We have a special message today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg is issuing an earnest call to the almost Christian.
Might that include you? We'll find out what he means by the term as we consider the necessity, clarity, and urgency of the Gospel of Salvation. We're looking today at verses 9 and 10 in Romans chapter 10.
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. Life is made up for every single one of us here this morning of a number of decisions. Some of them are immediate and immediately important.
Some of them we may take time to, and they are of long-lasting significance. But on the authority of God's Word, there is no decision that any of us could ever be called to make that could ever be such an important decision that it would alter the whole course of our human history, and beyond the matter of our eternal destiny. And it is my purpose this morning to address myself to this whole matter of what it means to commit our lives to Jesus Christ. And I would like to address myself primarily to issuing a call to those whom I may describe as the almost Christians.
These individuals are acquainted with the gospel. They have heard it many times. They could even reiterate it to others. They find it to be interesting. They may even find it to be intellectually stimulating.
They regard it as something that they may listen to and perhaps enjoy, even though from time to time it may be a wee bit troubling. They are those who realize that there is comfort and consolation in the gospel for those who have troubled spirits, and they may well view it as a word of God which somehow offers everything and seems to demand nothing. Such individuals can hardly be blamed for feeling that way about things, for quite honestly, from so many pulpits in our country, that is exactly the message that they have been treated to.
Consistently told that Christianity makes no demands and calls for no decisions. Now, when we open our Bibles and take that and examine it in relationship to what the Scriptures teach, we find that actually, they're a verse is true. And I'd like you to turn for just a moment to Mark chapter 6, where I want to introduce you to an almost Christian. Here we have in Mark's gospel a classic illustration of the kind of person I'm referring to—Mark and the sixth chapter, where we have an account of John the Baptist and the impact which he, in his ministry, had upon King Herod. And you would have to begin reading at the fourteenth verse of what was taking place, but the verse and the portion of the verse I'd like you to notice is at the end of verse 20, which in the NIV reads, When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, yet he liked to listen to him.
An interesting statement. One of the great preachers that God ever brought across the stage of human history spoke in a personal way to this great and powerful monarch. And the response of the monarch was to be stirred, to be disturbed, to be intrigued, perhaps to be marginally changed, and yet to remain as a waverer, to remain as a wobbler, to remain as the kind of individual who has grasped enough to know and yet has not been grasped enough to be changed.
He was Herod the almost Christian. I want to lay it down as axiomatic this morning that the gospel calls for a decision. And indeed, before this service ends, I am going to call for a decision. I am going to call for some who remain waverers and wobblers, to cease from that activity today and to commit your lives unreservedly to Jesus Christ. And when you look at the events of the Acts of the Apostles, you discover that Peter, right on the day of Pentecost and beyond, is calling men and women to choose concerning this matter of Jesus Christ.
And he was unequivocal in his call to them. If the gospel calls for a decision, let us be clear this morning that nothing short of a decision is of any value at all. You may be disturbed, you may be intrigued, you may be amused, you may be offended, you may be interested, and yet you remain before God unchanged by the preaching of his Word. And whatever the ultimate explanation of Herod's indecision—we can say this, I believe, with some certainty, that the reason he could hear so much and do so little was largely because of his unwillingness to think things through to their logical conclusion. If he had thought through to the logical conclusion of what John was saying concerning sin, concerning repentance, concerning righteousness, concerning judgment, then he would have realized that he, Herod, was in need of the solution to which John pointed.
And yet Herod heard, and Herod remained unchanged. I want to look with you at what Paul tells us in these verses 9 and 10 of the tenth chapter of Romans. The first thing I want you to notice is the absolute necessity of salvation. It stands to reason that before men and women will ever embrace Christ as their Savior, they must come to see him as the very Savior that they need. And the reason that some have never embraced Christ is because they do not believe they need Christ. They may be prepared to acknowledge that we have a global problem, that our world is shattered and fractured by man's inhumanity to man.
They may be prepared to pick up their newspaper and bemoan the state of affairs in our national life with all the heinous crimes that are being performed, with the injustice that is present in the judicial system, with the violence that is present on the streets, with the disorder that is chaotic in our classrooms, and with the wrongdoing that is prevalent in our business structures. And yet, having acknowledged it globally, and having been prepared to say it is present nationally, these same individuals are unprepared to face it personally. And you will never come to Christ because you've recognized a global problem.
You will never know Jesus as your Savior because you've encountered a national dilemma. You will only ever come to Christ when you recognize that you are personally in need of him. Ask yourself the question this morning, Have I always been absolutely pure? Have I always been absolutely honest? Have I always been absolutely genuinely selfless? Have I always loved God with all my heart and all my soul and all my mind and all my strength?
