(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Hey everybody, it's Pastor Jonathan Shelley from Steadfast Baptist Church. I wanted to make a quick video about calling on the name of the Lord. There's those out there that would try to claim that it has nothing to do with salvation or being saved, whereas the Bible in Romans chapter number 10 has it as a combination to our faith or shows how someone believes in Jesus Christ by calling on the name of the Lord. It says in 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. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So the Bible is very crystal clear. Salvation is a process by which someone would place all of their faith in Jesus Christ through calling on the name of the Lord. That's why it even says in Romans chapter 10 verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So according to the Bible, it's very clear. Yet there are a bunch of internet bozos and heretics online that want to try and twist what the Bible is saying here and say that this is somehow work salvation to lead someone in a prayer or help them to ask Jesus Christ to save them by placing their faith in Jesus Christ. And one of these deceitful tactics I've seen is by twisting words from Pastor Jack Hiles, who preached a sermon a long time ago, and he was for sure criticizing all kinds of shallow versions of preaching the gospel, gospel presentations that aren't getting people saved, churches who are having people walk an aisle, pray a prayer, and they're not saved. And in some of Pastor Jack Hiles' words, he makes statements such as things like, it's not praying that saves you, it's not asking that saves you, it's receiving the Lord. You receive His gift and then He comes in, but He does not come in because you ask Him to come in. He comes in because you receive Him as your Savior, and in response to your receiving His gift of life eternal, then He comes in. But you don't have to ask Him to come in. He rushes in as soon as you receive Him by faith as your Savior. I wonder how many people walked the aisle in fundamental churches this morning and somebody said if you'll pray and ask God to save you, He will, and that's not true. There's nothing wrong with praying, and I believe it's a good thing to pray when you get saved, but asking God to save you isn't it. God will save you without your asking Him if you trust Him. It's the acceptance. Now, don't misunderstand me. I believe in prayer. I believe in praying the sinner's prayer, but the praying of the sinner's prayer is a wonderful thing to do when you accept by faith the gift of eternal life. Number one, Pastor Jack Hiles is not God, and he's not the Bible, so even if he misspoke or said something wrong, that's not going to change my faith. It's not going to change what the Bible says. However, second point is this, that I don't believe that Pastor Jack Hiles was teaching anything incorrectly here. It's really you have to understand the context from which he's coming towards. A lot of churches at that time and even still today have people walking in hordes to the altar after a church service, and they simply tell people, just ask Jesus to save you or just raise your hand if you want to be on team Jesus. I've seen this in person. I've been to church services where churches give such a shallow gospel presentation, and where people in their hearts, they still believe in work salvation. They still believe in repenting of your sins. They still believe in all kinds of heresy, not believing in faith alone in Jesus Christ, and they may ask Jesus to save them, but frankly speaking, they're not saved. Billy Graham is probably the worst of all offenders who had thousands come and pray a prayer with individuals asking for Jesus to save them, yet they had not changed their mind about what the gospel is. They had not truly repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, and so of course, their prayer is in vain. Asking Jesus to save you by itself does not save anyone, and in fact, when I go out soul hunting, I often ask people very clearly after presenting the gospel, I say, if I ask Jesus to save me, but I don't really believe in him, will that save me? Of course, the clear answer is no. I go on further. I say, if I ask Jesus to save me, but I'm believing in my works or that I also have to be a good person, is that going to save me? I help the person realize that that is not going to save them. It's very clear when I preach the gospel and others that go to our church preach the gospel that it's not simply just asking Jesus to save you or calling on the name of the Lord by itself that saves someone, but rather it's placing all of your faith in Jesus Christ that saves you. The Bible is clear, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. The question would then be, how does someone believe or what does that look like or what are the practical steps for that? That's where Romans 10, 9 and verse 10 come into clear picture as helping someone realize how to believe in Jesus Christ by simply calling on the name of the Lord, confessing they believe, and him asking him for salvation. Of course, there's not special words that save someone, but it is that process by which someone believes on the Lord Jesus Christ through calling on the name of the Lord that saves them. Some people would mock or scoff at this idea and say, well, what if someone couldn't use their mouth or what if they were a mute? Well, of course, in this bizarre circumstance that someone is bringing up, someone could simply just pray from their heart. Of course, if their mouth was deformed or if they were incapable of producing some kind of an audible sound and they simply prayed from their heart, even if their mouth couldn't make the words come out, they would still be saved. Of course, the calling on the name of the Lord is a prayer from the heart that would ideally come through the mouth, which is what the Bible is teaching. In 99 plus percent of situations, this is always going to be the case. Does someone have to pray out loud? Does someone have to pray with me to be saved? Of course not. But I do believe that it's impossible to distinguish the difference between the individual who's placed 100 percent of their faith in Jesus Christ and the person who's intellectually understood that the gospel is true without this clear identifying mark of calling on the name of the