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Far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found, He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, And wonders of His love, And wonders of His love, And wonders, wonders of His love. Man, great singing this morning. Brother Robert, can you open us with a word of prayer? Lord, thank you for the chance to gather in your mouth here today, Lord. The Lord has just asked you to bless His soul with it. And Lord, just pray we come to the Lord. Please don't want to hear the gospel. We're going to plant some seeds today, Lord. Bless the services and fellowship. In the praise and glory of the Lord. Amen. Amen. Page 424. O come, all ye faithful. O come, all ye faithful. Page 424. O come, all ye faithful. Sing it out on the verse. O come, all ye faithful. Joyful and triumphant. O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him. Born the King of Angels. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him in Christ the Lord. Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation. O sing, O ye bright hosts of heaven above. Glory to God, all glory in the highest. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him in Christ the Lord of the West. Yea, Lord, we greet Thee. O'er this happy morning Jesus to Thee. Give me a glory, God. Word of the Father, now in flash of hearing. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him in Christ the Lord. Good morning, welcome to Shore Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletins and go through those. If you need a bulletin, just slip up your hand and Brother Ramon will bring you a bulletin. On our front cover, we have our verse of the week. It says, prove all things hold fast that which is good. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 21. It's a great scripture there. And our service times are 10 30 a.m. on Sunday morning. Sunday evening service is 3 30 p.m. And Thursday evening Bible study is at 6 30 p.m. So we will be finishing up the book of 1 Corinthians this Thursday. So that will be 1 Corinthians chapter 16. And tonight we'll be in Genesis chapter 33. And I'll be preaching a sermon about calling upon the name of the Lord this morning. And our soul winning times are listed below. Brother Brandon is leading the soul winning on Sundays. If you are wanting to go, please make sure you let him know after the service. And then the rest of the times there are listed below. And there's lots of opportunities to go soul winning. So if you've never gone soul winning, that would be a good thing to get started in doing. Amen. And you don't have to, we're not going to force you to talk or anything like that. You just go and be a silent partner. And then you'll be trained on how to do it. And it's really not as scary as you might think it is. So anyway our regional soul winning captains are listed below that. We've had several salvations this month. And this will be the last Sunday to get any. We've had 52 baptisms. We had two baptisms last week. If you're interested in getting baptized, you've never been baptized before, please see me after the service. We do have the water nice and warm and ready to go in case anybody wants to be baptized. And our attendances are listed below there. And tonight after the service, immediately after the evening service, we're going to have a kid's Christmas choir practice. And I know that might be tough for some of you out of towners, but it's hard to get it fitted in between the services as well. So if your kids are in that, then just try to make sure it's done as quickly as possible. You've got to wrangle those kids up to the front and get them going. And that's all in practice for our Christmas service on the 19th. December 11th we have a ladies cookie exchange white elephant game at 1 p.m. at the Bender Home. Please bring three dozen cookies or treats and a container for the goodies. December 16th we have the kids cookie and ornament decorating at 2 p.m. here at the church building. December 19th is our Christmas service. That will be obviously I'm going to be preaching about the virgin birth. And also we're going to have the kids choir singing for us and a prime rib dinner immediately after the service. The 23rd is our candlelight service. That's a Thursday night. And December 31st we're going to pray in the new year here at the church building. We're going to have a game night and ping pong tournament. I'm actually thinking about making that our midweek service also. So we just move it over one day instead of having it on Thursday. So I'm thinking about that. I probably will do that. And then if that's the case, we'll just have a service. And then afterwards we can pray in the new year. But before that we could just have I'm sure a lot of people are off on New Year's Eve. Then sorry about your luck. But yeah, that's what I'm thinking about doing. Someone wants to talk me out. Someone wants to change my mind. I'll have a sign out front after the service. You can sit there and try to change my mind. All right. January 1st. Yeah. So then January 1st we're having our New Testament challenge, which we do every year. That begins on the first day of January. It says nine chapters per day for 30 days. It's actually 31 days. So you get a couple of cheat days in there if you fall behind. But nine chapters per day is pretty tough. It's hard to do. But it would be a shame if we had to do anything hard in our lives, right? So the New Testament challenge is just to kind of get you motivated to read the New Testament. If you've never read the New Testament, the whole New Testament, that's a good time to do it. And hey, if you mess up and maybe you're only doing three chapters a day or something like that, you're out of the challenge. But at least you're still going forward and reading the Bible. So the goal should be for each believer to read the Bible at least one time covered every year. So we'll have Bible reading plans available for you. And that's a good thing to get into. Maybe you're just a Christian and you've never read the Bible. Well, why not make it this year? Amen. So we're a family integrated church. That means children and infants are welcome to read the church services. We do have mother baby rooms, a mother baby room and a dad baby room. The mother baby room is located right there. Dad room back there. And please utilize those rooms for your convenience for feeding or whatever you need to do with your children. And please reserve the back rows for families with young children. No unintended children in the building, please at any time and no food or no food in the assembly area. Please silence your cell phones, if you would, or put them on airplane mode. Escorts to vehicles are available by the ushers. Especially applies in the evening. So, I mean, obviously we have good parking here. It's a lot better than when we were in downtown where you'd walk across street and you never know when a deranged lunatic is going to try to mess with your family. But we do have people around here that are kind of unsavory that usually stay away during the church services. But it seems like I found a needle right out there on the in the breezeway there. It's like if you're going to use drugs on our property, it'd be nice if you just got rid of your own stuff. Instead, they leave it there knowing there's probably kids that come here, you know. So just when you if your kids are outside, I would just make sure they're not just running around and touching anything they want out there. I hate that I have to even say that. It's very irritating to me. So but that's why you got to watch your kids at all times. So anyway, cell phones already covered that and donations are available on our Web site or text giving. And you can see the tithes and offerings that have come in so far for this month. And November birthdays are done. Anniversaries are done. But we do want to we finally got the picture in here of Lydia Lynn Alcorta. Make sure you congratulate the family. And she was 19 and 19.5 her length and weighing in at eight point two ounces. A great picture there. She's a beautiful little girl. It's a good thing she doesn't look anything like Robert. You know, so I'm just kidding. Oh, and what was that for? She's my wife's doing the Illuminati sign back there for some reason. I don't know why. Anyway, I'm just kidding. All right. All right. Let's let's see. Sing another song and then we'll receive the offering. All right, let's open your Bibles to Psalm 150, Psalm 150. Let's sing it out loud on that first verse. Excellent. Praise. Praise. Praise. Praise. Praise. