Bibles to Romans chapter 10, please. And what I'd like to do in this first hour, again, this is this is somewhat spur of the moment because I didn't plan on teaching in the first hour. But what I want to do is just take a little time to explore a little bit more the very well-known verses found in the 10th chapter, verses 9 and 10. Now, in the worship hour to follow, we're going to zero in on the truth of Jesus Christ as Lord. So we won't be delving into that much in this first hour. But I want us just to consider that which arguably, next to John 3, 16, are some of the most well-known verses in the entire Bible, especially in the New Testament, right? Romans 10, 9, and 10. Let's look at those together. Paul 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 for with the heart man believes under righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Now, the first thing that we notice here and in order to get into this, we have to, at least to some degree, put aside some of our preconceptions and also our extreme familiarity with these verses. Because it will tend to hamper and hinder us if we simply say, oh yeah, I know Romans 10, 9 and 10. That's what to give to every lost person when you get a chance. I know that. I know that's how I came into the saving grace of Christ. And it's a real tendency and a danger on our part to say, I know everything those verses say and there's nothing else that can be added to my understanding. So let's ask God to help us not do that. Secondly, let's note that something that is many times missed, I believe, even in sincere students of the Scripture, and that is that as Paul begins to talk about this wonderful truth of salvation in the 9th verse, he actually gives us a reversing of the order in salvation that we normally understand. Now, he flips it back in the 10th verse, but here's what I'm talking about. Notice that he puts confession before faith. If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Now, if we know anything at all about salvation, and hopefully if we're a Christian we do know something, at least our own personal experience is reflected in what the Bible tells us, we know that confession is the result of faith. Now, when we get to the tenth verse, that's how Paul puts them. With the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. If he did that there, and that's what we're most clear about, why in the ninth verse does he reverse those? That's what I want us to spend our time in this first hour considering, and then also the actual concepts given to us about confession and belief. Well, we could certainly refer to Jesus' words at this point. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father in heaven. And that's important to bring that truth in. It is a companion truth to what Paul says here. Jesus is saying, if you don't confess me, I don't own you. You don't belong to me. Now, the confession is not what makes you belong to Christ. But rather, the confession is your evidence that you are in Christ. But having said that, again, in modern day evangelicalism, or as Dr. Campbell says, in commercial religion, We have to be aware that the confession part has been reduced to a simple outward statement of the mouth and sometimes not even that, but simply a physical movement of the body from the pew down the center aisle to take the preacher's hand. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that's evil. I'm just saying that's not what this confession is talking about. Now, it can be a part of it, but anyone who thinks That confession simply means I walk down there, take the preacher's hand and say, I've trusted Jesus or I want to know how. And after he shows you some scripture and you pray, then you turn around and say, yes, I've been saved to the congregation. That's your confession. Well, it is a confession. But when Paul talks about confession here, he's talking about much more. Now, again, we talked about it already for our folks as we looked at it last week. But let me just remind us again about this word confession. Confessed, here in the original, is homo logeo. Homo, of course, means same or similar, and logeo means literally word. It's from logos. So what Paul is saying is that we must say and affirm the same word about Christ. Then we would ask, what same word? And the same word is the same word that the Father says about His Son. And then we understand it's not a singular statement, but it is an all-encompassing theology of what God says about His only Son. And really and truly, in order to delve into this, which we don't have the time in this hour to do so, you would need to make yourself a pretty astute student of everything the Gospels display about Christ. And then move to the epistles. And before you're finished, just for good measure, revert back to Old Testament prophecies about Him. Because really, what Paul is saying is, the entire word about Christ is what you must confess. The entire word. And as has been said, I don't know if he's the first one who said it, but he gets the credit for it. Dr. W.A. Criswell, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, called the word about Jesus Christ and Christ himself, the scarlet thread of redemption that runs from Genesis through Revelation. It's a pretty good statement. And it's very accurate. And so, when we are told we are to confess