Calling on the Name of the Lord | Bill Moseley | 8.16.26

I feel a great need for your prayers this morning as we begin to look into things within the scriptures and pray that whatever I might bring before you will lodge deep in your heart and will uh be of a benefit at some point if you when you think about it and it touches you at that moment that you would you would resort to it and find the the great comfort and joy that comes through it.

I want to look at a couple of places where a phrase is used uh start over here in the Acts of the Apostles.

Um the Apostle Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost, you know they had gone through a great endowment of power, and due, endued with power.

That's what the Lord said.

Wait, tarry in Jerusalem till you be endued with power from on high.

He said that to the apostles, he said that to his disciples to go back to Jerusalem and to wait.

And when the Lord uh is willing, he will come and he will shower upon you a blessing of spirit.

And for ten days they were together and they were waiting in Jerusalem for the coming of that promise that the Lord had given them.

And on the fiftieth day, which is Pentecost, they were all together, and you remember how the spirit visited with them that day with a great miraculous uh endumin of power.

Unmistakenly, it was the spirit.

It wasn't drunkenness as some supposed that they were, but it he said it's but the ninth hour.

So as they went through that that great display of power as a says it came, and I tried to talk about this last week over Valley Spring of this great spirit that came as a rushing mighty wind.

And it wasn't wind, but it was as wind, when that feeling of the spirit rushed through them in the heart.

They were moved by this spirit that came upon them, and it lit upon them as claving tongues, and they all heard the message, though they were of different uh ethnic groups, of not ethnic, but they were from diverse areas, Greek and uh all these different places where they came from, but they had met down here.

They all had their dialect, they all had their language, but they all heard the message in their own language.

What a great miracle that must have been, as one would speak a particular the Galilean language, and then everybody would hear it, and the interpretation was done in the heart and in the ears, where they would hear it in their own.

And they were so moved that there were 3,000 that was added to the church that day.

Peter preaches a wonderful sermon to these people who had been in Jerusalem, and many of them had had their time out there with those that had, I suspect, they had been in the mobs and they had heard, maybe even said, crucify and crucify.

They had called upon for the death of Christ.

But here Peter is preaching something very powerful to them, and we'll start with the really the phrase that really stood out to me is the twenty first verse of the second chapter Acts Acts two twenty one.

And it came to pass that and it shall come to pass, it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Now I want to spend just a moment and tell you what that is not talking about.

I think we'll see it within the context of what he's talking about, that has nothing to do with causing salvation to eternal relationship with God.

That saving is not a relationship salvation, and he would ultimately come to what that salvation is all about within the context of this sermon.

So it's not talking about what some men of this world will apply it to, that if you'll just call on the name of the Lord, you'll become one of his children.

That is complete nonsense.

We find over in the Roman letter that the spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God.

And he says he's not given you the spirit of fear, but of power.

He's given us that spirit in regeneration whereby we cry ab a father.

If we call upon the name of the Lord, it's always after the life has already been produced.

A dead person never calls.

That's nonsense.

Life, and here's a principle that you follow throughout the scriptures, life always precedes action.

You've got to have life before you can act.

So Peter is not telling them, Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will become a child of God.

But there is a salvation in this calling on the name of the Lord.

There is a deliverance that takes place when we call on the name of the Lord.

He delivers us in so many ways.

He delivers us from the things that impact our life.

He delivers us from the outside trials that come upon us.

He delivers us from the inside problems of ourselves.

When it's internal to our own self, this Lord who is our Savior, who is our deliverer, delivers us even if from ourselves, from our own impact on our on our conscience, and on our very thinking that can get in our own way, that can cloud our thoughts and can drive us into areas where it's a destructive place for me to go.

He delivers us from those things that impact us.

So this is not talking about salvation to glory, salvation for relationship.

This is talking about salvation as a parent saving the child from the hardships of life, from the damages that can come to ourselves and from others.

Calling upon the name of the Lord when we're in need of deliverance.

So let's look at this for a little bit.

There's two places where this phrase, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Peter uses it here in chapter 2 of Acts, and Paul uses it, we're going to go and look at it over here in the tenth chapter of the book of Romans.

Now Peter here is not giving something just that he thought up.

Peter is actually going back to the second chapter of the book of Joel.

The old prophet Joel, hundreds of years before the Lord came, spoke about whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

It's around the second chapter is somewhere around the twenty-something verse.

