Faith Comes by Hearing: Romans 10:17

Romans 10:17 and the Reformed View of Faith by Hearing

All right, so as you can see, I have my little picture up here, faith comes by hearing, right? And if you've ever tried to explain salvation from a Reformed perspective to some people, and that faith is a gift of God, many people like responding with that verse, well, you know, faith comes by hearing.

I tell them faith is a gift from God, well, yeah, but faith comes by hearing, as if that's a defeater for the fact that faith is a gift. So what I want to talk about tonight is the fact that there are some people who have a God-given ability to hear, they've been regenerate, which means they've been born of the Spirit, they have ears to hear, and there's some people who don't.

So tonight I just want to talk about this verse and ask ourselves, does this verse tell anything about the ability of someone to hear the gospel, to hear Christ's words and internalize them and understand what they truly mean?

Because we have to remember, Jesus said many times, he who has ears, let him hear. Now I'm assuming if Jesus was talking to a crowd, all of them had ears, just an assumption, I know the Bible doesn't specifically say that, but I'm guessing he who has ears, let him hear.

He's talking to people who can physically hear what he's saying, however, there is a moral inability to listen to what Jesus says and take it to heart. They have the capacity to hear Jesus, but they cannot because they don't want to.

Spiritual understanding has to come from God, he has to do something inside of us in order for us to receive the things of the Spirit. When we look at the Scriptures, we actually find that there are men who cannot hear the words of Christ in their natural state.

And what I want to do is go through some of these verses, Deuteronomy 29, Jeremiah 6, and just talk about them, talk about what they mean. So this is the first one, Deuteronomy 29, 4, So think about what that means, this was given to the Israelites who were in active rebellion towards God, Moses had just given them commands, told them what to do, and then he responds and says, God still hasn't given you eyes to see and ears to hear.

So, but for the grace of God, but for him opening our eyes and opening our ears to hear this, we're not going to obey. If he leaves us in our natural state, our natural state is one of rebellion, enmity with God.

Did you ever, it's like that Verizon corner show, right? Can you hear me now? You're talking to somebody and the connection's not good, and it's like, okay, can you hear me now, now, now can you hear me?

Right? But that's not the problem we have with Jesus. It's not that there's a bad connection, right? It's not that Jesus's words are fuzzy or hazy or un-understandable. Jesus is speaking in pretty much plain language and saying, repent of your sins and trust in me.

Here's the issue. It's, you ever been in a situation, I don't know, maybe if you're married and you're trying to get something through to your spouse and they just don't want to hear it, they're sticking their hands in their ears, they don't want to hear what you have to say, right?

This is the issue for the unregenerate man. He can hear Jesus's words, but there's this moral inability because his heart is bent on his flesh. He is so committed, not just he or she, the person is so committed to their position that they won't hear a word you have to say.

And even as believers, sometimes when we're talking to each other, we can do the same thing. If we're talking to our friends, relatives, sometimes we hold the position and we hold it so tightly, we don't want to hear what the other person has to say.

And we have to humble ourselves and understand that we don't know everything. We have to be willing to hear what the other person says. But in this situation, unbelievers are actively suppressing the truth.

And they don't want to hear what Jesus has to say or what any of the apostles or what the scriptures have to say. Unbelievers today, when you talk to them about the things of God, unless God is moving on their hearts or opening their ears to hear, they're going to naturally rebel against it.

Uncircumcised Ears and the Moral Inability to Hear

So let's get to Jeremiah 6 .10. It says, To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen. Behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn, and they take no pleasure in it.

So here, Jeremiah is saying that their ears are uncircumcised. Circumcised means to be cut off from the flesh, to be cut off from its desires. So their heart is still intimately attached to their flesh, in the sense that it wants to please its flesh and nothing else.

It wants to be the center of its world. God would have to come in and do something to their heart first, which is the essence of the New Covenant. John 8 .43. Why do you not understand what I say? It's because you cannot bear to hear my word.

This was actually to the Pharisees. They couldn't bear to hear Jesus' word, because they were morally opposed to what he had to say. Their hearts were bent on their religious system and keeping the system they thought was going to get them to heaven or rise above everyone else.

They were repugnant to the things of God. They pushed them away. They couldn't bear to hear Jesus' word. And finally, 1 Corinthians 2 .14. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.

And he's not able to understand them, because they're spiritually discerned. The natural man cannot accept it, because they think it's foolishness. That's what folly means. These people are nuts. Listen, before I was a Christian, and I used to talk to some Christian people, they'd try to talk to me like, these people are nuts.