And the answer must inevitably be, No, I have not. Then, said the Bible, here you see the evidence of personal sin. And when the Spirit of God brings that to our awareness, he at the same time brings to us this great news of the one Jesus who came to save. And I say to you this morning again that the cry of the gospel, the call of Christ, is to sinners. It is to unrighteous people. It is to people who realize that at their best they cannot complete the equation. It is to those who have tried and failed. It is to those who have believed the devil's lie, that there is no future for them, that they must now stumble through their lives. It is for those who rest in their own self-betterment and who need to be shown their need of a Savior. You see, the Bible says that sin is rampant.
It says that it's like a terminal illness in our lives, and furthermore, it says that it's at an advanced stage. Now, we shouldn't think of it simply in terms of one or two deeds—adultery, murder, theft. We write them up on the blackboard, and then we say, Am I an adulterer? Am I a murderer?
Am I a thief? And we say, No. And therefore, since we set the exam, we pass the exam. But unfortunately, it's God who sets the exam. And again, what we're told in Scripture is that it's not the things that are from outside that are the fundamental problem. But rather, and Jesus was pointing this out to the religious people again, he says in Mark 7 verse 20, What comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly, disobedience to your parents, resentment of authority, preoccupation with yourself, a total fixation with who I am and what I want to be does not come as a result of an environmental impact from without. It comes as a result of a problem from within.
Now, this would be fine, loved ones, if we could just leave it at that and go on. But in actual fact, the Bible says this. We deliberately choose to be that way. We deliberately tell lies. We deliberately harbor impurity.
We deliberately choose to do what's wrong. And that wrong is going to be punished. In Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 27, the writer to the Hebrews gives us these stirring, profoundly moving, challenging words, Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people, and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. I want to say to you this morning, as sensitively and yet as authoritatively as I might, Jesus said twice as much about hell as he ever said about heaven. And I want to tell you on the authority of God's Word this morning that if you remain a waverer and a wobbler and you die in your sin, you will go to hell. Hell is factual, hell is final, hell is fearful, and hell is fair. For God will merely confirm the choice of your heart on that day when you stand before him. The gospel is not something that offers itself for debate and for discussion.
The gospel is something which calls for definite acceptance and belief. Do you believe? Are you a believer? Are you a waverer?
Are you a wobbler? Are you a Christian? Are you an almost Christian? The way to find salvation is to seek it. And what makes one seek it but the discovery of one's need of it. And only when I discover my need of a Savior will I ever seek him. And it is the Spirit of God's work this morning to take his Word to your heart and to mine and to convince you of what you know and what God knows about your life. The absolute necessity of salvation. Secondly, I want you to notice, and in a more brief statement, I want you to notice the absolute clarity of what's involved in being saved. Notice what we're told. First he puts it one way, and then he repeats it in the reverse way. 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.
Two constituent parts. He then turns it around and repeats it this way. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, which is another word for saved, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Okay, so somebody says, I've followed you so far. What's involved?
What do I need to do? Make it perfectly clear to me. Well, there are two factors involved. Number one is the matter of internal conviction, the shift within the very center of our being from the cognitive response, which is, I need a Savior, to the closure with Christ, which is this. You, Jesus, are the Savior that I need. It's interesting that Paul should address the matter of the resurrection and believing in the resurrection.
Why would he do this? I believe this must be the case, that if you believe the resurrection, you believe it all. If the resurrection is true, then all the rest goes right along with it. In the resurrection, it declared the fact of the Father's acceptance of his Son's sacrifice. It affirmed the claims of Jesus Christ.
It said to the world he's alive, and it made possible our acceptance of him. But you need to know this morning—we all need to know—that to believe in Jesus, to put our trust in Christ, means to rely upon him alone, and therefore to cease to rely upon everyone and everything else that may have been important to us. When I come to trust in Christ alone, then I no longer am trusting in how many times I come to church. When I come to trust in Christ alone, then I'm no longer trusting on the basis of the family background that I've enjoyed. As long as a modicum of that remains within your mind, you don't know what it means to trust in Jesus Christ. The individual who believes in their heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead is coming and saying, I don't trust in any other thing.
I've got nothing else to bring. I want to believe exclusively, cast myself helplessly upon you. So it's internal conviction. And secondly, it's external confession. There's not only that belief at the very center of our being, but there is that confession.
