The Open Gate of Salvation

Now, I'm going to begin this message with a quote for today that's on today's text.

You'll notice it's antiquated, so that's going to kind of give you a clue. It's not a modern person who said it.

But I kind of want to play with you, like, who said this? You know, if this was a different setting, if it was one of our

Wednesday games that we've done in the past, like Jeopardy, I'd give you multiple choice.

But who do you think said this statement? We must note,

I'm quoting, we must note the universal word, whosoever.

For God admits all men unto himself without exception. And by this means, doth he invite them to salvation.

Therefore, for as much as no man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men.

Neither is there any other thing which keeps us back from entering in, save only our unbelief.

Who said that? You might think, well, that kind of sounds like maybe something Charles Finney would say.

Or maybe it was Jacob Arminius, or maybe it was John Wesley. Well, believe it or not, this is what

John Calvin said on his commentary on Acts. The gate of salvation is set open to all men.

And so we're going to use this quote as the title for today's sermon. We're in Acts chapter 2, verse 21.

The open gate of salvation. Do you believe there are texts this morning,

Providence? Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

This is very good news. Children, and perhaps even adults here, some of you need to avail yourselves of this good news today.

Some of you need to be reminded this morning that this good news compels us to proclaim

Christ. To who? To all, without distinction. For everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord will be saved. And all of us, all of us, need to be reminded of the gospel.

Acts chapter 2, verse 21, we'll just read that. Would you stand as we honor the reading of God's word?

Lord, Peter is preaching and he's quoting from Joel chapter 2, verse 32, and he says this to the crowd assembled.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Father, would you bless the preaching of your word? Lord, you've heard every prayer today that has been prayed out loud in this service.

Some have been prayed in the hearts of brothers and sisters. You've heard every one of them.

We pray, oh God, that Christ would be exalted in this message. We pray that our church would be strengthened.

We'd have our theology right. We would not just quote a verse like this haphazardly or coldheartedly, but that this would compel us to warm -heartedly take the free offer of the gospel to our co -workers, to those who work with us.

All in Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. So contextually, we won't lose the big picture, hopefully.

So just remind us where we're at. The Holy Spirit now has fallen publicly upon the church in Acts 2.

He is poured out by Christ in accordance with the Father's plan.

And then we have seen that this has resulted here in miraculous and revelatory gifts.

This is Pentecost. But we've talked about the last couple of weeks. All of this has served to get us to Peter's preaching.

And the focal point of the first Christian worship service is here, the preaching.

And so Peter is using the Scriptures now to explain what is going on.

And we're in section one of this sermon. And so last week, I gave four headings for this sermon, and we covered three, and then today is covering that fourth one.

So just a reminder, we said, number one, the provocation of jesters foiled, that was verse 15.

He gave an answer to their mocking. The prophecy of Joel fulfilled, verse 16 through 18.

The portents of judgment foretold, verse 19 and 20. And now we're on the last one, the pardon of Jesus furnished, verse 21.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so the pardon of Jesus is furnished in that the preaching of the gospel contains with it a call to action, okay?

You are not sufficiently sharing the gospel by just reciting the facts of the gospel.

We're not actually proclaiming the gospel as it's intended to be proclaimed without this call to action.

And the call to action is what sinners must do, namely, repent and believe the gospel, or summarized here in our text, call upon the name of the

Lord. Let me make this very plain. Only those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

No one else. It's not enough for you this morning to simply be in church. It's not enough for you to hear biblical preaching.

It's not enough for you to just know what the gospel is, or to be a good husband, or to be a good wife, or to know our church's 10 distinctives, or to know the 1689

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, or to be able to read Greek and Hebrew. None of that is enough.

You must call upon the name of the Lord in order to be saved. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. And so this is our subject today. And I have a few reasons for that.

First, maybe even priority in a sense, but not... I don't know if I should say it that way.

But certainly one of the things I hope from preaching this text is that if there are any here who are unconverted, that today would be the day that you would call upon Christ.

That you would believe the gospel. That you would move from just being someone in here that just hears the gospel, maybe kind of distracted.

You like some of the songs we sing. But today would be the day that you put your faith in Christ. Secondly, I want this text to motivate us as a church to be evangelistic.

