he says, because of that, this has prompted preachers in their general appeals to insist upon a public confession of Christ on the part of those who would be saved. He goes on, to all practical purposes and in the majority of instances, these confessions are in the mind of the unsaved coupled with saving faith and seem as presented, to be of equal importance with that faith. In other words, it's not a simple message of trust Christ, place your faith, trust, confidence, believe in Christ. It's, oh, I must make a profession of faith or else my salvation experience is not complete, it's not perfected. Do you see the problem with that? And so many people, when they go to a meeting and they are convicted by the Holy Spirit and they're put upon to make some type of a public profession of faith in Christ, they leave, they go home, and the next thing you know, they're questioning if they're truly a believer. Gee, was I really sincere enough when I made that confession? You know, maybe I wasn't as sincere as I needed to be. Well, that's a problem. Two passages that are most often used to justify a public profession or confession here are Matthew 10, 32 and 33 and Romans 10, 9, both, watch this, contextually addressing Israel. Now those of you astute individuals that are in here, and that's every one of you because you sit under the teaching of the best Bible teacher in the United States as far as I'm concerned, and it's not me. Joke, joke, joke. Okay, no response. Okay, that's typical folks listening online, no one gets my jokes. In any case, you know, because you are astute, you know that the moment that we mention the fact that this is addressing Israel, you know what that means, right? But there are many people that don't. Let's look at these passages, Matthew 10, 32 and 33. Jesus is speaking here, we know because it's in red, right? Another joke didn't go. All right. Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, Jesus speaking, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. Well, there it is, folks. If I confess Jesus, he'll confess me. But if I deny him, he's going to deny me. Okay? Well, what about Romans 10, 9? If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Well, there it is. You have to confess and believe. Alright? But, is that really what's being said here? And again, context matters. He's not talking to church-age believers here. He's talking to Israel. Now notice what we have written here. The weight of New Testament passages, some 150, some say as many as 180, reject the notion that public confession of the Savior is part of the gospel message and therefore a requirement for salvation. How then are we to understand Matthew 10, 32 through 33? Simply, get ready folks, this is the real hard part, simply by taking it in context. What does that mean? In Matthew 10, 32-33, the Lord was not challenging unbelievers, but His own disciples with regard, what was He charging them with? He was recharging them with regard to the commission He gave them to go to the lost sheep of Israel. Now knowing that, does that kind of change how you read that passage? It should, right? So Jesus is speaking to his own disciples and Jesus isn't, they're not unbelievers because Jesus is not going to send unbelievers out to the lost sheep of Israel. Does that make sense? Due to the hostility of the Jewish religious leaders and the Gentile world in general, and you can see that in the following verses 15-20, they, meaning his disciples, would be placed at risk. Notice I have a little asterisk there, look at the bottom. This is especially true in the days of the Tribulation just before the return of Christ. which he talks about also later in the passage. He goes on, he says, they are warned, who's warned? His disciples are warned that if people despised and persecuted the Savior, the disciples too could expect the very same thing. So the context is Israel, he's speaking to Israelites, isn't he, his disciples, and he's talking to them about their commission to go with the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus then, now after he's given them this challenge, and after he said this, he then, notice this, he encouraged them, who's he encouraging again? His disciples, against fear. You see that in verses 26 through 31. And then after he encourages them, then he challenges them, who's he challenging? His disciples, in context. And what is the challenge? The challenge is to confess Him before men. And then He warned them, again, who is He warning? His disciples, against denying Him before men. They're about to go out into a hostile environment with the gospel message, and they are still men of flesh. And the temptation to be concerned about potential rejection can do a number on your mind, can't it? Has the Holy Spirit ever prompted you to go talk to someone about the Lord? And you just immediately responded, yes, Lord, and boy, you went and did it. There are a few people like that, but I haven't met many. Most of the time when the Lord speaks to