You can go find that, but Peter here is referring to the prophet Joel.

Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Let's look about that name of the Lord.

Who is this one to call upon?

What is it about him that is so special to call upon his name?

It says, ye men of Israel, hear these words.

Now you remember he's talking to a bunch of Jewish people here in Jerusalem about fifty days after the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Lord, the day of Pentecost, one just short of two months it's been since the Lord was crucified.

He had spent forty days with the apostles and the disciples, and they they did see him and eat with him, and they experienced a resurrected Christ.

They come to call upon him in an experienced way that they knew this man that died on that cross is alive and he's not a vision, he's not an apparition, he's not a ghost, he is flesh and bone.

I touched him, they would say.

I think when I saw him, I felt it.

I know that was real.

They could not deny him because he was experienced by them.

And Peter now is talking here on the day of Pentecost about that man that just ten days ago we saw him ascend up through the clouds.

And the angel told us, ye men of Israel, uh ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing?

Why stand you here just looking into the heavens?

Basically telling them, get up and get about his business.

Get up and move and go where he told you to go.

Preach his name.

Preach him, declare him among the people.

And here's Peter, that at one time had denied the Lord three times out there among the world.

That now, my friends, he's not dodging anything now.

He's going to speak freely, he's going to speak boldly and with a conviction, my friends, that he may not even knew he had that kind of conviction.

But he declares, he said, ye men of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved of God among you, by the miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourself also know.

Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

I tell you, my friend, that is a that is a staggering conviction upon them.

You took him and you crucified him.

You called for his crucifixion.

You're the people that was that was led about and stirred up to the point you would you would prefer a seditioner over this man Jesus, and he had done many mighty wondrous works.

Let's look at a couple that had called upon the name of the Lord.

There's Jairus.

This is uh this is in let's go to Mark, fifth chapter.

And this this is the story of there's two that show up here.

Mark chapter five.

And behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus, by name.

When he saw him, he fell at his feet.

Talking about Jesus.

He fell at Jesus' feet, and he besought him greatly, saying, My daughter, life at the point of death.

I pray thee come and lay thy hands on her that she may be healed, and she shall live.

You think he's got a problem?

He's got a problem.

And it's personal to him.

It's something that he wanted to get the Lord's attention.

He was calling upon the name of the Lord.

He was calling to Jesus for help.

He is very much alive, he's very much active.

And he's, I'm I'm gonna tell you, he's very much spiritually alive.

Because he comes calling upon Jesus.

And I'm gonna tell you, Jesus did not ignore him.

He's one of the rulers of the synagogue.

You might think, well, but maybe Jesus, that that wasn't his favorite bunch, is the rulers of the synagogue.

But Jesus knows them that are his.

And here's one of his, and he has a problem beyond Jairus' control.

And he comes to find Jesus, and he calls upon Jesus.

My daughter is about to die.

Jesus went with him.

And much people followed him and thronged him, and a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years.

We talk about this all the time.

We talk about this one of the one of the greatest scenes of the Lord Jesus Christ healing one of his is that little daughter that crawled as low as it had to be just to get to the hem of his garment.

In the process of him going with Jairus, here comes this woman that had been sick with an issue of blood as long as Jairus' daughter had been alive.

All of her life, that little sister that had the issue of blood has been battling that problem.

But both of them now at the same time are calling on the name of the Lord.

They both believe, they both believe that He's able to deliver them in their most turbulent thing that has come upon them that it seems insurmountable.

How do you get past these things?

This is more than they could handle, so they go to the one that can handle it, and they both call upon the name of the Lord.

But remember to say it, Whosoever calleth upon.

Doesn't say the first one that calleth upon them.

You know, there was a man sitting over there to pool, and his problem was it was always the first one to get into the pool was the one that got the attention.

But I'm gonna tell you, the power of the pool came to him.

And it didn't matter who the first one was, it was a matter of the one that called upon the name of the Lord.

And this man, he does call upon the name of the Lord when he says, How uh, sir, I have no one to help.

I'm gonna tell you, if your prayer can only be, Lord, help, that's enough.

That's enough because the Lord knows all the rest.

He doesn't need to be filled in with all the details.

He knows all the rest.

And he knows how the story goes, because he knows all things.

There's nothing going to take the Lord by surprise.

So this doesn't catch the Lord by surprise as Jairus comes up and he is there with the Lord, and he says, uh, he begins to call upon the name of the Lord for his daughter's sake.