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Man, great singing this morning. At this time, we'll have our offering. Brother Sean Harrington, can you bless the offering for us? Dear Jesus, thank you so much for this day, Lord. Thank you so much for this past Thanksgiving, Lord. I pray that we would just always think of you year round. I pray that you would bless this offering, Lord. Bless both the gift and the giver. In Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, open your Bibles to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter number 10, if you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring you one. Romans 10. Romans 10, the Bible reads, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves under the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above? Or, Who shall descend into the deep, that is, to bring Christ up again from the dead? But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thine mouth, and in thine heart, that is, the word of faith, which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thine 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 believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Who saith the word of faith? For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For as I sayeth, Lord, who had believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Asias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. Brother Robert, will you pray for us? The only final word, and just thank you for the chance to be able to gather in your house here today, Lord. Thank you for this great church. After it was filed, Lord. Will Pastor Thompson up to the Holy Spirit, Lord, as he preaches? Lord, give us ears to hear. And Lord, please, God, we need your action, Lord. Amen. Well, the title of the sermon this morning is, Calling upon the name of the Lord equals salvation. Calling upon the name of the Lord equals salvation. Now, before we get into Romans chapter 10, I'll just quote the verse for you. Romans 10, 13 says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Amen. And so I wanted to have you go back, and we're going to just do a little bit of groundwork before we get into Romans 10. And the reason why I'm preaching this, because every couple years or so, some heresy comes out saying that, basically, that you don't have to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. That's works, and a bunch of nonsense like that. And so every once in a while, I've got to preach a sermon, just kind of letting our people know what we believe in. If you're new to this church, you'll be learning this doctrine, and hopefully you understand it, because the Bible says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Amen. Now, turn back to Genesis chapter 4, verse 26, and we'll see the first time that this term appears in the Bible. And if you notice, it's fairly early on in the Bible, because Genesis is the first book, right? So Genesis chapter 4, Cain has already killed Abel, the curse has already been put upon mankind, and there's another seed beside Abel that's given. Now, in Genesis 4, verse 26, it says, And to Seth to him also was born a son, and he called his name Enos. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. So you see this term early on in the Bible in the first generation of people upon the face of the planet, and it says that people began to call upon the name of the Lord. And so it's very important, well, what is calling upon the name of the Lord? What does that mean to you? Well, I usually explain it like this when I'm out soloing. I say, well, if you're going to call somebody, what would you be doing with them? You'd be having a conversation with them, right? If you called upon them, you know, you got everybody in this room, I'm sure has a cell phone, so you call people on the phone, and that's what you're doing. You're talking to other people, right? But calling upon the name of the Lord, you're specifically calling out to the God of heaven, the God of Israel, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, you know, and obviously, you know, God has many names, but the name of the Lord that we're supposed to call upon is very specific in the New Testament. Now, back in the Old Testament, they only called upon the name of the Lord that had been revealed to them at that time. And so it's very important for you to understand that the name Jesus was not found in the Old Testament as far as someone that you should call upon. And this should also help you to understand that Jesus Christ is God because why would God allow just some normal human or human that God picked and He was only human for you to call upon that person for salvation? You know, because salvation is of the Lord, okay? And Jesus Christ is the Lord, amen. So right here in the first generation, you have people calling upon the name of the Lord. Now, the first time you would call upon the name of the Lord, what would that be for? Is it for dinner? Is that for praying for your dinner? Is that for praying for your puppy to be healed or whatever? It might be if you're not saved and you don't understand that you're not saved and you're praying. I run into people all the time and say, well, you know, I pray every day, I do this, I do that. But you know what? Those prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling if you're not saved because ultimately, God is only going to hear the prayers of His children. And if you're not one of His, if you're not saved or you believe something is false, then God's not really hearing your prayers. And so calling upon the name of the Lord is praying to God, but the first time you do that should be a prayer of salvation, amen. Because otherwise, what's the point? If you skip the salvation part and then you're just praying, dear God, help, you know, and so and so. And those are good prayers. It's good to call upon God and ask Him for the needs that you have in life. You know, did you ask your dad for stuff growing up? You know, everybody in this room has a dad. I'm sure you asked, you know, I'm pretty sure everybody in this room has a dad and a mom or had one at some point. But did you ask them for things when you were growing up? Hey, dad, can I have this? No, that's my answer. But, you know, we ask our fathers on the earth for things. Why wouldn't you ask your heavenly father for things, too? It's not wrong to ask him for things. It's obviously a good thing. We'll cover that in the third point. But number one today is calling upon the name of the Lord is for salvation. The first thing is for salvation. And like I said, it begins in this first generation where, you know, men begin to call upon the name of the Lord. Now, obviously, they didn't just call on Him for salvation. People have prayers after they're saved. And you should have a prayer life after you're saved. If you're going through a hard time, you need something. You want to ask God to forgive sins that you've committed or any other communication you want to do with God, you just ask. You call upon Him and ask Him for those things. But initially, you must call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. And I'll prove that in the sermon. Turn to Exodus chapter 6, verse 2. Exodus chapter 6, verse 2. And so the name of the Lord, back then, what was the name of the Lord in Genesis chapter 4 that they're calling upon? Well, Exodus 6, 2 helps us to understand how God works. Now, look at Exodus 6, verse 2, it says, And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name, what does it say? God Almighty. Is God Almighty a name of the Lord? Well, I think it is, because that's how He revealed Himself to them, by the name God Almighty. And it says, But by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. So now, Moses is being revealed another name, isn't he? He's being revealed another name of God, which is Jehovah here. And so, in times past though, it was God Almighty. So, when people called upon the name of the Lord, they would be, say, God Almighty, right? And obviously, Jehovah is another name for God that they would call upon at this point. So, there's different names of God now. The name Lord in the Old Testament is capital L-O-R-D, all caps, right? Now, why does the Bible record it that way? Because there's something called the Tetragrammaton. Have you ever heard of the Tetragrammaton? It's like the four letters for God in the Old Testament. It's Y-H-W-H. Now, the people of Israel were, over time, they did not remember how to pronounce his name. Hebrew was a dead language for some time also, and it just had to be reinstated. But people don't really know how to pronounce that name, and so the translators just translated it Lord. And why did they do that? Well, in the New Testament, the Tetragrammaton is not in the New Testament one time. So, there is no Hebrew scriptures in the New Testament. They're all Greek, okay? And so, when it would say the word Lord in the New Testament, it was, let's see, Kyrios, I don't even, I don't speak Greek. I'm just saying, I'm probably not pronouncing these right, or Theos, which is God. So, Kyrios or Theos was the names of the Lord, you know, it was translated into the word Lord. And so, if the Greek New Testament is saying those words, and those words mean Lord, so they went back to the Old Testament when it said the name of God in there, then they would just put Lord, the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. So, I hope that makes sense to you, because, you know, people will say, well, you know, his name is Yahweh, or Yehuda, or all these different types of names. But let me just tell you something right now. Anybody that's bringing that garbage up, this sacred name movement, and you must call him Yeshua, or any of those things, that's not his name. His name is Jesus. The Lord that we call upon today in the New Testament's name is Jesus. And that's the name that we're given to call upon. And let me prove that to you. Turn to Acts chapter 4, verse 10. Acts chapter 4, verse number 10. So, God, you know, the name God, actually in Genesis chapter 1, it says, and God said, right? So, is God a