(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The title of my sermon this morning is calling upon the name of the Lord, calling upon the name of the Lord. The Bible reads in verse 25, and Adam knew his wife again and she bare a son and called his name Seth for God said she hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew and to Seth to him also there was born a son and he called his name Enos then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Now throughout this sermon the verse that I want you to have in your mind as I'm preaching as we look at all these different scriptures in the Old Testament and the New Testament I want you to have this one verse in your mind for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is a key verse that's found in Joel, it's repeated in Acts, it's repeated again in Romans chapter 10, but I want you to just keep that in your mind that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So when we see this in Genesis chapter 4 what we're seeing is people being saved. When it says people began to call upon the name of the Lord we're talking about a group of people that are saved because they call upon the name of the Lord. Now that's not to say that no one got saved before this because obviously we know that Abel was saved and in verse 25 we see that Abel is dead and we know he was saved, he's in heaven, okay, Adam and Eve presumably also were saved and so this isn't saying that no one had ever been saved but in these days when Enos is born unto Seth then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. You know a bunch of people are getting saved. For the first time in history you have a group of people being saved or people being saved in numbers not just a couple people or one person or what have you. Now flip over to Genesis chapter number 12 and the reason I start in Genesis chapter 4 is just to show you that this idea of calling upon the name of the Lord goes all the way back to the very first generation of humans on this earth because this is the first generation of humans when Seth is begetting Enos, you know, that's the first generation of people. The first people are alive, the first generations because people lived pretty long back then and so from the very first generation people called upon the name of the Lord which shows us a consistency of salvation of people being saved throughout the Old Testament, people being saved throughout the New Testament always by calling upon the name of the Lord. Look at Genesis chapter 12 verse 8, and he removed from thence unto a mountain, this is Abraham, on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent having Bethel on the west and Haai on the east and there he builded an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. So we have Abraham calling upon the name of the Lord. Later we have Isaac calling upon the name of the Lord. We have Jacob calling upon the name of the Lord. Now I want you to pay special attention to the fact that the Lord is written in all caps there. Do you see that? So we saw the same thing in Genesis 4.26, Lord was in all caps, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, all caps, back with Seth and Enos, here with Abraham, it's the same thing. Go to Exodus chapter number 6, Exodus chapter number 6, because this is a key point that we need to understand when we talk about the name of the Lord, when we say calling upon the name of the Lord, we are not saying that it's always the same name that's being called at every period, but it's the same Lord that's being called upon, it's the same God that's being called upon, even though different names are going to be used. Look what the Bible says in Exodus chapter number 6 verse 2, and God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord, notice the all caps there, and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name of Jehovah was I not known to them. Okay, so does everybody see that? God was not known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name of Jehovah, was he? He was known by a different name, God Almighty. The name of Jehovah is first revealed at the burning bush unto Moses. That's when that name comes into play. Before that, it is God Almighty or the Almighty or just God or whatever. So I want to stop here and talk a little bit about the names of God that you're going to see in the Bible in the Old Testament, because one of the nice things about our King James Bible in English is that it actually allows us to tell the difference between these names by using the caps or the lower case, as I pointed out to you. So the first name I want to talk about is this name right here, okay, God. Now this is a name. Some people will just say it's like a word or a title, but no, this is actually one of God's names. This obviously goes all the way back to Genesis 1, 1, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. We have this name God. Then we have this name right here, which is the Lord. This is also a name, but notice how only the L is capitalized and everything else is lower case. Okay, so this is a name of God, right? So basically the Hebrew word would be Elohim, Adonai, so these are differentiated by the way they're spelled, and then we have this right here, okay, where all the letters are in caps. Okay, so everybody see the difference between these two things? Okay, and if you read the Bible you've probably noticed this. You'll notice this difference, okay? Well this right here, the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, this is the name Jehovah. That's why he said, I'm the Lord, all caps, but I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name of God Almighty. By my name of Jehovah was I not known unto them, okay? So this right here is what's known as the tetragrammaton, okay, which is a fancy word, but if you've played Tetris it's pretty easy to figure out what it means because Tetris, who knows what Tetris is? Okay, everyone, great, enough said. So tetra just means four because all the blocks in Tetris have four components to them, right? So you've got the tetragrammaton just simply means the four letter name of God, okay? So this is the most common noun in the Old Testament over 7,000 times. So it's not going to be hard to find. You can just flip over the Old Testament to just about any page and you're going to spot this all cap Lord because it's used over 7,000 times. The most common noun in the Bible is the four letter name of God called the tetragrammaton. Now here's the thing about the tetragrammaton. No one knows how to pronounce it and the reason why no one knows how to pronounce it is that ancient Hebrew was written with no vowels and so it's only consonants. So you have to know how to pronounce it by just knowing what the vowels are because there are no vowels in ancient Hebrew. Well what happened is the Jews became superstitious about this name. They were so scared of taking the name of the Lord in vain that they just stopped saying it and because they stopped saying it, hundreds of years go by, nobody's