Let's turn again to the Bible, this time to the book of Romans, chapter 10. Romans, chapter 10, which you can find on page 946 in the Pew Bible. Romans, chapter 10, I'm going to read from verse 1 as far as verse 13. Let's concentrate on verses 5 to 13. So Romans 10, reading from verse 1 to verse 13, please give your attention to the Word of God. Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, for being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. The same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." In this passage, we get out of complexity and become the simplicity. It was a very complex first few verses. You might have noticed quotation marks and parentheses. He's quoting, he's interpreting, he's applying. And then beginning at verse 9, it becomes very, very simple. Here's a reason for that. He's answering objections. He's showing how things are from the Old Testament. But then he breaks out in a simple message. Do you want peace with God? If you believe in your heart, and I'm always prone to get it backwards. There you go. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, It says, you will be saved. Now, in some ways, you might say that the chapter here reflects God's whole plan. There's something like 613 commands in the Torah. And yet, at this point, he gives you a bottom line. It goes from complex to simple. And as he says in verse 4, Messiah was always the goal of the Torah. That's verse 4. Messiah was always the goal of the Torah. And so, complexity gives way to simplicity. And along with simplicity, a call to all the world. So today, let's follow the complexity, because it is in the Word of God for us, so that we can understand, so that we can answer, we can explain, we can understand these things. But after we follow the complexity, let us then rejoice in the simplicity. He begins in verse 5 and 6 saying, you know, you might think that you find two ideas of righteousness right in the same Bible. And when we say righteousness, we mean doing what is right so well that God approves and you have peace with God. That's what we mean by the word righteousness. We don't mean occasionally doing something right. We mean doing right so much, that is, or being in that state where God approves, in that state of where God approves. And it's crucial that we grasp what these two ideas are, because these two ideas actually are the way of religion and the way of Christ. I said the way of religion, and then I'm putting the way of Christ over against all these others. The first is briefly described in verse 5, even at this point seems to attribute it to Moses. He says, Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. A near quotation of Leviticus 18.5 or of a number of other verses. Here we have something that makes sense to us. Do good things and avoid the bad and God will approve and you'll have peace with God. This is sort of the instinctive thoughts of human beings. It has a number of problems though. One problem is that surely there comes a time in the life of a sinner where he realizes he's so far behind he'll never catch up. And so he's prone to despair. And you know, the despairing person often throws himself into doing more evil. So we don't want that. A second problem with this popular notion, you might say, that seems to be there, is that it can lead those who think themselves righteous to be proud and look down on those whom they deem not to be righteous. That's the second problem. But even if you surmounted those first two problems, the last problem with this is the insurmountable one. God has already told us His evaluation of our good deeds. And He tells all of us that we ought to say that all of our righteous deeds are His filthy rags. That the Lord has come down from heaven to look on the sons of men to see if there is any who does good, if any understands. There is no one who does good. There is no one who understands. And so it may seem like this is the reasonable way to have peace with God, to keep the Torah, or to follow an eightfold path, or to do the five pillars, or to keep the Ten Commandments, and through these things to have peace with God. But the first four chapters of this book of Romans have been spent demonstrating that that is not the way to peace with God. Because God's evaluation is strict. He is pure and holy. We will not have peace with God through a righteousness of our own, a righteousness that is based on law, that is a righteousness based on what we do keeping the law. Now, what's curious here is that he seems to quote Moses in support of this. Don't worry. He's about to quote Moses in support of the other. But he has already showed, back in chapter 4, that Abraham, when Abraham believed God, God counted that to him as righteousness. He's already quoted David as, blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven. Not his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds. No, no. Whose sins are forgiven. He's already, earlier in this book, demonstrated that the true way to be at peace with God in the Old Testament was through forgiveness and faith. But for the time being here, he says, yes, it can look like this. It can look as though Moses writes about this righteousness based on the law. But he goes on to say, there is, in the Old Testament, a righteousness based on faith. And this is the second one. This is the crucially different one. This is what makes Christianity different from all the others. That we have peace with God through a righteousness that is based on faith. Now, as you go on and look at verses 6, 7, and 8, you will see that