Well, if you're visiting tonight, we are continuing still our study in the book of Romans. So I invite you to turn to Romans chapter tonight, chapter 10. Our text is verses 14 through 21 to close out chapter 10. Down on page 1125 in the Bibles that are in front of you. Let's give our attention tonight to the Lord's holy word. I'm going to back up, yes, and I will read at I'm going to read at verse 8. But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Now our text: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have. For their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. But of Israel, he says, all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.
May the Lord bless tonight the hearing of his word.
Well, probably the largest we have been looking at this whole section in Romans of chapters 9 through 11. It's a longer unit here in the book of Romans. After we went through 1 through 8 to look at the whole truth of salvation and the work of Christ to justify us by faith, tonight we have this sort of initial conclusion drawn at the end of Romans chapter 10 to this longer section of Romans 9 through 11, probably really thinking about here. Taking us back for a minute, if you can remember chapter 9, to the great truth of God's sovereign election. He had made a great case for it, showed us the glorious truth that God has unconditionally elected us unto salvation by His grace, chosen us. And that is a difficult thing for us to wrap our minds around often.
I get many questions about God's sovereignty and human responsibility, and we discuss this frequently. And it is absolutely true what we confess in the Scriptures and from our confessions that God has predestined us to glory. That is all over the scriptures. Ephesians 1, he predestined us to glory as sons and daughters. This is the great truth of God's sovereign predestination. He chose us. 2 Thessalonians 2, He chose us for glory. He chose us to be his sons; we know from the foundation of the world.
But I get it all the time: "You Calvinists have imposed this grid on scripture." I get this all the time on Abounding Grace in the comment sections of YouTube. Don't ever read those. It's not any good to sit around. Not good for your soul to read comments. And who sits around and comments on YouTube all day? But losers. Anyways.
So, it is true. Think about this great challenge of what we confess: that God has chosen us. But we get this charge all the time that we are just a bunch of determinists and fatalists, and, you know, this has nothing to do then when we think about it as if there's no responsibility of people on this matter. Well, Israel helps us with that. Israel helps us with that tonight a lot.
Has God remember the initial question in Romans 9, has God failed in his word because of Israel's unbelief? I mean, that's a good question. That's an important question. Has God failed with regard to Israel? And I believe Paul is responding to something that he knows will be raised: a kind of excuse that may come after he explained in Romans chapter 9 to blame God for Israel's unbelief. "Well, you just didn't choose them. You didn't choose them." It would be easy to hear unconditional election and blame God for the fact that Israel failed, right? That's what's happening here.
And before us tonight is something that I confess is difficult for small minds in light of God's sovereign will and decrees to fully grasp. And I always say that's okay. But that doesn't mean we can reject the clear teaching of Scripture on the doctrine of election. And Paul is helping us with this tonight.
Someone might shoot back and say, "Well, fine then, but you can't get around the whole point that it is God's sovereign choice at the end of the day." And Paul raised in the very objection raised in verse 19 of chapter 9: "Why then does he still find fault? How could he find fault if he's doing the choosing? Who can resist his will?" In other words, "If he hardens whom he wills, and how could and and softens whomever he will how could anyone be at blame then?" That was the objection we looked at in Romans 9. And if you've already forgotten the answer, that you just have to go back and look at the sermon, listen to the sermon again in Romans 9. We spent real time on that. But but you see the concern here: that election is being used to blame God for failure with regard to Israel. That's the heart of this great concern the nation of Israel. And I believe Paul's addressing this in chapter 10.
Look down at verse 21 the very last verse of this section says something shocking, doesn't it? "All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and a contrary people." "I stretched out my hands." You can hear Jesus: "Come, come, come." He didn't say, "Well, you know, you're not elect come That's the imagery at the end of this. They didn't come.
