WWUTT 178 Faith Comes By Hearing?

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The Bible says, how are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have never heard about?
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How are they to hear without someone preaching to them? So this communicates to us the importance of taking the gospel to the world when we understand the text.
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You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.
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Find videos and more at our website www .tt .com. Now here's our host,
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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. A friend of mine had asked me what I was doing at the time that I found out that Ted Cruz had dropped out of the race for president.
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And I said, well, I was fixing supper. My wife had cooked a meal. I was distributing it onto the plate.
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She was sitting on the couch and said, hey, Ted Cruz just dropped out of the race for president. And he said, what was your reaction?
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And I said, let's eat. I mean, it's not a not a monumental thing in my life that Ted Cruz is not running for president.
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You know, I wasn't talking about this at the time that he was a candidate, but I can say it now that he's not.
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I was never impressed with Ted Cruz and I never was really excited about him becoming president. I decided not to say anything negative about the guy because he was a better choice for president than Donald Trump.
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But Cruz was like any politician and he said things that were very dishonest. And I think that he said things knowing that what he was saying was not true.
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I mean, I knew when he said them that they weren't true. I won't go into any examples because I'm not going to give this a political discussion.
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This honestly is not political. I'm telling you this from a standpoint of a person that calls out false teaching.
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Ted Cruz was associated with the New Apostolic Reformation. He claimed to be a Southern Baptist, probably attended a
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Southern Baptist church. But his father was New Apostolic Reformation. He was on the campaign trail with Ted Cruz, preaching in different churches, talking about how
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God had ordained Cruz to be the president of the United States and all these other kinds of things.
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Look, no candidate for president is perfect, but Cruz was going to be a better choice than Trump.
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Nonetheless, he has those affiliations with the New Apostolic Reformation and the N .A
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.R. is false teaching. What is the N .A .R.? Well, churches that are associated with it include the
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International House of Prayer, Mike Bickle, Bill Johnson and Bethel Church, Jesus Culture, Lou Engel with the call.
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C. Peter Wagner was the one that named the New Apostolic Reformation starting in 2001. This idea that God was going to reveal new truths through new apostles and those things that would be revealed through these apostles would not be tested according to scripture.
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Even Mike Bickle made that claim. So Ted Cruz was associated with this. When I heard when
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I first heard that he had thrown his hat into the ring of running for president of the United States, I made some criticisms about that in the very beginning.
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But then when it looked like there was a good chance that he was going to become the Republican nominee,
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I decided to hold back on some of those criticisms because he was going to be a better choice than Trump.
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We need to be careful about those people that are out there who are espousing things in the name of Christ, but do not have any biblical basis whatsoever.
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And the New Apostolic Reformation and churches affiliated with it just happened to be one of those things.
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We are continuing with our study of Romans chapter 10. I finished yesterday with verse 13.
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I really kind of blew through verse 9, even though it's one of the most popular verses out there, especially talking about how a person can get saved.
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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.
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But that verse does not mean you say these words one time, you pray this prayer, and as long as you've confessed it with your mouth and boom, you are saved and you are going to heaven.
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That is not what that passage is talking about. Rather from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
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That's simply what Paul is stating there, just as Jesus said that. As one of my elders at church has said, and I mentioned this yesterday, the heart or I'm sorry, the mouth confesses what the heart believes.
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If you want to know what's in a person's heart, you listen to his words. I actually made a statement last week that I felt really ridiculous about making.
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I said it in the presence of an unbeliever and I wasn't convicted about it at the time that I said it, but later I was thinking about over the events of the day and realizing what
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I had said in the presence of this guy and was very disappointed in myself for saying such a thing.
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Repented before the Lord and asked that he would give me a heart that wouldn't be quick to make those kinds of statements, but rather would be a heart that would make statements that are more positive of the people around me instead of negative.
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I'm thankful that the Lord gave me another opportunity to speak to that man and correct the statement that I had made earlier, but nonetheless, my own heart deceives me at times and I am still a work in progress that God is continuing to shape in the image of his son and even my tongue can get away from myself.
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So in that moment, I saw the weakness of my own heart and still a desire to be sanctified by Christ so that the words that come from my mouth are a reflection of the holiness of God that I have by the righteousness of Christ given to me.
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So we need to desire that with our mouths, we are speaking things that are holy and pleasing and acceptable to the
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Lord. As we read in Psalm 1914, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,
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O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. So is there is that constant practice of taking our thoughts captive, submitting them to Christ so that the very words that come from our mouths would be something that is pleasing to the
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Lord. We must preach the gospel to the world because everyone who calls on the name of the
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Lord will be saved according to what they heard declared in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then as we go on today to verses 14 through 17, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?
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And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
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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,
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Lord, who has believed that he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
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Listen to these words from Dr. David Platt that were just recently preached at the most recent secret church held in Birmingham, Alabama.
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What happens to people who never hear the gospel when they die? Will they go to heaven? Will they go to hell even if they've never even had a chance to hear the gospel?
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That is a huge question. And we need to see right here, right now that the Bible tells us the answer to that question.
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The only way they can go to heaven is if they believe the gospel. And the only way they can believe it is if they hear it.
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The only way they can hear it is if we tell it to them. So if we don't tell it to them, they won't hear it. If they don't hear it, they can't believe it.
