If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. For the scripture saith, “Whosoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed” (Rom. 10:9-11).
Having to do with God affects a man in a twofold way. Both heart and mouth are the subjects of its influence. The heart rests in a glorified Saviour whom God has raised from the dead; the mouth confesses Him as Lord to salvation.
Being linked together in this scripture as conditional to salvation, they should be connected in the soul’s history.
The endeavour to separate these two things which God has joined, has caused untold misery to thousands.
Perhaps, my reader, you are one of them.
Let me describe your case. Troubled with a sense of sin, you desire salvation. You have not the least shadow of a doubt that Christ is both able and willing to save; you feel, moreover, that there is no other person but He in the wide universe to whom you can look for salvation—yet you are not happy.
Tell me. Have you ever confessed Him?
Here lies the secret. For some reason, or reasons, you have never yet confessed with the mouth to salvation.
You plead your timidity and lack of moral courage; then let me call your attention to the well-known incident of the woman with the issue of blood, found in Luke 8:43-48, which clearly presents the way to confess Christ.
She had received blessing from His Person, and was going away—prompted by natural timidity—without any testimony to His grace. The Lord Jesus, by His question, brings her to the point of confession.
She did not stand forth, and, in an elaborate speech, declare the blessing she had received from Him and confess the One who had healed her—that would have been going out of her proper place and position—nor did she meet the haughty Pharisees in private, as the man of John 9—she was but a poor, weak woman; she had not courage for that.
But this she could, and did, do—“she came trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared UNTO HIM before all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was healed immediately.”
She confessed to Him—surely an easy and delightful task—and in confessing to Him, she confessed before all the people.
My timid reader, go, and do thou likewise. Get into the presence of that living, loving Saviour, and confess to Him: it will not then be long before you confess “before all the people.”
F.B.Hole
Scattered Seed 16 (1900) p. 145