Mouth and Heart

Mouth and Heart

(No. 1898)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, APRIL 25, 1886,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall
believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall
be saved." Romans 10:9.

PAUL'S great work was saving souls. Whatever else he might be doing, he
never forgot, "by all means to save some." Whatever else he aimed at in
his Epistles, he always took care to write that men might, by his
teaching, be led to the Lord Jesus. He sought to speak so that troubled
consciences might come to peace through Jesus Christ his Lord, whom he
loved so well. This is one of the reasons why he so often gives us
weighty condensations of the Gospel, packing the Truths of God together
very closely. He knew that these are very useful and so he prepared
them for his Brothers and Sisters, as one provides portable meats or
condensed milk for travelers. When the reader finds a compact sentence
of this sort, he has met with a little Bible, a miniature Body of
Divinity. Behold the whole story of redeeming love told out in a line
or two, easy to be understood, likely to be remembered, calculated to
impress! He who composes short and striking summaries of Gospel Truth
may be working as effectively for the salvation of men as another who
delivers earnest, pleading discourses. In this chapter Paul several
times puts the Gospel in a remarkably plain, simple and brief manner.
He is the master of condensation and our text is a specimen of his
power! He here gives the plan of salvation in a line or so–"If you
shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."

I wish to preach in the same spirit in which Paul wrote, aiming from my
first word to my last at the conversion of any of you who have not yet
known the Lord. I pray that we may all mean business at this time and
may get at it in downright earnest. May you be determined to come to
the point and no longer hesitate! How glad I should be if any would say
to themselves, "I will run in the way, if I can but see it. I will lay
hold of that which is put before me, if I may but grasp it. I will
hesitate and trifle no longer, but I will deal solemnly with solemn
matters, so that this day I may find peace with God!"

I am not going to enter into any profound exposition of the deep things
of God, but I shall keep to those simple matters through which
salvation comes to plain men and women. Oh that the Spirit of God may
bless my words to the immediate conversion of my hearers!

I. I shall need you to notice in our text, first, that the Gospel, as
Paul here sets it forth, is a Gospel of faith. And THIS GOSPEL OF FAITH
IS EVIDENTLY INTENDED FOR LOST MEN. Observe, he says, "If you shall
believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead you shall
be saved." When Moses wrote the Law, he spoke upon obedience to the
command as securing life, for, he says, "This do, and you shall live."
It was presupposed by the Law that those to whom the Law came already
possessed life and the fulfilling of the Law did but preserve them in
the life which they already possessed. We read in the fifth verse of
this chapter, "For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the
Law, that the man which does those things shall live by them." You see,
the Law continues life to those who have already life enough to do good
works. The Gospel comes to us under quite another aspect–it does not
regard us as having life, but as needing that life. The Gospel comes to
us not as to servants who need to be told how they are to continue to
live, but as to dead sinners who need to be made to live and then to be
kept alive and preserved in happy and holy being! The Gospel says not
only that we shall live by it, but that we shall be saved by it, which
promise goes much lower and further. When it is said that we shall "be
saved," it implies that we have fallen into a lost, ruined and undone
condition–and out of this the Gospel is to rescue us.

It is well to start fairly in preaching the Gospel, by declaring
plainly to whom this Gospel is sent. It is sent to you that need it–it
is sent, therefore, to you who are lost, because if you are not lost,
you do not need saving. If you have not fallen, you do not need
restoring. If you have not sinned you do not need forgiving. If you are
not far off from the Lord, you do not require to be brought near by the
blood of Christ. The Gospel of salvation is sent to those who are under
the curse of the Law and condemned to pay its penalties. What a joyous
note this is! Hear it, you broken-hearted, and be encouraged! To you we
proclaim the free gift of God!