The truth of election that never throws to the curb the sincere call of the gospel that people should come to Christ. that they should believe christ That's the whole purpose of ministry: to call people to this. All peoples. Everyone. Without distinction well when it comes to some. But to the reason why somebody does not obtain to the righteousness of Christ and come by faith when it comes, it comes to why somebody does not go to heaven the answer the Bible gives is unambiguous and absolutely clear: they have turned, and they have refused to come to the Lord that they may have life.
That's the answer. Well, that's tonight. That's tonight here's what chapter 10 at the end of this is saying to us: God put everything in place for Israel and for you to be saved. And the reason anyone doesn't make it to heaven is, you think about this, is because, the clear answer here is, they refused him who spoke. They refused him who spoke. That's the answer tonight. That's where chapter 10 leaves us on the question about Israel and their failure. But it's instructive for us. It's helpful for us to see because the very call of the gospel is aimed, as he says in this chapter, for Jew and Gentile alike. All peoples. All peoples.
Now it's a mystery to us: people don't come. It's never that people are refused heaven or refused glory when they really wanted it, right? "Oh, we just begged God to save us, and he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no You can't play that game. You cannot play that game. It is indeed because of the sovereign election that people come of God. It is indeed because of his regenerating power by the Spirit that people respond to the gospel. We may not like the tension that's here revealed, but that is what's revealed. that is what's revealed And Paul wants to press us to not use or to have with regard to israel use election as an excuse to not come, to not take very seriously this call to come.
Now Paul has just addressed if we confess with our mouth if we confess with our mouth and believe in the heart sincerely from the heart that Jesus is Lord and the god has raised him from the dead unequivocally we will be saved. It's just real. What an encouraging message, right? What an encouraging thing to preach: "You will be saved." That's not That's not in question that's the most wonderful news that could ever be given. That in Christ we have everything needed and in believing we are justified by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, through Scripture alone.
Now the purpose of Paul tonight is to have us think about, in light of everything that I've set up here, to think about what then did God put in place for us and for Israel? What did God put in place to prove this case for us and for Israel? Can this be proven? Can this be shown throughout history? And that's where Romans 10 is very powerful.
God is saying something specific here. I want you to think about how he made salvation available to you. You're proof of this tonight. You're proof of the point I'm making tonight. The whole roadmap of salvation is here given in Romans chapter 10, and verses 14 and 15 are some of the most important verses in the Bible to understand this very point.
Essentially what he is doing here is showing us that God has done everything necessary for all peoples to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Notice what he says: "Whoever, whoever, without distinction, calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." That's verse 13.
Now he explains this carefully. Look carefully then at the heart of this tonight in Romans 10, verse 14: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" Very important.
There are you could put it this way, There are Five necessities that God put in place for people to be saved. Five necessities that he actually made available, that he worked out in his providence, that he has commissioned throughout all the earth for people to be delivered and be saved. And Paul here works backward. We're not working backward. We're going to consider the order as we experience it. But he works backward to that conclusion.
But notice here the first necessity. The first thing that he says at the very end of it, you'll notice here, how are they to hear without someone preaching?" But then verse 15: "And how are they?" This is the end: "How are they to preach unless they are sent?" That's the starting point. That's the first necessity God put in place for us. He sent preachers to us. He sent preachers to us, and he's still doing it. He's still doing it.
The first thing that must happen is that God must send a messenger with the news. He must send a messenger. No one can be saved without the hearing of Christ. There have been attempts of people to say that, but that is not the case throughout scriptures We have to We have to have the news brought to us. we have to have the saving news of jesus christ brought to us and so there has to be a divine sending there has to be a commissioning there has to be a program put in place and there are pastors all over this country doing that. There are pastors all over the world doing this. And if you talk to any pastor who went into this, they know at the beginning: "I really didn't choose this. I really didn't choose this." I know Spurgeon says, "Well, if you could do something else, go do it." No, that's That's not true. That is not true. I could have done many things. I could have made more money, I think. That's kind of a bad comment. I did not mean that badly. What I'm saying is, you could be really rich doing other things. Okay, you should have laughed, because now I feel really bad.