They really are nuts. You know, the reborns, the born-agains, right? So this is craziness to the unregenerate man. And they're not able to understand the things of the Spirit, because they're spiritually appraised or discerned.

They're so immersed in the physical world, and so immersed in the system of the world, they cannot comprehend what Christianity is all about, and what our worldview actually teaches. Any questions so far?

We're all good? Any questions except for Lawrence? Alright. Nah, I'm only kidding. Alright. So who can hear? Who can hear the words of God? How can you understand something that the Bible says? Well, hearing, understanding God's Word, is for His sheep, or those of God.

Having spiritual ears to hear indicates spiritual life. If your ears are spiritually alive, obviously, there must be spiritual life happening in you. It's for those who are of God, and those who are of the truth.

And we're going to go through these scriptures in John. John 5, 21, 8, 47, 10, 27, and 18, 37. So John 8, 47 says, Whoever is of God, hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them, is that you're not of God.

So that kind of, in our minds, or in the world's minds, puts the cart before the horse. Right? You need to be of God in order to hear, where the world would say, Well, you need to hear to be of God. And Jesus is reversing that.

He says, No, no, no. You need to be of God before the message is even spoken. When the message is spoken, if you're of God, you're going to hear that. Why? Because Jesus says, My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

So, as one of Jesus' sheep, when Jesus speaks, we take it seriously. Why? Because He's our Lord. He's our Savior. He's God in the flesh. And we have the Holy Spirit inside of us. And our hearts are inclined towards the things of God, so that we want to hear them.

We're not sticking our fingers in our ears, saying, No, no, no. I can't do this. I don't want this. And that's really the issue. The unregenerate man does not want the things of God. And he suppresses that truth in our righteousness.

He may even feel guilt. He may even start to feel conviction. And still suppress that truth. But God, then again, may use that to open his ears and hear the message. Jesus would go on to say, For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I've come into the world.

To bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. So, who is it that listens to Jesus? Everyone who's of the truth. Everyone who's of God. Right? This is purely by the grace of God and His mercy.

Because in John 5, verse 21, Jesus says, So, if you are here today and you're a Christian. And you hear God's word. And you understand it. And you take it to heart. And you heed His warnings. It is because He's raised you to new life.

He's giving you eternal life. Now you hear these words. And they mean something to you. They're heavy. They're weighty. They're meaningful. They have deep, deep meaning to His children. And we fear God.

Not in a Freddy Krueger kind of way. But we understand that God is serious. And we take serious what He has to say. When He issues warnings, we take them seriously. When He issues blessings, we take those seriously too.

Okay? Alright. John 8, verse 43 says,. It's because you cannot bear to hear my word. We went over that before. But I want to put the rest of it in there. Why can't they bear to hear His word? It's because you are of your father, the devil.

Ouch. And your will is to do your father's desires. What's the devil's desire? To steal, kill, and destroy? He was a murderer from the beginning. And does not stand in the truth. Because there's no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character. For he is a liar and the father of lies. So again, here we see the people who are not of God. Who does Jesus say their father is? The devil. Since their will, their heart hasn't been changed.

It's still at enmity with God. It's bucking up against what God wants. They oppose God the same way Satan opposes God. Their desires line up with Satan. Not with God. They need their hearts changed. And again, that's something that has to happen to them.

They can't do that themselves. So hearing only by Jesus' sheep. For those of God and those of the truth. Those not of God cannot hear His voice. Because they are of the father, the devil. They cannot hear God's voice because they are not of God.

In contrast to those who are of God who can hear His voice. It's the difference between God's children and God's enemies. When God breathes His spirit into you and opens your eyes and opens your ears.

He translates you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Now you can hear His voice. Now you can understand what He has to say. And gladly follow Him. Those not of God reject both Jesus and His teaching.

And we are going to go through these scriptures because they are important. In John 6 .60, when many of His own disciples heard it. They said, this is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? Now that word listen there is the same word as hear.

But in Hebrew that had a different connotation. It didn't mean just hearing the words. It's like when I tell my son or daughter to do something and they don't do it. I know that they heard my words. But what do I say?

You are not listening. See listening and hearing in Hebrew was associated with action. So you would hear what the person said and then actually do it. We are having an issue with that in my house. You know what I am saying?