Christ, it means much more, although this is not like that, but it means much more than simply saying, I've trusted Jesus, I'm saved, I believe on Christ, I'm a Christian. Now, all those will come, all those statements and forms of them will come, and they will come regularly, and they will continue to come as long as that new convert lives in this life, until they go to be with the Lord. But God has a lot more to say about Jesus. In fact, as the writer of Hebrews, who I believe is Paul, says in the first chapter, as we're well aware, in the past God spoke in many portions and many ways, but in His last days He's spoken to us in His Son. And literally, His is not even there in the Greek. It's supplied by our English translators. The Greek says He's spoken in Son, which means God has engaged in speaking of the Son. to us and through the Son. And so when the Bible says, confess that Christ is Lord, it means to say everything Scripture says about Him. Now, let's be practical. It doesn't mean that you have to take out time to be able to verbally recite everything the Bible says from Genesis to Revelation. That would take a long time. And no doubt, no matter how much we studied the Scripture and how much help we had, we'd still miss some things. Obviously, it's not that literalized concept that we're talking about. But it is to have a good working knowledge, which can only come by the Holy Spirit teaching us the Scriptures, to have a good working knowledge of the fact that Jesus is who and what He claims to be. And it connects, of course, then, with Hebrews 11, 6. Without faith it's impossible to please God. For he that comes to God must, number one, believe that He is, right? And secondly, that He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Do you know that what Paul is calling folks to understand and believe and lay hold of is simply the gospel there? To believe that He is, and that He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That goes all the way back at least to Jeremiah, and there's swatches before that, but at least to Jeremiah the prophet, who speaking for the Lord said, You will seek me and find me if you search for me with all your heart. I will be found of you, says the Lord. That's gospel. And so when Paul in Hebrews tells us that in order to please God, we must believe that He is, he's talking about much more than the mere acknowledgment of His existence. Most good old boy and good old girl pagans out there will acknowledge that God exists. But they're not saved, right? For the most part. They wouldn't be in the category of pagan, right? So he means much more than simply saying, well, I know there's somebody up there There's a man upstairs. No, he means you've got to believe that God, and then Christ more particularly, is who and what he says he is. Now, at this point, you may be wondering, wait a minute, if we use this strictly as a salvation passage, and that's what we understand it to be primarily, then how much of that is the person going to know at the point of conversion? And admittedly, they're not going to know a lot. Unless, and there are some exceptions, unless they've been in an environment where as a lost person they have still sat consistently under the preaching and teaching of the word. At least if they have, they'll have some intellectual comprehension of some of these things, right? Now, it won't be in their heart until they're converted, but they'll know some things. By the way, that's what we have so much to deal with when we seek to evangelize folks. It's because in our Bible-saturated country in general, and area of the country in particular, most people know the answer before you ask the question. That doesn't mean they're saved. So what are we really talking about here? Well, see, this is where I contend that while, and don't go out here and say, oh, Pastor Sammy said those verses don't have anything to do with evangelism. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if we think they only have to do with initial conversion, we have missed the point. They don't only have to do with it. Because understanding what this word means, Paul is calling for two stages, if you will. An initial understanding of what we need to know about Christ as Lord, and we'll get into that, as I said, in the second hour. And submitting to His Lordship, trusting to Him completely, repenting of sin, owning ourselves to be filthy and unworthy of His grace, and calling for mercy. That's the initial stage, but there's an ongoing stage. Because as we well know, or we should, confession doesn't end at the front of the church when you walk down an aisle. It's not the beginning and ending right there. Nor at baptism, nor at some other type of setting where you share your testimony, or whatever the case may be. If you know Christ, you confess Him all the time. If you don't confess Him regularly, then something is seriously wrong. I'm not saying you're not converted, but you may not be. But at the very least, there may be some sin that's harbored. There may be some things going on that need to be straightened out, because the thing about it is you just really can't help it. When everything is as it should be in the heart of the Christian, whether they actually say his name at any given instance or simply live because he lives, the confession is there, isn't it? And