saying it, guess what eventually happened? Pretty soon they don't even know how to say it anymore because they forgot what the vowels are. So nobody's really sure how this original name was pronounced. The Hebrew letters are yod, hay, vav, hay and nobody really knows what to do with that as far as vowels. People could guess and make things up but nobody really knows. So what happened is instead of whenever they read the Hebrew text, whenever they would come to this word, instead of pronouncing the divine name, they would just translate it as the Lord. Okay, is everybody following what I'm saying? So they would substitute. They'd get to this name and instead of saying Jehovah, they would just say the Lord, okay? Jehovah is our English version of it but that wouldn't be exactly how they pronounced it. Nobody knows exactly how they pronounce it. So they come to Jehovah and they would say the Lord. That's why our King James Bible translates it into English as the Lord but it puts it in all caps just to let us know we're talking about the four-letter divine name of God and it works out pretty good that the word Lord also has four letters so it kind of works out that way, right? So that's what you're seeing. When you're seeing this, you're basically seeing the name Jehovah, that four-letter name of God, the proper name that's used over 7,000 times, that's first revealed when? At the burning bush to Moses, not before that, okay? That's when this name is revealed and used, okay? Now you also come across this name a lot in the Bible which is the Lord of hosts, right? And you've got the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, so it's got the tetragrammaton but it has this other epithet added, the Lord of hosts, right? And then you'll also see this right here, the Lord God, right? And this is just a combination of the tetragrammaton and just the word for God, right, Elohim. And then you'll also seven times in the King James Bible actually have it just spelled out as Jehovah just to show us that it is a name, that it's a proper name and to help us ascertain that reading our English Bible without having to look at a Hebrew Bible to figure that out, okay? So you'll see these variations. But this one is very interesting too right here, okay, where you have the Lord in lower case but then you have God in all caps, okay? And you'll see this quite a bit too. Don't quote me on this but I want to say it's around like 150 times or something. It's quite a few times where the Lord is in lower case but God is in all caps. So what does this mean? Where did this come from? In this case, the God in all caps is the tetragrammaton. That's the Jehovah word right there, is the all caps God, okay? The reason why this is done this way though, because usually how do we translate the tetragrammaton in English? We translate it as the Lord, okay? But what would happen if we did that here is we'd end up with the Lord, Lord. That sounds a little weird, doesn't it? The Lord, Lord. So basically it makes more sense to this time swap out the tetragrammaton for God and call it the Lord God. But just so that we know what's underlying, the King James translators put the God in all caps to show us, hey, this is where we're doing with the tetragrammaton and this is Lord. Now here's the thing, there's a spurious, corrupt Bible translation out there known as the Septuagint in Greek and what it does is when it comes to this, it just goes the Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, whereas our King James says the Lord God. Which one's right? Well, here's which one's right. In the New Testament, the New Testament never says the Lord, Lord, but you know what the New Testament does say repeatedly? The Lord God in the book of Luke, in Jude, in Peter, all throughout the book of Revelation we have the Lord God, the Lord God, the Lord God. So if you want to know where the King James translators get off making these decisions, you know, who are they to translate Jehovah as Lord? That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses will say, right? You know, who are they to just make it say Lord? Who are they to do the Lord God? They're following the example of the New Testament because in the New Testament, guess what word is never used in the New Testament? The tetragrammaton. The tetragrammaton is never used in the New Testament. Every time Jesus or the Apostles quotes an Old Testament verse that uses the tetragrammaton, guess what they do with it? They do it as the Lord. So when the King James Bible translators are translating, what should they do? How about following the example of Jesus and the Apostles and treating the tetragrammaton as Lord? Why would they do it any differently? Now today we have this movement. First we had the cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses saying that the King James Bible is wrong to translate it as Lord. It's got to be Jehovah, right? And they put out their own Bible version that says Jehovah 7,000 times in it, okay? But now you have this movement to say, no, no, no, it's not Jehovah, it's Yahweh. And so you have John MacArthur now has just put out a Bible translation called the Legacy Standard Bible. And in John MacArthur's new Legacy Standard Bible, it just swaps out, it doesn't even use the traditional historical Jehovah that we've all, you know, been familiar with. Instead it just swaps out over 7,000 times the word Lord with Yahweh, which is just some academic, made up, hey, maybe we think it was pronounced this way, baloney name that nobody's ever heard of, all of a sudden we just pull that out in the 21st century, Yahweh. So now when you're reading John MacArthur's new Bible, it says Yahweh is my shepherd I shall not want. And it's just all the verses that you're used to are going to just sound super weird now, Yahweh is my shepherd I shall not want. Now that is just a made up name. That's not any pronunciation that's ever been known or believed. It's just, who knows? You know, is it possible that it was pronounced that way? You know, with my knowledge of Hebrew I would say no, but even if it were possible, what are the chances? Because you could come up with like a thousand options or a hundred options and it's like which one's right? Who knows? Nobody knows. So why don't we just follow Jesus and the apostles and just do it as the Lord? If that's good enough for Jesus and the apostles to say Lord when they quote the Old Testament in those verses, why wouldn't we follow suit? And then these guys down at the Masters College, these guys down there at John MacArthur's College, their instructors are telling people that it's disrespectful to God to not use his name and to say Lord instead. Okay, so you're saying Jesus and the apostles disrespected God in all 27 books of the New Testament? Does everybody see what I'm saying? It doesn't make any sense, okay? And then one of these John MacArthur fans, I saw him online saying, man, I love the Legacy Standard Bible, but I'm having a really hard time getting used to this Yahweh