WWUTT 1311 How Will They Know Unless Someone Preaches (Romans 10:14-15)

A person comes to salvation and the forgiveness of sins by believing in Jesus Christ, but they don't know that they need to believe in Jesus until someone tells them about that first when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the book of Romans chapter 10.

If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, I'll begin reading in verse 14. We'll go through to the end of the chapter.

The apostle Paul wrote, 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 end 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.

The way that we come to saving faith in Jesus Christ is by hearing and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is no other way a person comes to salvation. The gospel is proclaimed, a person is convicted of heart, they repent of their sin, they put their faith in Jesus Christ, and this demonstrates that the

Holy Spirit has worked in their hearts to change them from a hard -hearted person, rebellious against God, to being given a new heart that now longs for God.

And all of this is the work of God in the life of a person. Last week we were looking at the first half of Romans 10, where we have those two verses so often taken out of context, verses 9 and 10.

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. I went ahead and jumped into verse 11 there, but those two verses, 9 and 10, are ripped out of context and used to justify what has become known as the altar call.

Now, this started a couple hundred years ago in the Methodist church, and it was called the anxious seat.

Why was it called the anxious seat? Well, you would have these outdoor revival meetings, and the preacher would be preaching, and as he's speaking, people would get anxious about what it is that he's proclaiming, talking about turning from sin and following Jesus.

So they have this, almost like this rattling of nerves, the goosebumps feeling, but it makes you want to jump up and do something.

And the church didn't want to let a good opportunity pass by. They wanted to take advantage of the situation as people wanted to react according to their emotions.

So the altar call was invented. And again, at the time, it was called the anxious seat because people are anxious in their seat.

They want to get up and respond. And so, hey, come forward and pray this prayer, and now you're a

Christian, and they start racking up their numbers. Here's how many people we've saved, or here's how many we've added to our congregation.

And there never was really any concern as to whether or not the conversion was genuine. As long as a person was doing it, then that was enough.

They just needed to pray this prayer, and they would be saved, because after all, it says in Romans 10, 9, and 10, 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. One guy that utilized this method more than anyone else was

Charles Finney, and in fact, he utilized it to such an extent that people pretty much attribute the beginning of the altar call with Finney.

But again, it wasn't called the altar call in the 19th century. That wasn't until the 20th century that it really earned that name, and I believe it was the

Nazarenes that first started calling it the altar call. All kinds of denominations were using this.

The Methodists, as I mentioned to you, the Nazarenes, the Presbyterians, because Charles Finney was

Presbyterian. There was actually one denomination that was really, really critical of the altar call.

Do you know who it was? It was the Baptists. Not kidding.

The Baptists were really disgusted with what they saw happening in these altar call displays.

They thought that they outright called it heresy. They said it was responding to emotions. It was not responding to the truth, and once the emotion had passed, what the

Baptists observed is that the conversion wasn't genuine. A person felt some sort of an elation at the moment that they heard the preacher and they responded to it, but then once they prayed the prayer they were told to pray, then boom, their eternity is sealed.

Therefore, why do I need to demonstrate proof of my conversion, or as Peter puts it in 2

Peter 1, confirm my calling and election by then doing what the

Bible tells me that I'm supposed to do as a matter of obedience unto God. The Baptists were very critical of this until, of course, one

Baptist comes along that has done more with the altar call than probably any preacher in history, and that Baptist name was

Billy Graham. Millions of people responded to altar calls at Billy Graham's invitation and prayed sinners prayers, and by the

Billy Graham Association's own admission, it's only something like three to five percent of people actually responded to those altar calls were found still in a church about six months later.

So they would respond to an altar call, the counselors that were there were trying to get them involved in some kind of a church, but when they would do a follow -up with those persons who responded to the altar call, who prayed the prayer, who signed the card, when they followed up they found that largely more than 90 percent of them were not continuing in the faith that they proclaimed that they had in response to the message that they heard

Billy Graham preach. Now some of you are aware that Billy Graham was very ecumenical, so when it came to getting these new converts into a church, it wasn't just a

Protestant churches, it wasn't just the Presbyterian church, or the Baptist church, or the Methodist church, and nothing was even being done to investigate those churches and find out if what they were teaching was doctrinally sound.