So let's take the gospel to the nations. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Thirdly, I want us all to rightly understand the theology of the

Bible. Let me put it to you this way. We have not been bashful or hiding.

Some people don't like labels, but labels can be helpful at times at least. I understand they can be confusing, but we are a reformed

Baptist church. We adhere to reformed soteriology, Calvinist soteriology.

You don't have to have those things. You don't have to be those things or necessarily call yourself those things to be a member here, okay?

But you know that's how your pastors are going to preach. It's how we're going to teach. It's contained within our confession.

These are terms that just seek to articulate what the Scriptures teach. Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon, has some very strong words here.

So listen carefully what Spurgeon says. Now, listen to the whole quote to just understand his point.

He says, there's no such thing, this is Spurgeon, as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless you preach what nowadays is called

Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else.

I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works, nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God and His dispensation of grace, nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah.

Nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which

Christ made for His elect and chosen people, nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called and suffers the children of God to be turned into the fires of damnation after having believed.

Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that.

By Spurgeon's view, very strong view. Now, listen, wherever you may... And I actually, I'm in agreement.

Be clear what Spurgeon is saying. Now, wherever you may be on that, on Calvinism, reformed theology, doctrines of grace, well,

I just call it biblical soteriology, or we can just call it that. You need to know, so no matter where you're at on that spectrum, and we leave room here for growth and maturity and even disagreement at times, but wherever you may be on that, you need to know that Acts 221 is in the

Bible and Acts 221 is true. And Acts 221 means what it says.

It shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. I will quote again John Calvin. I just think he's...

I don't agree with everything Calvin has said or done. But I'll quote again because I think he's misunderstood.

He says, it is unquestionably true that the gospel is offered to all.

Now, with every true doctrine, there are also distorted ways that Satan is ready to twist and deny and obscure the truth.

So it is also true that in some places in history and even today, there is the wicked doctrine of what is known as hyper -Calvinism, which stifles evangelism, stifles human responsibility, leads to a miserable, fatalistic life.

I even talked to a man one time who excused his own adulterous affair as though it wasn't his fault because God had decided it.

That's wicked. That's foolish. And we reject this. But now this morning, we arrive at this beautiful verse in Peter's sermon, and I think we'll be greatly edified by taking a couple of sermons to consider it.

And if you're a good listener, I just said a couple. We're going to look next week at effectual calling.

I think that will be important, and that lies underneath the text, and we'll see that. It's actually in the text, he quotes.

But today, we're going to consider the glorious truth. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. The open gate of salvation. First then, number one, let's consider the promise.

The text says, it shall come to pass. Now, we can speculate here for a moment how much

Peter understood our text and its inclusion of the Gentiles because you remember you're going to read in Acts and in chapter 10, and we'll get to chapter 10 at some point, right?

We will get to chapter 10, and we'll see that Peter is greatly encouraged by the fact the

Holy Spirit falls upon the Gentiles. And so, we may just wonder how much it is absolutely chock full of promise that God is going to include believing

Gentiles and believing Jews into one body in Christ. That's the promise.

It shall come to pass. Now, something you may not catch right away from Peter's sermon, but it will certainly reveal itself as we go through Acts is that we're going to start moving away from the physical temple, the idea of a

Jewish nation, physical Jerusalem. It's all fading away because these things point to Christ, and they have their fulfillment, which is the church now has come to fruition.

And this promise of it shall come to pass has moved to it is coming to pass.

Now, when we see this, Peter's preaching the fulfillment of God's promises, which all of them, by the way, find their yes in Jesus.

This leads us to our next point, the promise. Number two, the persons. I don't know what your translation says.

Mine says everyone, verse 21, and it shall come to pass that everyone. I imagine the

King James says whoever. Maybe your text says all the

Greek word in the text is the word pos, which just means all.

It's translated as everyone. And the Hebrew that Joel writes from, it's a similar word, but it's a

Hebrew word. It just means all. Okay, so what does this mean? What does it mean? All, everyone, whoever.

It means what it says. It means all who call upon the name of the Lord, everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The early church believed this, and you must believe this.

Paul wrote, this is a verse, again, quoted twice in the New Testament. It's quoted here. Paul quotes it in his letter to the

Romans in chapter 10, verse 13. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

It's the exact theology that Paul and Silas have when the

Philippian jailer comes to him and says, what must I do to be saved?