My daughter's about to die.

And Jesus starts going with him, and as they go, the woman comes up and interrupts the process.

Is that a problem?

No, friends, that's not the problem.

Because whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

You see, the saving is not becoming a child, it's the Lord's going to deliver his child.

And I'm gonna tell you, the Lord is not, his arm is not short, and he cannot save.

That's not just talking about eternal salvation, that's talking about there's nothing too hard in this life that the Lord can't deliver us in what we are.

Having to deal with.

So here Jairus comes, and here comes a woman, a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all she had, and was there and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.

But it said, when she had heard Jesus came in the press behind and touched his garment, and she said, If I if I may touch but the his clothes, I shall be whole.

I shall be whole.

She's going to be whole eternally, but here, here, my friend, her thoughts is whole from this issue of blood, this sickness that has come upon her.

Twelve years ago, by the way, and it gotten worse.

But she believed.

She believed.

Now, over at Hebrew it says, without faith is impossible to please God.

It said, He that cometh to God must believe that he is.

Not that he not just his name, but to believe that he is sovereign.

Believing that God is who he says he is, and that God can do whatsoever he will.

Believing that he is, and to call upon the name of the Lord, you must believe that he is.

That you believe he is, as Abraham believed God, and what God told me, God meant it.

God cannot lie in what God had told me, that's the truth.

And that is the principle that I come calling upon the name of the Lord.

This woman believed that he is, and if I could just get to the hem of his garment, she came calling upon the name of the Lord.

Jairus is having to wait.

He's having to wait, he's having to stop.

And I'm gonna tell you, when the when the emergency happens, that's not a word you want to hear.

It's hold on, wait a minute, just hold right here.

That's not what you feel like you want to hear.

You want, okay, let's get this moving.

Come on, come on.

I I I need my daughter's dying.

But my friends, God is not shortened, God is not ruled by time.

Time was not going to be the factor for Christ, although they did come to him.

Let's let's come over.

Now that woman was healed.

Virtue went out of the Lord and healed that woman.

And it says disciples said unto him, Thou seeest the multitude who touch and thou sayest, Who touched me?

And he looked round about seeing her, and he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

But the woman feared and trembled, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him and told him all the truth.

He already knew all the truth.

She didn't have to tell him, but I believe it pleased him to hear this little sister tell him that what a great thing to be able to talk to the Lord about your troubles, about the things that were saved from.

And he said unto her, and watch the word he got here.

I love this.

It was a long time before I saw this word.

I've mentioned it here before about this woman.

Remember, Jairus is concerned about his daughter that is about to die.

That's a daughter over there to Jairus.

But here Jesus looks to this woman and he says, Daughter, you know that's that's relational, that's a relationship.

Daughter, I've got a connection with you, daughter.

You're my daughter.

You you belong to me.

You belong to me.

And no doubt Jairus must have heard that he must have heard that.

And he said, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.

Go in peace and be whole of thy plague.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

That woman was saved from her plague, from her problem.

Now not all of our problems are the same, but we all have them, internally or externally, physical or mentally or whatever our plague of our being might be, that which we need deliverance, we've all got something.

While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said Thy daughter is dead.

Why trouble thou the master any more any further?

Well there's a good reason to trouble the master because that's not just Jairus' daughter that's under consideration.

I believe that's the Lord's daughter under consideration.

She was his daughter before she was Jairus' daughter.

The Lord loves all of his children exactly the same.

There's no difference in how much he loved one over the other.

No, he didn't operate that way.

He didn't operate love by condition.

He loved with an unconditional, perfect active love.

Thy daughter is dead, why trouble thou the master?

And as soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, be not afraid, only believe.

And he suffered no man to follow him, say Peter, James, and John, and the brother of Jane, the brother of James.

And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.

And when he was come in he saith, Why make you this ado and weep?

The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.

As far as he was concerned, it was no more than sleep.

As they looked at it, it was final to them.

But for the Lord he said she sleepeth.

And they laughed him to scorn.

They left the world will always laugh the Lord to scorn.

They will always have some derogatory thing about him.

He did not he put them out.

And he and he took the damsel by the hand and said unto her, Talakathumi, which is being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.

Damsel, I say unto thee, I say, He has a voice with power.

He has a voice that saves.

Not just saves you eternally, but saves you from that situation.