my heart and says, you know, you need to go say such and such to somebody, oh, yeah, okay, Lord, let me pray about that first. You know, okay, maybe if I pray about it, that feeling will go away, you know, that prompting will go away. Nobody in here knows what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, well, why would we think that they're any different? They were the very same way. They're now going out with the message of the kingdom in a hostile world. And so he encourages them, he challenges them, he warns them. It is clear that the challenge and warning in this context, Matthew 10, refers primarily to the commission of the disciples and secondarily by application to the responsibility of all believers. to be witnesses of the Savior. Remember, when we go to the Scriptures, we look for the primary application and the secondary application, because not all Scripture is written to us, but it's all profitable for us, right? So in this instance, this is being written about what Jesus was saying to the Twelve, and later the Seventy, But in context, and as we understand biblical interpretation, we can look at that and say, okay, Jesus is commissioning them, he's sending them out, they're human beings, no doubt they're gonna be concerned about what they're gonna encounter, and Jesus is saying, don't worry about it, I'm with you, just go out and trust me, and that's the same message he says to me today. There are people that need to know about Jesus. And sometimes I'm reluctant to respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit, but I need to be encouraged, and He encourages me. I need to be challenged, and He challenges me. I need to be warned. Why do I need to be warned? Because if I'm not obedient to the Lord, I can come under divine discipline, can I not? Yeah, sure I can, right? So context is important here. Oh, and notice the last paragraph there. And what is the warning? Not that they will lose their salvation, which is what the purveyors of this false doctrine are saying. They're not going to lose their salvation, but they will lose rewards at the Bema Seat Judgment. Commenting on this passage, Robert Wilkin writes, the view that this passage, this Matthew 10 passage, teaches that a believer may lose his or her salvation if he or she fails to confess or denies Jesus cannot be correct. Elsewhere, Jesus taught that believers will never lose their salvation. And there's John 10, 28, and 29, which is a powerful, powerful text. Let me just stop here, pause here. John 10, 28, and 29, Jesus talks about the fact that no man can take you out of God's hand. You're in the double grip of grace, right? No man can take you out of my hand. Well, let me just tell you that in the Greek construction there, Andy's touched upon this, but he doesn't go far enough for my taste. Because in the actual language, it goes so far as to say, you can't even do that yourself. You cannot take yourself. It's an impossibility. That's the Greek grammar construction. It's an impossibility. It's not even probable that you have the ability to remove yourself out of the double grip of grace. Somebody ought to say amen. Hallelujah. All right. All right. So you cannot lose your salvation. And he goes on and he says, this is the consistent revelation of the rest of the New Testament. And then there are some passages there that you could look up. And Jesus was speaking here of rewards, not salvation. Very important. So that's the Matthew 10 passage that we looked at. Now Romans 10 9, which we read here a minute ago, if you confess with your mouth Jesus Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Let's come down here to the next part. What about that passage? Well, before we can even talk about that passage, we have to stop and think a little bit about the book of Romans. What is one thing that we've learned through the study of the book of Romans in this church from our esteemed pastor? That chapters 9, 10, and 11 in the book of Romans are dealing with whom? Israel, right? And he gave us this great little adage, or what's it saying, I'm trying to say. Israel in the past, chapter nine, Israel in the past elected, Chapter 10, Israel in the present, rejected. Chapter 11, Israel in the future, accepted. So if any time I'm reading in chapters 9 through 11, what should be my primary concern? What is the first application? Who is it for? It's for Israel. And then I can find secondary application, perhaps, for me. But we need to understand that the context is critically important. So that's that. Here is a general outline of the book of Romans. I'm not going to go over all of this with you, but I just wanted you to see it. I've put a link down there at the bottom where if you'd like to go find this and then get the actual detail that goes behind each of these bullet points, you can do that. But notice in points 1, 2, and 3, the prayer of desire for who? Israel. And number 2, Roman numeral 2, the problem of? Israel's self-righteousness, and then it goes into part three