Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing—a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. There is the sound of the rushing of rain. May your ears be blessed to hear it. There is a miraculous outpouring on the horizon. May your eyes be blessed to see it.
If you're in a season of drought, take heart. A small cloud rises from the sea of God's grace. If you're in a season of plenty, praise Him. God's grace knows no bounds. Elijah was just as human as you are, and God changed the whole atmosphere through his prayers.
Likewise, your prayers are unspeakably powerful and effective, because when you are in Christ, you are clothed with His righteousness.
So may the heavens open, and miracles rain down, bringing glory to God. And blessing to many, in Jesus' name. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Allen Wright. This is what's so scandalous and powerful. He's saying if you confess that Jesus is Yahweh, that Jesus is the same God who spoke to Moses from a burning bush.
That He's the same God who created everything that exists and flung the stars into their places and put planets in their orbit and made human DNA. Jesus is that God, and this is the mark of what it is to be a Christian. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt.
Excited for you to hear the teaching today in this series, Beloved: A Study of Romans Chapters Nine through Eleven, is presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
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Here is Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Yes. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Wow!
Everyone, young, old, rich, poor, poor, uneducated, educated. Those on the mountaintops, those in the valleys, those that are, those that have grown up hearing His name, those who just heard His name for the first time—everybody who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Wow! We had a great vacation Bible school this week, and again, thank you, everybody, that made it possible. My wife this year was the large group teacher.
The setting of Vacation Bible School was the church is the castle. The teaching this week is all about the armor of God, and so the fellowship hall that was decorated was what my wife said this is the keep, which is the safest place in the castle.
So the teachers were dressed in medieval attire and found a medieval. Dress, you know, and she had some kind of really tall crown. It was interesting. She got herself a crown. It was very tall.
So she was in her element, being sort of a medieval Disney princess in the midst of all these kids. And one night, in the middle of it, one little girl just came up to her and said, "An aunt called herself Queen Annabelle, and she just came. She's Queen Annabelle." He said yes. She said, "You're just beautiful." So that made the whole thing worth it for him right there. This is why you need to volunteer for vacation Bible school.
You never know. You just never. You never know. You know. We talk throughout the week because there's nothing greater or more challenging than to teach a child.
The armor of God has some challenges to it because, in the first place, you gotta. Talk about why do you need armor?
Well, because there's a battle going on. It's hard for a concrete thinker of a little child to understand that, and that there are two kingdoms. And so we had some conversations throughout the week, but on the closing night, she planned to offer an opportunity for people to say yes to the saving love of Jesus Christ. Because we believe that little children can accept Jesus, right? I'm pretty sure that our kids accepted Jesus authentically, as best that they knew how, at a very tender age, maybe as early as age age four.
So it was interesting. She said, "Well, I'm going to give this invitation." She said, "How shall I give it?" I'm like, "Honey." You've been leading people to Jesus for decades and decades. He said, "Yeah, but this is, this is important." So we sat down to talk about what must one do to be saved. And there's nothing better than to talk about it in the context of how do you share the gospel with a four-year-old, or a five-year-old, or a fourth grader. How do you do so such that you're not in any way being manipulative, and you're not overly reducing the gospel to something that is too simplistic or too moralistic?
And yet, what is the essence of what one must do to accept the greatest gift that's ever been given? And it was really fun because it made us go back.
Well, let's just talk about this. You said, "Do I need to lead them through a whole thing about how sorry they are for their sins and that sometimes we do bad things? We need to be sorry about that. Do we need to do that?" And I said, "Well, interesting. You should bring this up because I'm preaching out of Romans 10, which says that if you." Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.
You'll be saved. And in fact, Paul says, "All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." We began to talk about that, and she's like, "Well, how how much do that? How much do they have to understand? What how?" You see where I'm going with this? Was it's like it should be the simplest thing in all the world for a preacher and his wife who've been doing this for 40 years to just give a simple ministry invitation to kids, and yet it drew us back in to the essence of what does it mean to be saved, and what must one do to receive such salvation.
And here we are in this familiar passage in Romans 10, which I went back into this text and let myself have the the freedom to read and study it as if I'd never read it before. And what I found was that, as always, I was enthralled by the word of God. And found here a couple of real surprises, especially if you were to read it from the perspective of a first-century Jew. And I hope to show it from that perspective. Two big surprises, and two absolutely beautiful, pleasant implications of of this.
