The title is self-explanatory.

The title is self-explanatory.

The title is self-explanatory.

May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/

---

HOW TO BE SAVED
by Ray C. Stedman

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is
that they may be saved.

I do not think there is any word in the Christian vocabulary that
makes people feel more uncomfortable than the word "saved".

People
cringe when they hear it. Perhaps it conjures up visions of hot-eyed,
zealous buttonholers-usually with bad breath---who walk up and grab
you and say, "Brother, are you saved?"

Or perhaps it raises visions of
a tiny band of Christians at a street meeting in front of some saloon
singing, "Give the winds a mighty voice, Jesus saves! Jesus saves!"
Whatever the reason, I do know that people become bothered at this
word. I will never forget the startled look on the face of a man who
came up to me in a movie theater. The seat beside me was vacant, and
he said, "Is this seat saved?" I said, "No, but I am." He found a seat
across the aisle. Somehow this word threatens all our religious
complacency and angers the self-confident and the self-righteous
alike.

And yet, when you turn to the Scriptures you find that this is an
absolutely unavoidable word. Christians have to talk about men and
women being saved because the fact is that men and women are lost.
There is no escaping the fact that the Bible clearly teaches that the
human race into which we are born is already a lost race. This is why
the good news of John 3:16 is that "God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish---not perish---but have everlasting life." We can never deal
realistically with life until we face up to this fundamental fact:
People are not waiting until they die to be lost---they are already
lost. It is the grace of God that reaches down and calls us out of
that lostness and gives us an opportunity to come to Christ and be
saved. Therefore "saved" is a perfectly legitimate word to use. It
makes us uncomfortable only when we refuse to face the fact that men
and women are lost. They are born into a perishing race in which their
humanity is being put to improper uses and is gradually deteriorating
and falling apart, and they are facing an eternity of separation from
God. These are the facts as the Scriptures put it.

In chapter 10 of Romans we find once again that the nation Israel is
our model for understanding how God works. Paul is answering the
question of why some who have little knowledge are saved while many
who have much knowledge are not saved. Part of his answer was given in
the ninth chapter, in which he explained that behind this strange
mystery is the elective, sovereign choice of God. God chooses to call
men to him---but not all men. Paul has dealt at length with that
subject in the ninth chapter. But now he turns to the other side. Now
we are confronted with the fact of human responsibility. It is true
that God draws men to him: it is also true that no one will come
unless they respond to the appeal of God.

Now, to us, this is an apparent contradiction. That is why we call it
a paradox, a seeming contradiction. We cannot resolve it because at
this point we do not have enough knowledge. Chapter 9 has helped us
greatly with that. We do not understand even a fraction of how God
works, therefore human knowledge is too limited to resolve this
apparent conflict. But both sides are true. God calls men by an
elective decree that is irresistible, and yet they must respond by a
choice of their will, which they are free to make or not, as it
pleases them. Let's see how Paul introduces this other side of the
picture and brings before us Israel's responsibility.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is
that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are
zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they
disregarded the righteousness that comes from God and sought to
establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

Probably the most outstanding thing about this paragraph is that
despite Paul's profound conviction that God saves whomever he will by
an irresistible, elective choice, nevertheless this does not stop Paul
from praying and yearning over his kinsmen according to the flesh, the
nation Israel. You see, prayer is not inconsistent with God's call. It
is never right for us to say, "If God calls, there is nothing we can
do about it. We might as well sit down, fold our hands, and do
nothing." That response fails to see that the way God calls is through
the preaching of the Word and the praying of Christians, the yearning
of their hearts over those who are not yet saved. Therefore, that is
part of God's program, and Paul exemplifies this beautifully for us
here. We need to see the importance that prayer has in reaching
people. Paul prayed for men. He writes in 1 Timothy 2:1-3, 8:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and
thanksgiving be made for everyone---for kings and all those in
authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all
godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior,
who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the
truth...I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer,
without anger or disputing.