name of God? Just God? Yeah, it is. So, it says, and God said, let there be light. Right? So, God said, you know, let the earth bring forth. You know, so, you have the name God, you have the name God Almighty, and you have Jehovah in the Old Testament, and there's other names, obviously. Jah is another one. But, in the New Testament, you don't call upon, when you call upon the name of the Lord to be saved, you're not calling upon the Father, you're calling upon the Son. You call upon the name of the Son who is Jesus. Now, let me prove that to you right here. In Acts 4, 10, it says, Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by, what does it say? The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom he crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. Talking about Jesus Christ here. Verse 12, Neither is there salvation in any other. Is that plain and clear right there? For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Is there any other name given among heaven or given among men whereby we must be saved? No, because the Bible says that that's the name that you're supposed to call upon. That's the name that saves you. When you call upon the name of the Lord, you're calling upon the name of who? The Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. And he was the Messiah that was promised in the Old Testament. Not only is he man, but he's also God. So he's God manifest in the flesh, according to First Timothy Chapter three, verse 16. And again, it's not Yahweh, Yehuda, Yeshua. It's Jesus. Are you reading English this morning? The English Bible says Jesus, does it not? You know, people say, well, the word the J letter doesn't didn't exist for all time. It exists now. So it exists in English. And so when you when you translate it from Greek to English, it's Jesus. OK, now, maybe in a different in Mexico, it's Jesus. But does that look a lot does that sound or look a lot different than the word Jesus? It's spelled the same, isn't it? So, I mean, it's the name is Jesus. That's the name that we're saved by. Don't buy into this Hebrew roots stuff. Don't buy into all this black Hebrew Israelites that you're all the the people, the Edomites, and they're all the Israelites or whatever. It's just that's craziness. Every person can be saved. Every single place on the whole nation, on the whole face of the earth. Anybody can be saved in any country, in any language. But in English, what's his name? Jesus. OK, now let's turn to our text in Romans Chapter 10, verse eight. They're like, well, I don't understand. I thought you said that believing, you know, we teach at our church, we do teach that believing on Christ is what saves you. But if you believe in something and you never ask that person for salvation, you never you don't call upon that person's name, then do you really believe? You don't. It's like, you know, you believe in Santa Claus and I'm sure people that believe in Santa Claus. I'm ruining every kid's life right now. But, you know, do you really believe that Santa Claus is real, though? I mean, people don't. I mean, I'm sure there are people that do because their parents lie to them about Santa Claus and tell them that he's real. Look, sorry if I just ruined your Santa Claus dream in here, but Santa Claus isn't real. OK, all good gifts come from above. God is the one that gives us gifts. God is the one that allows your parents and grandparents and family members to buy you presents. That's what you should be. You shouldn't lie to your children because lying to your children is wrong. Isn't it one of the Ten Commandments thou shall not bear false witness? And like when you say that Santa Claus came and brought you that stuff and you're getting your children to believe in something that's make believe. That's a trap of the devil. It's a trap of the devil because then they're going to say, well, my parents lied to me about Santa Claus. He was a figment of somebody's imagination. Well, maybe God is, too. We don't want our kids believing lies. So if you're mad at me, you can come yell at me. I'll be in my office after the service. I'll close the door and you can scream at me about that. But, you know, I'm not apologizing for preaching the truth. OK, anyway, look at Romans Chapter 10, verse eight. It says, But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. Now I want to help you understand something. This context is talking about salvation. It's talking about being spiritually saved. It's not talking about being saved from your enemies. And look, I get that being saved like Peter walks on the water and he said, Lord, save me. Why did he say that? Because he was sinking. It wasn't calling upon him for salvation at that point. So saved and delivered are synonyms. But when you're being saved from hell, when you're being spiritually saved, you know, the Bible is pretty clear to make sure that we understand that that's what it's talking about. So he's talking about the word of faith, which we preach that verse. Verse nine says that if you see that if that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. There's two components here. One is confessing with your mouth. Okay. The other one is believing in your heart. Okay. And then it says thou shalt be saved if you believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. You confess the Lord Jesus. Now I'm not talking about making Jesus the Lord of your life. We don't believe in lordship salvation here. You're never going to be able to keep all God's commandments. That's very clear. There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and standeth not. That's what the Bible says. Now what does confess mean? Well, there's different, you know, obviously there's different meanings for confess. But in this context, it's talking about the act of acknowledging a profession. So when people say that I made a profession of faith when I was 13, you're saying that you acknowledged that Jesus Christ, that you believed in Jesus Christ. Okay. Now, so it's an open declaration, an acknowledgement. Hey, I confess with my mouth. Um, you know, just think about the Ethiopian eunuch, you know, and the Ethiopian eunuch said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Right. Or I, you know, I, when he was told he had to trust the Lord with all of his heart in order to get baptized, he said he believed in Jesus. Is that a confession? Yes, it is. Now, I would say that that calling upon the name of the Lord is asking for something, right? When you call to God in prayer, you're asking him for things. You are acknowledging things, but you're also asking for things, aren't you? So is there something wrong with asking God for salvation? Why would that be weird? Why would that be wrong? Why would that be worse? It's not works. It's faith. Because if you don't believe in something, you're not going to call upon them. Does that make sense? So Romans 10 10 says, for with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. You see how what you say out of your mouth is what saves you as well as your belief. Because if you believe, you're going to say it. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And so when you call upon the name of the Lord, you're asking him to save you, you're confessing that you believe in him with your mouth, that is part of your salvation. So what if you just said, well, I believe in Jesus. There's a lot of people that we go to their doors and they say they believe in Jesus, but do they really believe in Jesus? Do they believe in the God of the Bible? Do they believe in, you know, there's Mormons that we go and they have a name Jesus, don't they? They have Heavenly Father, you know, but their Heavenly Father is not my Heavenly Father because my Heavenly Father is in three different gods. He is a multiplicity of gods. He's one God manifesting himself in three persons, the Trinity. They don't believe that. So you got to be careful with the cult jargon. Just because someone says they believe in Jesus doesn't mean that they're really saved. Now you're like, well, you just said all you have to do is believe, but yeah, but they don't believe the truth. So you have to actually believe the truth. If you think that being saved is believing in Jesus and you have to do works on top of that, that's not what the Bible teaches. Jesus did all the works for you. God made sure that Jesus came to this earth, he lived a perfect life, he did all the work for you, and all you have to do is have faith in him. Isn't that what Ephesians chapter two says? You have to, you know, salvation is by grace through faith. So it's not of yourselves. It's not, so if you believe that, if you believe it's part of your works or you have to continue going to church in order to be saved, you're not really saved because you don't believe the truth. Does that make sense? So in the, in here in Romans chapter 10, nine or eight through 10, it's very clear that it's confessing with your mouth. Now people will bring up this point, well, what if you don't have a tongue? Okay, well, can you believe, can you call out to God in your mind? Of course you can. Of course you can. So if you're calling upon the name of the Lord and it's through your mind, then you're still calling upon him. So you're still calling upon him with the ability, all the ability that you have. When you pray to God, do you always pray out loud or do