so that's what I want us to understand, is that confess has more packed into it than simply the initial confession. It's not to minimize that. It's not to say it's not there. But I want us to go farther. I want us to broaden ourselves and deepen ourselves as we consider this. Okay? Now, so, to say the same word, to confess, to speak. Now, in the original, there's also this prefix in front of this word. The word ex-, sometimes it shows up as ex-, and that means from, among, or out of. In fact, the reason we have the second book of the Bible called Exodus is because it's from the Greek title in the Greek Old Testament. And it literally means the road out. The way out. And that's what happens in Exodus, isn't it? They find the road out. Out of Egypt. Now, what does it mean here? Well, it means our confession must be out of something. It must come from something. That is, it's not resident within us in an unconverted state. Remember in Romans 8? Let's just flip over there to Romans 8 and refresh our memory just quickly. And we will come back to this, of course, as I said, in the second hour. Let me find my reference here. Now, let's go to chapter 14. Notice verse 9. For to this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. That He might be Lord. Now, notice what's packed into that verse. Christ both died, which obviously is predicated on Him living, first of all. That he lived, he existed, he lived under the law, he fulfilled the law, all those things we know the gospels show us so clearly. That he died and lived, he rose again. He died and rose and lived again. What does that mean? That means our confession is coming out of resurrection truth. And that's the real key about these verses in chapter 10 having to do with conversion. Because in order to be resurrected unto life in Christ, our confession must come out of his resurrection. Now that leads us to the next statement, doesn't it? In 10.9. And shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So the confession then comes out of the truth of the resurrection. And as I said to you before, I think we, not intentionally, but sometimes, perhaps many times, we as Christians have our thinking so focused on the cross and the atoning death of Christ that we almost are guilty, and I say almost, we're almost guilty of leaving Him there. Sometimes at least. And forgetting that the death, as necessary as it was, if He had not come out of the grave victorious, conquering death, hell, and the grave, His death would have been of no avail. It was, as the Bible affirms, the signal, truth, that God had accepted His atonement on behalf of His people. That their sins were paid, right? As Jesus said from the cross, John 19, 30, te telestai, it is finished. It means paid in full. And the evidence that the debt was paid in full for all of Christ's people was His resurrection. And so our confession has to come out of the truth of the resurrection. because we believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. And so this is why Paul puts the order in reverse here. You see, the confession is predicated on believing this truth. And not only this truth, but everything that has to do with this truth. Obviously, to get to the resurrection, you've got to go through the virgin birth, the vicarious life in obedience to the law, the vicarious death on the cross, and then the victorious resurrection. You've got to get it all. It's a total package, as we would say, isn't it? So to say you believe in the resurrection assumes everything else that goes before it and also what happens after it, which is his ascension and session, as it's called for us, his ongoing high priestly ministry on behalf of his people. All right, questions or comments about that before we go any further? All right. Now, the end of verse 9 gives a very clear promise that if you confess and believe, you shall be saved. But let me stress once more that that is not the end of the confessing and believing. That is, that we know we have eternal life. It is rather the beginning. Because if there's not an ongoing confessing and believing, then initial conversion, no matter what we may have thought about, didn't actually take place. It never happened. John 6, 47 is so important in regard to this. Jesus says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes the present tense on me has everlasting life. And so when we say, OK, we confess with our mouth that Christ is Lord, we believe in our heart, God raised Him to the dead, we're saved. But again, that's only opening the door. to a life, however long or short it may be on this life, that as a Christian we continue to confess and believe. Because, dear ones, this is the bedrock of assurance right here in John 6, verse 47. Now, in 1 John, which is given to us, as John says, primarily so that we might know that we have eternal life and that we might believe on the name of the Son of God. But everything that John says can be packed into what Jesus says right here. Because as I've told you before, if you can honestly say right now, today, I'm believing and trusting in Christ, then yesterday doesn't matter and tomorrow is taken care of. Because whom he saves, he keeps. And it's not based on me continuing my faith, but him continuing my faith, right? So this is the fundamental principle we must get a hold of here in connection with