it is an unusual quotation. It's a snippet from Deuteronomy 9. and then the rest from Deuteronomy 30. That's not so unusual, having two slammed together. They do that a lot. What's unusual is, first of all, who he attributes these words to. Now, it's Deuteronomy 9, Deuteronomy 30. That's Moses. But he doesn't say Moses, and he doesn't say God, and he doesn't say the Holy Spirit, and he doesn't say the scripture. He doesn't say it is written. He says, this is what the righteousness based on faith says. He personifies the righteousness based on faith. That's the first unusual thing. Secondly, as he's quoting, he doesn't just quote and then interpret. He sticks his interpretation into the middle of the quote. So you got the quotes, and then you got the parentheses, and then you got the quotes, and then you got the parentheses. The quotes is what's coming out of Deuteronomy, and in the parentheses is him riffing on it, him interpreting it. Now, this is not unknown in the ancient world. You can find something like this in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They call it a pesher. I don't know why. Interpretation, I think that is, where you put your interpretation right in the middle of what you are quoting. It's not an unknown thing, but the New Testament doesn't usually do this. What seems most odd about this quotation is that it might seem as though he gets it exactly wrong. Back in Deuteronomy 30, it seemed as though Moses was saying, the law is not too hard for you. You can do the law. The law is not up in heaven or across the sea. No, the law is right here because I just told you. You can do it. But here, it's being quoted on the other side. So what is he doing? And I spoke this morning in Sunday school hour about how there's a whole sort of area of study, how the New Testament uses the Old Testament. And a lot comes out right here when you come across a quotation that seems to be different and odd. There are, of course, some who are very happy to say, eh, he misquotes. But that's not an option for those who believe in the Bible. If you believe that this is the inspired word of God, you cannot be satisfied saying, eh, he misquoted. Instead, you have to say, no, he is using it correctly. Now, why is this correct? Because it looks incorrect to what we normally do. Well, often what you need to do is you need to go back and read the context that the quotation comes from. And the first part of the quotation then becomes very easy. He says, do not say in your heart. That's from Deuteronomy 9.4. And so what's going on in Deuteronomy 9.4? Deuteronomy 9.4, Moses is telling them, just before they go into the promised land, he says, when you go into the promised land and the Lord drives out those nations before you, do not say in your heart, it is because of my righteousness that the Lord drove out those nations. It is not because of your righteousness. It is because of the wickedness of those nations that the Lord drives them out, and because of His covenant that He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is not because of your righteousness. That's what He's saying in Deuteronomy 9.4, introduced by, do not say in your heart. So when He quotes that here, do not say in your heart, that works perfectly. The whole message there was, do not say in your heart, it is because of your righteousness, of what you do. And that's what He's saying here. It is not a righteousness based on your doing. The first part of the quote's easy. Very well fits the context. The same message. And notice how powerful that is. If the Israelites, 40 years after Sinai, as they're going into the Promised Land, if they weren't being blessed because of their righteousness then, then God's people are never blessed because of our righteousness. It's a very powerful place to go. That's not the basis on which God blesses us, because we've earned it. That's not it. Now, the second half gets a little harder, when he starts to talk about who will ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down. You say, when I read that part of Deuteronomy 30, I was not thinking of Christ. So why does he put Christ in there? Well, as you read Deuteronomy, then you go back and you read it, Deuteronomy 29 and 30 are very important. It's the end. of Moses' last speech to the Israelites. After that, it's just sort of closing miscellaneous points. Joshua's the next guy. I'm going to teach you a song. I'm going to bless you, and I'm going to die. That's the last remaining chapters of Deuteronomy. Joshua's next, a song, blessings, and death. So this concludes Moses' address to the people of Israel. And it's called the covenant. He finishes off the blessings and curses of the Mosaic Covenant in chapters 28, 27. And then 29 and 30, it says, this is the words of the covenant that the Lord made with Israel in Moab, in addition to the other covenants. So it kind of stands off on its own. It's special. It's coming at the end. And Moses begins by identifying a problem. He says, I've been leading you a long time, but the Lord has not given you a heart to obey him. And that's a problem, as you read the Torah, because way back at the flood, the problem was the heart. The heart brought on the flood. The heart was still bad after the flood. Here, Moses is saying to God's people, the trouble is God has not given you a heart to obey him. So then he goes on and tells them what's going to happen. You're going to sin, and you're going to go into exile. It's already in Deuteronomy 29. And then you get the famous verse, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. But