Some fancy that we are to preach to you a milder kind of Law, a more
easy way of works, an amended dispensation. But, on the contrary, we
preach to you not demands but gifts, not Law but love. Our Gospel is,
in very deed, good news! We have come to tell men not what they are to
do for God, but what God has done for them! We speak not of what men
are to bring to Jesus, but of what Jesus has brought to them and has
freely and graciously put forward for their acceptance! Listen, then,
you who need saving–this Book is for you–the Christ whom this Book
reveals is for you! The Spirit of God who bears witness to Christ is
for you! Ah, you guilty, you self-condemned, you utterly disheartened,
it is to such as you that the risen Savior is preached today!

Jesus comes to bring salvation. What a great word that is! The text
says the Believer shall "be saved"–saved is a little word for letters,
but it is a great word for meaning! What is it to be saved? It means to
be saved from the punishment of all your sins, saved from going down
into the Pit, saved from the blackness of darkness forever, saved from
the everlasting wrath of the Most High, saved from the second death
whose terror is the Hell of Hell. Whoever confesses the Lord Jesus and
believes that God has raised Him from the dead, shall be saved from the
penal consequences of his guilt.

Better still, you shall be saved from sin itself. The criminality and
guilt of it shall be removed–from its stain you shall be washed whiter
than snow. The sin itself, that black cloud, as well as the tempest
with which it is charged, shall be removed, even as it is written, "I
have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a
cloud, your sins." We preach not only deliverance from the punishment,
but deliverance from the crime, itself–deliverance from the charge and
accusation which otherwise would lie against the transgressor. The sin
shall be blotted out in the case of the Believer and he shall be
forgiven and justified–justified from all things from which the Law
could never clear him. Righteousness shall be imputed to him, even the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus, who is the end of the Law for
righteousness to everyone that believes. If you confess with the mouth
and believe with the heart, the Lord Jesus shall be made of God unto
you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption! The
confessing Believer shall be delivered from the guilt of his sin and he
shall stand accepted before the Judgement Seat of God!

What is still more, you shall not only be delivered from the punishment
of sin and the guilt of sin, but from the power of sin. Oh, to be saved
from sinning! This is our chief desire. It the guilt of sin could
possibly be put away and we could still be left as much the slaves of
sin as before, very little would have been done for us. It would be a
doubtful blessing. If the children of Israel in Egypt had been screened
from serving with rigor, had been fed to the fullest and made content
in their slavery, would it have been a real blessing to them? Would it
not have riveted the chains of their bondage? The Lord did not send
them relief in the form of bread, meat and garments, with which to be
comfortable in Egypt, but He brought them out of Egypt with a high hand
and an outstretched arm. To be made happy in sin would be dangerous to
us and unworthy of God!

The Lord Jesus Christ has come to save His people from their sins, to
break the chains of evil habit, to subdue sinful influences which now
dominate us and to put within us a new heart and a right spirit. He, by
the infusion of a new life, makes us sigh and pant after holiness! He
answers to that sighing and works in us to will and to do of His good
pleasure. He subdues our iniquities and makes the power of evil in us
to wax weaker and weaker while Grace grows stronger and stronger. At
last He will present us faultless before His Presence with exceedingly
great joy. We preach emancipation for the slaves of sin! You that are
worried and wearied with temptation shall be saved from yielding to it!
You that cry out by reason of indwelling sin shall receive salvation
from the power of evil! The living and holy seed within you cannot sin
because it is born of God and its growing force shall, at last, hold
your every thought in captivity to Christ!

It is a blessed salvation–an all-round salvation for the past, for the
present and for the future. This is what we are sent to testify! We
could not have a more full or a more Divine message! We could not have
a grander blessing to present to the sons of men than that of being
saved! In the grand completeness of it, it comprehends Heaven itself
and all its bliss. "You shall be saved" reaches from the gates of Hell
to God's own Throne and lifts the sinner up from between the jaws of

death to the white-robed orchestra of the New Jerusalem! Though now an
heir of wrath even as others, the believing sinner shall be made like
unto the First-Born, even to the Lord Jesus Christ who is bringing many
sons unto Glory.