thing. I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it, is what they said. But let me tell you something. I read a book one time that was this thick in preparation for a sermon, I was doing research, I read a book this thick that used Yahweh on every page like several times. And let me tell you something, I never got used to it. Every single time, the Holy Spirit's just like, nope, nope. Every time I see it, the Holy Spirit's just like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. You know, that name, it just sounds weird, is what it does. It makes the Lord, the God of the universe, it makes them just sound like some tribal deity or something. It sounds like something you expect people to worship in India or Africa or Native Americans or something like, oh yeah, they've got their God, their pagan God Yahweh. That's what it sounds like. It's unknown unto us as Christians. It's foreign to our New Testament. There's no evidence that it was even pronounced that way or that it's even a real name. So it's foolish. Now you may think I'm going off on a tangent here, but this is actually very important to understand what I'm explaining to you about the fact that you've got these different names, right? How about this name, God Almighty, right? I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name of Jehovah, right, by the Tetragrammaton, I was not known unto them, right? He's known by this name. Here's another one, the Most High or the Most High God. This is another important name that comes up and then, you know, here we are back to this one. So the reason that I make a big point about this is to let you know that in Genesis chapter 4, when it says, Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, in all caps, are they calling on Jehovah? Yeah, they are, but is that what's coming out of their mouth? Is that the word they're using? No, because that name hadn't been revealed yet. So they're calling upon the Lord, the same God, but they're using the name God Almighty or the Most High God or something like that. What about in the era of Moses? What about in the era of King David? They're calling upon what name? They're calling upon the name of Jehovah, right? They're calling upon the name of the Lord with the all caps there. It doesn't matter which of these divine names you use as long as you're calling upon the correct deity, right? However, in the New Testament though, there's one name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Now go if you would to Acts chapter 4. While you're turning there, I'm going to read for you some verses from the Old Testament. Psalm 53, 4 says this, Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, watch this, they've not called upon God. They've not called upon God. See, it doesn't matter whether we say calling upon the Lord, calling upon God, calling upon the Most High, calling upon the Lord of hosts, right? We're talking about the same deity. We're talking about the same God. And then it says in Psalm 79, 5, How long, Lord, wilt thou be angry forever? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire? Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. Punish them, the ones who didn't call upon your name. Why? Because whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So you say, man, pour out your wrath on the unsaved people that have not called on your name. They, the fool said in his heart, there is no God. He hasn't called upon God. He doesn't believe in God. Look at Acts chapter 4 verse 10, Be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him do this man stand here before you whole. Look at verse 12, Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. So in the days of Adam, Seth and Enos, you could call upon God almighty and he knows you're talking to him. You know, Moses and David and they could call upon Jehovah. He knows that they're talking to him. In the New Testament though, now that the name of the Savior has been revealed, now that we know who the Messiah is, now that we know the name of the Son of God, which they did not know in the Old Testament, now that we know that name, it's required that that be the name whereby we're saved. So in 2021, you can't get saved by just calling out to God almighty. You can't just be saved by calling out to God. You can't just be saved by calling out to the Lord. You've got to call out to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don't, you know, people say, oh, people could be saved without knowing the name of Jesus. No, they can't. There's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That's the name of Jesus. You know, the Bible says we have to believe on the name of the Son of God. Now in the Old Testament, salvation is by grace through faith and it's by calling upon the name of the Lord, but they did not know the details that we know today. They didn't know the name of Jesus. They didn't know as much about the Gospel as we do, okay? Now that we're in the New Testament and these things have been revealed, now there are specific things that we have to confess and that's the name of Jesus and also the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. You know, we know these details that were only seen through a glass darkly in the Old Testament. So the common thread of salvation from Old to New Testament is calling upon the name of the Lord, grace through faith. The difference between Old and New Testament salvation is just that in the New Testament, we have more detail. We're looking backward as opposed to looking forward to the cross of Christ and so we are accountable for that name Jesus and we're accountable for the fact that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and we have to know that and confess that because that's a New Testament thing to know all those details and not just see them through a glass darkly. Now with that in mind, go to Romans chapter number 10. Romans chapter number 10. I hope everybody's following me so far. I'm trying to make these things so simple that even a theologian could understand them. So I'm trying to break them down simply but you know, what was the point of going through all this? You know, we got this name, God, right? And then we got this name, the Lord, not in all caps, different name, right? In our King James Bible from this name, kind of the big name that's used over 7,000 times and then we got the Lord of hosts, the Lord God, right? And then when we get to this, what's the capital G capital O capital D? What is it? Jehovah. It's Jehovah. It's the tetragrammaton, right? And then this is the same as this right here. The Lord that's not in caps is what we have here paired up with the tetragrammaton. The Septuagint's wrong to translate it as Lord, Lord because the New Testament says Lord God. And so the King James Bible translators did the same thing. They went Lord God following that example. So that's why I went through that with you to show you that when you're calling upon the name of the Lord in Genesis 4, you're not necessarily saying Jehovah but that's who you're calling