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If they don't believe it, they won't be saved. They'll die in their sin apart from faith in the only Savior.
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And I know some immediately object and say, well surely because they haven't heard, God will let them into heaven?
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I mean there's a lot of people, we're talking about 2 .8 billion people, and just think about it. I mean maybe, maybe because they haven't heard,
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God lets them into heaven. I think that's what a lot of Christians think. But think about it, just keep thinking, if God let them into heaven precisely because they'd never heard the gospel, then what's the worst thing we could do?
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Go tell them the gospel, right? And before we got there, 100 % of them go into heaven. Now that we came and preached the gospel, there's a chance they're going to hell.
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Thanks a lot, secret church. Like, keep it a better secret, right?
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Makes no sense. They can't be saved apart from hearing the gospel. You say, well doesn't
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God love them? Absolutely He does. He loves them so much that He's called us to take the gospel to them.
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That's the point. It's the whole point of why we're gathered tonight.
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See it, feel it, get it. In a world of religions, no one can be saved apart from receiving, understanding, believing the gospel, which makes the task of proclaiming the gospel critically urgent.
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I mentioned that was in Birmingham, it was actually Charlotte, North Carolina. Birmingham was Dr. Platt's former church before he left for the
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International Missions Board. And again, the most recent secret church was just this past Friday, April the 29th.
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I want to go back to the start of Romans 10 here in response to Dr. Platt's comment. At the start of Romans 10,
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Paul says, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
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And also consider at the beginning of Romans 9, where Paul says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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What I want you to see here is the deep, deep desire that Paul has to see people get saved.
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He desires it so much that if it meant he had to go to hell to see someone get saved, he would do that.
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Now, realistically, he understands that he can't take the wrath of God upon himself for somebody's salvation.
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Only Christ can do that. But if it meant saving someone else, Paul would would go to the grave for the sake of someone else to get saved.
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He would go to hell for the sake of somebody else's salvation. The deep desire that Paul has for other people to get saved.
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How then can they get saved if they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard?
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And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written?
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How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? And Paul saying in verse 17, so faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
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How does a person come to saving faith? Because they heard the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed.
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Why am I talking about this? Because I want to say I am very, very troubled in my heart to have seen responses to Dr.
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Platt's comment on Friday from people who hold a reform doctrine. They were responding to Dr.
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Platt's comment with Romans 1 20 for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
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So they are without excuse. Here's what that sounded like to me. I don't know if this was the heart of those individuals whom
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I saw posting these kinds of things or not. But here's what it looked like. It looked like it's not our fault if they don't get saved because God is clearly perceived and they clearly rejected him.
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So it's their fault. That almost sounds like you're making an argument for we don't have to take the gospel to them because the gospel is clearly seen in all that has been made.
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No, that is not what Romans 1 20 is saying. What Romans 1 20 is saying is that everybody clearly sees
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God the father, but not everyone clearly knows the gospel, the gospel, the word itself means good news.
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That means it must be declared. It must be spoken. It must be shared.
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One of Platt's big platforms, no pun intended, as the president of the
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International Missions Board is reminding people how many billions of people on the globe have not yet heard the gospel.
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They are an unreached people group, and it's over two billion people, as he just mentioned there in that clip.
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Unreached people group means that there's no church anywhere nearby or anybody that has even heard the saving gospel of Christ to be able to declare it.
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Like you've got people in your own community that have never heard the gospel before, but they're not an unreached people group.
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There's a church down the street on the corner, okay? You are nearby. You can take the gospel to them.
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You're just, you know, a few blocks away, but in a part of the globe that is designated as an unreached people group, there is no one in the nearby vicinity that can take to them the gospel, which is why we need to have a heart and a passion for their souls to go to them with the gospel of Jesus Christ and proclaim it to them so that they will hear the good news that saves, repent of their sins, and come to the saving faith in Christ because they heard the word of God declared.
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So understand this clearly, folks, Romans 1 20 is saying that everyone clearly knows God, the father
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Romans 10 verses 14 through 17 is clearly stating that not everyone knows
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God, the son, and so that is why it is necessary for us to have the same yearning and desire that Paul has to see people saved so that we might take the gospel to the world.
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They would hear it and then be rescued from hell, but until they hear the gospel, that is their disposition hell bound because they worship the created things rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
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Amen. Borrowing that from Romans chapter one, God, I pray that we would have a heart and a desire that wants to see the gospel go out to the world.
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I remember the words of Charles Spurgeon who said that if you do not desire men to be saved than you yourself are not saved.
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You can be sure of that. What a scary thought. That if in my heart,
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I don't desire for other people to be saved, then I myself have not truly experienced a real conviction of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So Lord give to us a heart that desires to see others be saved. How are they to know unless someone speaks it to them?
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It is the gospel. We came to saving faith because someone spoke the gospel to us.
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And so let us take the gospel to those who have not yet heard it, not yet understood it so that it might be declared to them and they would, by the power of the spirit, repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord.
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God, no matter who is president, we know Jesus Christ is king and there will always be the need and the call for the gospel to go out, whether there's a conservative sitting in the
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White House or a liberal masquerading as a conservative. Let us understand the urgency and the importance every single day to reach lost souls with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text.
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Pastor Gabe is the author of the book, 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean. Available on paperback or for your
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Kindle, books can be found at our website at www .utt .com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.