Prayer is a great factor in that call. C.S. Lewis has said some very
helpful things in this regard. Speaking of prayer, he says,

When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical
consultation, the thought will often cross our minds that, if we
only knew it, the event is already decided one way or the other. I
believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event
certainly has been decided. In a sense, it was decided before all
the worlds. But one of the things taken into account in deciding it,
and therefore one of the things that really causes it to happen, may
be this very prayer that we are now offering. [He then adds] Thus,
shocking as it may sound, I conclude that we can at noon become part
causes of an event occurring at ten o'clock.

That is, even our prayers after an event affect the event. Now that is
strange to us, but I think it is true. We are up against a great
mystery in the matter of prayer. Then C.S. Lewis adds,

There is no question whether an event has happened because of your
prayer. When the event you prayed for occurs, your prayer has always
contributed to it. When the opposite event occurs, your prayer has
never been ignored; it has been considered and refused for your
ultimate good and the good of the whole universe.

Those are deep matters, but perhaps that will help us. At least it is
clear that Paul does not hesitate to pray, even though he knows God
chooses whom he will.

The second emphasis in this paragraph is the zeal that Paul notes
about Israel. "I bear testimony that Israel is zealous for God." And
indeed they are. Perhaps the most noteworthy difference between an
orthodox Jew and the average Gentile is right there. Jews take God
seriously. Any of you who have seen Fiddler On The Roof or have read
any of the writings of Chaim Potok, or other contemporary Jewish
authors, know how true this is. The Jewish way of life is built around
God. God is the most important element in all their thinking. They
sacrifice anything and everything to the centrality of God in their
national and community life.

This is in stark contrast to the average Gentile. Gentiles have
religious feelings---all men do. Gentiles think of God, but God is out
of the periphery of Gentile life. I think we all demonstrate this. We
are more casual about God. He isn't the center of life, as he is in
Jewish thought and action. Paul takes note of this fact. It was true
then; it is true today.

A Gallup poll taken recently discovered that 43 per cent of
Americans---largely Gentiles---said that their religious feelings
really were of very little significance in their lives. And yet the
thing that amazed Paul, and amazes us today, is that the casual
Gentile, who is not necessarily looking for God, nevertheless finds
him. At our Thanksgiving service we had two testimonies by people of
Gentile background who found God suddenly intruding into their lives
when they didn't expect him. They found peace and rest and joy even
when they weren't looking for it. And yet the Jew, with all his zeal,
with his consummate desire to discover and to know God, fails to find
peace and forgiveness and is not reborn into joy and love.

Paul tells us why this is so. The reason is that the Jews sought to
establish their own righteousness, and therefore they missed the gift
of God, which is the righteousness of Christ, obtained without works.
This is the reason why anyone, Jew or Gentile, who seeks to try to
establish his own righteousness, is going to be in the same boat. This
was the problem with the Jews. They were constantly trying their best
to obey the law of Moses. They were failing to do so, of course, but
they were not willing to admit that they failed. Thus they kept hoping
and seeking and believing that God was going to accept them, even
though they did not obey the law.

Now, there are many people like that today, both Jew and Gentile. In
fact, to show you how true it is that Jews still think this way, I
would like to quote a paragraph from a letter that a boy from this
congregation with a Jewish background received recently from a rabbi,
who wrote because he was troubled about the boy's faith in Christ:

The basic question about religion is how to elevate man, and bring
him into closer relationship with God. [That is the rabbi's view of
the purpose of religion. It is to elevate man, not to change him.]
We believe that God revealed to us in the Torah [the law of Moses]
how he wants us to live, so that we can be in harmony with his
divine purpose. Our role and religious purpose is to obey God's
laws---to love him and to obey him. We exercise our free will to
proper intention and, through having done the good deeds [notice
that, through having done the good deeds], are elevated so that it
becomes progressively easier and more natural to continue to do good
and to resist evil.

That is the Jewish view of how to be right before God---simply keep
trying until it becomes easier and easier, and finally you stand
righteous before God. Paul says that is the problem. Anyone who seeks
to come before God on that basis is doomed to failure. They cannot
obey the law. Paul goes on to show us why they can't and to reveal to
us that the issue is always Jesus. Listen to his words:

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for
everyone who believes.

If your version, as mine, says "the law", I suggest you take a pencil
and cross out the word the. It is not the law, as though it affected
only the Mosaic Law, it is "law". Christ is the end of law---any kind
of law---so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
Of course this doesn't mean that Christ does away with law. He does
away with law as far as bringing you to God is concerned. He makes a
total end of it. And, as we have seen in this letter, the reason is
clear. What was the purpose of law? Why, to make us aware of the fact
that there is something wrong with us. If you don't have a standard to
try to live up to, you have no idea that there is anything wrong with
you. You think everything you do is natural, and therefore right. You
hear this argument all the time today. Anything that is natural is
right. That is because more and more today the law is being set aside.

Now, the law was given to make us realize that there are things that
are wrong, that are destroying us. All the injury and death and
darkness that come into our lives come because of the things that we
are doing, the attitudes we have. We are producing the problem. We
think it comes from everyone else, but law helps us to see that we are
what is wrong. But once it has shown us that, what good is it? It can
do no more.

At that point, unless we come to Christ, there is no way out. The law
cannot cure our evil; it can only show it to us. At that point, the
law becomes our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, as Paul puts it in
Galatians 3:24. That is the end of the law, that is its purpose. It
has been fulfilled when it does that work and brings you to Jesus
Christ. He can change you. He can give you new life. He can wipe out
the old pattern of failures and all the hurt and agony and anguish
that you have been going through and give you a wholly new heart.
Therefore Christ is the end of law, that there may be righteousness to
everyone who believes in him.

Now, Paul, in his logical way, is very careful to show us how this
works. He quotes Moses to prove what the law is for (verse 5):

Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law:
"The man who does these things [the righteousness that is by the
law] will live by them."

Moses said that in Leviticus: "Here is the law, the Ten Commandments.
Anybody who does these things will live. That is, God will bless him,
fulfill his humanity, make him to enjoy all that God had for man in
the beginning. It will all come if a man will simply obey these ten
rules." You know, when you read the Ten Commandments, they always seem
so reasonable, they seem like such an easy thing to obey. This is the
way people have always reacted to them. You say to yourself, "Why,
this is not difficult. I can do that easily. All I have to do is just
decide to do it, that's all!"

But when you actually start to do it, you soon discover that there is
a rebelliousness inside that sooner or later stops you from doing what
you want to do. We have seen this all through Romans. Therefore the
law reveals the evil that is in your life. Moses said the law was
given to make people try to live this way. He said that he who did
these things would live. Now Paul goes on to quote Moses again. He
doesn't say that Moses said the next part, but he did. He sets the
faith-way to God right next to the law-way (verse 6):

But the righteousness that is by faith says, "Do not say in your
heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ
down), or "'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring
Christ up from the dead). [The comments in parenthesis are Paul's]
But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and
in your heart"; that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming.

It may startle you to realize that Paul is saying here that Moses
taught salvation by grace through faith just as much as Paul did.
Moses knew that the law would not work. Why, even as Moses was
bringing it down from the mountaintop, the people at the bottom of the
mountain had broken all ten of the commandments before they were given
to them.

Moses knew that the people could not keep them, and therefore Moses
also taught that God had provided another way by which people could be
delivered when they failed to keep the law. He saw clearly that God
would lay the foundation for salvation in the incarnation and the
resurrection of Jesus. That is why Paul quotes these words from
Deuteronomy. Moses saw the coming of Christ down from heaven; he saw
the resurrection, the raising of Jesus from the dead. Paul clearly
indicates that all along God had this basis in mind for how people
were to come to Christ.

