Confession With the Mouth

Spurgeon takes the second half of Romans 10:10 — "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" — to argue that genuine saving faith is never content to remain hidden, but insists on expressing itself outwardly in a full range of public acts: uniting with God's people in public worship, submitting to believer's baptism as a decisive crossing of the Rubicon from the world's side to Christ's, communing regularly at the Lord's Table, joining a local church body rather than remaining an isolated individual Christian, taking up the cross in the family when parents or siblings mock, standing publicly for Christ in the daily moments of business temptation, using whatever position of influence God has given — whether as employer, parent, member of Parliament, or ordinary worker — to bear witness, and going further to actually preach and speak for Christ in the open air if one has any ability to do so at all. He guards the doctrine carefully at both ends, insisting first that confession without heart-faith is a lie that will be worse at judgment than open sinfulness, and second that faith without public confession is not the saving faith the New Testament describes — illustrating this with a man who labels himself "Christian" in private only, sneaking out from behind the paneling like a rat when no one is watching, calling this both degrading to the confessor and dishonorable to the Christ who was crucified in the full face of the sun. He closes with a story of a loyal commoner who stood publicly at the side of a despised and pelted prince, and in the day of the prince's triumph was singled out from all the traitors bound in chains and raised to ride through the city in purple beside his king — which is the parable of Christ's own promise: "He that confesses Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in Heaven."Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on  July 19, 1863.