on. Now look at Romans 10 with all that in mind. It says in Romans 10 verse 8, but what sayeth that the word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is the word of faith which we preach, 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. And then jump down to verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Notice that confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus is equated with what? Calling upon the name of the Lord. So if I confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus, that is equivalent to invoking or calling upon the name of the Lord. So that's why I made such a big deal about the fact that there's these different names at different times because it helps connect it all together so that we know that when we call upon the name of the Lord, that name is Jesus in the New Testament. It's Jesus that we're calling upon. And so Romans 10, 13 and Romans 10, 9 are connected. Now you say, well Pastor Anderson, you have to be kind of stupid to think that Romans 10, 9 and Romans 10, 13 aren't connected. Be kind of stupid to think that, wouldn't it, because they're right next to each other. They're practically in the same sentence. Romans 10, 13 is being used as proof of why Romans 10, 9 is true. Hey, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him dead, you'll be saved because whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Does everybody see how that works? So to try to separate these two verses, to try to separate verse 13 and verse 9, oh they're just talking about something totally different. Some bozo in the last few days said, calling upon the name of the Lord, that's just like basic prayer, just asking for stuff and something that you do after you're saved when you need things. Hold on a second, friend. It's pretty obvious that Romans 10, 13 and Romans 10, 9 are talking about the same thing. 10, 13 is evidence of why 10, 9 is true. It's an argument that the Apostle Paul is making. And so when we have this verse that says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, you know what we're talking about? We're talking about being saved from hell. We're talking about being saved from our sins. We're talking about being justified and saved and on our way to heaven. That's what that means. And you know what? It's whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord that shall be saved. Another bozo thing that's been said is that, oh the saved here is just a physical deliverance in this context. But hold on a second. Is it a physical deliverance in verse 9? Well guess what? It's a spiritual salvation in verse 13 too. Now let me prove this to you by actually going to the source of this quote. We're not done in Romans 10, 9, so you might want to leave a marker there. But let's go back to the source in Joel. Let's go back to Joel 2 and go back to the source of this quote, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Because it's quoting the book of Joel, the prophet Joel. Let's go back to Joel and then we're also going to go back to Acts and we're going to look at the context here and let's figure out, is this a physical salvation or is this actually salvation from hell, salvation from our sins, actually going to heaven that we're talking about? Which again, I hope I'm not insulting your intelligence because it should be obvious to anyone since it's paired up with 10, 9, it's clearly about that. But you know, bear with me, okay? We've got to comfort the feeble-minded. Look at Joel chapter 2 verse 31, it says, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. Now stop and think about this for a minute. The great and terrible day of the Lord, sun turned into darkness, moon into blood, okay? If you know anything about end times prophecy, if you've studied the Bible, if you've seen our film, After the Tribulation, you know, you're pretty familiar with the fact that we're talking about Christ coming in the clouds at the rapture because isn't that what happens right after the sun and moon are darkened and then Christ comes in the clouds and then we're caught up in the rapture, agreed? So that's what we're talking about, that's the day of the Lord, also known as the day of Christ. Why? Because Christ is the Lord. Because Christ is Jehovah, because Jehovah is a name referring to God in general, including Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now look at verse 32, okay? So we all get that context of verse 31, right? Sun turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come. I'm sorry, I'm going to act, that's why I said notable instead of terrible. For the great and terrible day of the Lord come, verse 32, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered, that's a synonym for saved, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance as the Lord hath said and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Now stop and think about this, okay? Sun turned into darkness, moon into blood, everybody who calls on the name of the Lord is saved. What does that mean on that day? Does that mean I don't get smoked? I don't get physically hurt? Or does it mean I get taken to heaven that day? What happens on that day? Christ comes in the clouds and those who have called upon the name of the Lord are caught up together with Christ in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord, wherefore comfort one another with these words. That's not a physical salvation in the sense of just, oh that's all it is. Well no because you're getting taken straight to heaven. So is that just a physical deliverance that we're talking about? If you get warped to heaven, if you get caught up with Christ in the clouds, stop and think about it my friend. People say, oh it's just end times, it's just a physical deliverance, but hold on a second. First of all, a lot of people who have called on the name of the Lord are going to get killed during the tribulation. So whosoever calls on the name of the Lord is not going to avoid getting killed in the tribulation. I've called on the name of the Lord, it's possible if the tribulation were to happen in my lifetime that I could be killed. But the Bible said whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Okay, that's everybody. Now on the day when the sun and moon are darkened, everybody who calls on the name of the Lord, everybody's delivered, everybody's saved and how does that deliverance happen? They get taken up to heaven. Does everybody see what I'm saying? So you could say, well yeah, they're being physically delivered because they're being removed from this world. Okay, but is that all it is or are they also getting straight to heaven, which is saved as we would think of saved. Because when we talk about being saved, what do we mean? You're going to heaven instead of hell. Well if every single person who calls on the name of the Lord on the day the sun and the moon are darkened is delivered by Christ coming and collecting us, well then guess what? That's talking about spiritual salvation and so I think the Apostle Paul was right on