the resurrection. Are you still believing? It's said that For many years, at least a generation, perhaps a little bit more, after the great work of God called the 1904 Welch Revival, that people who even as small children in those days, being able to see, and many of them converted then or converted afterward, seeing God's work in that amazing time, when they would greet each other years and years after that, they would say, how are you? And the response would be, still believing. Still believing! Because that's what he's talking about. He that believes. Not did believe, although if you believed today, you probably believed at least yesterday, and maybe five years ago, maybe ten. Who knows? You may know, you may not. The thing is, that's just a really bad about. Telling folks that as long as you can go back to the day and the hour, And know when you prayed to receive Christ, or walked the aisle, or did whatever you did, that it doesn't matter what's going on today, you just go back there and drive your stake in the ground then, so to speak, and you're safe. Now that makes logical sense, but it doesn't make theological sense. Or as Johnny Carter would put it, it sounds good, but it's not good in sound. Because the Bible never gives you Bedrock validation of your salvation based only on a past experience. It always points to what's going on right now. That's what 1 John's all about. He that says he believes on him and does not walk as he walked is a liar. If he continues to sin, he's a liar. Truth's not in it, right? John isn't pulling punches. And neither should we. About ourselves first and foremost, dear ones. And then about those we care about. Don't pull any punches. I'm not saying don't be gracious. You need to be gracious. But don't back up about this. You need to say, I had a conversation just recently with a dear young lady over the phone who is having some struggles and doubts and I just brought her to that verse and I said, let me ask you something. Can you say this is true right now tonight? I think so, best I know. I said, well, then good. I'll talk to you later. Because all her struggles were about what I'm doing and not doing and how my last week has been or my last two weeks. And that's understandable. We all go through that. And I want her to realize, not based on that, are you believing? Are you trusting right now? OK, time's getting away. But any questions or comments about that? I want to get to the 10th verse and at least touch on it. But we've got time for someone to put in on here if you want to. OK, so we get to the 10th verse, and Paul, quote, makes more sense to us than what we understand, right? Because he puts them in the order that they must come. Again, the 10th verse says, For when a heart man believes, and notice it's present tense, King James says, believeth, that means it's believe, the word believes, unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So, we have heart belief. Equals salvation. You say, I thought you said that confession demonstrates salvation, or equals it. It does. You can't have both. That's a false point. Because if there's heart belief, there will be confession. And if there's confession without heart belief, it's as furry as confession. It's false. It's demon faith, as James talks about. The demons say there's one God. They do better than many of you. They tremble at the truth. That doesn't mean they're saved. They're not. So heart belief equals salvation. Now, that's the real key. Because, see, what we're looking for in ourselves and what we're calling others to have in themselves is totally beyond our means. Heart belief in Christ. Now, intellectual belief is well within our capability. And hell will be full. I'm sad to say that the Bible bears it out with people who have an intellectual belief in Christ only. Heart belief is a gift. Ephesians said it right. For what grace do you say through faith? And that faith is not of yourselves. That faith, I know I'm paraphrasing, but that's the run of the sentence. That faith is the gift of God. It's not of works so that nobody can boast about it. For if intellectual faith could lay hold of Christ, savingly for us. and the intellectual faith is in our power to extend, then we would hook our thumbs in our suspenders and be proud that we got salvation. Who wouldn't? Let's face it. Paul says it's the way it is, not only because that's the only way it can be. I mean, that's the big picture. But particularly for our application, it's that way that faith is a gift so that nobody can boast. You can't. And so when he says, for with the heart man believes under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, he's saying they both are necessary. And heart belief will always lead to confession. And it may include, in some settings at least, walking an aisle and turning around and affirming to the congregation I've trusted Christ. It may include giving a testimony before a group. You know, there's a lot of different ways it may come out. But the point is, it's going to be there. And really the confession, when you get down to it, is most clearly demonstrated sometimes in unspoken ways. Now I'm not saying don't speak. Okay, don't misunderstand me about that either. I'm not saying don't speak. Because again, I believe that Jesus means exactly what He says in that verse I quoted a few