The first surprise is the very References that Paul makes here to texts that are from the law of Moses. The reason this is really surprising, and the reason I'm going to take some time to try to explain this to you, even though it runs the risk of being a little complicated, and I sure don't want to lose your attention here early in this sermon. But the first part of this text is a little puzzling. But if you'll stay with me for this, I think you'll see something beautiful about the integration of the Bible as one big story about Jesus, and Paul really understood this.
So Paul, in building towards this case of all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, he starts with two Old Testament references. Let's look at verse five, Romans ten five. For Moses writes about the righteousness that's based on the law.
Okay, that's old covenant. That the person who does the commandments shall live by them. And there he is quoting pretty directly Leviticus eighteen five.
So what this says is hypothetically, if someone could keep all the law. Then they would live, and this is essentially what God said at the beginning of the giving of the law itself. If you could keep all this law, then all these blessings that I'm speaking will be yours. The problem, of course, is nobody except Jesus could keep all of this law. But hypothetically, if someone could keep all the law, then they would be righteous.
They would remain in right standing with God, and they would be saved, and they would live forever. But no one's done that except Jesus. And so Paul, having taught us that no one is righteous, he moves on here to verse six, Romans ten six. But the righteousness based on faith is contrasted to the righteousness based on the law. He says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' That is, bring Christ down, or 'Who will descend into the abyss?' That is, to bring Christ up from the dead." But what does it say?
The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim.
Now, what's surprising is that in order to explain salvation. And the righteousness that comes by faith, which Paul has been teaching us about in all of Romans, he here makes at first what seems puzzling a reference to Deuteronomy and the giving of the law, and he's quoting or adapting verses from Deuteronomy chapter thirty. And anyone that was a first-century Jew familiar with the Torah would have immediately known he was referencing Deuteronomy.
So look at it through this eyes and and look at it, asking as I did of this text, why, in order to explain salvation by grace, is he here quoting from the law? And this is what he says. This is what his reference, Deuteronomy thirty. Verse eleven and following, this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you. Neither is it far off.
Okay, so this is Moses speaking, the word of the Lord, telling the people about all of the giving of the law, and saying the commandment I command you today is not too hard for you. Neither is it far off.
Well, that's an interesting thing, given the fact that. It's so hard that nobody except Jesus has ever kept all the law. Verse twelve in Deuteronomy thirty. It's not in heaven that you should say, "Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it." So you can see that's what Paul was referencing there. Neither is beyond the sea that you should say, "Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it." And Paul reinterprets that and says into the abyss because sometimes the sea was thought of as the abyss.
But Deuteronomy thirty verse fourteen, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so you can do it. Was a little puzzling because, again, no one was able to do the law, and yet here's the Lord saying it's very near you, and you can do it, and you don't have to ascend to heaven. To bring it down, you don't have to descend into the abyss. And Paul knows the problem with the law is no one can keep it, and yet he's quoting that section. And in order to understand it, you really we won't read all of it, but you really should look at all of Deuteronomy thirty.
But look at this a little bit more closely. Verse eleven of Deuteronomy thirty: the commandment I command you today is not too hard for you. Though it sounds like that that's the very thing that would be hard is to keep the law, as Paul has taught us. But or make sense of this in Romans ten six when Paul says, "Do not say in your heart." There he's quoting a different passage in Deuteronomy. I know this is a little confusing, but stay with me for a second.
He's quoting Deuteronomy nine four and five. Do not say in your heart after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, it is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess the land.
Now this is so important because in Deuteronomy nine, the gospel is being proclaimed to the people of God. Long before Jesus, and Moses is speaking the word of the Lord to the people and saying to them, "When you go into the promised land, whatever you do, do not say, 'Israel, that we got this because of our own righteousness.' It's going to be because I drove the enemy out of the land and gave it to you." And it's absolutely imperative that you remember that the promised land was a gift. Though you fight battle after battle, and though you go and you take it, and you stand in the courage, it still comes to you by my word and my promise and my power. There never has been two ways that God was going to bless His people. One, because His people were righteous, and the other, because of grace.
They never been righteous, and so it's always been by grace.