He says, well, you must figure out whether or not you're elect. That's not what he says to him. What does he say to him?

Believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus, and what? You might be saved. Maybe one, no, no, no.

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. It is this theology that the church has and that we must have.

Everyone without distinction who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. What if I'm Jewish?

Call upon the name of the Lord. What if I'm Gentile? Call upon the name of the Lord. You get the picture, right?

There is a universal mandate to take the gospel to all nations, to all peoples, to deliver this glorious assurance to every person that if you will call upon the name of the

Lord, you shall be saved. Let me say this. This is not a cold, clinical, heartless invitation.

Is this the picture you have of Peter when he's preaching this? And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Remember, he's standing there with the other 11 apostles, and he has raised his voice, and now there's a hush over the crowd, and they're listening to what he's saying.

And do you see him just being cold and just heartless here?

And he's just saying, well, you know, God is going to save who he's going to save, but I got to just coldly and unfeelingly put out this information about, yeah, yeah, well, technically everyone who calls...

That's not how Peter's preaching. Peter, if you think that's true, that you've missed it, he's setting forth

Christ before the assembly, and he's giving them this indiscriminate hope.

You, sir, you, madam, you, little child, everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Our gospel proclamations are not cold and distant and unengaged.

Rather, they must be warm and passionate and pleading, setting forth no barriers.

The gate of salvation is open, and you may go through it if you call upon the name of the

Lord. The promise, the persons, thirdly, the precept. It's not technically a command here, but you understand it's the command is implicit.

You must call upon the name of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that everyone, and here's where we're looking at, who calls upon the name of the

Lord. Now, this is a very rich statement here, gospel rich.

The Greek word for call means simply to call upon someone to do something normally implying an appeal for aid, an appeal for aid.

So to call is the cry of faith. It is faith alone that saves.

So the clear context here, you don't become saved by becoming a

Jewish convert because the old has passed away. But also, it's not adding new laws either.

It's not even adding baptism. We'll get to that in verse 38, or the Lord's Supper. These things do not reconcile you to God.

You must be justified, and the only way is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And this faith is expressed in calling upon the name of the Lord. J .C.

Rowell has a great quote. He says, just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing, so the first act of men and women when they are born again is praying.

When I think about that, we've been through the birthing process a few times, and one of the things you're waiting to hear when that child is born, you're waiting to hear what?

A cry. You want to hear them cry. Why? Not because you enjoy hearing your child cry, but because if they're crying, they're breathing.

Amen. We want to hear that. Okay, well, J .C. Rowell is saying the act of the believer born again is crying out to God in faith.

We know that this crying out to God, calling upon the name of the Lord, it's not separated from repentance.

We're not just mere verbal action. It's a heart action of trusting Christ, submission to His ways.

Notice here, too, in verse 21, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Can I just preach this?

There is no formulaic prayer. There is no, you have to say it this way.

There is no, well, let me just help you, right? There is no, to the child that's born, let me teach you how to cry, right?

They just cry out a saying, call upon the name of the Lord. It's simply the call of faith.

Now there's something else here, beautiful. We are, the text says, look at it.

We are to call upon the name of the

Lord. This is not just a generic God. This is not just, hey, if there's a

God up there, will you help me out? There is a specific focus here on the name of the

Lord. And I would argue the specific focus is on Christ. Now this is beautiful, and you need to track with me here, because you'll run into people, even in this community, that would say things like, you know,

Jesus, Jesus, the Bible never claims that Jesus is God. Well, that's false. You understand that in Joel chapter 2, verse 32, and you can go look this up later, but in Joel chapter 2, verse 32,

Joel says it this way. Everyone who calls upon the name of Yahweh, everyone who, the covenant name is used there, you'll find it, it's in all caps in your translation, unless you have the

LSB, it'll say Yahweh. Everyone who calls upon the name of Yahweh shall be saved.

But now in the Greek, because it's not Hebrew, we have the word, the Greek word, the common word, kurios used.

Now this is used again in verse 36. So go down to verse 36 and just track with me for a moment.

In verse 36, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both

Lord, there it is, and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, well, what is it? Are we supposed to call upon the name of Yahweh? Are we supposed to call upon the name of Jesus?