there with the provision of righteousness through faith alone in contrast to A, in contrast to what? Christ's termination of the law. Now, who does the law apply to? Israel, right? Okay, yeah, you're doing good. Look at B, Moses' declaration about those who practice what? The law. Who does the law belong to? Israel, it belonged to Israel. C, he talks about God's initiation of salvation by grace through the message of faith. And then look at the very bottom of the page there, number six, he talks about the witness of what? Deuteronomy. Where's Deuteronomy? It's in the Old Testament and what is it part of? The Pentateuch, which is the Law, right? And, oh, by the way, he also mentions Isaiah there. Paul, in his discussion in Romans, this is just chapter 10. He brings up Isaiah. Where do you find Isaiah? Old Testament, right? And what part of the Scriptures is that? Is Isaiah. It's prophecy, isn't it, right? And Isaiah's prophecy, for the most part, not all of it, but for the most part, has to do with whom? It has to do with Israel, future Israel. There are portions that deal with other things, but primarily Israel deals with future Israel, the Millennial Kingdom primarily. Alright, so. Just very quickly, let's just do an overview of Romans 10, 8 through 14. Now, I'm just going to do this very quickly, not going to make too much comment, but I just want to show you what's going on here in these verses in Romans chapter 10. So 10.8 says, but what does it say? The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. Notice where that comes from. That is the word of faith which we are preaching. So we're working our way toward verse 10 and following. Now the commentary on that says, notice that this points to the initiative of God's grace in bringing salvation to man. And notice that Paul is quoting the Mosaic Law here. Why would he quote the Mosaic Law? Because this is in chapter 10, which is to whom? Israel. Okay, verse 9 here, now we're getting to the meat of it here a little bit more. Romans 10 9, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved. So let's just look at the first half of the verse. In the first half it says in this context which deals with Israel's what? Rejection of Jesus, their Messiah, confess here means to concede or acknowledge to God that Jesus is Yahweh of the Old Testament and is therefore an affirmation of his deity. Now that's very significant, isn't it? Because what's the one stumbling block for a Jew? This idea that Jesus is God. And Paul is telling you, he's talking about salvation, and he's talking about Israel, and he's saying this is what's important to be understood. Look at the second part of the verse there again with the word believe. So what is it that Israel must believe? Israel must believe in the Messiah's bodily resurrection and all that the resurrection proves. Let's go to verse 10, chapter 10 verse 10a and b there. So 10a for with the heart, so how does one believe? For with the heart, now what does he mean? Does he mean this organ that's pumping in our chest, we hope, right? No, obviously here heart has a different meaning, doesn't it? It means your non-material part of your being, your spirit, your soul, right? So with the heart from the inner man, the inner man, one believes. Meaning what? That he puts his trust in the person of the Messiah in context, talking to Israel, who then imparts his righteousness and salvation. And again, this is significant, this is important, because for the Jew, whose righteousness were they all about? They were all about their own righteousness. That's why Jesus said at one point in time, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of God, meaning the millennial kingdom, by the way. Look at Romans 10b there, he says again, now he's addressing this issue of confessing and he's giving some explanation here. So, you believe in your heart, okay, that's good, but what else? With the mouth one confesses or acknowledges and affirms to God his faith in the Messiah resulting in salvation. Alright, so look at verses 11 and 12 here. So he's saying everybody comes the same way. Look at the commentary there. He's quoting Isaiah 28, 16. Why is he quoting Isaiah 28, 16? Because he's dealing with Israel. To show that salvation comes by faith, which is man's first responsibility. This explains the whoever in verse 11, meaning both Jew and Greek come the same way. Drop down on the left, 12b-13, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That's explaining what is meant by confession in this passage. Come over to the right. This explains the other part of man's responsibility. The first part was what? Up at the top there. Believing. The second part here is what? He says this is the confession of the mouth, meaning to call on the name of the Lord. Have you seen anything thus far about confessing to people, confessing publicly, anything like that? Not at all. It's all about confessing to the Lord. And then I think this is our last verse, let's see, yeah. So 10, 14, how then shall they call upon him? So if it's so important for people to call upon the Lord, and they have to call upon the Lord, in whom they have not, how can they call upon him in whom they've not believed? Well, obviously they're not going to, right? And how shall they believe in him whom they've not heard? So he's using some very just general common sense right here, isn't he? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So over on the right, here again the two key ideas, belief and calling on the Lord, are linked together and correspond to belief and confessing with the mouth, which is an affirmation of faith in the Messiah. Again, in the context, he's speaking to Israel. So let's look at this word confess. Alright, let's see if we all understand this appropriately. Confess is the word homiligeo in the Greek and it means to, watch what it means and doesn't mean. It means to agree with, to say the same thing, to acknowledge. As the context will show, the confession here is not to men, but to God, and involves as an outworking of faith in Christ, acknowledging to God one's faith in Christ as God come in the flesh. It involves agreeing with God's witness about Jesus as God's own Son. Literally the text says, the Lord Jesus. but means acknowledging that Jesus is God. Now again, in context he's talking about Israel. The significant barrier for a Jew to come to Christ is the fact that we insist, the Bible insists rather I should say, that they must believe that Jesus is God. He is in fact the Yahweh of the Old Testament. The passage is talking about acknowledging the deity of Christ, and thus the fact of the Incarnation. And then there's some passages there which use the same word, homiligeo. We, by the way, when we were praying earlier, we mentioned 1 John 1, 9, and the word there for confess is the very same word. The passage here then that we're discussing is not calling for submission to Christ in the sense of Lordship Salvationists. So see, Lordship Salvationists are saying, well, you have to, you know, belief isn't sufficient. You have to make a public profession. You know, that's the only way we know that you're really saved. Well, guess what? God knows. Whether you know or not, God knows, doesn't he? Since the issue, look at here, this is the priority of preaching, the faith alone message. Since the issue, this is again by the same fellow that wrote the commentary that I just read with you. Since the issue is faith in the work of God for man and the person and work of Jesus Christ, there is an important question that must be answered. How can men turn from their religious works And I wrote in parentheses there, Pharisaic righteousness. This was the problem for Israel. How can they turn from their religious works, as with the Jews, so that they may come to Christ by faith alone? Only through the work of evangelism, through believers who understand the message and go out proclaiming the glad tidings of God's gracious gift. Note the emphasis. The Jews by and large mentally rejected the message of grace because of their works. Again, Pharisaic righteousness. Nevertheless, faith comes by hearing. In other words, there's an engaging of the mind, and hearing, again, an engaging of the mind, with what? With the Word of Christ. And then, which is what, when we say the word of Christ, what we're saying here is the telling of the story about the Lord Jesus as the one and only means of salvation. So, you know, no amount of cajoling, no amount of telling, you know, whatever you wanna tell somebody is gonna lead them to Christ. It has to be the word of God. You know, that's one of the reasons why we love the five-finger gospel presentation that we use with our children's ministry and others. Because all it is, it's taking the scriptures You got a hand and each hand, each finger has a scripture on it and you just go through those scriptures and by the time you get to the end, you know, if a person's listening and paying attention and the Holy Spirit's working on their heart and life, guess what happens? Whammo! They're saved. You know, it doesn't require a bunch of extra criticism, explanation, a whole bunch of extra me giving my thoughts. It's the Word of God that has to engage the mind. So, this leads us to this nice little chart that I have. I call this the God's Promise Train, and I really like this because this is true about salvation, but it's also true about every single promise in the Bible. What do I mean? Well, any time you're going to, if you're going to trust in Christ, let's use it for the gospel for a minute, the very first thing that happens is you have to be exposed to the facts, and the facts are contained where? in God's Word, right? So we explain the facts, we give the facts. What does God's Word say? Now once I know what God's Word says, then I'm challenged to exert faith, and the question then is, do I believe what God's Word says? If I believe what God's Word says and we're talking about salvation, guess what? I'm now saved. Oh, by the