you sometimes pray in your mind? Do you think God can read your mind? Do you think God can hear your thoughts? He absolutely can. So that's a dumb argument and people, it's vain jangling. It's ridiculous. So now look what it says again. Let's focus in on verse 10 again. It says, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Now people don't usually use that word much anymore, but unto means something was done or given to someone. Something was done. It's a word used to indicate something was done or given to someone. So that word unto, so it says confession is made unto salvation. So it was something, something was done there. And you know what it was? That person got saved. They were, because that's what it says, right? Unto salvation. So it was something was given to you. It was salvation. How did you get it? Confessing with your mouth, believing with your heart. It's part of the same package. And so if you're going to believe, you're going to call, you're going to ask, you're going to confess with your mouth. Now let's look at verse 11. It says, for the scripture saith, whosoever what? Believest on him shall not be ashamed. So you see how it's saying that that person that believed in their heart and confessed with their mouth, they believed? Isn't that what it says? For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that what? Call upon him, all that call upon him. So that, what it's talking about there is that they called upon God. They asked to be saved. They believed with their heart. They asked to be saved. They called upon him for salvation. I'll prove it even further. Look at verse 13. For whosoever, that means anyone, right? For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's the verse I quoted at the very beginning of the sermon. Whosoever shall call upon him. So what does call upon him mean? It means you're saved. That's what it says, right? Now obviously people will say, well, this could be talking about being saved from your enemies. Is that what the context of this is? What is the context of verse 13 here? The context of salvation. So people need to just do some homework. People get out of bounds with this kind of stuff and are like, well, if you call, that's a work. How's that a work? You believed and it's an act of faith. When you call upon God and you say, God, save me, then that's an act of faith because you're believing that he is. And he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Now look at verse 14. It says, and how shall they call on him whom they have not believed? How is someone going to call upon God if they haven't believed? Well, people do it, but they're not saved because they haven't believed. Does that make sense? It's really not that hard to figure out. And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? If you never hear about Jesus, how can you believe in him? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Here's the other thing. A person has to preach the gospel to somebody else. It doesn't matter if you're a preacher. I'm a preacher, but if you go so when you're a preacher, too, and if they hear the gospel from you and at the end of the at the end of the presentation, they believe on him, then you invite them to call upon the name of the Lord because that's what the Bible says. It's not works. It's saying it's doing what the Bible actually says. Now I'll get into the whole repeating prayers and all that stuff here in a minute, but look what it says. And how shall they preach? Verse 15, except they be sent. So at this church, we send people out to preach, don't we? We don't say, hey, invite someone to church, and it's okay if you invite someone to church. I want you to invite someone to church, but that's not our main mission. Our main mission is to go and preach the gospel. You're supposed to be sent out to preach the gospel. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that what? Preach the gospel of peace. So what is this in context again? Salvation. When you preach the gospel, you know, people get saved. Does every person get saved they preach the gospel to? No, but our job is just to go out and preach and let God do the work of their heart so they could be saved, right? And it says, and bring glad tidings of good things. So the gospel is glad tidings. It's good news. It's a good thing to preach somebody the gospel. It says, but they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. There's another false doctrine that gets pushed around that you could just get saved reading the Bible on your own. I don't believe that's true. Because otherwise, why don't we, why doesn't the Bible just say, well, go and dump Bibles in front of people's doorsteps and then everybody's gonna get saved. People do that. People go to foreign countries and just hand Bibles out. And they have whole missions projects where they're just getting Bibles on. I'm not saying that giving Bibles out is bad. I'm just saying if you're not preaching the word to them, they're not going to get saved on their own. Because it says, how should they hear without a preacher? A spirit-filled believer has to preach the gospel to somebody in order for that person to get saved. And you might say, well, I don't believe that. Well, then let me show you some stuff from the Bible. You know, I mean, what does the Bible actually say? It says, how should they hear without a preacher? How are they gonna believe if nobody's sent to them? They're not. How are they gonna hear without a preacher? They're not. So, however that form takes hold, that's what it has to be. You know, the Bible says in Romans chapter one, it's faith to faith. Right? From faith to faith. So someone with faith has to preach to someone. That person has faith. And that's how exponential growth happens in the kingdom of God. Unfortunately, not a lot of people are doing that these days. And so faith to faith is kind of a small thing these days, isn't it? But it is something the Bible commands. The laborers are few. There's no doubt about that. Jesus said that was gonna be true. So there's a lot of people that are saved, but a lot of people don't preach the gospel. So if you've gone and preached the gospel, then you've done more than 99% of other Christians have today. Because most Christians don't even preach the gospel. Turn to Joel chapter two, verse 32. Joel chapter two, verse 32. Here's another verse. I'm just gonna show you a couple verses about this kind of stuff here. But, Joel 32 says that it shall come to pass, this is quoted in Acts chapter two, but it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be, what's it say there? Delivered. So like I said, saved and delivered are the same thing. Now when Jesus comes back in the clouds, he's gonna rise the dead in Christ first. And then what's it say? Those that are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord. Right, so he's gonna raise and change those people in the moment in the twinkling of an eye at the rapture. So at that point, it says those that are alive and remain, why is it saying that? Because people are trying to kill them. People are trying to kill those people. And so, is it a spiritual deliverance or a physical one? Well, it's both. Because at that moment, you get everlasting life. I mean, you already had everlasting life, but at that moment, you get a body that can never die. Your body's changed, it'll never die. And so you're delivered from the Antichrist and his forces, and then you're also transported out. You're saved. So it's both. It says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Turn to Psalm, chapter 116, verse 13. Psalm, chapter 116, verse 13. Now this, this one is like to me, so easy, that like if you can't get this, then, you know, I don't know if I can help you with this doctrine. Excuse me. It says, I will take, Psalm 116, verse 13 says, I will take the cup of salvation. And what's it say? And call upon the name of the Lord. So what's it saying? I want that salvation. What am I going to do? Call upon the name of the Lord. So that person that wants that salvation in Psalm 116, verse 13, what do they got to do? They got to call upon the name of the Lord. That's how you take the cup of salvation. You call upon his name. Now turn to Luke, chapter 18, verse 9. Luke, chapter 18, verse 9. Now people attack the sinner's prayer that, you know, at the end, people say, well, someone's just not going to be able to pray a little prayer and get saved. Someone's just not going to, you know, it's not, they're not going to be able to repeat after somebody else and get saved. Well, I'm sure every person in this room has probably a different prayer that they do with someone when they close the deal, so to speak, with someone at salvation. And when you invite them to call upon the name of the Lord, we ask people to audibly repeat with us. Now, if they wanted to pray their own prayer, I wouldn't have a problem with that. As a matter of fact, I've had someone do that before I even, like, we invited them to call upon the name of the Lord before I could even say the part about repeating. They just called upon God right there, called upon the Lord Jesus to save them at that moment. And, like, it made me cry. It was really heartfelt. I was with a couple other guys, and we were all weeping because it was really a cool salvation. It was a Jehovah's Witness, and they don't get saved very