The Only Way to Be Saved

Posted on November 5, 2006

Romans 10:1-13

A Revolutionary Concept

Did you know that only a few people are going to heaven? Matthew 7:13-14 teaches us that there is a broad way that leads to hell and many people will take that broad road. It also says that the road to heaven is narrow and there will be few who find it.

In our humanistic age, we want to think that everybody’s going to be okay in the end, but that’s just not true. It’s not what the Old Testament taught. It’s not what Jesus taught. It’s not what has been preached down through the ages. Many will try, but few will be saved!

I believe that there are millions of Baptists who will be in hell because they have never understood the truths taught in this passage. And if there are millions of Baptists who are lost, what of the rest of the unchurched world?

Paul begins by expressing the burden of his heart. It is for his people, his family, his kindred. My heart is the same, and yours ought to be as well. I believe that before a man goes to the mission field, he must demonstrate a heart for his own family and neighborhood.

Because I believe some of you may be lost, I want us to focus on this simple message today… the only way to be saved is by trusting in Jesus Christ alone as Savior!

THE ONLY WAY TO BE SAVED…

1.         Admit the futility of your own efforts. (vs. 2-8)

            A.         The futility of zeal without knowledge. (All experience, no real substance.) (v. 2)

            B.         The futility of our own righteousness. (v. 3; Isaiah 64:6)

            C.         The futility of our attempts to climb to heaven. (v. 6)

            D.         The futility of an endless search for salvation. (vs. 7-8)

In other words, millions may be lost because of the simplicity of salvation! We keep working, we keep searching, we keep trying to find the explanation or look for another Messiah, but Paul quotes Moses who said, “It’s right in front of you – it’s so simple – trust Jesus!”

2.         Acknowledge Christ as the only way of salvation. (vs. vs. 9-11)

Notice the repetition of the word “heart” throughout the passage. I have in my library an old Bible made the way they don’t make Bible’s anymore. It’s a Dickson Annotated Reference Bible with a ¾” leather overhang all the way around. It’s worn out, tattered from heavy usage. It  was the personal study Bible of a professor at our seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. He had an earned doctorate, taught church history, and knew Hebrew and Greek very well. Yet out next to these verses he wrote in the margin of that Bible, “the heart not the head!”

So many people are close to being saved because they know all the right facts. They’ve been in Sunday School all their lives. Like the Jews for whom Paul’s heart was broken, they possess a great and vast knowledge of the Scriptures, but they’ve never trusted Jesus in the heart.

            A.         Believe in your heart that He is the Messiah.

Paul was saying, in parenthetical fashion, “You’re looking everywhere for the Messiah but you’ve missed the fact that He’s right under your noses – it’s Jesus!”

            B.         Believe in your heart that He died for your sins.

            C.         Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.

            D.         Confess Jesus with your mouth for all the world to hear. (Mark 8:38; Matthew 10:32-33)

Does verbal confession save a man? No! But an unwillingness to confess Christ demonstrates his lostness. A shame of Jesus before others, according to Scripture, indicates an incomplete faith, a false trust. It indicates that we might feel right and think right, but we have not made a decision with our knowledge.

Salvation involves the head as we understand the truth about Jesus.

Salvation involves the heart as we are changed and converted by Jesus.

Salvation involves the will as we outwardly decide to trust Him forever.

3.         Ask Jesus to be your personal Savior. (vs. 12-13)

            A.         Anybody may be saved by calling upon Jesus.

I can remember a couple of the sweetest moments of my ministry in Kentucky. They all involved people coming to know Jesus as Savior. There was a little boy who knelt in my office to receive Christ as Savior. There was the teenage girl who watched as I demonstrated Christ’s sacrifice with the bridge illustration and she was saved. There was the single Mom from a devout Catholic background. We talked for more than an hour one day about salvation by grace through faith. When it dawned on her, she smiled and confessed Christ as her only Savior. There was the man in his fifties who had been a skeptic all of his life. He finally bent and trusted Jesus. There have been so many more, from such different backgrounds, of different ages, yet the all were saved in the same way – by calling upon Jesus!

            B.         Everybody must call upon Jesus alone!

It is the name of Jesus that saves. Does that mean simply that my voice must utter His name? No, it means that only He can save. It isn’t some generic Lord, higher power, or impersonal force, it’s Jesus only!