I begin, then, with the proclamation of salvation for the lost. Hear
it, you unworthy ones! Hear it, you who cannot say a good word on your
own account! Hear it and catch at this hope. If God the Spirit will
bless the Word, according to His gracious habit, you mourning and heavy
laden ones will joyfully cry, "There is a message for us in this text!"
Then you will lean forward lest you should lose a word of the discourse
and your minds will lean forward as well as your bodies. Your hearts
will lie open like plowed land ready for the seed, ready for the
showers. You will be responsive to the voice of mercy, even as the echo
to the horn. By repentance and faith you will answer to the call of
Divine Love!

II. I now advance to my second point, which is this–SAVING FAITH
CONCERNS ITSELF ONLY ABOUT JESUS, HIMSELF. I will read to you the
connection of my text. "But the righteousness which is of faith speaks
on this wise, Say not in your 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 up Christ again from the dead). But what
says it? The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart:
that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if you shall confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your heart that God
has raised Him from the dead you shall be saved."

True faith, the faith which saves, concerns itself wholly about the
glorious Person and gracious work of Him whom God raised from the dead!
Within the compass of Bethlehem, Gethsemane and the right hand of the
Father lies the sphere of the sinner's faith. Faith is where Jesus is
and she asks no wider range. Unbelief is speculative, but faith deals
with facts. Unbelief says, "Who shall ascend into Heaven? Who shall
descend into the abyss?" Unbelief is always starting questions–she is
so dissatisfied with the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ that she demands
another Savior, or no Savior, or 50 Saviors! She does not know what she
wants! Her cry is, "Who will show us any good? Who in the heavens, who
in the depths, who anywhere?"

Unbelief has a very attentive ear to every new notion. This man has a
novel doctrine, another has just ferreted out a fresh idea and unbelief
goes helter-skelter this way and that. She hears voices crying, "Lo
here, and lo there!" and, like a silly bird, she is lured and snared!
She flies away to the hills, or plunges into the abyss to find the
promised good. At one time she is aloft in delusion, at another she is
beneath in despair–pessimism, or optimism, or some other "ism" will
charm her–but she will not keep to the Truth of God.

Faith is of another mind–she takes her stand where Christ is and she
says, "If salvation is anywhere it is in Him. Is it not written, 'Look
unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and
there is none else'?" She bows before Jesus at Bethlehem and sees hope
in His Incarnation. She traverses the fields of Judea with Jesus and
sees hope in the holy, tender-hearted Lover of souls. She goes with Him
to Gethsemane and views Him covered with the bloody sweat and begins to
read her pardon there. She sees Him die upon the accursed tree and she
says, "My life is here. If ever I am saved, I must be saved here." She
sees Jesus in the tomb. She watches and beholds Him rise again–and as
He rises, she claps her hands with delight, for she sees hope and
immortality in Him! She looks up yonder to the Throne of the Most
High–she sees Jesus interceding for transgressors that the Lord God
may dwell among them! She understands that He is carrying on a noble
enterprise which will soon be brought forth to victory and she glories
in her Lord–her All–

"All our immortal hopes are laid In You, our Surety and our Head! Your
Cross, Your Cradle and Your Throne, Are big with glories yet unknown."

Faith's resolve is to look only to Jesus, her God, for she is persuaded
that beside Him there is none else. You are saved, my dear Friend, when
you come to that point! When Jesus is all your salvation and all your
desire, the work of Grace has begun in you. Jesus is your Boaz and you
have come to the right conclusion about Him when you are resolved never
to glean in any other field! You will be satisfied, now that you have
determined to drink waters only from His fountain and to be satisfied
only from His table.