often, so. But just the fact that they prayed their own prayer, you know, they don't have to repeat our prayer, but they still have to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved, right? Now, like I said, people will say, well, you know, just repeating some prayer doesn't get you saved, you know, just making a little prayer. You know, what, does it have to be a big prayer? It doesn't. And you'll see Bozo saying this kind of stuff, and then claiming that they believe in God, but then they'll say that praying a prayer doesn't save you? Okay. Well, look at Luke chapter 18, verse 9. Let's look at the context of this. It says, And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves. So who's he talking to? People that trust in themselves. And there's a lot of people out there that trust in themselves. As a matter of fact, survey says, number one answer, when you ask someone if they're going to heaven, what do they say? Because I'm what? A good person. That's what they say. How do you know you're going to heaven? I'm a good person. See, a lot of people said the same thing, because that's what people say. I mean, a big percentage of people say that they are good. You know, I think I was, who was I with? the other day, and they were saying that kind of stuff. There was a lady packing a garage for some elderly guy. She went to a church. Yeah, it was Brother Bill. And what did she say? Well, I just, I do all these good things. I'm helping this guy. Yeah. And she didn't want to hear what I had to say at all. She was just, like, blowing me off. It's like, well, they trust. That person trusted in themselves. But this is who Jesus is talking to in the context here. He says, he spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. This is the holier than thou type of people that they're not even saved. They trust in themselves, but they despise others because they'll say someone that is saved and they've sinned or something. Oh, how could they really be saved? They still smoke cigarettes. How could they, you know, what a dumb thing to say someone's not saved over. Cigarettes are physically addicting. You cannot reform the flesh. Now, you can, you know, there's AA programs where people stop drinking and stop smoking without God's help. It can be done. But, you know, quitting smoking is very hard. It is. And whatever other kinds of sins that you have proclivity to do are hard to get up or give up. And so it's a lifetime of sanctification process that takes place the moment you get saved, but you can only go as far as you're willing to go. Because if you just refuse to go to church, refuse to read the Bible, refuse to pray, refuse to go soul-winding, then you're not going to grow like another Christian would grow if they're flourishing and doing what God asked them to do and keeping his commandments. Now, here's who he's talking about. So he preaches this parable to them. It says, Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. He's praying with himself. And he says, God. What? This guy's praying within himself. He trusts in himself. And what's he saying? The first thing he says, God. He's his own God. That's the problem. But it says, prayed thus within himself. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as this publican. So he's like pointing to this other guy who's praying, right? I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. That's a short prayer, isn't it? God be merciful unto me, a sinner. This is where we get the term, the sinner's prayer. This is the example in the Bible of the sinner's prayer. And guess what? It's a short prayer. God be merciful unto me, a sinner. Notice that this man is not prideful. He won't even look up. He's obviously a person that's very humbled at this moment. And he's a publican. He's a person that collects taxes. I mean, what bigger scum is there on earth than them? But this scumbag tax collector humbled himself and he called out to God. Didn't he say something? He said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And so, look at what Jesus says about this man. Verse 14, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified. Now, what does justified mean? Justified, I mean, if you want to use it in a simple term, just as if I'd never sinned. When you're justified, that means you're saved, okay? It's just like you never sinned. When you call upon the name of the Lord, he forgives all your sins, past, present, and future. So, even your future sins. So, if you sin in the future, you're still saved because he forgives you for all your sins. Not just the sins that you committed before you called upon him for salvation, for all of them. So, it says, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone that exalted himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. So, look, God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. What is grace? Grace means you're getting something you don't deserve. So, even though you deserve to go to hell, even though you deserve to be punished, God still gives us grace because, really, we all deserve to go to hell. We all deserve to go to hell. And if you don't think you deserve to go to hell, then, you know, I don't know how I can help you there either because Jesus paid your debt so you don't have to go there. So, obviously, you know, you do deserve to go there. That's why he took your place. That's why he was killed on the cross of Calvary. That's why he was buried and rose again the third day, rising from hell, rising from death to save us. So, you can't just pray a little prayer and get saved. Okay, what's the Bible say? God be merciful to be a sinner. This man went down to his house justified. So, Jesus said he got saved. And what did he do? He prayed a little prayer. He prayed a little prayer. Now, look at Luke chapter 23 verse 39. Here's another little prayer we'll look at an example of. It says in Luke chapter 23 verse 39, And one of the male factors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. So, this is Jesus on the cross, and he has two thieves on each side of him. And one of them is railing on him, saying, If you're Christ, save thyself and us. So, he's basically implying that he couldn't save them. He couldn't do that, but could he have come off the cross? Could he have saved them? Yes, he could. So, they're telling a lie. He's telling a lie about them. That's what railing is. It's always a lie, and it's always a sin. Luke 23, 40 says, But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Does not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, remember, so he said, so is he talking? Yes, he is. He said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Is that a short prayer or a long one? It's a short prayer, isn't it? And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. So, what is he saying? This man saved, because he wouldn't be going to paradise if he wasn't saved. It's pretty simple, right? So, yes, you can pray a little prayer to get saved. It's not the mere words that necessarily, it's the fact that you believe, and you're acknowledging, you're asking. In both things, are they asking God something? It says they said something, and what was it? God be merciful to me, a sinner. Are they asking for God to do something for them? Yeah, he's saying God be merciful to me, because I'm a sinner. He's saved. The other man is saying, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. He's saying, take me to heaven. I want to go to heaven. And what's Jesus say? You're going to be in heaven. You're going to be in paradise this day. So, you can pray a little prayer. That's garbage when people say that. But just notice this, that they did ask for salvation, didn't they? And maybe it wasn't your sinner's prayer that they said, but what difference does that make? Like I said, it's not the mere words that save you. It's the fact that you believe in that you're calling upon him for salvation. Turn to Matthew chapter 12, verse 33, Matthew chapter 12, verse 33. And at this point, you're probably thinking, well, what more need is there to go in any other scriptures? Well, I just want to make sure that all bases are covered today. So, believe me, there's a lot more verses about calling upon the name of the Lord in the scriptures, but I'm just giving you highlights here. Matthew chapter 12, verse 33 says, either make the tree good or his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit. And it says, O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So, what's in your heart? What are the abundance of all the stuff that's filled in your heart? That's what your mouth is going to speak, right? Isn't that what Jesus said? A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. Now, let me just say this really quickly. If you're saved, you're not going to be there on that day of judgment. So, who are the people that are going to be there giving an account for every idle word that they spoke? Unsaved. People that are going to hell, because they're going to be judged by their works. We don't get judged by our works. We get judged based upon whether we believe in Jesus or not. Look at verse 36, but I say unto you, oh no, verse 37, excuse me. For by thy words shalt thou be justified. By thy words shalt thou be justified. God have mercy upon me, a sinner. That's what the Bible is teaching here, that your words are going to justify