Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Bible Truth #309 - Romans 10:9

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

This is a passage that every Christian should know from memory and use frequently. The Greek word for heart is kardia (Strong’s G2588) which tells us in this context that the heart is the center and seat of spiritual life. I don’t think there will be very many believers who will argue that. The problem is when you take that truth further.

Please tell me, if the heart is the center and seat of spiritual life, how does a lost person who is spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1, 2:5; Colossians 2:13) do ANYTHING with a dead heart? The truth is he can’t do anything spiritual. God is Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and Truth (John 4:24). But the lost man, especially “professed” Christians, can’t worship Him even though they claim to give Him veneration. Lydia was one of these God-worshippers (Acts 16:14). This is why the life of a man who is lost is a literal stench before God. Every minute, every second of his entire life is spent displeasing God (Romans 8:8). He can’t understand anything from God at all (John 8:43, 1 Corinthians 2:14). It is only God’s long-suffering toward these people (Romans 9:22) that they even draw their next breath.

So, how can a lost man, whose every imagination of his heart is only evil, continuously (Genesis 6:5), do something NOT EVIL like believe in Christ? How does a lost man change his heart? Can he do it himself? Of course not, it’s a work of God (John 6:29) and He does it without the knowledge or consent of the lost man. In fact, when given a choice the lost man will always reject the truth, he will never accept it (1 Corinthians 2:14) because he hates God (John 3:20). You must realize that some who are lost are worse than others but that is simply attributed to the demons that possess them - some demons are worse than others. Do not forget the truth that every lost man is demon possessed (Ephesians 2:2).

So who does God look for to make believers? Answer - those, and only those, He placed in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). If a man wasn’t chosen and placed in Christ prior to Creation he has no hope of being saved (Ephesians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Here is an example in the Old Testament of God working on the heart of man. He told Ezekiel when talking about the Nation of Israel: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26) Click the Ezekiel hyperlink to see the result of God doing that.

The bottom line is a lost man who is spiritually dead can’t believe in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.

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