But in addition to those Protestant churches, the Billy Graham Association was even getting people plugged into the

Catholic church and Jewish synagogues. So it's like in a Billy Graham crusade, Graham would give his invitation to come forward, to believe the gospel, to pray this prayer and become a

Christian, and you would have somebody would say, hey, I believe in everything that he said, I want to attend a church, and it's almost like you would have some of those counselors that would go, great, now here's some heresy.

We're going to get you into this Catholic church or into this Jewish synagogue. So in addition to preaching the gospel, they were even leading a lot of people astray.

It was very sad with the way that a lot of that was done. And I think that the

Lord still used Graham to share the gospel and change a lot of people's lives. My grandmother was one of them.

My mom's mom was actually singing in a choir at a

Billy Graham crusade. And when she heard Billy Graham preach the gospel, she realized she had never heard the true gospel before.

And so she stepped down off the riser and joined the crowd down front to confess faith in Christ.

But the problem with a lot of altar calls, and you're probably familiar with this, is that it's often just a numbers game.

It's how many people can we get to come forward? How many converts can we make? Greg Laurie's organization, the

Harvest Crusades that he's doing right now, and he's even partnered with the Southern Baptist Convention.

So he's still part of the Calvary Chapel denomination, which is where that's where Greg Laurie came from.

But now he's also got like a dual citizenship with the Southern Baptist Convention as well.

So now the convention is utilizing the numbers that are coming out of those Harvest Crusades and at Southern Baptist Conventions at the annual convention, there will be somebody that will stand up and will say, hey, at the latest

Greg Laurie crusades, we've had such and such number of converts. But all you're doing is counting heads of the people that come forward.

You don't really know for sure if that person has truly prayed to receive Christ. And it becomes about the numbers and it becomes a marketing thing.

And it's not actually about the souls, nor is there really care being given to the gospel that is truly being proclaimed.

I think that Greg Laurie is a Christian, at least I haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe that he's not.

But it's not sound doctrine. Recently, I was traveling through Texas and I was listening to a

Christian radio station. Very rare that I ever do that anymore, but there was a billboard for it. So I thought,

OK, I'll turn them on and see what they sound like. And and it was it was Greg Laurie, along with another fellow who

I was never able to identify. And they were they were interviewing this woman about how she came to faith in Christ and how she felt the calling of God upon her heart to do the ministry that she was doing.

And a lot of it was extremely charismatic. It was just I felt God telling me to do this.

And I went out and did it. And Greg Laurie and the guy that are with him are going, oh, wow, what a wonderful story.

Isn't it amazing how God works? But that isn't how God works, because as we are reading about here in the reading today and Romans 10, 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing does not come from emotional experiences.

Hearing does not come from I had a thought in my mind and it's God oriented.

So it must have come from God. You know, it's I was thinking about God. Therefore, it must have come from God.

That's not the way that God speaks to us. He speaks to us through his word. Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

We're leading a lot of people astray if we lead them to believe that they are

Christians just because they said a prayer with their mouth. According to Romans 10, nine, there's more to this passage than that.

And you come to find that the confession that you made is an evidence of the heart that was transformed and a heart that's transformed is not just going to make that confession once the heart that's transformed is going to keep making that confession over and over again, proclaiming with a person's whole life that they believe that Jesus is

Lord and desiring to serve him with all that they are. However, it begins with the declaration of the gospel and faith in that message that was proclaimed.

And how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed?

How will a person know to call upon Christ and be forgiven their sins if they don't know who it is they're supposed to call upon?

I mean, first of all, they don't know their sin because they haven't heard the law. They haven't heard about how they have transgressed against the law or broken the law of God and therefore deserving the judgment of God.

And then hearing the good news of the gospel that God gave one his son to atone for our sins that by faith in him, we are forgiven and have everlasting life.

But a person knows that because they hear about it. A preacher preached it to them or a parent shared it with them or a friend shared it with him.

You know, something like that. But somebody comes to them with the gospel. And how do they know to call on him in whom they have not believed to call upon Christ?

You need to believe in him first. I believe that Jesus can forgive me of my sins. And so I call on him to be forgiven.

For again, verse 13, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how do they know to call on him if they don't believe in him?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? A person doesn't just decide that, you know,

I need something in this life. I'm not really getting anything out of the way that I'm living, the worldly way that I'm living.