you. And by thy words, thou shalt be condemned. I don't believe in Jesus. I don't believe in God. I'm an atheist. I don't like God. I hate God. Richard Dawkins is saying that he's a masochistic and genocidal and all this other stuff. Those people are going to be judged by the things that they say with their mouth. They're going to be asking for mercy after the fact, but it's going to be too late for them. Too late, reprobate. There comes a time when your eyes close for the last time, it's over for you. So you're going to be judged, your judgment is what's coming next. Now if you're saved, you're not going to go into judgment like that, because there's no big jumbotron where all your sins are going to be replayed in front of all your friends to show every dirty, nasty thing you did before you were saved and after you were saved. That's garbage. The jumbotron isn't real, folks. I don't know where people came up with that, but that's not true. When people say the judgments see to Christ, they're going to see all your sins. No, that's not true, because God's forgotten your sins. You're not going to be judged on your sins at all. But by thy words, thou shalt be justified. So when you ask God to save you, does that justify you? Yes, it does, because you believed. Now, what if you just say, I believe in Jesus Christ with all my heart? Would that justify you if you believe the right things? Jesus, will you save me? Would that work? How about Jesus, forgive me of sinner? Would that work? Would that get you saved? That according to the Bible, it does, right? Now, again, asking to be saved is not works, number two. So turn to John chapter four, and I'll show you some instances where people, you know, the gift, a gift is something you still ask for. You know, because salvation's a free gift, right? So does that mean that Jesus just throws salvation into everybody's laps, and they can't resist but be saved? No, that's what Calvinists teach. They teach you don't even have to believe. You're already regenerated before you ever ask. Well, that's kind of a weird teaching. John chapter four, verse 10. So Jesus is talking to this woman at the well. His disciples went to go buy stuff to eat, and Jesus is alone at this well. He's sitting on the well, and he's talking, and this woman comes up. And so I'll just bring you into the story right here in verse 10. It says, 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. So what's he saying to this woman? He's saying, if you knew what the gift was, and who it was that's asking you, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given to thee living water. So he's saying he would have asked. So I gave this example the other day on Thursday night about cookies. Say my wife is cooking chocolate chip cookies, and she says, I'm cooking chocolate chip cookies for everybody in the church. Whoever shows up tonight, you have free chocolate chip cookies. But did you work for the chocolate chip cookies? What if you show up late for church, and the chocolate chip cookies are sitting on top of the baptism, sitting on top of the baptismal, and you knew that there was free chocolate chip cookies, if you walked up to Miss Sherry and said, Can I have one of those chocolate chip cookies? Did you work for them? Did you have anything to do with making them? No. And so if you think about it, so Christ gives the gift of salvation, and he's, you know, so he made the cookies, so to speak. He did all the work. So it would just be like if someone made cookies from scratch or whatever, and you put the eggs and the milk and sugar and the chocolate chips and the dough and all that stuff together. You mixed it up. You prepared them. You cooked them in the oven at the perfect temperature. You wrapped them up. You brought them to church. That person did all the work. And if you're asking for that free gift, it's not works. You didn't do any of the work. Here's another good example. If you're on welfare, which I'm not like shaming, welfare shaming or anything right now, but I'm just saying maybe you're down on your luck and you need some help, and you go down to, I don't know if they call it the welfare office anymore, or they probably call it something else and not hurt people's feelings, but if you go down to the welfare office and say, I'd like to sign up for assistance, are you working for it? You're asking for it, right? But like nobody would say that people are working for welfare. I mean sometimes you have to jump through hoops to get it. I get that. Things have changed. But back in the day, you used to be able to just get them and they'd give you the actual bucks. You know what I'm talking about? What do they call them? The food stamps, yeah. So you'd have your own little, it's like money that you could walk to the store with. Now it's all on cards, stuff like that. But the point is, is if someone offers you a free gift and you ask for that gift, it's not works because you didn't work for it. Jesus worked for the salvation. Jesus can give it out to whoever he wants, but he's saying if you would have known what it was, what is it? What is the gift? Well the gift is eternal life. The gift is salvation. And so you have to know what the gift is before you ask for it, right? So if you don't know the right gift, maybe it's not really a gift. The Mormon cookies are, guess what? We bought all the stuff, but now you gotta make it. But it's free. That's not free. The Mormon cookies are not the cookies you want, all right? You want the cookies from God, right? So to speak. But anyway, so he said I would have given you, if you asked, I would have given it to you. If you asked God for something, you think he's gonna give it to you? If you asked God for salvation, do you think he's gonna give it to you? He absolutely will, that's what he's saying. And the woman saith unto him, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Now he's explaining things, but she still doesn't get it. Do you think she knows what he's talking about yet? She doesn't. And then she says, The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water. So she's asking for the water, but she doesn't understand what the gift is yet. So she doesn't get, I mean if you read it out, which I don't have time to do that, but if you read it out, she ends up getting saved later. Because she doesn't understand what the gift is yet. You have to understand what the gift is first before you ask for it. So anyway, Acts 2, 38. You turn to Acts 10, 45. I'll read Acts 2, 38 to speed this along a little bit. So the Holy Spirit is a gift. This is what the Bible teaches. Now the Holy Spirit is God. So when you receive salvation, you get the gift of the Holy Ghost. Does everybody know that? It's a gift. It's not something you have to earn or work for. You get the gift of the Holy Ghost. He seals you unto the day of redemption. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You have the gift of the Holy Ghost. I'm gonna read Acts 2, 38. It says, Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now Acts 10, 45, where you're at, says, And they of the circumcision, which believe were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out, what does it say? The gift of the Holy Ghost. So asking for a gift is not works. The Holy Spirit, once you ask for salvation, then you get the gift of the Holy Ghost. Okay? So now, with that in mind, turn to Luke 11, verse nine. Luke 11, verse nine. And so, this should really nail it down home for you when it comes to asking is not works. Okay? Luke chapter 11, verse nine says, And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth. That's simple, isn't it? And he that seeketh findeth, and him that knocketh, it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? Obviously, if your kids are asking you for things, you know, good things to eat, you're not gonna give them something poison, you're not gonna give them something bad for them, or whatever. It says, If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them that, what? Ask him. So when you ask for salvation, what does he give you? The gift of the Holy Ghost. You see that? I mean, people that come up with these strange and diverse doctrines about how, you know, asking is works. Praying is works. No, it's not. Praying is faith. Asking is faith. You're asking because you believe that that gift is real. When you ask for salvation, you believe salvation's real, don't you? You believe that God is real, you believe that Jesus died for you on the cross, he was buried, he rose again the third day, and you ask him to be saved. And when you ask him to be saved, he gives you the gift of salvation. He gives you the gift of the Holy Ghost. It's a gift. It's not something that you paid for. You know, the Holy Spirit being a gift to you is just part of your salvation. It's part of what God does for you. So how is that a work to ask him? I mean, that doesn't make sense. People just, you know, when people start teaching this garbage that you don't have to ask for salvation, that calling upon the name of the Lord is works, mark that person and have no fellowship with them. Mark them because they're teaching a wicked false doctrine. It's false, it's not true, and you're messing with salvation. When someone messes with salvation, I no longer want to have anything to do with that person because to me, they're a false prophet. If