How does this work? Well, the answer is yes. Well, why? Because Jesus is Yahweh. Yahweh is one

God in three co -equal, co -eternal persons. And the focus here is that we call upon this

God, this triune God in the name of Christ.

That's the point of verse 38 too, by the way, because in verse 38, there are people who would try to use that wrong.

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, and here it is, in the name of Jesus Christ.

There are some who would teach this, and if this is beyond where you're at right now, that's fine. We can talk about it later.

But someone uses this to teach modalism, okay? And that is that Jesus is the

Father. Jesus is the Son, and Jesus is the Holy Spirit. Well, if you know the videos, that's modalism,

Patrick, right? That's false. That's false. Jesus is not one

God in three persons. Jesus is the Son of God. God is one God in three persons.

Jesus is truly God who is also truly man. And Peter's whole sermon is teaching the opposite of modalism.

God is one God in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And the reason that we call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be saved is because Jesus Christ is the one who has accomplished our salvation.

Again, we're not given a formula here. We're given a theological reality that God has accomplished our salvation in the person of Christ.

This is the Father's plan, and the Holy Spirit applies this redemption in time to our souls.

Believe on the Lord Jesus. Call upon Christ. Call upon God through Christ.

Trust Christ. Rest in Jesus, and you will be saved. That's the precept.

Fourthly, the promise, the persons, the precept. The promise. I mean, the pardon, sorry.

The promise, the persons, the precept, the pardon. It's interesting because we don't use this word very well in our

Christian, Christianese. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord shall be saved. So we ask questions like, are you saved? And we usually don't think about what that word is saying.

Okay, have you ever thought about that for a second? What does it mean to be saved? Why is the word saved?

Why do we use the word salvation? Okay, so I would argue that we lose the original intent sometimes because the

Greek word has the idea of to deliver from a direct threat. To deliver from a direct threat.

So it has the idea, save is the same idea of like, he saved me from the bear attack or she saved me.

My mom saved me from drowning or something like that. To deliver from a direct threat.

That's what it means to be saved. Now the question is, what direct threat will those who call upon the name of the

Lord be saved from? What direct threat is it that we will be saved from? And the answer is what?

The judgment of God. That's the point. The verb here is future. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. The idea is that the judgment of God is sure.

The judgment of God is coming. And those who call upon the name of the Lord now will be saved from his future wrath, which is surely coming upon the nations.

So the Christian message is, what do I need to be saved from? Myself? The devil? What do

I need to be saved from? No, no, the Christian message is, you need to be saved from God. Yes.

And the Christian hope is, God saves you from God. In fact, in our text, let me just point this out.

The verb is passive. So there in verse 21 at the end, shall be saved.

Be saved. That's passive. That a passive verb means that the action is happening to the subject instead of the subject doing the action.

And I'll just put that in simple terms. You don't save yourself. God saves you. Salvation is of the

Lord. Salvation is not something you accomplish, but it's something that's been accomplished for you and happens to you.

Well, how does God save you? Well, it's not the calling upon him that is the ground of your salvation.

It's the work of Christ. This is what Peter's preaching. Look at verse 22. Men of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.

As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

Friends, from all eternity, God has had a definite plan to rescue sinners through the work of Christ.

The fall has left all mankind in a state of sin and misery, rejecting

God, going our own way, sinful from head to toe. Our desires, our motivations, our attitudes, they're all bent out of whack.

They're not bent to God, but away from God. Often they're bent upon self. The God that we serve, and we see this so often, so prevalent in our nation today, the

God we serve above all else is the God of self. We reject the God of the

Bible. Do you understand your sin? This morning. Well, God has done something about that.

The Son of God has taken on human flesh. He's entered into our world, being born of the

Virgin Mary, born under the law, the same law that we've all failed to keep. And by failing to keep, we deserve the judgment of God and stand condemned.

But here's the gospel. Jesus kept that law. It's why it was impossible. Did you catch that there in verse 24?

It was impossible for death to hold our Savior. Why? Because He's righteous. He kept the law.

This Jesus substituted Himself for sinners to bear the wrath that we deserve. He died condemned so that we would not have to be.

Think of it this way. He cried out to God, and that cry was unanswered. My God, my

God, why have you forsaken me? God left His cry unanswered so that all who call upon His name in faith,

He may answer theirs. Because Jesus Christ was condemned in our place. The just consequences for breaking

God's law fell upon the righteous Jesus in our stead. He who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf.