Jesus said, "The harvest is truly plentiful, but the labors are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest." Pray that God would send, right? Crucial component of prayer: that God would continue to be gracious to you and your children's children and their children to send. So God is is saying, you know, the first real necessity for a sinner to be saved is that he sins throughout all the earth preachers That's not anyone. Those commissioned. Those called to bear his news.
And the process for this is is grueling, and it should be. And if you look throughout the Old Testament, this is what God was constantly doing: he was raising up prophets, and they stood in his council And in Jeremiah's case, God put forth his hand and touched Jeremiah's mouth. And prophets fought God on this. You know, Isaiah wanted to go. He didn't know how hard that ministry would be. But prophets often fought God on Jonah certainly fought God on this: "I'm not going to Nineveh." So so a preacher has to be sent, right?
And then what does that preacher have to do? That's the next necessity: that preacher has to preach. That's what he says here. The great necessity is that the messenger preached the gospel, that he preaches the message. The message is God's message. I always say the preacher is just a postman. He's delivering mail. Sometimes he has to deliver the IRS mail, and then the other times he delivers the love letters, right? But the preacher ultimately is sent with glad tidings. He is to proclaim something. He has an aim. As we talked about tonight, as the Heidelberg so beautifully captured: "Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel." The good news, right? So he has to be sent. He has to preach. Aim has to be: preach Christ.
And then notice what he says. The third necessity, so important here, is hearing. Hearing. Um, "How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard? How are they to hear without someone preaching? How do they preach unless they are sent?" We work backwards. That there's one sent, and then he preaches, and then you have to hear.
Now hearing is not just with this. It's it's that it has to be taken into the human heart. It has to be believed by the power of God's regeneration so that the message is truly heard. This is what Jesus was saying all the time: "Take heed what you hear. With the same message you use, it it will be measured to you, and to you who hear more will be given." Hearing is a great necessity for deliverance, and you're not hearing any old thing. Literally, it says in verse 14, "And how are they to believe of him and whom they have never heard?" Who are they hearing him? Here's a perfect example. You know the text in Acts 8: "Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south now There's the sending to the road that goes down from Gaza. This is a desert place." And he rose and went. And there was an ethiopian a eunuch a court official of canvas queen of the, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot. He was reading the prophet Isaiah.
Now here's a classic case: that personal Bible reading won't do it. He's reading the prophet Isaiah, and the Spirit said to Philip, "Go and join his chariot." So philip now notice this ran I'm gonna come back to that. Philip ran and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, "Do you understand what you're reading?" "Couldn't hear." And he said, "How can I unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Now this is the passage of scripture that he was reading: "Of all passages, right? Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter. Like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from him. And the eunuch says to Philip, About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself or someone else? Then Philip, sent, has to hear, opened his mouth. And beginning with this scripture, told him the good news about Jesus."
There it all is. And then he calls. Jesus said, "My sheep will hear my voice. My voice." His voice is found. His very voice. This is why pulpit ministry in the old Reformed language was the pastor was called the Vox Dei, the voice of God. They would hear the voice of Christ through the ministry of preaching in the gospel for us and our children. And so it would go out to the ends of the earth where the gospel is preached. And that's why Jesus said, "He who listens to you listens to me, and he who rejects you rejects me."
So the message is not our message. That's so important for our day. It's not my creativity or message. It's robbery for me to do that to you. That's like fleecing the sheep. It's a message that has to be Christ's message. And that's why we preach the word in season, out of season.
So he says here: "How will they believe in whom they have not heard?" Believing is that fourth necessity. See that? So: sending, right? Sending, and then, you know, a messenger has to be sent, and then he has to preach and it has to be heard, and then it has to be what? Believed. Believing in the heart. That's what he just said: "Remember, if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
So believing in the heart that as the preacher does the job, and as he confronts sin, and as he preaches Christ, and as he shows the gospel, this is the very means the Holy Spirit uses to create faith in the heart, right? And then Christ becomes beautiful to somebody. Becomes our all in all. Becomes everything to us.