when he quoted this about spiritual salvation in Romans 10 in the same breath as 10.9. Go to Acts chapter 2 if you would, Acts chapter 2. See it's easy for those that are unstable and unlearned to just say, oh Joel 2 that's in times, that could just be a physical deliverance. But hold on a minute, it's specifically referring to a certain event called the rapture which is not just a physical deliverance. The rapture is getting to heaven. It's going to heaven. The only people going up in the rapture are people that are born again, children of God. Okay, that's it. And every single person who is a born again child of God is going up in that rapture. It's not a partial rapture, it's everybody. Whereas being spared physical destruction in the end times, is that everybody? Nope, because some of us are going to get smoked unfortunately. Look at Acts chapter 2 verse 20, it says, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come, Acts 2.21, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Same exact thing we saw in Joel, it's consistent. Go back if you would to Romans 10, Romans chapter number 10. It's important with a doctrine such as this that we lay these things down firmly. So maybe I'm being a little bit too thorough, but I'd rather be a little too thorough than not thorough enough when we're dealing with something about salvation. We want to make sure that no one is beguiled by the deceivers that are out there that would try to twist scripture and get rid of this doctrine of calling upon the name of the Lord, which is a key doctrine throughout scripture. So back in Romans 10, let's go back to Romans 10.8 now. It says, but what sayeth that the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart? That is the word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So there's two things mentioned, there's confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and then there's believing in your heart. Because in verse 8 it said the word is in your mouth and in your heart. You confess with your mouth, you believe in your heart, right? Then you shall be saved. Now some people would say, well I think in this case it's just the believing that saves you and the confessing with your mouth is optional, or the calling upon the name of the Lord is kind of this add-on that you don't really need. That's what they would say. But look at verse 10 and tell me if that's what the scripture says. Verse 10 says, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. What does unto mean there? With the heart you believe unto righteousness. You know what that means? That means that when you believe in your heart it makes you righteous. Because there's none righteous, no not one as far as, you know, humanly speaking our own flesh, you know, in my flesh just as a human being, just as a person, Paul said dwell with no good thing. You know, there's none righteous, no not one. How am I made righteous? How am I, is it through keeping the law? No. Am I justified by the law? No. How am I justified? I'm justified by the faith of Christ. So here's the thing. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, that's how I get there, that's how I get to righteousness is via believing in my heart, right? So believing in my heart gets me righteous. Everybody get that? Because I'm declared righteous or justified by the faith of Christ. That's how I get there. Okay. Now look at the second half of this verse because this is a parallelism, right? With the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. I think it's pretty obvious that the unto in the first half of the verse means the same thing as the unto in the second half of the verse. Since these are grammatical parallels, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, what does that mean? Believing in your heart gets you righteous and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, confessing with your mouth gets you saved. I mean did I just make that up or is that right in front of you in the text? And what's funny is this YouTube bozo that was teaching this false doctrine over the past few days, you know, he got up and quoted the first half of this verse with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and he understood that perfectly well and then he just stops there though. He doesn't even quote the second half and then when he's confronted with the second half that's not what it means but it's funny how that's what the first half means. If believing in your heart gets you righteous, confessing with your mouth gets you saved. That's what the verse says, okay. So the Bible says with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Here's what we see here. These two things are basically happening in tandem. You can't separate these two things. So that's why there are scriptures that just talk about calling upon the name of the Lord and then there are other scriptures that just talk about believing because believing and calling upon the name of the Lord happen in tandem. They're connected. You don't have the one without the other. Now some people will try to lie and say like oh faith and works happen in tandem but no no the Bible says you're saved by faith not of works but does the Bible say you're saved by faith but not by calling upon the name of the Lord? It says the opposite. It says with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confessions made unto salvation. So are faith and works tandem? No. But is believing and confessing in tandem? Yes they are. They are in tandem. Calling upon the name of the Lord and faith are basically in tandem because you call upon the name of the Lord by faith. It's not really that complicated. So I'm going to quickly deal with the rest of this passage because it says in verse 11 for the scripture saith whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Don't misunderstand this verse because some people have misunderstood this verse to mean whosoever believeth on him shall not be embarrassed. So they're going to tell everybody about Jesus or confess him openly or publicly. That's not what ashamed means. If you study the word ashamed in the Bible, obviously with the King James we're dealing with a little bit older form of our English language, ashamed in the Bible means let down. Let down is what it is what it means. It basically means you're left hanging. Okay so whosoever believeth on him isn't going to be let down or left hanging because there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. So he's saying you're not going to be left hanging, you're not going to be let down, you're not going to be ashamed meaning like whoa what happened I trusted you and it didn't work out because he's going to save every single person who calls upon him. Does everybody see that? So do you have to confess publicly the name of Christ in order to be saved? Absolutely not because even we see Peter being embarrassed and lying and saying he doesn't know Christ has nothing to do with his salvation. But what we do see is that you do have to call upon the name of the Lord. That