the revealed things are for us and our children. So right there is that telling you, there's more that God has not told you. And then you get into chapter 30. And as we read in chapter 30, chapter 30, Moses says to them, when you have failed and sinned and are in exile, when you repent, God will bring you back. And then he will circumcise your heart. So right in the Torah, there's the prediction of failure. and the prediction of repentance, and the prediction of God doing some new thing, unspecified there, by which their hearts will be renewed, will be circumcised. So what Paul is doing here, is he's saying, and now it has happened. It's been a long time, and now it has happened. We have failed, we have gone into exile, we have prayed prayers of repentance, God has brought us back, But for a long time there was no circumcising of the heart, but now there is because of Jesus. The thing that was not quite specified in Deuteronomy, that was forecast, the Lord will circumcise the heart, this happens in Jesus Christ. And so now we're in a different place. As we read the Torah, now we have to read it knowing that it is fulfilled, that the new thing has come, and we need to read this in light of the new thing, and when you do that, suddenly, The language fits beautifully this ascending and descending thing. That fits Jesus. Originally, it seemed to simply be a way of saying it's impossible. Don't say, who will ascend into heaven? That's a way of saying, I can't do it. And you're right, you can't do it. But Jesus has come down from heaven so that he would do for you what you couldn't do for yourself. And it says, do not say in your heart, who will descend into the abyss? If you read it carefully, it says sea. Here it says abyss. Yeah, they're both deep. And the Israelites were scared of both of them. All right? Who will descend into the abyss? You know, again, originally that's just another way of saying it's impossible. But Jesus actually did the impossible. He did die. And then he was resurrected. So do not say it is impossible. It is impossible to perfectly keep the law of God. So Jesus descended and ascended to do it. And so therefore, this ending now fits. The word is near us, in our mouth and in our heart. Moses had told them, you have to guard your heart. He taught them a song, so they have the song in their heart. He had said, this is the problem. The problem is the heart. And so Paul is saying, when you're baptized into Christ, When you believe in Christ, this is when he gives you the new heart, promised in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel, and in many different places. You might think you find two kinds of righteousness in the Old Testament. You don't really, because Abraham believed God, and it was kind of him as righteousness. It's by faith. But in this place, he's making a different point. And he's beginning to tell us how to read the Torah. The Messiah has come, the goal of the Torah, as it says in chapter 10, verse 4. For Christ is the end of the law, the fulfillment, bringing it to its proper conclusion. And therefore, as we read it, we read it with Him in mind. We read it, knowing that we must be born again. And so, then we break through to the simple at verse 9. We break through to what is simple at verse 9. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. What a good and simple message. Do you know how long you can debate the different laws of the Torah? For one of my classes the last two weeks, I dipped into the Talmud. The Talmud is the Jewish encyclopedia from Babylon in about 500 AD. The rulings of the rabbis on the different laws. There's a volume on delivering divorce papers. Only a couple pages on why you may get divorced, but a whole volume on the delivering of it. What makes it valid? What makes it invalid? What does it have to be written on? Who may deliver it? who may be a witness to it." So much complexity. And here he announces a simple salvation. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Now normally we simply say, believe. Normally we just say, justification by faith alone. So why does he have two here, believe and confess? Well, first of all, he's making it match Deuteronomy 30. Which it said, but the word is near you, in your heart and in your mouth. So he's making it match. But he's also matching Jesus. Because Jesus said, if you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father in heaven. But if you deny me before men, I also will deny you before my Father in heaven. So he's bringing that out. That part of our faith involves open faith. Part of our faith involves confession. Part of our faith means that we believe that Jesus is Lord and that he will take care of us. And even if we are persecuted, still, this is our true allegiance. Jesus is a king. And kings require loyalty. So he says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, who else will be Lord? Well, this letter is written to the church in Rome. And in Rome was the emperor who said he was Lord. They both want the same word, Kurios. Jesus is Kurios or Caesar is Kurios? And he's telling them right under Caesar's nose. But you need to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Kurios. That Caesar was a pretty scary guy. His name was Nero. If he hadn't gone bad yet, he was about to. And the empire was a pretty scary empire. It's still the gold standard that every other would-be empire aspires to. That's why so many other kings have wanted to be called Caesar. Whether it's Kaiser or Czar or the Second Rome or the Third Rome, they're still aspiring because that's