you're lying and making up things that aren't true about salvation or you're saying that part of salvation is works, then you're a false prophet in my mind. Now turn to Acts chapter 22 verse seven. Acts chapter 22 verse number seven. Now we have the conversion of Paul the apostle here and it's kind of a little bit of a lengthy thing that I wanted to show you here, but this is basically when Jesus Christ meets the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. Starting in verse seven it says, And I fell onto the ground and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise and go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee all things which are appointed for thee to do. Now a lot of people say that Paul got saved right here. I don't agree with that. And why don't I agree with that? Because Jesus told him to go to Damascus and it shall be told thee all the things which are appointed for thee to do. So he's saying that Paul has to do some stuff here. And he's gonna tell, and so this guy is gonna tell him. Verse 11, And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came to Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man, according to law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto me and stood and said to me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And that same hour I looked up upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will, and see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why terriest thou? He's like, what are you waiting around for? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord. Now, I realize this sentence structure might be confusing to some people, but he's not saying be baptized and that's what washes away your sin. Baptism is a work. Baptism is something you do physically have to walk in, get into the tub, allow to be dunked and brought back up. What is washing away your sins? What forgives your sins when you call upon the name of the Lord and ask him to save you? When you believe on Christ and call upon him. Isn't that what it says? Wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord. So, why would calling upon the name of the Lord be washing away of sins if that was a work? Because the Bible says that it's not of works. So, why would the Bible contradict itself in those ways and bring these concepts forth to us from Genesis chapter four all the way through the end of the Bible? Why would it be saying that people need to call upon the name of the Lord then begin men to call upon the name of the Lord? You know why? Because you have to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Turn to Ephesians chapter two verse eight. Ephesians chapter two verse eight. I know most of you in here probably have this scripture by heart. So, Ananias is not telling him to be baptized and that's what washes away his sins because that's not what the Bible teaches. So, what do you have to, I mean, if you're saying well this isn't super clear, what is clear is that he's saying to wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord. Okay? So, what does Ephesians two verse eight say? And who wrote Ephesians two verse eight by the way? The apostle Paul who got saved right here. And so, if it was part of baptism then he's contradicting himself right here. But that's not what's happening. So, it says for by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast. So, it's not of works. Otherwise, you could boast and say that you and Jesus got there together. You know, it was your good works and his good works or whatever. That's what a lot of people think. But you know what it really is? It's by grace. You don't deserve it but he gives it to you because you have faith. And it is a gift. Because gifts are not something you pay for. Somebody else pays for them. Any gift that you get for Christmas this year if you bought it yourself it might be a gift but it's for yourself. So, I mean technically every gift costs somebody something. But if you bought it for yourself then you know you still pay for it. But it's still a gift because you gave it to yourself. So, anyway. That's my theology 101 on that. So, I already gave you the cookie example. And so, number three this is the last point of the sermon and it's gonna be over here real soon. Turn to Psalm chapter 18 verse three. So, if it's a gift and you ask for it it's not of works. If it's a gift and you believe in Jesus and you call upon him to save you. I mean I think I proved it seven ways this Sunday that people that would say that are wrong. So, asking for our needs and giving thanks to the Lord you know that's part of calling upon the name of the Lord. I'll grant people that. So, cause the one time, you only get saved once. You only get saved once. It's not again and again and again and again. It's one time. You're born again. Not born again and again and again and again. So, look at Psalm 18 verse three. So, once we get saved that first initial calling upon the name of the Lord all the other calling upon the name of the Lord's are for other various reasons. So, you still continue to pray and ask God for things. Psalm 18 verse three says I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised so shall I be saved from mine enemies. So, here's a particular verse where it's actually talking about I'm gonna call upon the Lord and to praise him. So, that's part of our calling upon the name of the Lord after salvation is that we praise God and also you can ask to be saved from your enemies. So, this is a different type of salvation isn't it? It's being saved from your enemies. So, look at Psalm 116 verse 17. Psalm 116 verse 17. Psalm 116 verse 17 says I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. So, when you're sacrificing for God you wanna give him thanks. Are you thanking God for anything? Are you thanking him for your food? If you had Thanksgiving the other day you probably thanked him and then you were a gluttonous pig afterwards but you gave him thanks didn't you? So, I hope you gave him thanks. So, we got a lot of things to be thankful for but it says and will call upon the name of the Lord. So, when you're offering God thanksgiving you're calling upon the name of the Lord. Psalm 86 verse five says for thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. So, if you're a professing saved person and you never called upon the name of the Lord you never call upon him for anything you never ask him for anything you never thank him for anything you never did the first one then what would that make you? It would make you not saved. So, if a person is saying yeah I'm saved and they've never called upon the name of the Lord I would say that person probably is not saved. I mean I don't see why that's such a bad thing to say. Did you have to mouth it with your mouth? No, like I said before you can call upon the name of the Lord but you can call upon him in your heart. You can do it in private. When we go out soul winning we have people do it with us so we can hear them and that way we know that they at least called upon the name of the Lord so then we can say yes they did we know for sure that they did that. Does that mean every person that calls upon the name of the Lord with us is saved? Well no because we can't see their thoughts we can't see their heart only God can but what we can do is do our due diligence make sure we make every point clear and then invite them to call upon the name of the Lord. And you know sometimes people are nervous and don't want to do that or they say you know what I'll do it on my own and that's fine we just don't count that person got saved only because we just don't know if they called upon the name of the Lord. So it's not like we're saying that person didn't get saved we don't know for sure because people do pray after we leave. I gave the gospel to my wife multiple times but then the one time that stuck she didn't call upon the name of the Lord in front of me but she did go down into her room got on her hands and knees and called upon the name of the Lord on her own. So people just like get this thing where they think well if they didn't call audibly they're not really saved I don't believe that I'm just saying that we don't count them in soul winning if they didn't do it in front of us. So that's all. But look at First Corinthians chapter one verse two that'll be the last scripture I have you turn to and then we'll be wrapping it up here. So First Corinthians chapter one verse two. So there's just multiple things after salvation that you would do when you call upon the name of the Lord. It's called your prayer life. You know we're supposed to pray without ceasing. Now people will take that literally and say well you know you're sinning because you're not praying without ceasing. It's not talking about just 24 hours a day seven days a week that you're just constantly in prayer. I mean you'd never get any work done you'd never be able to drive anywhere. You know what it's talking about is pray without ceasing pray without stopping. Don't stop your prayer life. That's what I believe it says. I don't think that anybody could be in a constant 24 seven prayer. So I know people have said they prayed for hours and hours and hours but I don't really believe them. I mean obviously you could pray for hours. I believe it's possible but do I think people do that for. There was this guy that he used