moments ago, and that if you don't confess Him before men, He won't confess you before the Father. That's true. But all I'm saying is sometimes the most fortified The confession of Christ is done without a single word coming from the lips. It's by life. It's by the choices that are made. It's by the evidence of where the affections are set. And if all that's true, that mouth confession is going to happen. It will. Can you imagine anybody whose heart is wrapped up in Jesus Christ having someone who does not know them come up to them and say, are you a Christian? And them go, of course not. I say, yes, I'm saved. Would you like to know how Christ came to me and saved me? Now, they might not do it exactly that way. I'm not saying that. Here's the point, though. They're not going to be silent. But the bigger picture is more than that. It encompasses a verbal confession, but it does not stop there. And the reason I'm stressing that is because, again, as I started out, I'm so concerned That in modern day Christianity, the idea has been inculcated in most folks that if you simply say the words and say them in the right setting, then it really doesn't matter what's going on here. Because Paul and Jesus just said, confess, which means to speak the same. Paul is really letting us know here that speaking the same can only come. It can only be valid if this is going on. Partly. On the salvation, an old Scottish definition of saving faith in one of their confessional documents said saving faith is heart satisfaction with God, God's means of salvation through a crucified redeemer. Saving faith is a heart satisfaction with God's means of salvation through a crucified redeemer. That's pretty good. That's exactly what Paul is saying here in shorthand. Any questions or comments? Yeah, I've heard somebody put it this way one time about what you're talking about, particularly what we encounter talking to people about their faith or life thereof. And it's that many people have been inoculated by that very thing. they point back to something that happened to them at an earlier time in their life. Since then, they have not lived for Christ, but since they were told that doing this thing, that walking the aisle, that signing the card, and as you said, grabbing the pastor's hand, they were told that that ensures them salvation. Since then, their life has not been, has not been up. so that rather than examining themselves, as it says, in 2 Corinthians 13, rather than examining themselves, see they're in Christ, they're inoculate, they've got just enough of the truth to be a real thing. So, you know, we know that God is sovereign of salvation, so that other people can come to the knowledge of the truth, but we think that a good verse to challenge people with, and that is in Titus 2. Right. 11. And this is what happens. It's clear that this is what happens. Titus 2, 11 and 12. For the grace of God's appearing brings salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness, worldly passions, and to live a self-controlled, upright and godly life for the present age. Right. That's the key. That real, true faith in Christ brings that to your life in one degree or another. If that's not there, then you need to examine yourself. Exactly. Which is why the scripture encourages all who profess Christ to continually examine themselves. That 2 Corinthians 13, 5 verse is in the present tense. Be always examining yourselves, see whether you're in the faith. Now, a lot of people hear that and say, well, you must not be Baptist then. Because Baptists know, once saved, always saved. Well, that truth is true, but it doesn't stand alone, once saved, always saved. It does not. And again, you cannot deny the impact of the scripture and Paul's words, as well as Jesus's, which were given in an eschatological framework, but they don't need to be hemmed in only to dealing with the time of the end. He that endures to the end, the same shall be saved. That's a general truth. to apply, can be applied and should be. So again, Keith's exactly right. Far too long in American Christianity, there has been the idea that as long as you made the profession and confession, that it matters not how you live, because after all, you've settled it. You've driven your stake down at that time that you did whatever you did. And yet the Bible never, ever, ever gives us that is the only thing to go by about our salvation. So it's incredible to me that so much of evangelical believing and teaching and preaching for the last 150 years has been in that direction. Because there's no shred of Scripture to back it up as being the only thing to look for. And yet many people deal with it that way. It's the only thing to look for. Go back to your previous decision. As we all know and we talk about sometimes, that's not true regeneration. That's decisional regeneration. And that's no regeneration. if it's decisional on our part. Anything else? Any other thoughts? All right, well, let's bow for prayer. Father in heaven, we're grateful for this time in your word. I ask you to seal the truth to our hearts, and Lord, prepare us for the hour to come as we come before you once again and open your book. Teach us your ways that we might walk in your truth. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. We've got about five or six minutes before our worship hour.