And then there's the fifth necessity. Then you call, right? You call upon the name of the Lord. Profession of faith in your lives, you call upon him. "Lord, deliver me. I believe. I believe." We call upon him to deliver us with our mouths and hearts.
What Paul just said is God put all that in place. Still to this day, you know, in a highly technological age, have you ever thought about how shocking this really is? You know, that you guys are coming to listen to a sermon tonight, and it's 5:54, and you're afraid it's going to go really long? I know. But how important is this, right? And as if Paul says at this point, "Well, this was not a New Testament phenomenon. What we do here tonight is not new. It's very old." Apostle Paul wanted everyone tonight to consider the amazing goodness of God that this was always in place throughout history.
Good news has been preached from the beginning. It has always been preached. It has been preached from the very what we call proto-evangelium in the very gospel of Genesis 3.15 when the announcement of the Savior would come. And so in verse 15, he cites, he says Isaiah 52 verse 7 to prove this that this has this is proven that this has always been what's put in place: "And as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. That's what I always think. You need to get the sense of God's favor upon you when you come to hear the gospel preached. You need to know as you walk out of here, when we give the benediction, the countenance of God, the shining countenance of God, it's a smiling face upon you. He's brought good news to you.
Now this would have had so much me uh, understanding where he talks about the sent ones here for anyone who understood in that context: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach gospel of peace." Runners in that day. That the imagery of this is this: runners in that day would run back from war. Once the captives were released, and once war was over, they would run back and they would say, "We're free! We're bringing good news to you!" runners runners would run. That's what Philip did. Run to the chariot. "We're running to you to bring you good news." So uh when physical captives were freed, the runner would sprint with all he could to declare to the people freedom from war. God is saying, "I've done that for you all throughout history. I sent runners. I filled them with good news. I touched their lips. I opened their mouths that they would run to people. They would declare the gospel. That they would declare the promises of God."
Feet. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace." I'd imagine I know my girls and i shouldn't have said that to um i know my wife and women like to take care of their feet, don't they? They paint them up beautiful. Men don't do that. Um, I have one toe that's longer than the other, and they laugh at it all the time. They call it "giganticous." I don't have beautiful feet.
The imagery here of these feet is sun-beaten, bloody, smelly, cut-up, dirty feet that have traveled from a long distance to bring you the best news that you could ever hear. That's ministry. Heralds ran. God is so good. God runs to you with good news every week. And from the beginning, he's done this. Preachers of righteousness, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, prophets, how many preachers sent across the world? God's been sending runners from the very beginning. Everything's been put in place.
And God ensured that the report was given. Verse 16, however, is one of the most painful verses in all of the Bible: "But they have not all obeyed the gospel." Not all believe it. People have turned from this. Really good news. Doesn't make any sense. But it does when you understand depravity. God put this in place. They didn't respond. They didn't turn.
Let me say tonight how thankful I am for this congregation. I always think of you, and I can't express enough. I always say to people, "You know, they say, well, what a blessing, you know, when we hear the ministry of the word. And I always respond when I tell people, I don't deserve a congregation like this. And I mean that with all my heart. And you guys believe this gospel. But not all obey it. Not all believe it. Why does that happen?"
Second part of verse 16: "For Isaiah says, lord who's believed our report Of all verses, right? You know where that comes from? The feet verse how beautiful are the feet comes from the latter part of Isaiah 53. But Isaiah 53 begins with that question: "Lord, who's believed our report?" What is our report? Here's the language: "He has no form or comeliness, no beauty that we should desire him. He's not despised or rejected a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we on our part hid our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows literally pains. Yet we reckoned him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted, and wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities and our sins. That's the report. And we have turned everyone to his own, and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before it shears the silence, so he opened not his mouth." That's the report. The report has sounded out throughout all the world of Christ. And that's why Paul said, "Woe is me if I don't preach him."