Alright. So when I am going to start speaking Hebrew to you. So when I say listen to me. It means hear my words and do them. And this is exactly what they were thinking. Who can listen to this? Who can understand this and then actually carry it out?

Again, Jesus' words are not resonating with them. They have an agenda. Their hearts are bent against God not towards Him. They need to be born of God. They need to be of the truth in order to carry this out.

John 12 .48 says, The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on that day. Okay. So again, it's the natural heart. It's the natural tendency of the human heart to reject the things of God.

To not receive what God has. We will always reject God if we don't have His spirit in us. If we are not spiritually alive. There's that verse where it's in the book of Acts where it says, You always resist the Holy Spirit.

That is universal truth for all mankind. We would all resist the Holy Spirit except that God overcomes that and places His spirit in us. He doesn't wait for our permission. He doesn't wait for our approval.

He does that because He's merciful and gracious towards us. He does that out of love for us. Acts 7 .51, You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears. Oh, here it is. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did.

So do you. You would think I would know that, right? I put this whole thing together, right? So they're still uncircumcised in heart and ears. Now obviously, this is anthropomorphic terms when he's talking about ears.

He's talking about the will, the seat of your emotions, your heart. Not the muscle that pumps the blood through your body, but who you are. Your will, intellect, and emotions. The seat of who you are, basically.

And without God circumcising our hearts, cutting us off from the flesh and connecting us to the spirit, we're always going to follow the flesh and what it desires. Make sense? We're good? Okay. Matthew 13 says, Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.

That says, You will indeed hear, but never understand. And you will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.

Now, again, human beings, every single human being, has the capacity to be a believer. Does that make sense? Because I know sometimes that's a little fuzzy for people. We have the capacity to be a believer.

Yes, we're depraved and our hearts are bent towards evil, not good. But we have the capacity to believe. God could choose to breathe his spirit into anyone and bring them to spiritual life. So the capacity to be a believer is there.

The problem is we have a moral bent towards what is evil. We have a moral bent to serve self, not God. So every human being, although has the capacity to believe, we have this moral inability that rails against the things of God.

We want the things to please our flesh. We do not want to submit to God. In fact, Romans chapter 8 says, the heart set on the flesh cannot submit to God's law, nor will it do so. We'll never submit until God subdues our heart and changes us from the inside.

Now, a lot of people look at that and say, see, they could have turned. They could have turned. And could they have turned? Yeah, if they wanted to. The problem is internally they don't want to. They will never want to unless God does something first.

Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. You need to be brought to Christ by the grace and the spirit of God. So why can some hear? In consideration of the previous verses, the ability to hear must be granted and come first in order to hear the message.

And this would indicate spiritual life already, which includes spiritually alive years. John 5 .24 says, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. So obviously, in order to believe on Jesus, you must hear his message first, understand it, and then trust in him. Now, this isn't about how long it takes after you're regenerate to exercise faith.

It could be instantaneous. It could be a process. This is not what I'm trying to go through. What I am trying to say is the Holy Spirit must do something to you first. You must be regenerate before faith takes place.

Regeneration precedes faith. You need to be spiritually alive with spiritually alive years in order to hear God's message and then trust in him. A spiritually dead man cannot hear the things of God. He is bent towards his own will, not God's will.

John 10 .26 says, But you do not believe because you're not among my sheep. They will never hear God's word because they aren't his sheep. And this is really interesting to take notice of. Jesus doesn't say that they aren't his sheep because they don't believe.

He says, no, they don't believe because they're not my sheep. Jesus knows his sheep and his sheep know him. Again, most people think you believe and then you become his sheep. That's not what Jesus says.

Jesus says you're his sheep first. And because you're his sheep, when he speaks, you will hear his voice and you will follow him. He knows his sheep and his sheep know him. Questions? We're good with that?

Good. All right. In fact, everyone who hears and learns from God comes to Jesus and knows the teaching is from God. John 6 .45 says, It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

So what is that telling us? The people who heard, okay, had spiritual ears to hear and they listened to the message because when it was revealed to them from God that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is the payment for their sins, that he died in their place, what did they do?

They listened and they go and they placed their faith in Jesus. But they needed to hear that message first. But everyone who hears that message will come to Jesus because that's the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer's heart, drawing them to Jesus, beginning a good work, and faithfully completing it.

John 7 .17, If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. So, the people who know that Jesus' teaching is true are those who have a will bent towards obeying God.

It's an inner testimony of the Holy Spirit to understand, yes, this is true teaching. This is who Jesus is. I have a heart for God. I have a will for God. The people who are bent against God, they won't understand his teaching.