Therefore, when the angels sang the song to the shepherds in the
darkness of the night on the plains of Bethlehem, and the glory of the
Lord broke out upon those humble shepherds out there in the fields and
the angel said to them, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great
joy, which shall be to all men; for unto you is born this day in the
city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord," this was the historic
fulfillment of the basis on which God had been saving people for
centuries before this. Now it is being worked out in history---but God
had been saving people who saw beyond the law to the work of Christ
long before that.

And when the angels, in the brightness of the Easter sunrise, said to
the woman at the tomb of Jesus, "Go and tell his disciples that he is
risen, as he said," that was the culmination of God's program to work
out human redemption quite apart from any effort on man's part. Jesus
had done it all. That is why Paul points out here that Moses
understood that the way to lay hold of and personally appropriate the
value of these incredible events was by believing the divine
announcement with the whole man, with your whole being. That is why he
adds,

But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and
in your heart"; that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:

The mouth is the outward man, the intellectual understanding of what
has happened expressed in words; the heart is the inner man, the will,
the spirit deep within us understanding the basis on which God saves.
And lest anyone miss it, Paul goes on with these clear words (verse
9):

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For
it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is
with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Now I don't think it could be put any clearer than that. That is the
clearest statement in the Word of God on how to be saved. It is very
simple, isn't it? Paul makes it very simple. He says that it begins
with the confession of the mouth that "Jesus is Lord."

Now, don't twist those words to mean that you have to stand up in
public somewhere and announce that you believe Jesus is Lord before
you are saved. Paul does not mean it that way, although it does not
exclude that. He means that the mouth is the symbol of the conscious
acknowledgment to ourselves of what we believe. It means that we have
come to the place where we recognize that Jesus has the right to
lordship in our lives. Up to this point we have been lord of our
lives. Up to this point we have run our own affairs. We have decided
we have the right to make our own decisions according to what we want.
But there comes a time, as God's Spirit works in us and we see the
reality of life as God has made it to be, that we realize Jesus is
Lord. He is Lord of our past, to forgive us our sins; he is Lord of
our present, to dwell within us and to guide and direct and control
every area of our life; he is Lord of our future, to lead us into
glory at last. He is Lord of life, Lord of death, he is Lord over all
things.

As Jesus himself said after his resurrection, "All power is given unto
me, in heaven and on earth"---all power. He is in control of history.
He is running all human events. He stands at the end of every path on
which men go, and he is the ultimate one we all must reckon with. That
is why Peter says in Acts 4:12, "Salvation is found in no one else;
for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must
be saved." You cannot read the book of Acts without recognizing that
the basic creed of the early Christians was "Jesus is Lord."

These are days when you hear a lot about mantras, words that you are
supposed to repeat when you meditate. I suggest you adopt this as a
mantra: Jesus is Lord. Say it again and again, wherever you are, to
remind yourself of this great truth. When Peter stood up to speak on
the day of Pentecost, this was his theme, "Jesus is Lord." And all the
thousands of Jews listening to him could not deny what he pointed
out---that Jesus had lived a unique life, had been witnessed to by the
prophets before him, had been raised from the dead in a most
astonishing way, had died a most remarkable death, then had poured out
supernatural signs from heaven, evidences they could not deny, and
they had to recognize the fact above all facts, that Jesus was Lord
whether they liked it or not. Therefore, the great question of all
time is "What are you going to do with Jesus?"

Paul tells us here that Jesus is Lord, and if you have come to the
place where you believe in your heart that he is risen and available,
and you are ready to say to yourself, "Jesus is my Lord," then God
acts. At that moment God does something. No man can do it, but God
can. He begins to bring about all that is wrapped up in this word
"saved". Your sins will be forgiven: God imparts to you a standing of
righteous worth in his sight; he loves you; he gives you the Holy
Spirit to live within you: he makes you a son in his family; he gives
you an inheritance tor eternity; you are joined to the body of Christ
as members of the family of God; you are given Jesus himself to live
within you. to be your power over evil, over the world, the flesh, and
the devil; and you will live a life entirely different than you lived
before. That is what happens when you confess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
dead.

