We talk a lot about saving faith, but sometimes when you look at your own life and you look at

your own mistakes or you look at the messes and the mistakes of someone that you love,

you worry. Is it truly possible for them or for you to be saved?

Or is it too late?

Has that door been shut and locked and deadbolted from inside with you on the outside?

Is the path to salvation obstructed for certain people?

Today on Ask Pastor John, your only roadblock to heaven. It's Romans

Month, which continues as we march through Paul's letter to the Romans in the month of March.

Anonymous listener writes in with this question, Pastor John, in Romans 10 versus 12 to 13, one of our readings today.

Paul clearly affirms that salvation is available to all, regardless of background or ethnicity,

for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him.

For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be

saved. That's the NASB translation. So does this mean that anyone can get saved? Yes, there's the answer.

In the ESV, just a few biblical supports for that resounding yes,

in the ESV, the word whoever occurs in the Gospel of John 37 times, and I count at least 17 of these

relating directly to eternal life. For example, whoever believes in the

son of man has eternal life. Or for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that

whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

And at least three of these whoever texts underscore the wideness of God's mercy

by adding the word everyone in front of whoever. So Pazha Pistuon in the Greek,

everyone, the one who believes, whoever believes. I have come into the world as light so that

everyone whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness, John 1246. That same phrase, everyone who ever occurs in

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