Like the Pharisees, they gave the appearance of godliness, but their will was not in line with God's will. So they called Jesus a false teacher, false prophet, like many people do today. So, think about it.

If you do understand that Jesus' teaching is true and you do follow him, it's because God has done something to you first out of his mercy and grace. A tremendous privilege. Here's a perfect example. We all know Peter, the Apostle Peter.

When Jesus came into the district, this is Matthew 16, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

Jesus said to him, but who do you say that I am, Simon? Who do you say that I am? And Peter replied, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answers him and says, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

This was not something that Peter learned on his own. This wasn't something that he had enough wisdom to do on his own. This was direct revelation from God. If you recognize and see Jesus as Messiah, as your Savior, it is because God has opened your eyes and opened your ears to receive that message.

That's a tremendous privilege. Not everybody gets that. We're going to see that in a minute. And this is revealed directly from God. It says, it was revealed to him by who? Not his neighbor, not his mom, but his Father in heaven.

So all of God's children will come to Jesus, will trust in him, and will be saved. Jesus is a perfect Savior. He offers a perfect sacrifice and he gets perfect results. He's not a Savior who tries and fails.

He doesn't really want to. He's trying to save you, but he just can't do it. This is actually an article I wrote on the blog last week. But the week before that I wrote an article and it comes into play now.

Jesus is not a salesman. He's a Savior. He doesn't come and try to get you to buy his product or buy into his ideology. Jesus came to seek and save the lost and he will accomplish his mission perfectly.

There is not a person that he dies in the place of that does not ultimately receive redemption. At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. And that might be a difficult thing to think about that God does not reveal himself to everyone. In fact, he's hidden. If God doesn't open your eyes, you're never going to see and understand who he is and who his son is and what God's plan is.

So, if you do, it's because he's revealed it to you. You can't boast. You can't say I'm smarter than my neighbor. You can't say I'm more sensitive. I'm built differently than that person. You have no grounds for boasting because it's direct revelation from God.

Now, some people might look at that and say, well, that's not fair. God should reveal himself to everyone, right? But do you really want fair? Do you know what fair implies? Justice. Is there anybody in here who wants justice for the sins that they've committed?

I don't. If you want justice, you'll get what you deserve, and that's eternal separation from God, a place called hell. There's only three things we can get, justice, mercy, and grace. Justice is getting what you deserve.

Mercy is not getting what you deserve. What is grace? Getting what you don't deserve. So, it's an act of mercy that God opens your eyes to see and hear. It gives you faith. It gives you a heart to believe.

It's a tremendous act of mercy and grace. The reformed doctrines of grace magnify the grace of God, magnify God's ability. It diminishes man's ability because the scripture says man cannot come to Jesus.

It's only because of a gracious and loving God who's all-powerful, who can bring that person to them and save them. It's the only way that your salvation can be guaranteed. If it's left in your hands, like John MacArthur says, if I could lose my salvation, I would.

Which one of us can promise tomorrow or next week that we're not going to sin and lose our salvation? I can't. Okay. Jesus says, All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

Again, this is a choice on God's part to graciously reveal Himself to you, to open your heart like He did to Lydia in Acts chapter 16. He opened Lydia's heart in order to believe. We can't do that on our own because our hearts are bent towards evil, towards wickedness.

Why Some Can Hear and Others Cannot

Okay. We're getting to the end. Alright. So why can some hear? Jesus often said, He who has ears, let him hear. But everyone didn't have ears to hear. They didn't have spiritually alive ears. Everyone has physical ears, we know that, but not everybody can hear the message because you need to be spiritually alive in order to hear it.

Dead ears can't hear anything. You would need spiritual hearing aids, so to speak, to hear and understand what Jesus says first. And again, it's not that they don't have the capacity to believe, it's just that they don't want to.

They're in rebellion to God. They do not want to know the things of God. They push them away. They suppress that truth in unrighteousness. Faith does come by hearing, but if we continue reading that verse, we would also see that hearing itself comes by the Word of God.

Faith comes by hearing, but hearing comes by God's Word. God has to reveal Himself to you. God has to call you. God has to open your heart in order to believe. And once He does that, it's a guarantee.

All that are revealed, all that God the Father reveals Himself to come to Jesus. That's what the Scriptures say. So we're kind of like at the end, and really, faith comes by hearing. Hearing comes by the Word of God.