Maybe there's something beyond this. Maybe there's some higher power that I need to reach out for and look for.

And then I will find meaning and purpose in this life. People don't do that, or at least they don't.

They don't do that looking for God. They may go looking for something and fall into Buddhism or Hinduism or transcendental meditation or yoga or something like that.

That's where they end up going when they are looking for something beyond just this material stuff, which isn't doing it for me.

I need something spiritual. So they come into a lot of different kinds of mysticism, but they're never looking for God because, again, as we read in Romans 3, no one seeks for God.

This really puts to shame the whole seeker -sensitive movement that has taken over American evangelicalism where a church tries to make itself worldly to attract worldly people.

We need to be friendly to the seekers. We need to accommodate those people who are looking for something, and we want them to know we've got the thing that you've been looking for.

We've got Jesus. But that person doesn't exist. There isn't anybody who is seeking after God. God is the one who seeks after us.

As it says in Luke 19 10, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. John 15, he says to his disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit.

And Jesus even said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four, that those who worship the father in spirit and in truth are the worshipers that the father is seeking.

God seeks after us. We don't seek after God. So there's not some person who's wandering around out there looking for the

Lord. They need to believe in him to be saved. But how are they to believe in him in whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching? There has to be somebody sharing the gospel with others for them to know that I need to turn from sin and believe in this in order to be saved.

Jesus came proclaiming the gospel. Very first words at the beginning of his earthly ministry, according to Matthew 4 17, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And in Mark one verse 15, he said, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel. But how does one believe unless they are told who to believe in?

How are they to hear without someone preaching to them? Romans 10 15. And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

There needs to be people even sending those preachers out to those places where people need to hear the gospel.

So this is a whole church work, even though there may be those who are gifted with the preaching and the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The church is going to be involved with helping to support those missionaries and preachers who are going to go out proclaiming a church is going to plant another church so that there may be a church sharing the gospel in that community, or a church may raise up from their own somebody who is going to go to another part of the world and share the gospel in another country, maybe in an unreached people group.

And that takes some education. You've got to learn the language, you've got to learn about the people. And there has to be some support there from a church that is paying for this person, this family, whoever it is, to learn about this people group so that they may go there and proclaim the gospel.

There are those who send the preachers. The whole church has to be involved in this work.

As it is written, Paul says, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

That's what we have at the conclusion of verse 15. And I'm going to go ahead and wrap up there today, because I want to come to that verse and talk about that a little bit more tomorrow, since this is a quotation from Isaiah.

But we have the call, the commission of God, the great commission, as it's given in Matthew chapter 28, to go out and make disciples,

Jesus said to his disciples before departing from them, Matthew 28, starting in verse 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now, therefore, go into all nations, making disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the father and of the son and of the

Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo,

I am with you always to the very end of the age. Everyone who is a follower of Jesus is a disciple of Jesus.

And Jesus has commissioned his disciples to take the gospel to the world. There are people that you are going to encounter today that I'm not going to have any interaction with.

They're not listening to when we understand the text. But you know those persons and that they need to hear the gospel.

There are people that are never going to hear a great evangelist who is going to stand up and proclaim some kind of a message, but they live right next door to you or they're related to you.

Somehow you've got a connection with this person that you can share the gospel with them. How will they know who to believe in and why they need to believe in Jesus unless somebody tells them?

And then you also have those beautiful feet carrying the gospel to one who needs to hear.

Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for saving us, sending somebody to us to share the gospel with us, to point out to us our sin and our need for a savior, and then sharing the gospel that by faith in Jesus, we would be forgiven our sins and we now have fellowship with God.

The judgment of God is coming against all who do unrighteousness, and it is only by faith in Jesus that a person can be saved from the coming judgment.

So may we be bold to share the gospel with somebody else that they would turn from their sin, believe in Christ and so be saved.

And as we go out with the message of the gospel, protect us from wanting to appease our own flesh.

Like it seems like to seal the deal with this person, all we have to do is get them to pray this prayer or make some sort of affirmation to them, well, now you're a

Christian, but that's not up to us. That is the work of God in a person's life. Keep us faithful to the scriptures that they may hear and believe.

And Lord, may your spirit do a mighty work in that person's life to transform them into one who seeks after God because of the gospel that was shared with them.

We ask these things in Jesus name, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .tt

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