way, we haven't even got to the kibbush yet. So, are feelings necessarily involved in this process? Not at all. Feelings are wonderful and God gave us feelings. I'm not diminishing feelings, but notice our terrain. You have facts and you have faith. Those are the two things you have to have for the Holy Spirit to bring about true and lasting conviction in your heart, which brings you to the place of understanding and accepting, believing, trusting in Jesus Christ. That's it. Now, the wonderful thing about it is the benefit is The added thing that goes along with it is the feelings. I don't know very many people that came to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, received him as their Savior, believed in him, trusted in him, placed their faith, hope, and confidence in him for the safekeeping of their soul, and just went away in the doldrums. I don't know anyone like that. I mean, when you realize that your sins have been forgiven and that you have a home in heaven, and that Jesus is right now preparing a place in heaven just for you, and he's coming back again to take you to be with him, that where he is there, you will be also. I mean, that's something to shout about, isn't it? And if we were in a black church, we'd be shouting right now, right? Oh, there we go. I started to say Pentecostal church, I thought I might be going too far. All right, but notice there are feelings. We're not against feelings, but what people want to do is they want to reverse that. They want to put the caboose in front. That's what they want to do. Think about it. If you're honest, you do that at times. I do that at times. I want to feel it, you know? I used to be involved in a group and there was an expression that they used to use, that we needed to go find the spout where the Holy Spirit is coming out, right? So, I mean, you had to go to this place and that place, because wherever that Holy Spirit was, you wanted to get under that spout. That's garbage. The Holy Spirit's within you, is He not? Okay, just double-checking. What's the conclusion then? The confession of Christ is not a requirement for salvation. Just as a believer's good works are faith made visible, according to James 2, so confessing faith in Christ is faith made audible. That's all it is. It has no bearing on my salvation. There's nothing wrong with sharing, going to someone, telling them, you know, I place my faith and trust in Jesus. Not a thing in the world wrong with doing that, but that's not what saves you. That doesn't add anything to your salvation. That adds to your rewards, maybe. All right, Romans 10 is not addressing a public declaration or affirmation of Christ as a condition of salvation. Rather, it's addressing in context the confession, that is, the acknowledging and affirming of faith by an Israelite to God of the fact that Jesus, number one, is Yahweh of the Old Testament, and number two, Israel's resurrected Messiah. So, anyone who tries to tell you that you have to have a public profession of faith, just remember that they failed. Now, this is a real quick one we can go through. It's one slide. Well, not only do you not have to publicly confess Christ, but guess what? What about public confession of sin? You know, there are some individuals that believe you have to come down to the altar and you have to confess all your sins to Jesus before you can be saved. I mean, you might think I'm joking. I'm not joking. And you better remember every one of them. You know, you better have a really, really good memory. But notice what we have written here. No scripture, not a single one, requires confession of sin as a condition of salvation in this age. And there we are doing our little happy dance. If you understand that, that ought to make you do a happy dance, right? Alright, so that failed too. Now, we'll finish up with this. What about private confession of sin? And I guess you can tell from the pictures there on the screen what's going on there, right? You know? I mean, in one sense you want to laugh about it, but the truth of the matter is it ought to make you cry. Because there are thousands and thousands of people, millions of people all over the world doing this, thinking that somehow this is going to get them right with God. And all it does is make them two-fold times a child of hell. The book of 1 John, written to who? Believers, reveals that as believers we are in a relationship of fellowship with the Father. This realization should bring great joy to our hearts. Look at 1 John 1, 3-4. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be made complete. Wow. 1 John 1, 6-7 explains that unresolved sin in the believer obstructs his fellowship with Christ and fellow believers. Failing to deal with his sin, the believer is robbed of both personal joy and blessing. Notice what it says, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. You know what, what does it mean to walk in darkness? It means to, in a nutshell, simply means to have undealt with sin in your life. If you have undealt with sin in your life, you're walking in darkness. And the more you have, the darker it is, right? That's why 1 John 1, 9 is so necessary, needful, and helpful, right? He says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. You know, I think Andy's used this kind of example before, you know, how do you know when you're out of fellowship with your spouse? Do I need to go any further with that? Right. When I said that every one of the wives went like this. Looked right over at their husbands, right? I mean, it's really obvious, isn't it, when you're out of fellowship with someone, right? Well, guess what? It's just as obvious when you're out of fellowship with Christ. And that should prompt us to get right, shouldn't it? Here is Lewis Perry Chaffer again, a regenerate person who has wandered from fellowship, may return to his place of blessing by a faithful confession of his sin. And again, 1 John 1, 9, there it is. Notice that it's addressed only to whom? Believers and it says if we who we believers if believers confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us who believers our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness This is not a salvation passage This is a middle tense of your salvation passage. This is a having this is your walk with Christ daily walk moment by moment And I don't know about you, but 1 John 1 9 has become my beloved friend. It's my beloved friend. It's with me always. It's on the tip of my tongue all the time. Because that's where it needs to be. Because I am not the person that I want to be. I'm not the person I used to be, but I'm not the person I want to be. And by God's grace, he knows and has given me this wonderful, wonderful blessing so that I can maintain my fellowship with him and with fellow believers. 1 John 1, 9. Use it. What is it? Love it. Love it and use it. Something like that. You remember the story of the prodigal son? That presents an illustration of the way in which a Christian may return to fellowship and blessing. Although in a far country, the prodigal was no less a son than he was in his own home." You know, some people forget that. People who say that you can lose your salvation, they totally don't get this. You know, he was off in that far country, but he was no less a son than he was when he was back home with his daddy. It says, there's no indication that his return was conditioned upon either sacrifice or atonement. You know, if you remember the story, it says that he came to his senses, he was in there wallowing with the hogs, eating their slop. And he goes, oy vey, what am I doing here? Oh man, I'm going to rise and go back to my father. He didn't do any sacrifices or atonement. What is stated is that he was welcomed back into fellowship with his father based upon his confession. What was his confession? And by the way, I love the part, I love this and I have to say it. You know when daddy was looking for him. Yeah, yeah. You know what? When you sin, Abba's looking for you. He's looking. And He's hoping you, like that prodigal son, He'll see you coming up over the horizon, getting closer and closer. And then what does the Father do in the story? He runs to His Son and He embraces Him. And see, Abba Father is standing ready to do that right now with every one of us if we have sin in our life. Oh my goodness, what a wonderful Father we have. Look what the Father said. He said to the Father, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Do you know that that is a satanic lie? Do you ever hear that lie? You know, if you're like me, if you've ever gotten into sin in your life, and there may come a point in time when you start thinking, you know, God, how can you possibly love me? I'm just such a wretched person. You know, here you go. I'm a poor me. I'm just this and that. I just don't know how you can love me, Lord. Well, that's what he's saying right here. And look what he goes on. He says, he says, I'm no more worthy to be called your son. What did the father say? You are my son. Welcome home. Likewise, confession of sin is the only requirement demanded of a sinning saint. Do we have any sinning saints in here? Just a few of us, some of us didn't raise our hands, so therefore we are twice a sinning saint. Yes, so we're all sinning saints, aren't we? But sin and a believer of necessity interrupts our fellowship with a holy God, but it has nothing, nothing whatsoever, no effect whatsoever on our salvation. But what does the enemy of our souls do? He whispers in our ear, oh, you know, you really blew it this time. You might as well just give up. Forget about it, you know. I mean, after all, everybody saw you do that. Everybody heard about you doing that. Oh, you're such a terrible sinner. You might as well just forget about this Jesus stuff. He's a liar, isn't he? The Bible says he's the father of lies. Why do we listen to him? because we don't practice the Word of God enough like we should. Lewis Barry Schaeffer is correct when he writes, when fellowship