The faith which saves is not dreamy. Do you not notice how unbelief,
here, dreams of skies and seas, and all immeasurable things? "Who shall
ascend into Heaven?" What a picture! Imagination is at work–she
beholds her mighty merits scaling the everlasting ramparts–she dotes
upon her dream! If she hears a discourse, she only cares for the
oratory of it. "What a sermon that man preached! How full of poetry!"
She must have something high and lofty–nothing common will suit her.
At another time, when she is heavy, her dream is of a wretched diver
into the deep seas of anguish plunging

down into the abyss to find the pearl of peace. Imagination raises in
the soul despondency, despair, frenzy and madness– and many foolish
ones hope to find a ransom in these. Faith has done with these Arabian
nights, for she has done with Sinai. She dreams no more, for perfectly
healthy men have done away with dreams! With open eyes, faith reads
facts. She dwells on what Jesus did and suffered. She reflects that He
died, He rose again and is gone into Glory. Facts, not fiction, are her
solace. She accepts matters of history, not figments of imagination.
Something actually done, something really accomplished, faith requires
and accepts. The weight of sin is not to be borne by theories–the
enormous load of human guilt is not to be sustained by speculations.
Only actual transactions can meet our dire necessity! And these we find
in Jesus Christ, the Revelation of God.

I know that I am talking to some of you who are as full of fancies as
an egg is full of meat and I wish I could get you out of them. All
sorts of whims and notions please your idle brains. You have followed
after them as a dog follows a false scent, but you have come upon
nothing yet–and you never will come upon anything till you accept
those sure, well-witnessed facts which make up the life of the Lord
Jesus–especially His Resurrection, which is the best assured fact in
human history! We this day, in the name of God Most High, the Spirit of
God being with us, proclaim salvation by a risen Savior and we beseech
you to believe the Truth of what we say, that you may thereby live!

Unbelief really puts a sad slur upon Christ. She talks about going up
to Heaven, but supposes it is needed that somebody should ascend to
Heaven–that would imply that Jesus had never come down from there to
reveal the Father! She talks of descending into the abyss, as if Christ
had never come up from the dead! The fact is, all that can be done has
been done! Why do you need to do what is already done? All that can be
felt has been felt–why do you need to feel it? "It is finished," said
Christ–why do you strive to do it over again? Look how that fable of
the church of Rome concerning her unbloody sacrifice of the "mass"
insults the one great sacrifice of Calvary and sets it on one side!
And, even so, all those works, feelings, preparations and so forth
which you would add to the finished work of Christ really push Christ
out!

You need to feel–are not His feelings enough? You need to work–are
not His works enough? Trust in self is a disloyal attempt upon the
crown rights of the Redeemer! All those doings, willings and feelings
are a setting up of self salvation. It is all a mistake! Oh that you
would give up those mistakes and hear that your soul may live,
believing what you hear and accepting it in your very soul! I will not,
however, stay longer to describe this faith by contrast, but we will
penetrate a stage further into the center of the text.

III. The third point of our discourse is that SAVING FAITH HAS A
CONFESSION TO MAKE–"If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the
dead, you shall be saved." Observe here, that this confession is put
first. I suppose it is because Paul was quoting from the 30th Chapter
of the Book of Deuteronomy and he had, of course, to place the words as
Moses arranged them in the passage quoted. Yet there must be other
reasons. Possibly the confession of the Lord Jesus unto salvation is
put first because it is most likely to be forgotten. We have plenty of
preaching of, "Believe and live," and I do not condemn it. But still,
strictly speaking, it is incomplete. When our Lord bade His servants go
forth and preach, He said–"He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved."