could be done in private. You know it doesn't necessarily have to be something that's done publicly. But then after verse 13 says for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved how then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? So what the Bible is saying with that is simply that you know if you call but you don't believe then the call is meaningless. So just because someone prays a prayer or calls out to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation or invokes the name of Jesus of Nazareth does that mean that they're saved? Because the faith has to be there. It has to be calling on the Lord by faith. If the faith isn't there then the calling is meaningless. So how then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach except they be sent? This is very easy to understand. There's a sequence here. Someone gets sent with the Great Commission. Go preach the Gospel to every creature. The guy who's sent preaches the Gospel. Someone hears the Gospel. They believe the Gospel. They call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. That's what the Bible says, right? This is how salvation works. Now some people try to remove components of this like, well, I got saved and I never heard a single Bible verse. I've never heard any Bible, never heard any word. No, it's the word that gets preached by the guy who's sent. He preaches the word. You hear the word. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. That's oh, by the way, that's verse 17 right here, right in front of you. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God, right? The word gets preached. The word is heard. The word is believed. Confession is made unto salvation. That's the sequence. Now people try to argue in split hairs about like, yeah, but when's the moment of, when's the precise moment? Is it the, you know, is it the moment that they call upon the name of the Lord or was it 10 seconds earlier? Was it 60 seconds early? You know, to me, that's a vain jangling. Because at the end of the day, my salvation was already secured before this world was even created anyway. You know what I mean? Like my name's been in that book and, and God knew that I was going to be saved and, and you know, I already had, I already had a guardian, I already had a guardian angel even when I was doing stupid, stupid stuff when I was three, four and five, even before I'd actually gotten saved at age six just because God knew I was going to get saved. Okay. So I'm not too worried about when exactly is the moment of salvation. That's just a splitting of hairs. All I know is that when somebody gets saved, all these elements are present in some way. So what, here's what I would say is a scary thing is you get these people who want to just like attack this doctrine of calling upon the name of the Lord or attack the sinner's prayer and where do we get the sinner's prayer? The sinner's prayer comes from the Gospel of Luke. Then the publican beats on his breast and says, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And then he goes home justified, goes home saved. That's where we get the concept of the sinner's prayer. Okay. And obviously we get it from Romans 10, nine as well. But that's that, that's where that, that's a scriptural concept of a guy saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner and going home justified. That that's where that concept comes from or that terminology of the sinner's prayer. But the thing is when you get these people attacking, you know, calling upon the name of the Lord or attacking the sinner's prayer or whatever, then you'll have these people say something like this, well when I got saved I never asked Jesus to save me. I never called upon the name of the Lord. I just in my heart, I just said, yeah, yeah, this is true, yeah, yeah, this is, yeah, mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, mm-hmm. See the normal natural response of any sane person who actually believes on the Lord and believes that Jesus Christ died for them and that he rose again, that he's the savior of the whole world, that he's holding their eternity in their hands, that he has the keys of hell and of death and he's got the key to the kingdom of heaven and he's just, he's whole, you know, any idiot is going to look up and call out to that deity for salvation. To me it's bizarre, but I've never done that. Well, okay, would you like to get saved? Because something went haywire with, you know, with whatever you did back there. When you supposedly believed in your heart, if you believe in your heart, you're going to confess with your mouth. If you believe in your heart, you're going to call upon the name of the Lord, again, I'm not saying it has to be public, but it's going to happen and I'm not even going to spend five seconds on the retarded question, what if somebody doesn't have a mouth or what if somebody doesn't have a tongue or whatever, it's just like, you know what, I'm just going to cover that with avoid foolish questions. Now if you would go to, and if you, if you have that question in your heart right now, repent of foolishness. Now if you would, turn in your Bible to John chapter 4, John chapter 4. Some people will come at this with some objections, okay, but before I get to the objections, how about this, this is a great verse from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2, Paul's addressing the letter unto the church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. So who are the saints according to Corinthians, the saints are every one in every place who calls on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord is a saint. So it's not some person that the Catholics or the Lutherans or the Orthodox have said, hey, we're going to declare this guy a saint. No, the saint is everybody everywhere who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I guess these people are like, well I don't call him the name of the Lord, I've never done that. Well no sainthood for you. You shall not be canonized, my confused YouTuber. John chapter 4 verse 10, Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water. If you know the gift of God and you know who Christ is, you're going to ask him and he's going to give you the living water because that's the normal, natural thing. I mean imagine Jesus and the woman at the well and she knows who he is, she knows what he has to offer and it's like Jesus looks at her, she looks at him and it's just kind of like, alright, give me the living water. I mean is that that complicated, is this hard? And some people will say like, well you know, asking Jesus to save you is works. Now hold on a second, doesn't the government give away money to people who don't work sometimes? Do they? What do they call it? Welfare or whatever, right? So the government gives money to people who don't work sometimes, am I right? And sometimes we get a little bitter about that, don't we, like man you're giving money to people who don't work. I worked for my money and then you're giving them money and they didn't