And so the point in verse 17 is then notice the conclusion point he makes there: "So then faith comes you can't blame election that that people don't come. No, that's not that we're going to clear that up right now. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. God put that in place for us that whoever believes and whoever calls will be saved. Well, why then did Israel fail?"
Coming back to that initial question, he says very plainly in the final verses here of Romans 10: "Did Israel not hear this report? Do we think that preaching and what we're doing is a New Testament phenomenon? No, no, no."
Look at verse 18: "Have they not heard They're talking about Israel. Have they not heard the report? Was the gospel not preached to them?" And he cites Psalm 19: "Their sound has gone out into all the earth. The words to the ends of the world." The heavens declare it, right? The law of God. The God. The word of God. The gospel of God was proclaimed. That that means that Christ was constantly preached to them in the Law and the Prophets just like us.
And that's what Paul asks again in verse 19: "Did Israel not know? Did Israel not understand that they could not keep the law? Did they misunderstand all this? Did they did they under misunderstand or did they not understand the whole thing?" And Paul says, "With Moses," he goes right to Moses: "I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation. I will move you to anger by a foolish nation." And Isaiah is very bold and says, "I was found by those who did not seek me. I was made manifest by those who did not ask for me." What he's saying is they knew the gospel, and they knew the scriptures were being fulfilled in the very promise to Abraham that all the gentiles of the earth would be blessed. And they hated that. And so they turned, and they tried to establish as he's said in this chapter their own righteousness and the chapter ends tonight by saying, "All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people." Isn't that amazing that God is portrayed at the end of this with arms open? That's what Jesus did. In the multitudes: "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I'll give you rest." He said this to Israel. This comes to us tonight, doesn't it? Every Sunday the church doors are open around the world. God's arms are open. Every every Lord's Day preachers are sent. Preachers are preaching. And what does that preacher do? He runs to you in a sense. He spends all week in his study ministering to you. Outside of the study, the pastors, we do the best we can. But prayerfully, as we open the scriptures, we give ourselves for the benefit of you. This is our calling: to learn how best to communicate and we often are weak. We are very weak vessels to communicate Jesus to you, to convince you, to exhort with all long-suffering and patience that the gospel would enter your hearts.
"Come, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow." I get to preach that. No other earthly occupation is more fulfilling in my book. But I still think every vocation matters of great importance. "Turn, turn." I get to say: God does not delight in the death of the wicked, but that he turns and lives. Hear tonight what the Lord is saying. Believe the report. When you hear him, and everything's in place faith is created in the heart. Sincere calling in your lives follows. He didn't put all this in place tonight that someone would say, "Well, he just elects, and it doesn't really stop, stop." stop He put all this in place tonight that you would believe and that you would come. And believing in your hearts and confessing him in your mouths and calling upon him, you would know that you're saved. That's what his will is for you. What good news he gave to us. And he reassures us: whoever jew or gentile calls upon the name with the Lord, we'll be saved without question. Amen and amen.
Let's pray. Lord, thank you for putting all this in place for us. And thank you for your favor and being so faithful throughout all the generations to declare the good news of Jesus Christ through your servants. You've been so good. And we pray that by the work of your Spirit there would be great response, and that as we have pastors send as you send them, We pray that you would, fields are white for the harvest, send. We think of all the young men here training for ministry, send. And that they would preach faithfully Christ, and that it would be heard in the hearts of your people, and that heard, it would be believed, and in believing, that people would call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
Your goodness is put on display tonight, and we praise you for it. We thank you for such rich gifts and for bringing the good news, the very word of Christ to us that we haven't even had to seek to bring this to ourselves. You did it all. And so in faith, may we respond by believing all that you have done for us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.