Now Baptism is the confession of our faith. Constantly in Scripture the
faith to which salvation is promised is a faith which makes a
confession of itself. It is never a dumb faith–it is a faith that
speaks, a faith which acknowledges its existence–yes, a faith which
acknowledges the Lord in the teeth of adversaries! We must confess
Christ before men, or we may not believe that we have the faith of
God's elect. The Apostle mentions it first, here, because it is so
often put into the background and this is a great cause of stumbling.
He mentions it first, also, because it is first as far as our fellow
creatures are concerned. How can I know what you believe in your heart?
I must first hear what you confess with your mouth! An inquirer comes
to me to join the Church, or to be acknowledged as a Christian. I
cannot begin with his heart–I have no means of reading his thoughts. I
say to him, "Speak, that I may see you." If he confesses with his mouth
the Lord Jesus Christ, he has done what, in the order of practical
religion, must lead the way towards friend and foe.

Let me add that, in a certain sense, confession with the mouth is
actually first in the man. Many persons never receive in their hearts
the comfort of Christ's Resurrection because they have never, with
their mouth, confessed the Lord Jesus as their Savior and Master. The
Lord will not give to you the warmth of faith which cheers the heart
unless you are willing to yield to Him the obedience of faith by taking
up your cross and coming out and confessing Him! Their are numbers of
Christians–Christians, I mean, in the judgment of charity–who never
enter into the joy of their Lord because

they have never obeyed His rule, nor acknowledged His name before men.
The Spirit of God, as a Comforter, has not borne His witness with their
spirit, that they are the children of God, because they have never
borne their witness to the Lord Jesus. The comfort of believing with
the heart is hindered by the absence of confession with the mouth!

Will you listen to this, some of you who cry, "We desire to be saved?"
I dare not preach to you a backstairs Gospel for cowards–a secret
green-lane of salvation which winds about through the woods so that you
can travel it without being seen! No–at my Lord's bidding, I preach to
you an open King's Highway which the fearful and the unbelieving refuse
to go! And yet there is only this one way to the Kingdom! We must not
attempt to be moonlighters. Let us follow Jesus in broad daylight.
Jesus says, "He that confesses Me before men, him will I confess before
My Father which is in Heaven; but he that denies Me"–which, in that
connection, means he that does not confess Him–"he that denies Me
before men, him will I deny before My Father which is in Heaven." Hear,
I pray you, the text–"If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord
Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the
dead, you shall be saved."

Notice what it is that is to be confessed–"The Lord Jesus." By which I
gather that it is essential to salvation that a man confess the Deity
of Christ. I would not be uncharitable to anybody, but I never can, as
a believer in the Word of God, expect to see a man saved who denies the
Godhead of his Savior! He puts himself out of court. He rejects that
part of the Redeemer's Character which is essential to His being a
Savior! If any man would be saved, he must believe that Jesus Christ is
both Lord and God.

Again, you must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, that is, Ruler and
Master. You must cheerfully become His disciple, follower, and servant.
You must confess–"He is my Master, He is my Lord, I intend to be a
soldier under Him. He shall be to me Leader and Commander. God has made
Him such and I accept Him as such."

We are to confess the Lord Jesus, too. That means the Savior, who has
come to save His people from their sins. If you would be saved by Him,
you must acknowledge Him as the Messiah, sent of God, to lead His
people out of their ruin into eternal salvation. The Lord commands you
to confess Him in that Character and promises to such a believing
confessor that he shall be saved! Without such open confession there is
no promise.

Note how very definite is the confession. Somebody says, "Well, I will
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I will try and act up to my
faith." Do so, by all means! But this will not fulfill the demand of
the text. It is true, your life is a confession and the more pure it
is, the more excellent it is as a profession. Still, the doing of one
duty does not exempt us from another! The confession required by the
text is expressly said to be "withyour mouth." I dare not alter the
Scripture. Do not blame me–I did not write the words! There they
are–"If you shall with your mouth confess the Lord Jesus." You are
vocally to acknowledge Jesus. You are definitely and distinctly to say
with your tongue, your mouth, your lips that He is your Lord and
Savior. It is not to be an inference drawn in silence from your life,
but a declared statement of the mouth. What other meaning can my text
have but that? If the Apostle meant that we were to obey the Lord Jesus
Christ and might render no other confession, he would have said so. Why
did he say, "with your mouth," if he did not require a spoken
confession? The mode of confession to which the promise of salvation is
given is clearly set forth in these words, "you shall confess with your
mouth."