He stood before the court of justice, and He took our blame, and He took our guilt, and then

He went outside the camp to sanctify the people of God with His own blood. Jews and Gentiles and everyone who calls upon His name so that God would have one people in His Son, the church, the body of Christ.

This Jesus died and rose again from the dead in complete victory, and He will receive the full reward for His suffering.

He ascended into heaven as Lord and King, and He reigns now, and the Holy Spirit takes

His work and bears the fruit of it among the nations. In Providence Baptist Church, we're part of this.

We are the fruit of Christ's work. We are part of His mission in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, which, by the way, includes rural

Arkansas. Christ is worthy of a healthy church in rural

Arkansas. Right here, this is what He has accomplished. Now, here's what we're going to do.

With all of this in mind, you're going to get a second outline today. Wow, what a blessing, but here's the reason.

We've been pretty heavy there on the theology and the context, and I think that's very, very, very important.

We do that every week, but what I'd like to do for the remainder of the sermon is let me just simplify the reality of verse 21.

And the reason I want to do that is twofold. There are those in here who need this, and then there are the rest of us who need to take this into our conversations this very week.

I told you last Sunday night, if you want to convict a Christian, just ask them one of two questions.

Either A, how's your prayer life? Or B, how's your evangelism? We're trying to address both of these.

Sunday nights, we're going through prayer, the Lord's prayer, the model prayer of Matthew 6. Right now, let me just encourage you in your evangelism.

Listen to what I'm about to say, and make an intentional effort to bring this to someone this week.

Text it to a friend, talk to a co -worker at lunch, call a family member, walk to a neighbor's home.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Here is a warm, well -intended promise of God to sinners.

It is absolutely supportive of what our own confession says in chapter seven, paragraph two, that God freely offers to sinners life and salvation through Jesus Christ.

So some of you need to listen to this outline, and you need to act upon it in faith and call upon the name of the

Lord. Some of you need to listen to this outline and think this week, how should I take this to those that God has providentially put me around?

Because you understand, that's what happens. When we scatter tomorrow, your pastors aren't put in front of all the people that you are, right?

And you say, man, I wish Brother Quatro was here, and he could share the gospel with this person. No, God's put you there.

All right, so just think through this. All right, so everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Number one, this offer of salvation is sincere.

Number one, it is sincere. Friends, outside of Christ, you are in a terrible plight.

You are at enmity with God because of your sin. There are those here I know that are unconverted, and you feel no guilt, no shame.

Maybe you've quieted your conscience. Maybe you've said, maybe later. Or you've said, no, no,

I'm fine. You are satisfied in your self -righteousness, or perhaps you're just completely given over to your wicked lust.

But hear me this morning. Either way, you're in a fight that you cannot win. And the losing will be far greater than you can fully comprehend or even appreciate now.

You will be cast off into hell forever, the lake of fire, and you will suffer God's wrath.

But I said to you this morning that the offer given to us in Acts 2 .21 is sincere.

It is sincere, meaning it is for you. You may be saved. If this word, everyone, were a box, the whole world could fit into it.

You may be pardoned today. You may receive forgiveness of your sins.

Yes, you may be justified by the righteousness of Christ as a gift of grace.

Christ may be applied to your soul. You may taste and see that the

Lord is good. You may be united to Him. You may be adopted into His family.

You may have the smile of God upon your life. You may be cleansed of your sins and forgiven.

You may be sanctified. The question is not, is God willing? Think about what the text says.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The text means what it says. It is the promise of God to sincerely save you to the uttermost, to save you from the power and presence and penalty and pervasiveness of sin.

He will save you who call upon the name of the Lord. All of your guilt, all of your sorrow, all of your shame, because of your repeated law -breaking and the secret things you do that others don't know about.

Maybe things, continuing actions, maybe last night or even early this morning. Your continual turning away from God and rejecting

Christ and the self -righteousness that you have and the wicked practices that you do and the things that you just continue to be in rebellion.

All of it may be forgiven, washed in the blood. There's a fountain, as we sang this morning, and you can have it all.

This is a sincere offer. Call upon the name of the Lord. Call upon Christ and be saved.