And he says it is confessing with our mouths, which is, of course, a reference just to public declaration. And this is why you see, loved ones, there is no place for secret discipleship. There is no place for people sitting in here on a Sunday morning saying, Oh yes, I'm a Christian. It's just I don't tell anyone about it. Oh yes, I'm a believer, but I'm never going to confess it.
Oh yes, I believe in my heart, but I don't want anyone to know. You're not a Christian. You're an almost Christian. You're a waver. You're a wobbler. You're a heret. And I say again to you this morning, how long can you sit out there on that fence?
How long can you live this way? It is an external confession of our lives which verifies and confirms our internal conviction that Jesus is Lord. So, we've noticed the absolute necessity of salvation. Decision-making is axiomatic to Christian conversion.
Nothing less than a decision is of any value at all. Secondly, we've noticed the absolute clarity of what's involved— belief from within, profession from without. And finally, I want you to notice the incredible urgency which attaches to this matter. If God has shown you your need and given you in your heart a desire to turn to Jesus Christ, then I say to you this morning, you turn your life over to him now, today, this morning, without any further ado. The reason I say that is because of this.
There are not a few here who in the past have been moved, they have been prompted, they've been disturbed, they've been intrigued by faith, but you still don't get converted. What you do is this. You walk out, and you say, I really am going to have to sort a few things out. And so you establish an external pattern of living, and you try your best to move things and change things, a little bit like what I think is alluded to by Herod, where it says that he listened to John the Baptist preach and he did many things. I wonder whether many things were he did. I think he went and changed things. I think he tried to shape up. I think he tried to be nicer to his wife. And I think he decided that he would be a better kind of monarch for a while. But eventually the cycle came around and hid him and showed him that he was bereft of the salvation which John the Baptist came to offer. The change was external and human.
It was not internal and divine. It is a matter of great urgency. Time is coming, loved ones, when it will all be too late. There may be no next time in your history. There may be no next time in my opportunity to proclaim the gospel. If the Spirit of God is at work within your heart, showing you your sin, showing you your need of Christ, then now is the accepted time.
Behold, today is the day of salvation. Will you continue to waver and wobble? Will you remain an almost Christian? Well, says someone I don't know, I'm just gonna make a mad rush for it at the last minute. Oh, you are, are you?
Why in the white world would you ever choose to do that? If you know your need, and you know that Christ came to save you, why would you ever wait? Well, you say, Alistair, this is a bit heavy.
Yeah, it's really heavy. But I want to end this morning by saying, beware the folly of Herod. Herod had a genuine interest. Herod liked to listen to the preacher. Herod would have been quite happy at the chapel on a Sunday morning. But Herod eventually capitulated to the crowd.
You can read it when you go home in Mark 6. The call for public acknowledgment left him in his wavering. And yet it was publicly that Jesus Christ hanged upon the cross.
It was publicly that people spat on his bleeding back. It was publicly that he cried out, Father, forgive them, for they know not what to do. So why would it be anything less than public affirmation that we might look for in seeking to follow after him? I say in conclusion with the words of a preacher from of old, if the wondrous love of God in Jesus is not sufficient to attract you to him, then I place such value on the worth of your souls that I am happy to alarm you with your need. To remind you that to spend eternity without God will mean eternal remorse, it will mean eternal misery, it will mean eternal wretchedness. And you can have eternal remorse, eternal misery, and eternal wretchedness by just agreeing with me, being somewhat moved, and walking out unchanged. What do I have to do to become a Christian? Believe in my heart that God has raised him from the dead and give public profession and confession of it with my mouth. And then I'll go to heaven. What do I need to do to go to hell? Absolutely nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Will you bow with me in prayer? I'm going to pray just a simple prayer, and in your heart you may choose to pray this along with me.
God's not interested in the words as much as he is in the cry of our hearts. Dear Lord Jesus, I confess that I am a guilty, lost, and helpless sinner. I want you to save me, to take your rightful place as Lord of my life. I want to turn from my wavering and from my sin to live for you. I want to thank you for the promise that if I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth that your word says I will be saved. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you recognized yourself as an almost Christian and you just prayed that prayer with Alistair, we would love to hear from you.
You can give us a call at 888-588-7884 or share your story with us by email. Our address is letters at truthforlife.org. And you can learn more about the gospel by taking a few minutes to watch a couple of free videos on our website at truthforlife.org slash learn more. One is a brief talk from Alistair explaining the gospel.
The other is an animated film titled What is the Story of the Bible? We are so glad you've joined us this week. Hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church. On Monday we'll begin a study of the fruit of the spirit. Our first lesson is about love. What is Christian love and how is it generated? I hope you'll join us to think through the answers. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