Lord. How could someone know that they believed enough? How could someone know what it means to believe in Jesus Christ? The Bible makes it clear. It's once you understand the elements of the gospel, you realize it's true, you move from just believing it's true or understanding that it's true to placing your faith in the gospel. It's not just simply acknowledging the gospel is true or believing that it's true. It's actually believing in it and putting all your faith and trust in it. I've met several individuals, atheist and unsaved individuals who can give you the clear gospel. They can tell you that they had believed that that's what the gospel was. But the fact that they're an atheist, the fact that they're not saved is clearly evidenced by the fact that they never truly believed in it. They never put their faith in Jesus Christ. It wasn't just simply saying words or making a prayer that saved them, but it was rather the faith in their heart that truly saved them. But the moment that someone can be clear when they were saved is when they simply call on the Lord Jesus Christ and they're saved. As evidenced throughout the entire New Testament, several people say, Son of David, have mercy on me. In that moment when they call upon the name of the Lord and they're asking for physical salvation, Jesus grants them that physical healing to illustrate the spiritual truth of how someone in need of spiritual salvation, when they call on the name of the Lord in their faith, that's when Jesus would save them. When Peter's drowning in the sea, he says, Lord, save me. That's when he's saved. The Lord reaches down his hand, picks up Peter out of the drowning sea. We see a young man praying and Jesus giving a parable and talking about a very sinful person going into the temple to pray, and he says, Lord, be merciful, be a sinner. And the Bible talks about him being justified. We see all kinds of people making confession, praying, asking the Lord to save them. We see the thief on the cross looking at Jesus and saying, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And that's when Jesus acknowledged the thief as being saved and said, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. So we see the clear pattern in the Bible of people calling on the name of the Lord. We see the clear text of the Bible saying for people to call upon the name of the Lord. And of course, it's the only thing that makes sense when it comes to the practical question, how does someone believe? The way someone believes or how someone believes in Jesus Christ is by calling upon the name of the Lord in faith. Of course, without the faith, it would not save them. Of course, that's what Pastor Jack Hiles is clearly preaching against, is people somehow asking yet not truly receiving Christ, not truly believing in him, not truly having their faith in the gospel, because simply asking will not grant you salvation. It is asking in faith. It's calling on the name of the Lord in faith. It's confessing with faith that gives you the salvation that Romans 10 is clearly articulating. Now you would say, well, how do you know for sure that's what Pastor Hiles meant? Well, I don't need to have some kind of a special encounter where I bring him back from the dead and ask him. We can see from the clear evidence of the fruit of his ministry, the fact that Hiles Anderson College, the fact that his church, First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana has sent out thousands of soul winners, hundreds of pastors, and they all virtually believe in calling on the name of the Lord. I don't know of one that doesn't believe this, but that would be a rare exception, whereas we see the vast majority of the fruit of this ministry, of the soul winners, of the people going to this church, they all believe in calling on the name of the Lord as the vehicle to help someone to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. I don't have to wonder. I don't have to guess. That's what he preached and preached and believed as evidenced by the clear fruit of his ministry and of his church and of their ministry materials and of the things that they've said in other sermons. So I know that those who are taking his words in the sermon to twist against him are really just deceivers, evil workers. And there are people out there that want to stop soul winning, that want to stop people from calling on the name of the Lord, that ultimately just want people to not be saved. It's a confusing message to go out and tell people that they're just saved. They don't need to actually confess or pray or ask Jesus to save them because there are plenty of Catholics and other Christian so-called that will acknowledge the facts or the truths of the gospel, but they haven't placed their faith in Christ. They haven't really made that decision to let go of the Catholic Church or let go of their works. The calling on the name of the Lord is that call to action to really put their faith to the test and see, do you actually believe in Christ or not? And unfortunately, there's some people that will tell you, yeah, I believe that. Yeah, I kind of understand that. But then when you say, well, would you like to ask the Lord to save you? They'll say, well, no, I still want to be Catholic. No, I still want to be Mormon. No, I still want to believe in repent of your sins. No, I still believe it's faith and works. And you see that it wasn't the fact that they had already believed and were saved and that they don't need to call, but rather it was a problem with their heart. They didn't really believe and they didn't really understand the gospel. They don't really want to trust in Christ. They don't really want to put their faith in the gospel. So they reject the gospel. They may believe certain aspects are true and believing that the gospel or certain aspects of the gospel are true is not believing in Jesus Christ. It's not putting your faith in Jesus Christ. And the Bible shows that the clear vehicle of this is calling upon the name of the Lord. Well, I hope this video can be a blessing to you. I hope you don't get confused. We want you to go out there and preach the gospel, help people to call upon the name of the Lord, help them to accept Jesus Christ as their savior today, and to not get led astray by these internet bozos and weirdos who want to detract from godly evangelism. Well, God bless you. Have a great day.