to travel around Baptist circles and he would say that he prayed for six hours a day on his knees. Sorry I don't believe that. I just don't believe that. I mean unless he's supernaturally being able to do that I mean you could pray for a long time but like on your knees for six hours a day for six hours a day come on man. Come on man. That's ridiculous. Look at first Corinthians one two it says 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 here I mean this should be you know just it's talking about all these people that pray and who are they calling upon? They're calling upon the name of the Lord. They call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know when you get saved that's the name you should call upon. When you're out soul winning and you say you start the sinner's prayer with that person I would lead them and say dear Jesus. Dear Lord Jesus something along those lines because that's the name that we're given to be calling upon the name of the Lord. That's the name of the Lord is Jesus right? So did you just if you're in this room today or listening on the internet or whatever have you ever called upon the name of Jesus to save you? Because if you haven't then maybe you're not saved. So and I'm not trying to be this like have an alter call or something like that because we don't do that here but I'm just saying if you've never called upon Jesus to save you then you know if someone says that to me at the door I don't believe they're saved. So why is that so offensive? It shouldn't be offensive. The Bible says faith cometh by hearing and here's another dumb argument that people use that we believe that blind and deaf people can't be saved. I mean what? Why would we not believe that blind and deaf people can be saved? We're like well they can't talk. They can't audibly talk or they can't you know someone has to show them in the Bible how to be saved and you're saying people can't be saved I read the Bible but yeah but someone the spirit filled that shows someone that can't see I mean they can't hear the Bible or they sign people's stuff I mean isn't sign language you know you're preaching with your hands they hear in a different way right? So they're still hearing the word of God they're just hearing it in a different way. If one of your senses is taken away then your other senses become more powerful and take over right? But if you're so if you're blind someone could lead your hand in Braille right? Couldn't they do that? So and if they're blind they can still hear right? I mean that's a ridiculous argument that is another vain jangling thing that people will say that we don't believe that and obviously Jesus healed and saved deaf and blind people as well and lepers. So again we believe that someone has a saved person has to communicate the gospel to someone else and whether that be by letter by signs or reading lips or whatever it is that person can still be saved. If you read someone's lips and they're mouthing the words and they can read your lips is that good enough? Yeah. So and again we only count people when they audibly call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer just for the simple fact that we don't know for sure. You can't just look at someone and say you know you give them the gospel do you believe that? Yes okay then you count them saved? No that's not what the Bible teaches you call upon the name of the Lord. So again did they get saved? They could have but we just don't know so we don't count them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Now as far as repeating prayers so do you give the same gospel presentation? Does the same gospel presentation repeated over and over again get people saved? It does doesn't it? Because obviously you have different ways to skin a cat so to speak. Pete is gonna be all over me here but you have different ways you have different ways of giving the gospel as long as you're using the verse you're making your points the gospel is preached and whatever verses you used as long as they're preaching the correct gospel those get them saved. But you have your own path that you choose don't you? Not everybody in this room preaches the gospel the same way. So but it all should come to the same conclusion. It all should be in steps. People have to admit that they're sinful. People have to believe in a literal hell that they are gonna go to if they don't get saved. People have to understand that salvation is by faith alone. It's a free gift and it's eternal life. And then they must call upon the name of the Lord. That's what we do. That's what the Bible teaches and so if you're repeating the gospel over and over again and people are getting saved differently but they're still getting saved what about repeating a prayer with them? If they're truly calling upon the name of the Lord out of their heart with their mouth what difference does it make whether they repeated a prayer by somebody or not? Do you understand what I'm saying? Like people just take these things to an illogical conclusion and they jump off the cliff with it. And any person I've ever seen that teaches against calling upon the name of the Lord has always been a bad person. It's always been a bad guy and it's always been some kind of false prophet. So you know and I'm sure in two years again I'll have to preach this sermon again. So because some other bozo's gonna come up and say oh you don't have to call upon the name of the Lord you don't have to repeat a prayer. You don't have to repeat a prayer. They can pray their own prayer I get that. But what is wrong with repeating a prayer with somebody so that they know that they're saved? And we always tell people don't say hey pray this little prayer and you're gonna be saved. That's not what we say. We say hey well the Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Would you like to pray and trust Christ as your savior? What's wrong with that? And then you say dear Jesus. Whatever your sinner's prayer is that you repeat with people you have one that you probably have memorized that you say every time because you wanna make sure you cover all the bases and that it's something simple. It's not like a 10 page long prayer. The ones you see in the Bible are short aren't they? Dear Jesus I know I've sinned. I know I deserve hell but I'm asking you to save me. Please take me to heaven when I die. Is that really difficult? Oh that's your prayer. If they prayed that prayer and they meant it in their heart and they believed then they're saved. I would say this if you haven't called upon the name of the Lord you need to do that. If you have any questions about that I mean sometimes children they come to church and they think well my parents are saved and they bring me to church so I'm probably saved too. That's not true. You have to make a decision in your own life and there's churches where people go to and I've knocked on Baptist doors of people I went to church with and they give me the wrong answer. So there is people in churches that don't have the right salvation. They go there, they're a blessing or whatever but in reality they don't really believe the truth. It's really sad when I knock on a person's door and they're Baptist and they don't have the right salvation. It's like I don't understand how that happens. It just does. So anyway let's have a word of prayer. We'll end the service here. Dear Heavenly Father we thank you Lord so much for the doctrine of calling upon the name of the Lord and how clear you make it in the Bible. Lord I pray that you'd help us to emphasize this in our soul winning and Lord that we wouldn't get caught up with these false prophets and heretics that preach this damnable heresy that you don't have to pray and ask Christ to save you or you don't need to ask for salvation. Lord I just pray that you'd help our church to be strong on this doctrine Lord and Lord I do pray that if there's any person that has any questions about this Lord they could just freely come to me. I'm not gonna chew them out or anything like that but Lord I know that you just want this doctrine to be clear and that's why I preach it today and I just pray that you'd bless us as we go out soul winning and try to get people to call upon your name today in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Sing our last song, page 420. There's a song in the air, page 420. Sing it out on the first verse. There's a song in the air There's a star in the sky There's a mother's deep prayer And a baby's love cry And the star reigns its fire While the beautiful sing For the manger of Bethlehem Cradles a king There's a tumult of joy For the wonderful birth For the virgin sweet boy Lives the Lord of the earth And the star reigns its fire While the beautiful sing For the manger of Bethlehem Cradles a king In the light of that star Wine the ages in pearl And the song from afar Pastures over the world Every earth is a flame And the beautiful sing In the homes of the nations That Jesus is King We rejoice in the light And we echo the song That comes down from the night From the heavenly throng And we shout to the lovely Evangel they pray And we greet in his cradle Our Savior and King Thanks for coming to our morning service. Great singing. I'd like to see you back here at 3.30. Brother Steven, do you want to end us with a word of prayer? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.