This offer is sincere. Secondly, this offer is sweeping. Everyone, everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Everyone, all, whosoever. Little girls in this room, are you listening to me?

Little girls, little boys, would you listen for a moment this morning? Little boys, every ethnicity, to the rich, to the poor, to the unknown, to the well -known, to the old, to the middle age, all classification of sinners, to the sexually immoral, to the prideful, to the self -righteous, to the hypocrite, to the homosexual, to the glutton, to the liar, to the thief, to the anxious, to the self -absorbed, to the idolater, to the abuser, to the murderer, to the lustful.

Call upon the name of the Lord. Call upon His name. Repent and believe the gospel.

Call upon His name and you will be saved. I have no education.

Call upon the name of the Lord. I have too much education. Call upon the name of the

Lord. I've been hurt by others and I've used that as an excuse not to go to Christ. Call upon the name of the

Lord. Well, I have abused others and I feel too ashamed to come to Christ. Call upon the name of the

Lord. I'm tall, I'm short, I'm fat, I'm skinny, I'm pretty, I'm ugly,

I'm skilled, I'm unskilled, I'm sad, I'm happy. Call upon the name of the Lord.

Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There is no barrier and the gate is open.

The promise is sweeping. And thirdly, the offer is simple.

It is sincere. It is sweeping. It is simple.

If the Lord had said to us, everyone who climbs Mount Everest will be saved.

What a gracious God to offer an undeserved way of salvation.

But friends, He hasn't told us to climb Mount Everest. That would not bring glory to a son.

That would let us point to ourselves and our efforts. No, the gracious God of the universe has simply said, call upon the name of the

Lord. What a simple offer. You hear that?

Call upon the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. You remember in the Old Testament, there's that story about Naaman.

And he's a Syrian, right? And he comes over. And I should have had this written down.

It's Elisha. Says, go wash in the Jordan seven times and you'll be clean.

And he gets frustrated. He gets mad. And his servant says, hey, look, has he really said, wash and you'll be clean?

Do it. And he does it and he's clean. Could there be anything more simple than this?

Call upon the name of the Lord. Psalm 65, two says, oh, you who hear prayer to you, shall all flesh come.

Black, white, red, yellow, Jew, Gentile, all flesh will come to the one who hears our prayers, who simply call upon His name.

How simple is that? Listen to me, children, for just a moment. All right?

Okay, I see your eyes. Good. Listen to me. There's nothing more simple than this.

Call upon His name. And I hear you already because I've dealt with my children and you dialogue and you have these conversations.

You say, call upon His name. I don't know how. You don't know how? Well, I can't tell you how many times

I've been in this very room from across the room. I have heard you cry out to your mama.

Mom, mom, mom. I can't tell you how many times, children, I've been standing next to your father and you've come up and you've interrupted us and said, dad, dad, dad.

What do you mean you don't know how to call? You know how to call. Of course you do. You know how to call upon someone that you want.

You know how to call upon someone when you're in need, when you're hungry, when you're tired, when you're sleepy, when someone's being mean to you.

You know how to call. The question here or the statement here is call upon the name of the

Lord. And this is true for every person in this room. This is a simple offer.

You have a pain that you don't know, you call upon the doctor. You have the town news that you want to talk about, you call upon your friend.

You need a loan for a car or a home, you call upon the bank. You know how to call.

So call upon the name of the Lord for the sake of your soul. You don't have to have a seminary degree.

You don't even have to have a high IQ. It actually does not even take an intelligent person to call upon someone who needs help or when you need help.

It simply takes a person to be in need. Suppose for just a moment that you slip over, what a terrible situation, but you're out hiking by yourself or you're a little child and you're out walking.

You've wandered the trail away from your parents and you slip over the edge of the cliff and you're hanging on.

You've found a root that you're just grabbing and you're praying that it doesn't slip. You're just hanging on with all that you have and a stranger walks by and is he good?

Is he bad? Is he mean? Is he nice? Is he strong? You have no idea, but it doesn't matter.

What do you do? You cry out for help. Help me. Save me. Reach out your hand.

Can't you see I'm slipping? I'm falling. I will perish. I will die. Help me.

Why do you do that? Because you know your need. You know that if you're not helped, you will perish.

You'll die. Unless someone reaches down their strong arm and pulls you over the cliff, you are sure to meet your end.