And yes, he raised the daughter, but the father Jairus was saved.

Jairus was saved in this matter.

He thought all had been lost.

He thought all was done.

It's all over, no need to go.

No, you're saved from that plague, that thing that happened to you.

I want to come over and look at Mark chapter 10, because there's one more guy I want to mention to you.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

I want to come down to the forty-sixth verse.

And they came to Jericho, and as they went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timotha Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.

This man, uh Bartimaeus, is blind.

And until I lost most of my right eye, I didn't appreciate blindness as much as I do now.

I'm only half blind, but I'm gonna tell you, I'm concerned about my left eye because if I lose it, I'm I'm barred a maze.

I'm blind.

This man was blind.

All the way he was blind, and all he could do was sit by the wayside begging.

Couldn't work, couldn't get up and do as others would do, couldn't go where he wanted to go.

He is under a great deal of constraint.

This is a plague to him.

This is something that seems insurmountable.

And all I can do is sit here and beg.

And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Bartimaeus Bartimaeus, are you helpless?

In the flesh, yes.

But he's about to meet the one that can prove himself to be the Savior.

And he's about to find the one that not only can save him from blindness, but he can save him to the knowledge of the one that delivered him as a son under the adoption of children.

He's about to find that, he's about to learn of that one, and he's about to experience calling upon that name of the Lord.

And he's about to get delivered from his plague.

And he said, Have mercy on me.

And many charged him that he should hold his peace.

Just be quiet.

You're disrupting things, you're you're getting in the way of what's really important.

You're you're blocking others, you're you're doing something that we want you to just be quiet.

We want you to just keep going.

You've been blind all these years, you just just leave it alone.

They told him.

I mean, he charged him that he should hold his peace.

But he cried the more.

Sometimes, my friends, we go through things that come on us and come in us in our mind, in our in our thoughts, and we need deliverance from those things.

And sometimes we call on the name of the Lord and we speak with him about something that is bothering us in our conscience.

We're afflicted by things that are round about us, and more especially those things in us, those things of our conscience that says, I can't believe, I can't believe that's what I thought, or I can't believe that that was my consideration about things.

And so we have to find deliverance from that issue.

It could be an issue of blood, but it could be an issue of conscience, or it could be an issue of ego, or other things that have come upon us where we know that we have sinned against God.

David knew that when he had done what he did, it wasn't just a sin against his wife or a sin against some people.

It was a sin against God.

Joseph knew that if I do what they're in, they're at their telling me to do, I would sin against God.

And that, my friends, is one that we all need deliverances in our conscience.

Well, when we find those things in our way, as our issue, of our blindness, of our issue of blood, of our concern for those that we are concerned about.

There's one place to go, one to call on.

There's one that we can go speak with.

And I'm going to tell you, friends, you can speak to the Lord about anything and everything about it.

And I would tell you that whatever, if ever, there's something that bothers you, take it to the Lord, don't hesitate.

I found out one time I had psoriasis, and I worked as hard as I could to try to find a remedy for it, and I tried to doctor it myself.

I tried to find every little thing that would help it, and I could not ever find something that would soothe it and remedy that situation.

So finally I gave up, and we had to go to a new doctor by the way.

And so, in the process of going to this doctor, I answered some questions, and it was all about, first, it was all about that problem with psoriasis on the hands.

I mean, they would crack, they would bleed, they would, it just was terrible.

So I finally gave in and I called on the doctor.

And in the process of all that, he found a much more severe problem.

All that waiting, all that putting off, all that, if I'd have gone to the doctor earlier, I'd have found out some other things earlier.

Nevertheless, that that finally wound up.

He found the problem.

They did the they did the stents, they did the surgery, and that that has pretty well taken care of of that.

The point is, don't wait to call on the name of the Lord.

Call on the great physician of your life, the healer, the one that knows the things that you're going through, the one that saves us from the things of ourselves and of those the things around us.

It's our He is our deliverer.

He is the one that saves us in those matters.

Uh let's go to Matthew chapter seven.

Matthew chapter seven for a moment.

This is the uh Sermon on the Mount, and we've talked about this Sermon on the Mount pretty extensively, but I want us to see this uh this uh Sermon on the Mount where he talks um let me see if I can yeah, the 21st verse.

The 21st verse.