with God is broken by sin, it can be re-established only by a frank admission of guilt and failure on the part of the sinning one. To refuse a confession is to contend that right is wrong and wrong is right, which would be a contradiction of the very nature and character of God. Confession reopens the way for fellowship with God and of access to God, but it does not in any way atone for sin. Propitiation for sin was perfectly accomplished at the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, he paid for every sin, past, present, and future. So I don't have to do any atoning for my sinfulness. All I have to do is confess to God and I'm restored to complete fellowship. And what is this distinction then between a requirement for salvation and a result of salvation? Here we go. This is it. We're going to wrap it up with this. Dr. Renald Showers notes, there is a clear distinction between a requirement for salvation and a result of salvation. The two should not be confused with each other. A willingness and desire for Christ to rule over one's life are prompted by the new spiritual life imparted by the Holy Spirit when He regenerates the believer at salvation. So, you know, the only reason as a believer, the only reason that you want to do better, the only reason that you want to live a righteous life, that you want to be a blessing to others, the only reason you feel that way is because you have new life in you already. See, that's what's motivating that. That's what he's saying here. Notice the next paragraph. The unsaved do not and cannot submit to divine rule. Just as a tree cannot have apples unless it already has the nature of an apple tree, so a person cannot have a willingness and desire to submit to Christ's rule unless he already possesses the new nature received by regeneration at salvation. Thus even the willingness, now watch this, even the willingness and desire to submit to Christ's rule are the result of and not a requirement for salvation. This is what makes us distinct from lordship salvation. They flip that around. They say you have to really want to live for Jesus. You have to commit to obey. You have to do this. You have to do that. And then maybe, just maybe, you might be saved. That is not what the Word of God teaches, and that's such a great, great quote right there. I love it. Schaeffer goes on, and this is in his systematic theology, he says, Outside the doctrines related to the person and work of Christ, there is no truth more far-reaching in its implications, and no fact more to be defended than that salvation in all its limitless magnitude is secured so far as human responsibility is concerned by believing on Christ as Savior. To this one requirement, no other obligation may be added without violence to the Scriptures and total disruption of the essential doctrine of salvation by grace alone. Only ignorant or reprehensible in attention to the structure of a right soteriology will attempt to intrude some form of human works with its supposed merit into that which, if done at all, must, by the very nature of the case, be wrought by God alone and on the principle of sovereign grace. Conclusion, this is what we've covered in our three sessions and I hope that you've received some benefit from it. I hope it's been encouraging to you. I normally don't like to just read, you know, but sometimes you just kind of have to do that. So I hope that you'll go back over the material and review it because God's going to put somebody in your life that's totally messed up on these issues and this is going to be a blessing to you to help you to be able to to bring freedom and liberty to those individuals. So are repentance and confession requirements for salvation? No is the answer. That's right. Thank you so much. Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for this evening. Lord, thank you for these wonderful truths that have been recovered for us by great men of God. Thank you so much, Father God, for Sugarland Bible Church, thank you for the privilege, the opportunity we have to speak these things without fear of retribution or persecution. Thank you, Father God, that as we teach these things, Lord, we see people set free from the bondage of false doctrine, and that is our great desire, Lord. We do pray that you'd be glorified and honored and praised and and worship the Lord for what truth was revealed this evening. We do pray, Father God, that we might hear and understand and do your word. And Father, help us to be able to carry these things out to a lost and dying world and out to individuals perhaps that are believers and yet are so caught up in sin and caught up in the bondage of the lies of the devil, Lord, that we might bring freedom to them and that you might do that wonderful work. We praise you, thank you for keeping us safe as we are on our way to our homes. And Lord, we look forward to the next time we're together with you this coming Sunday and what you're going to do. In Jesus' name and God's people said, Amen.