And yet here is God before you and you already know he is good.

He is holy. He is gracious. He is powerful. He is strong.

He is kind. He is full of mercy. And Christ has already done all the work and the simple offer is laid before your feet this morning.

Cry out to him for mercy. Mercy. Jesus saves.

It's not a repeat after me prayer, but the cry of your heart. Now, listen very carefully, children and adults.

What does it say about a person? What would you say to the person hanging on the cliff and they're holding on to the root and person after person walks by?

A police officer walks by. A park ranger walks by. People you know will help you walk by and you grit your teeth and you spit at them and you let go and you perish.

Well, we'd be very, very sad. Very sad. But at the same time, we would say, what a fool.

Well, how much more to look in the face of a holy and righteous

God who is full of compassion and mercy towards sinners to look at this

God and to grit your teeth and to harden your heart and to shake your fist and say, not today,

God. Not today. Oh, the hard and stubborn heart.

If you don't call upon Christ, there is one reason and one reason only.

You don't want to. You felt no burden for your sin.

No fear of the coming judgment. No affection for the loveliness of Christ.

And you're not saved this day because you don't want to be. Calvin, again, says, those who proudly refuse that which is offered, yea, condemn it reproachfully, do shut the gate of salvation against themselves.

Shut the gate. Here's this open gate. All who will call upon the name of the

Lord may go through, may enter in. Call upon Christ and you'll be saved.

But instead, you run up and you shut the gate. Why? Because of your unbelief.

Because of your sin. Because of your love of self. But when you hear the good news today,

Jesus has paid it all. Jesus has fulfilled it all. Jesus has accomplished it all. Jesus has completed the work.

His life lived to achieve all righteousness. His blood shed to propitiate the wrath of God, to turn it away, to His death to pardon us,

His resurrection to justify us. And here is the sincere, sweeping, simple offer.

Call upon the name of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. I'm telling you, there is a way out.

Some of you, maybe it's unknown to your pastors. Some of you may be caught in very serious sin.

You've hidden it for days, weeks, months, decades. And I'm telling you this morning, there is a way out.

You do not have to continue in it. There is a way out of sin's trap. There is a way to a perfect record in Christ.

There is freedom this morning from shame and guilt in Jesus who bore it all.

There is salvation from the certain judgment of God that so many will face. You can be saved today.

Thomas Watson puts it quite bluntly. What fools are they who for a drop of pleasure drink a sea of wrath?

But the good news is Jesus drank the sea of wrath for those who will call upon Him. The gate of salvation is open.

Go in today and be saved. Perhaps some of you, you're just waiting on me to be stopped.

Just stop. You want to go back in your mind to something else. You want to think about lunch.

You want to think about what you're going to do tomorrow. You're just resisting. You don't want to listen to it. You don't want to hear it.

Some of you children, I know how you are. You almost run me over. When church is over, you're running out.

You're thinking about, I just want to get out there to the playground. Church is too long. Preaching is too long. I just want to get out of this.

But I'm just telling to every person, would you just hear me this morning? It is both wicked and foolish to see the gate of salvation.

It's opened up. Here is the strong man. Here is the one who will reach down his arm and pull you over the cliff.

Here is the one that will save you from certain destruction, certain hell, certain eternal misery.

He will save you. He will lift you up. He will set you up on the rock. He will cleanse you. He will sanctify you.

He will make you new. Here is the one. How wicked and foolish would you be to not call upon His name?

Call upon the name of the Lord. Come today. Be saved today.

And church, this is the message that we take to the nations.

Father, would you work today as only you can? Would you call?

Would you work? Would the Holy Spirit bring about effectual grace in the hearts of those in this room?

Would they see their sin and see the mercy of Christ and call upon His name?

Help our church to be doctrinally firm upon the Scriptures. To not let the doctrine, the precious doctrine of election, make us think that the doctrine of the free offer of the gospel is useless or foolish, but rather let us take the gospel to the nations and plead with all to call upon Your name, knowing that ultimately it's

Your work, not ours, but it's our responsibility to take this sincere, sweeping, simple message to the nations.

I pray even this week that You would save not only the children here or any adults who may need it, but You would save even those who are going to come into contact with our church members because Providence Baptist Church is serious about taking this message to our areas of influence.

Thank you for the gospel. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand.