Roman Road Step #4
We Receive Salvation Through Confession
A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick
Romans 10:9, 10 - That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Introduction: Salvation is granted to us on the basis of the twin actions of Confession and Belief. I. What is the meaning of confession? For example, if you're driving up to a toll booth on the turnpike and in the
land next to you is a beautiful, blue Mercedes. You would like to have a
car like that, and you believe that as one of the "Children of the King", you
should only have the best. So what do you do? You claim it. You confess
it out loud, "I am going to own a car just like that." Some teachers go a
little farther and instruct us to be specific and name precisely what it is
that we want. By speaking it forth, we can, by the power of confession,
bring it to pass. Well let me tell you, it didn't work for me. I'm still driving
a crumpled nosed '87 Buick station wagon. And furthermore, to me that
sounds more like covetousness than faith.
You see, they have gone too far. We are like God in many ways. For
example, we have the capacity for relationships, and the most important
ingredient, communication.
If I am ill, I do not have the power to speak my own healing into existence.
Of course a hopeful positive attitude is always helpful in maximizing
conditions for healing. But our faith for healing is not in our own ability to
create, but our faith is in God who alone has this power.
If mankind ever had the ability to bring something out of nothing by
speaking it into existence, that ability was lost when Adam and Eve were
expelled from the Garden of Eden. Only God can create, if we say we can
too, we are really claiming to "be God", rather than possessing the marred
image of God. Actually, the "creative word" teaching is only a very short
distance from the New Age teachings which horrify us all. Our words are
testimonial, they are merely communication, not creative.
B. What "confess" literally means is, "to say the same thing", i.e., to agree
with God about the identity of Jesus. He is God's only Son, born of a virgin,
crucified to pay the penalty for our sin, and risen again to sit on the right hand
of the Father.
When you confess the Lord Jesus, who are you then claiming that He is?
C. Let's look at significance of the expression, "Jesus is Lord."
The word here is "kurios", which means "master."
Remember when Jesus was being tempted? At one point Jesus said to
Satan, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Matthew 4:7) Referring
to God, Jesus used the word "kurios". Again in verse 10, He said,
"worship the Lord your God."
At another place, Jesus called God "Father, Lord of heaven and earth"
(Matthew 11:25), and when identifying the greatest command He said
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart." (Mark 12:30) This He quoted
from what is called the "Shema", the most oft repeated prayer in the
world, taken from Deuteronomy 6, "the Lord our God is One".
So, when we say, "Jesus is Lord", we are saying, "Jesus is God". The
people who belong to the sect or cult called "Jehovah Witnesses"
apparently do not understand where the word came from. In the revelation
which God gave to Moses at the "burning bush", the name identifying God
was "YHWH". In the ancient Hebrew there were no vowels - they seemed
to have been supplied by oral tradition. Later, these four consonants,
"YHWH" were put together to make up a new word because the Jews
feared to say the name of God out loud. This was done to avoid even the
possibility of taking Lord's name in vain. So ancient scribes took these
four consonants, and combined with them three vowels which they
borrowed from another word for "lord", the word "adonai". So, Jesus is
Jehovah! Jesus is God! (Jehovah Witnesses really believe that Jesus is
actually Michael the Archangel.)
The word "kurios" then is the New Testament equivalent of "Jehovah."
Remember what Jesus said about God and "mammon" (money)? "No
man can serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24). Again, the word is "kurios".
You get to choose, but you will serve a master!
I once visited an elderly Salvation Army man in the hospital. His younger
years had been lived out during a time when the Salvation Army was
known for much more than merely ringing bells along side the Christmas
bucket outside the Mall entrance. At that time it was very clear that their
priority was on saving souls. Lying in his bed, this wrinkled faced man
with a twinkle in his eye told of the days when he would go down the main
street of Manchester, CT witnessing. One of his methods of choice was to
wear a sandwich board. As people would approach him from the front
they would see the words, "I Am God's Fool." Of course after they passed
him they wouldn't be able to resist reading what was printed on the sign
on his back. It read, "Whose Fool Are You?"
The Bible makes it very clear, that each of us will serve a master. The
question that remains is simply, who will that master be? Will it be the
Lord Jesus Christ, or will it be sin and Satan?
To "confess" that Jesus is Lord means that you are pledging yourself to
be a Servant of the Lord - He is your Master.
Saying the right things, even doing the right things, is not enough. Eternal
life is offered only to those who truly believe.
This belief is from heart, from the center of one's inner being. That's why
Jesus said only those who do the will of God will enter the kingdom. Only
those who truly believe will be made capable of "doing" the will of God.
That's why James would say, "faith without works is dead". Doing the
"will of God" will issue from the heart of belief.
What is this belief?
Belief first of all is assent that what is declared is true. However, it also
means that there is a willingness to trust our lives to Him.
You know as well as I that faith is operating every day: when driving a car,
when being attended by a doctor, at the time commitments made by a
partner at the altar of marriage. Even reading the news requires faith.
There are times when your very life depends on your willingness to
believe.
Perhaps you have heard the legend of the tight rope walker who asked the
crowd of spectators if they believed he could roll the wheel barrow across
Niagara Falls on a cable stretched over the thunderous tumult of water
below. They had seen him walk across many times, so most of them
roared their approval. After going across and back once, he then asked
who would be willing to get into the wheel barrow while he would push it
across and back again. The story goes that only one young man was
willing to do so - evidently he was the only one who truly believed.
B. In this verse we have a specific reference to the resurrection: "if you . . .
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead." Why is this so
important?
After all, Jesus was not the only one who was resurrected. There was the
Little Girl, daughter of Jairius, the son of the widow of Cain, and of course
Lazarus.
Even in the Old Testament there were a couple of people who were
resurrected. One was the man whose body was dropped onto Elisha's.
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a
band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha: and when
the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and
stood up on his feet. (2 Kings 13:21)
Of course one big difference was that these people all died again. Jesus
didn't. Some who don't accept Scripture as inspired may dismiss as myth
stories about such men as Enoch, Moses and Elijah who allegedly didn't
die; and even the man whose dead body came in contact with Elisha's
bones. But skeptics have a harder time with Jesus, the testimony is so
great with at least 500 eye witnesses.
So belief in the resurrection is reasonable, but why is belief and
confession concerning the resurrection so important? Mainly because
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, to be equal with God. As someone
once said, "Either Jesus is a Liar, a Lunatic, or the Lord of all."
Furthermore, He predicted His own resurrection; if He had not risen again,
Jesus would be just a very brief footnote in the dusty archives of history,
another tragic impostor. But because He fulfilled His own prophecy and
rose again, His is the Lord of all, He is at the very center of history.
But what is "saved"? In some of our larger cities, older churches might be
marked by the sign "Jesus Saves", or at least it these words would be posted
outside the Skid Row Rescue Mission. Probably the last time I saw these
words in public was when they were scrawled on the bathroom wall, "Jesus
Saves Green Stamps." Most Americans would only use the word "saved"
when they're talking about putting money in the bank, their money is "saved".
The Bible word, on the other hand means "rescued."
All mankind was doomed for destruction due to sin. Because "Christ died for
the ungodly, there is now the possibility of being "saved". All that is required
to be rescued, is to believe and confess.
Recently there was a news report of a man who went into a buring building to
save some children. Tragicly he failed, and the rescuer perished in the
attempt. The Good News today is that Jesus did not fail in His attempt to
save us. But imagine how ludicrous it would be someone found in a burning
building refused to be rescued? The would be 'savior" breaks into the
burning building, tries to pull the sleeping victim out of the fire, only to be
told, "I don't believe".
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