There is there is the right way and the wrong way to call upon the name of the Lord, and it's not just a matter of checking the box and saying, okay, we're taught to pray about it, and we're taught to go to the Lord with it, but there is a way that we are to come before the Lord and and and to call on the name of the Lord.

So it's not just a checking the box of praying.

Listen to what he says over here in um the twenty first verse seven and twenty-one of Matthew.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And I don't believe he's talking about eternal heaven.

Again, life always precedes action.

If life is not there, this is not relevant as far as eternal salvation.

This is talking about the kingdom of heaven here that we experience with the Lord, this closeness that we find in our time of visiting with the Lord, calling upon the name of the Lord.

Not everyone that saith, Lord, Lord, it's not a matter of just saying, Lord Jesus.

It's a matter of feeling that need and going in a humility that would present us to the Lord as dependent upon him.

Dependent as Jairus was dependent on the Lord, he could not make the Lord go to see his daughter.

That woman was dependent and knew if I could only get to his garment.

Bartimaeus said, Lord, have mercy on me.

You see, the mindset of calling upon the name of the Lord, it's not just stand there saying, Lord, Lord, and he'll have to hear you.

No, my friends, it's as a child in need of the parent, whereby we cry out of a father, that we cry with a need, with a dependency.

I need to talk to the Lord.

I need to tell him all my troubles.

I need to cast all my care upon him.

He's got a shoulder that is strong enough to carry all the heaviest of burdens.

I need to go and find the answer of why I feel the way I do.

Why I do when I think things.

You know, Brother Elton suffered a little bruising on his eye.

That's an outward bruising.

And we're praying that that'll be quickly remedied, that the Lord will deliver you in that very quickly.

That's an outward bruise.

But sometimes our feelings can get bruised.

Our ego can get touched.

Sometimes our conscience can feel things that nobody else can take away.

And I feel the burden of that.

And I don't think I'm all alone.

I think I'm in a room full of people that feel the same kind of things.

Where you contemplate things and you say later, I can't believe I thought that.

Maybe it's a harsh feeling about somebody.

Or maybe it's a feeling of what somebody else felt about you.

Or maybe it's some word somebody said to you and it hurt that feeling.

It bruised that feeling.

It touched you with such a such an intensity that you you felt something and it caused a bruising in you.

You gotta you gotta deal with it.

There's nothing like getting in that closet, getting in that quiet spot, and calling on the name of the Lord, talking to him, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.

He cares about Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus didn't force the Lord to give him sight.

Bartimaus, Bartimaeus was the recipient of mercy.

The Lord had mercy on Bartimaeus, and he received his sight that day.

He was persistent, he didn't stop.

We too, my friends, should unload our cares on the Lord, call upon the name of the Lord.

But here I'll leave you with this last thought.

And in all your calling on the name of the Lord, ask the Lord first.

First, say, Lord, give me a spirit to call upon you.

Give me a mind to call upon you.

Help me to unload my self out of that and to come to you with that dependency that I need answers.

You know, the worst thing I could do for my doctor is go giving him a lot of my opinion.

I just saw my cardiologist, and he wasn't concerned about my diagnosis.

He wasn't concerned with me telling him what I thought was the issue.

He wanted to know what's the symptoms, what's going on, what do you hear?

What do you feel?

And I answer some questions, and and we do that with all of our doctors.

But the great physician, just unload your your issue, unload your problem.

Tell him all about it.

Talk to him as the friend that he is, as the elder brother that cares for you.

That elder brother that took your sins.

And I I will leave you with this one last thing.

To understand that he took my sin, he took all the things that are of me, and he took those upon himself.

And I read over in Isaiah, and then Peter would talk about it.

By his stripes we're healed.

By his stripes we're healed.

Every sin, every sin that I commit is another lash on his back.

Every iniquity that I bring about is another whip that he took in my place.

So, my friends, how much does he care for you?

He'll take those lashes, he'll take those beatings, he took all of that iniquity on himself.

You think he cares about you, Steve?

I think he does.

By his stripes, we are healed.

So cast all your care upon him.

It was cast upon him, but you cast it upon him in calling on the name of the whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord.

And I believe that's talking about believing in the power of his name, believing that he is deliverer, he is Jesus the deliverer.

Jesus, his name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

And I will add, eternally, and he'll save us even in our walk, even in our time, even in our lives, our very problems.

It said, We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feelings of your infirmities.

By his stripes, we are healed.

I thank you this morning.

I hope something has been of benefit.