Why is this? asks one. Well, first, because I believe that confession
with the mouth is a sort of breaking away from the world. When a men
says with his mouth, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," it is as
good as saying to the world, "I have done with you." Those round about
will conclude that the man has broken loose from his old habits and has
come right away from the unbelieving world. When the man with the
withered arm was in the synagogue, our Lord did not take him into the
corner and heal him, but He said, "Stand forth." He stood right out in
the middle of the congregation and when he stood forth, then the Lord
said, "Stretch forth your hand"–and he did so. Dear Seeker, you must
stand out! You must come away from your old companions and sinful
connections and say, "I am for Christ. He is my Savior and I am His
follower." He requires this confession of you that you may thus be cut
loose from the world which lies in the Wicked

One.

This confession is also a way of forming a visible union with the Lord
Jesus. When a man, with his mouth, confesses Christ, he does, as it
were, take sides with Jesus and His cause on the earth–and this is a
very important thing. Besides, this confession is of much use to the
outside world as a witness reproving their ungodliness and inviting
them to a better mind. The confessions of the saved are often the means
of saving others. We are not fully saved till we earnestly wish to save
others. If any man says, "If I can get to Heaven all by myself I shall
be satisfied," he has not taken the first step to

Heaven–assuredly he has not a germ of Heaven within him! The first
thing that must be slain within us, if we are to dwell with God, is our
selfishness! Even our concern for our own salvation must yet be
overridden by a concern for the spread of the Redeemer's Kingdom and a
desire for the salvation of others. No man is truly sanctified till it
is so. Therefore you must confess your Lord with your mouth, to prove
your sacrifice of self.

Ah, my Friends! This is a hard saying to some of you. You have good
points about you, but you do not let your light shine before men as
your Lord commands you. Your candle is under a bushel–it cannot burn
well in so confined a space! It is apt to make smoke and blackness.
Bring it out at once! If it is God's own fire and you put it under a
bed to hide it, it will soon set the bed on a blaze! Mischief comes of
suppressed Truth. It can never be right to hide away the Light of God.
Come out, you cowards! Come out, you tremblers! My Master bids me act
as enlisting sergeant–I set up the banner and invite you to rally to
it! If you love Christ, confess Him! If you would have the salvation of
Christ, take up the Cross of Christ and follow Him wherever He goes.
Have I gone an inch beyond my text? I am sure I have not.

IV. Time would fail me if I were to dwell longer on this point,
important as it is. Let us now notice, in the fourth place, that FAITH
HAS A GREAT COMFORT TO ENJOY. She has truth of which she must speak
with her mouth, but she has also facts which she ponders in her heart.
The text says, "With your heart believe that God has raised Him from
the dead." This does not only mean that you believe the fact that the
Lord Jesus has been raised from the dead–I suppose everybody here
believes in our Lord's Resurrection–but we must so believe it that it
warms and comforts our heart.

Why, my dear Brothers and Sisters, is salvation promised here
especially to a belief with the heart that God has raised Christ from
the dead? Is not our faith to be fixed upon the death of Christ rather
than upon the Resurrection of Christ? I answer, it is probably here
stated because in the Resurrection of our Lord all the rest of His
history is implied and included. If He was raised from the dead, then
He must have died. If He died, then He must have been a Man and have
been born into the world. In mentioning that God raised our Lord from
the dead, the Apostle has really mentioned all the great redeeming work
of Jesus, since all the other items are involved in it.