work for it, right? But let me ask this, did they ask for it? I mean what if I said, well those people worked for their welfare check because they had to go down to the welfare office and ask for it. It's bizarre. In any other area of life, no one would ever think that asking for something is working for it. It's absurd. You know, if I said, alright kids, I've got a Christmas gift for you, they stare at me, I stare at them, got a Christmas gift for you, got a Christmas gift for you, yep, I got it. Dad, I believe you. Alright, that's settled, let's eat. Glad we settled that. Glad you believe in the gift. Every single child on this planet would say, give me the gift. Where is the gift? How do I get it? What do I do? Where do I get it? Oh, you just worked for it, you just earned it. Well, and look, don't trust my welfare illustration. Look at the Bible. If thou knewest the what? Verse 10, John 4, 10. If thou knewest the what? You would have what? Asked. If you knew the gift, you would have asked, and this stops being a gift. No, it's still a gift if you ask for it. Anybody see that? Gifts are free, you don't work for gifts, but you do ask for gifts. Luke 11, 13 says this, if ye then be evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? So you ask, and it's still a gift, okay? We could go on and on with this. Let me just hit a few more highlights as we're closing here. Go to Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter number 10. While you're turning to Acts 10, here's a great verse. Acts 22, 16. And now why terriest thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Now you wash away your sins by calling on the name of the Lord. Water baptism does not wash away your sins. I don't care how much soap you put in that water. I could baptize people in a bubble bath. It's not going to wash away their sins because there's only one thing that can wash away sins and it's not a water baptism, it's the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin. We've washed our sins, we've washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. So baptism is a picture of washing away our sins, but it's not the actual washing away of our sins. That's why it's the figure of baptism saves us, but baptism does not save us. You could go to heaven without being baptized because you have called upon the name of the Lord. You don't have to be baptized to be saved, but being baptized is a picture of salvation. Kind of like my ring is a picture of being married. If I took off my ring, I'm still married. If I never had worn a wedding ring in my life, I'd still be married. This is just to show other people that I'm married. Same thing with baptism, it's a public profession. It's not necessary to get to heaven though. The thief on the cross didn't get baptized, but he did call upon the name of the Lord. Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom. So the Bible says in Acts 22, 16, that we wash away our sins by calling upon the name of the Lord. Wash away your sins, comma, calling on the name of the Lord. Okay, why? Because calling upon the name of the Lord equals salvation. Because whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And of course, the call upon the name of the Lord, you have to actually believe the Gospel when you call upon the name of the Lord. If you're believing and trusting in works or trusting in some other god or trusting in some other religion, praying a prayer does nothing for you. You've got to call by faith in Christ. And by the way, let me just say this. This stupid doctrine pops up. You can almost set a clock by it, like every two or three years this doctrine pops up. I've been pastoring for 16 years and I've just been fighting this. Like every few years I have to fight this. The first time I fought this, I want to say it was like 2008. You know, I mean the first full year of our church was 06. In 2008, we had a major fight in our church about this. And I had to set, you know, some people straight and lay down the law on this. Back in my kinder, gentler, nicer days, okay. And then it's like a few years later, it pops up again, it just gets smashed. Pops up again a few years later, smashed. And that's why you look back over the sermons from our church, you'll see every few years there's a sermon smashing this doctrine, okay. Why do I feel this way? To be so like serious about how this must be crushed and because it's an enemy of soul winning, that's why. You know, I'm big on soul winning. I'm big on evangelizing. I'm big on seeing people saved and I know what works. And I know what's biblical and I know what we've seen, you know, work thousands of times and we go out every week and put this into practice and we do it. And so, you know, I don't want it to get messed with. I want us out there doing it right. I want us following the formula, being sent, preach the word, hear the word, believe the word, call upon the name of the Lord. I like that. It works. It's biblical. We want to keep that going. I don't like these bozos who attack soul winning because that's what this is. It's an attack on soul winning. And that's why you'll notice that when people ask this internet bozo, hey, did you pray to the Lord at all and, and, you know, call upon him for salvation or ask him to be saved or even in your heart? He, every time they consistently asked him about praying a prayer, he always responded with I didn't repeat a prayer. Did you pray a prayer? Didn't repeat a prayer. Did you pray a prayer? Didn't repeat a prayer. Did you pray a prayer? Didn't repeat a prayer. And then he puts repeat a prayer in quotes. Who are you quoting? You're the one who said that. The guy who asked you just said pray a prayer and you're like, no, I didn't repeat a prayer. Who are you quoting? That's you. You don't. What if I told you that when you're talking, you don't have to put yourself in quotation marks, but I'll tell you why he keeps switching it from pray a prayer to repeat a prayer is because he is mocking the fact that we help people pray to be saved, that we help them do it and we allow people to repeat after us as a way to help them put it into words because we're trying to help people get saved. I repeat a prayer is repeating stuff. Yes. I mean, so what's wrong with repeating something? You know how I learned how to go soul winning? I watched other people do it and I repeated what I saw them doing. You know how I learned how to eat cereal? I watched my mom and dad eat cereal and I did the same thing with my spoon that I saw them doing. You know how I learned to talk? You know how I learned to speak English? Repeating stuff. And then I grew up and went to a Spanish class and they said, repeat then, repeat then, and we had to repeat things. So what? It's like, oh, you're repeating a prayer, repeat a prayer. Hey, look, it doesn't matter if you're repeating something. You know, repeat John 3.16 for crying out loud. Everybody's helping you pray by helping you put it into words, by teaching you how to call upon the name of the Lord. God forbid that we would help