I think it is very helpful to see that nowhere in all the Scriptures
are men ever asked to believe in Jesus as savior. They are asked to
believe in him as Lord. When you believe in him as Lord, he becomes
your savior. But you don't accept Christ as a savior---you accept him
as Lord. as the one who is in charge of all things, including you.
When you come to that point. when you respond with the whole man. then
God says the work of redemption is done. The miracle occurs.

"Well," someone says, "what if I'm not elect? What if all the time
I've been wanting God and seeking God, and then it turns out I'm not
chosen?" Anyone who talks that way---and people do talk that way---are
indicating they have never understood what Paul is saying here. You
see, if you believe in Christ, you have given proof that you are
elect. As Jesus himself put it, "No man can come to me except my
Father draw him." You can't believe in God until God has called you
and drawn you. The very desire to believe is part of that drawing,
therefore we needn't struggle over this apparent conflict.

What Scripture everywhere confronts us with is the necessity for every
individual to settle the question, "Is Jesus Lord of your life? Is he
your Lord? Have you enthroned him and acknowledged him where God has
placed him, as king over all the earth, the Lord of glory, the one who
is in charge of all things?" When you do, that is the moment when
redemption begins to occur. Now, see how Paul confirms this in the
verses that follow (verses 11-13):

As the Scripture says, "He who believes in him will not be put to
shame." [Here Paul quotes Isaiah. It is not on the basis of works,
but on the basis of belief---he who accepts what Christ does, who
believes on him, will not be put to shame.] For there is no
difference between Jew and Gentile---the same Lord is Lord of ail
and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord will be saved." [That is the word of Joel the
prophet.]

These verses indicate that this is not something new with Paul, but it
is something all the Scriptures have taught, both old and New
Testaments alike---that faith is the way by which we lay hold of what
God has to give us. It is never gained by earning it or by trying to
be good, or by the good outweighing the bad, but simply by
acknowledging that Jesus Christ has done it all on our behalf.

Probably some of you here this morning have been coming to this church
for weeks, and even years, and yet you have never come to the place
where you have acknowledged Jesus as your Lord. You have been
religious, but you are not saved, you have not been redeemed and
changed. I am asking any who have never settled this to say to the
Lord, "Jesus, you are Lord, I accept you and receive you as my Lord
because I believe you rose from the dead and you are available to me
right now." That is the basis on which God says he will act. "If you
confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and be

lieve in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved." That is the way it happens. At this time of the year I always
think of that beautiful little carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem. I
love the third verse:

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

Some of you can be born again this morning, as we bow together in
prayer, if you silently say these words, "Jesus is Lord---my Lord."
Ask him to enter your life as Lord, and at that moment, God says, his
gift is given.

John 1:12 tells us, "He came to his own home, and his own people
received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his
name, he gave power to become children of God..." So if this morning
you asked him to come into your heart and you received him as Lord,
and you mean to allow him to be the controlling center of your life
from here on, I can tell you on the authority of the Word of God, that
you have been saved. God has begun already the new life that will
change you from the inside out, and you will never again be the same
person.

Prayer

Our Father, we give grateful thanks for these clear words from Paul.
We know how he himself struggled and sought to establish his own
righteousness, and tried hard, Lord, to be acceptable before you in
his own strength, and he, too, failed, until there came that
wonderful day on the Damascus road when he met Jesus and he was
changed into a new creature in Christ. Lord, we thank you that that
simple but marvelous miracle has been occurring again and again
throughout the centuries since. We pray that this morning there were
some who opened their hearts to Jesus, made him Lord in their life,
acknowledged his lordship, realized that he was the one who had died
for them and had given himself on their behalf, and made possible
the blessings of the glory of God in their life. Now we pray that we
may serve you together. Through this joyful Christmas season may we
remember that the purpose of his coming to the manger in Bethlehem
and to the cross of Calvary is that we may be saved, and that no one
should perish but should live eternally with you. We thank you in
Jesus' name. Amen.
_________________________________________________________________

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