So what Paul's doing here is he's taking two familiar passages. They'd be familiar to his Jewish readers from Deuteronomy nine and from Deuteronomy thirty, and he's putting this together. Do not say in your heart. He's quoting this and he's reminding them of Deuteronomy thirty. And there's another section in Deuteronomy thirty.
That you need to see in order to make sense of this, and that's verses five and six, Deuteronomy thirty-five and six. The Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it, and He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. This is a prophetic. Promise that is only fulfilled in the giving of Jesus Christ.
This is God saying that what I really desire is not external laws like circumcision. What I really desire, and my pledge to you, is it's going to be a day in which the law is going to be internalized, in which you will have within you a capacity to do what is right, not because you are trying to keep a law outside of yourself, but because you have been filled up with my grace on the inside. And He's promising this blessedness.
So this is what Paul is referencing from Deuteronomy 30.
Now look at this—an insight that I gained from a beautiful sermon of John Piper's I read this week, in which you look at the contrast between what Paul says and what Deuteronomy says. And I'm going to put this up for Deuteronomy 30: 11. Who will ascend to heaven and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
Okay, so. That phrase, that we may hear it and do it.
Well, Paul at verse six of Romans ten, he changes the language here. Who will ascend into heaven? But he doesn't say that we may hear and do it. But now he says that is bring Christ down. And then the same thing in Deuteronomy thirty verse thirteen.
Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear and do it? But when Paul quotes it, Romans te:n seven, who will descend into the abyss? He changes language and says to bring Christ up from the dead.
So, where Moses speaks of obedience to the commandments, Paul puts in Christ. It can only mean this: that when God says the commandments are not too hard for you, and that this is very near, He's pointing to Jesus, the Messiah. He is pointing to the fulfillment of this great promise of when the Holy Spirit will have come, and it's a radical and beautiful and powerful thing. To think that fifteen hundred years before Jesus, that Moses is saying this is doable and it is near, but the only way that is doable and it is near is by the gift of Jesus Christ, and that when Moses says you don't have to ascend to the heaven and try to bring it down so you can do it, and you don't have to descend into hell and bring it up so you have to do it, that Paul comes back and reclaims this text and he says you do not have to by your righteousness climb. Up to heaven, as if you need to bring Christ down to bless you, and you don't need to wallow in your shame and go into the abyss of hell and try to bring blessing back up out of your own remorse.
But instead, it is very near you. Salvation itself and every blessing of God. He's saying it is not off in some distant heaven, and it has not been lost in hell. But it is here now in Christ Jesus. Wow, this is near as your own breath and your own heart.
Every blessing of God and salvation is so near. Oh, I wish everybody could know that. They're not hurdles and obstacles and puzzles and great odysseys and journeys that must be made. They're not enormous sacrifices, and weeping and gnashing of teeth, and wallowing in shame. These are the things of religion.
But the salvation of God is at hand. A second surprise that might be a surprise to some of you, and I think would have been a surprise to his readers. Is really twofold, and that is when he says, "Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord." That in the first place he calls Jesus Lord, and that salvation is received through the acknowledgment of the lordship of Jesus. And this is so powerful and scandalous to the Jewish reader because, when Moses was called by God, and said, "Who shall I tell them sent me?" God said, "Tell them Yahweh sent you." Alan Wright. Today's good news message, titled "Saved," in our series "Beloved." It's a study of Romans, and I encourage you to stay with us because Pastor Alan is back here in the studio.
Just a few moments, sharing his parting good news. Thought for the day: Whatever your spiritual need is for today, you'll find Christ-centered tools and help waiting for you at PastorAllen.org. Whether you are seeking encouragement at the start of a busy morning, quiet reflection in the middle of a hectic day, or deeper teaching to grow your walk with the Lord, there's something prepared just for you. Begin with a daily blessing that speaks hope and truth over your life. Life.
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As we place a bookmark here in this teaching, saved, and we'll be back next time with more. This teaching, Master Allen. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. It's the anyone that I want to leave you with that thought. Anyone, anyone under the sound of my voice.
Anyone who has lived a life that seems so contrary to the things of God. Anyone who's made horrible mistakes. Anyone who's sinned terribly. Anyone who has never heard of or known anything of Jesus till now, anyone who seemingly has turned their back on all things spiritual and been walking too long in the other direction, anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Thanks for listening today.
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