someone do that. I repeat a prayer, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. It's just, why are you obsessed with that word repeat? Because you're making fun of it, that's why. You're making fun of the fact that we go out, because we don't rely on YouTube to evangelize. We don't rely on YouTube, we actually go out and we repeat a prayer with people. Imagine that. But you know what? Obviously repeating something that you don't believe or repeating something a hundred times a vain repetition. But if someone has confessed to us, yes, I believe this, this is what I believe, okay, let me help you tell this to God now. I mean, what could be better than just helping people get to, I mean, doesn't the Bible say pulling them out of the fire? And look, if somebody doesn't believe the Gospel, if somebody's, even if somebody's just like shaky on the Gospel and just like, I don't really know, I'm not going to pray with that person. I'm going to pray with people who actually have received the message, okay, who are actually tracking with me and understanding what I'm saying and believing what I'm saying. That's who I'm going to pray with, okay. Did I have you turn somewhere? Acts 10, okay, well yeah, we'll finish there because we're out of time. Because we could keep going, my friend, oh yes we could. But you know, Acts chapter 10, this internet bozo also said, while Peter yet spake these words, verse 44, he invoked this verse, while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And he quotes this verse to make a point and say, see these people didn't call upon the name of the Lord or didn't confess or maybe he was just trying to make a point about when exactly the moment of these people's conversion was, right? But he used this verse of, while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. So basically his understanding of this verse is that Peter is preaching, they're silently listening and it's just like, as they're silently listening, it's just like, ahhh. But here's the thing about that, he forgot to keep reading. Oops, you forgot to keep reading because look at the next verse. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished. Why were they astonished? Did a halo appear over these people's heads? Did a beam of light shine on them? Did a little tongue of fire appear over their head? Like what was it that astonished, how did they even know that the Holy Ghost fell on these people while Peter spake the words? How'd they know? They were astonished as many as came with Peter because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost for they heard them speak. So what's actually happening in the story? Are these people just sitting silently as internet bozo would have us believe? That basically, you know, they're just passively just like something clicked in their heart but nothing came out of their mouth. This is a really bad example of that because what we actually see is that the only reason anybody knew anything happened was that they heard them speak. So they opened their mouth. Now what does it say? It says they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Now why are they speaking with tongues? Because of the fact that the people who came with Peter, they are Israelites. They're Jews. That's why they're kind of like, whoa, the Gentiles are also partakers of the Holy Ghost? The people that came with Peter are Jews. The people that Peter is speaking to, these men are Italians is what the Bible tells us, right? So God performs a miracle here where basically when these people who are listening to Peter's preaching, when Peter yet spake the word, he's preaching about how salvation is by faith and how it's all through Jesus, how Jesus died for us. He's preaching the Gospel to them. When they heard this, they opened their mouth and began to confess the Lord Jesus. They began to call upon the name of the Lord, magnify God. These things are coming out of their mouth. God performed a miracle where that came out of their mouth instead of being in their native language, instead of just in their native language, them confessing that or calling out the name of the Lord. God performed a miracle where they called this out in a language where the people who came with Peter would understand what they were saying so that it would be for their benefit because God wanted the people who came with Peter to know what? You know what? Yeah, the gift of the Holy Ghost is granted to the Gentiles also. So God did this miracle where the people who are with Peter, they heard them speak and magnify God and they even heard it in their own language. You know, it's presumably Aramaic, could be Greek, whatever. We don't know exactly which language, but you know, it could be Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, whatever. That's not the point. The point is it was in a language that was not their normal language and it was a language that Peter's buddies would have appreciated. So for their benefit, they got it. Really bad example if you want to point to somebody not confessing Christ or somebody not going upon the name of the Lord, keep reading buddy. And this is the problem with being unskilled in the word of God and just pulling a verse out of context, not getting the whole picture, not studying the whole picture. And again, you know, I'm not interested in splitting hairs about exactly when the moment of salvation is. Is it when you start the prayer or is it when you end the prayer? Is it right before the prayer? Is the second half? This is meaningless to me. There's no point in getting into that kind of just a vein jangling and kind of just, you know, these, the splitting of hairs, just being pedantic. Who cares? All I know is that if somebody hears the Gospel, believes it, calls upon the name of the Lord, I walk away and say, hey, they're saved, you know, and that's how I got saved and that's how you got saved and whatever. Now, if you're sitting here and say, well, I've never called upon the name of the Lord and I'm never going to. Well, then, you know what, enjoy hell, all right? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for the Gospel and thank you that it's free and Lord, please just help us be faithful, Lord, in preaching the Gospel to the lost, Lord, and actually getting out there and opening our Bible and opening our mouth and actually evangelizing and doing some real soul winning. Lord, help us to be faithful because if our Gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost and Lord, most importantly, as we go out, soul winning, help us to love people. Help us to love that unsaved person because if we love them, we want to help them to be saved and not make it hard for them but to make it easy for them. And Lord, help us to be thorough in our soul winning. We don't, obviously, we don't want to just repeat vain words with people. Help us to be thorough and make sure that the people that we preach to understand the Gospel so that they might call upon you by faith and it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.