Moreover, the raising from the dead is not only inclusive of the rest,
but confirmatory of the whole. By raising Him from the dead, the Father
gave confirmation of the mission of His Son. He set His seal upon His
Person as Divine, upon His office as commissioned of God to be the
Messiah, upon His life as well-pleasing and upon His death as being
accepted of God for full atonement. Therefore the Most High raised Him
from the dead that He might be declared to be the Son of God with power
and that, in and through Him, Believers might be justified. We would
not have had firm ground for our faith in Jesus if the seal of
Resurrection had not been set to His work. But now, when we believe in
the seal, we believe, also, in that which is sealed. His Resurrection
is the seal of all that our Lord is and does–and believing in this
with our heart, we believe in that which brings salvation!

Moreover, the Resurrection of Christ from the dead is one of the chief
of those Truths of God which are to be believed in the heart, because
it is the source of the heart's best comfort. "Look," says the
Believer, "I am, by nature, a poor lost sinner, but I shall not be
destroyed forever, for Jesus my Savior and Surety has been raised from
the dead! My salvation lies in Him. I am delivered from the dead in
Him. I see my justification in His Resurrection. Because Jesus lives, I
have an unfailing Friend to whom I fly. Because God raised Him from the
dead and so bore witness that He accepted Him, therefore I know that I
am accepted in Him. If I lay hold upon that righteousness which God has
accepted, I am accepted in it."

O dear Friends, when a sinner knows that his salvation does not lie in
himself at all, but wholly in Christ, then he discovers the great
secret! The point is to see Jesus dying for our sins and to see
ourselves dead in Him. To see Jesus risen from the grave and ourselves
risen in Him. To see Jesus accepted of God and ourselves, therefore,
accepted in Him. The Lord Jesus is the object of our trust–not
ourselves. We are in Him and as He is, so are we. We shall rise to
Glory because He rose to Glory and we shall dwell in Heaven because He
dwells in Heaven! Union to Christ is the foundation of hope. Oh, to
live in Christ!

The difficulty is to wrench you away from yourselves–this needs a
miracle of Grace. I know where you are–you are saying, "I do not feel;
I cannot do," etc. Sirs, this is not the point! The ground of salvation
is in Jesus and not in the sinner! To see salvation, we must mark what
Christ accomplished and especially we must mark in our heart that the
Lord Jesus was raised from the dead–and there we shall be comforted
because the Resurrection of the Savior is the assurance

of the completion of His atoning work. He who would have sure hope must
fix his faith upon Jesus living, Jesus crucified, Jesus risen, Jesus
ascended, Jesus soon to come! If we believe and trust in these facts,
we shall be saved–so says the text. Put the two things together–you
confess Jesus to be Lord and Christ and you, also, with all your heart,
trust in Jesus as risen from the dead–well, then, you shall be saved!

How this ought to cheer those of you who are near despair! How it
should encourage those who lie at death's door! You groan out, "I never
can be saved." Why not? If Christ died and rose again, what then? If
this is the ground of salvation and you believe it to be the fact, hold
on to it and never let it go! Never let your heart doubt the
well-witnessed fact that God has raised Jesus from the dead! Plead the
promise of our text in life and, in the dying hour! Cry, "O Lord, You
have said that if with my mouth I confess the Lord Jesus, and with my
heart believe that You have raised Him from the dead, I shall be saved.
Lord, I make the confession and my heart also believes! I beseech You,
therefore, to do as You have said and save me." This plea can never
fail!

V. So now I finish with the truth that FAITH HAS A SURE PROMISE TO REST
UPON. "If you believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the
dead, you shall be saved."

"YOU"–Who is that? This is yourself! It is the man who, with his
mouth, confesses and with his heart believes. Dear Friend, it means
you! John, Thomas, Sarah, Jane, where are you? Did I hear you cry, "I
have no merits of my own! I have no good feelings! I have nothing of my
own that I can rejoice in! I feel myself to be utterly lost!"? Listen!
"If you shall, with your mouth, confess the Lord Jesus and shall
believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall
be saved." The singular pronoun, "you," sets its mark upon you! Put
your ear to this telephone–a voice speaks to you. God out of Heaven is
speaking straight down the telephone into your ear–"you shall be
saved."

"But I am almost damned." If you confess and believe, "you shall be
saved." "Alas! I must give up in despair." Yet the promise is to the
contrary. "But I am the blackest sinner out of Hell." Still the promise
is to you–"Ifyou shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and
shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you
shall be saved." I cannot come down from my pulpit and run round to all
the pews, but, oh, I wish I could look each one of you in the face and
press your hand and say, "Dear Friend, the text says, 'you.'" Brother,
Sister, it speaks to you! Youth, child, or gray-headed old man–whoever
you may be–the text says that if you believe, "you shall be saved."

Observe the total absence of, "ifs," and, "buts." It is not "you may be
saved," but, "you shall be saved." When God the Holy Spirit says,
"shall," there is solidity in it! But you say, "I am afraid." Afraid of
what? Dare you question the truthfulness of God? When God says,
"shall," what can you be afraid of? If I were to say, "shall," you
would receive it as a proof of my fixed intent, but you would know that
there is only my poor puny arm to carry it out. But when God says,
"shall," Omnipotence is engaged! He that made Heaven and earth and
shakes them with His nod–He who creates and destroys–HE says,
"shall," and who can stand against His will? Devils in Hell go howling
back to their dens when they hear even the whisper of a, "shall," from
God!

There is a sort of passiveness about the expression, "be saved." The
text does not speak about what you are going to do, but about something
that is to be done to you–"You shall be saved." "I cannot save
myself–who said you could? Who asked you to? You can, with your mouth,
confess the Lord Jesus–do that straight away. You can believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead. If you are the man I am
looking for, you are doing so now. You say, "Oh yes, I believe it with
all my heart; my hope lies in Jesus." Then you shall be saved! The
power that is needed to deliver you from your sinfulness, the Grace
that is needed to wash you from your guilt, the blood that is needed to
cleanse you form your filthiness is all ready–and out of Glory the
Lord Jesus declares, "you shall be saved."

There never was, and there never will be a man who, with his mouth
confessed the Lord Jesus and with his heart believed that God raised
Him from the dead, who was not saved. Among all the multitudes that
sink to Hell, there is no confessing Believer and no believing
confessor! I dare not part the confession and the faith, for God has
joined them together. The mouth and the heart are equally necessary to
a living body and a living soul. Open confession and secret
belief–these together make up the casting of yourself upon the Lord
Jesus! The full surrender to the Savior–that is the great saving act.
Do you cast yourself, sink or swim, on what Jesus has done? Then you
shall be saved, otherwise I am a liar and, what is far worse, this Holy
Book is a liar, too! And the Spirit of God has borne false witness.
This can never be! I have no hope, this morning, but what is compassed
in this verse. With my mouth I do again confess the Lord Jesus, for I

believe Him to be very God of very God, my Master, my All. Moreover, in
my heart I do verily and assuredly believe that God raised Him from the
dead and I am glad of it! It comforts and joys me–

"He lives, the great Redeemer lives!

What joy the blessed assurance gives!" I shall be saved, I know I
shall! I dare not doubt it because God's Word plainly says so!

I have the same confidence concerning the poorest old woman in this
house as I have about myself. If she confesses and believes, she is
saved as I am. The most wicked ruffians and most wanton harlots, if
they will do as the text directs, shall also be saved. This Gospel is
not denied to the vilest of the vile. O my Friend, it is not denied to
you! This is the ship which has carried thousands to Heaven. We who go
on board shall get to Heaven by it. If it could go down, we should all
sink together, but as it floats safely, we will all sail together to
the Fair Havens. There is no second vessel on this line and there is no
other line! This one chartered boat of salvation by a confessing faith
now lies at the wharf. Come on board! Come on board at once! God help
you to come on board at this very moment, for Jesus Christ's sake!
Amen.