still the gold standard for the long-lasting, tough empire. And in the middle of that empire, in the capital, he's telling them, you need to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Kurios. He is the Lord. I saw a report that said that last year a quarter of a billion Christians were persecuted around the world. A quarter of a billion. Many of them perhaps could have avoided it if they had not confessed that Jesus is Lord. Some of them were getting to know. They have confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. We are to stand with them. So confess. Here's the number way. Here's what is called on. We are called on to confess Jesus' name openly. And the number one way in which we confess Jesus' name is that we are baptized. Unbelievers know this very well. When you are baptized, now you're a Christian. Now you've taken the name of the Triune God upon yourself. But of course, for some of us, it might be easier to be a Christian than not. And so lip service is never enough. He goes on to say, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Mere words are never enough. Words have to express the genuine faith of the heart. But you might wonder, why are you bringing out that God raised him from the dead? It's a very pissy little creed here. Why is that the one? Why not the cross? Or the virgin birth? Or the two natures? Why right here that God raised Him from the dead? For starters, if you believe that God raised Him from the dead, you are believing that He died first, so you get the crucifixion with the resurrection. Secondly, you are saying that you believe that God confirmed all that Jesus said. That when Jesus said, I and the Father are one, when the Father raises Him, He's approving of that. When He says, the Son of Man came to give Himself as a ransom for many. Is that how God sees it? Well, it is when God raises Him from the dead. And so the resurrection becomes the confirmation of all that Jesus had said about His own significance. And so that is why believing in the resurrection gives you the whole Christ. It gives you all that you need to know right there. And so you have this handy and simple verse. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Now it goes on to say, now why should it be so simple? And he says, well very simply, in verse 10, with the heart one believes and is justified. This goes back to what he said earlier. If we're justified, not by what we do, but by laying hold of Jesus, for what Jesus has done for us, this happens simply as we believe in Him. Then, Jesus has worked for us. And he goes on in verse 11, for the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. That's an interesting line, everyone. How broad is the everyone? It's quoting the Old Testament right there. Old Testament believers tend to think of Israel only. How far does that mean? For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Yes, we're to believe and confess Jesus with believers from all nations. The implicit open door of verse 11 is made explicit in verse 12. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek. I don't see too many of you here today who look like either Jew or Greek. You say, how am I included there? Well, when they said Greek, they meant everybody who wasn't a Jew. Because in their part of the world, Greek was the language that everybody spoke. It wasn't English. It wouldn't have gotten you anywhere back then. You needed your Greek back then. And so you had your Jews, they knew who they were, and everybody else was speaking Greek. When it says Jew and Greek, it means Jew and Gentile. Gentile is everybody who's not Jewish. That's us. And so he lays it out. When it said everyone, it meant everyone. For the same Lord of Israel is God of the universe. He is Lord of all, and there is no distinction. See how fitting it is that our salvation be simple. It takes a lot of work to master the Torah. It takes a lot of Hebrew school and I don't think they get it. But the salvation that goes out to all the world has a simple core. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. I'd urge you to memorize chapter 10 verse 9 and memorize verse 13 Because the 15-year-olds have, and you wouldn't want to be dumber than a 15-year-old. If you want to do them one better, you can memorize verse 9 through 13. Having memorized it, of course, take it to heart. Having taken it to heart, also be ready to explain it. And to explain it to anyone who asks, what is the core, what is the basic point of being a Christian? And you can say, here's the core message. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord Messiah, and that God raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved. Jesus has done what was impossible for us. We cannot go up to heaven on our own. We cannot descend to the abyss and come back on our own. And nor could we perfectly keep the law of God. that Jesus has done all of those things. Therefore, our faith is to be in Him. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have brought salvation near to us. We thank You that You have brought it near to us today, that we may hear and believe Your Word to us. Help us, Lord, not to be silent, but also to be quick to see and to speak and to explain your simple way of salvation to all. We pray, Lord, that you might use us to comfort those who are mourning, to strengthen those who are weak, and to give light to those who are in darkness. Help us, Lord, to share your good news. And help us, Lord, to know how to speak it simply, as you speak it simply here. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.