WWUTT 179 Have They Not Heard?

As we go out with the gospel of Jesus Christ desiring to see people repent of their sins and be saved there are gonna come times when those that we love will not accept that message but we still must hold fast when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of his will.

Here's your teacher Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. I'm working on finishing up a book right now.

Yeah another 40 book just like my first one I came out with last year. 40 of the most popular Bible verses and what they really mean.

This is another book with 40 in the title and I could have it done next week or the week after and I'll tell you more about it when

I get that finished up. So pray for me as I finish that one. You can find the other book at the website www .utt

.com. If everything goes according to plan I could have three books done between now and the end of the summer.

We'll just kind of see how life unfolds for me along the way and see if I'm able to keep up with that. All right we're gonna go back to Romans 10 and finish up the chapter today verses 18 through 21 but first I want to jump back to verse 9.

Yes that oh -so -famous verse 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 believe in your heart and you will be saved and we've taken that passage to say if you accept

Jesus into your heart you'll be saved not what the verse says doesn't say accept Jesus in your heart it says believe in your heart do we understand what that means to believe in your heart it means to believe down to the very deepest core of your being from the inside out that you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and that God raised him from the dead now all through the course of this letter to the

Roman Christians Paul has been presenting a case for justification by faith we are justified by faith alone with that is how we receive salvation suddenly he is adding confession into this so it's not that he's contradicting something that he has stated before what is the understanding of this supposed to mean simply that if we have been changed truly changed from the inside out then there is going to be an evidence of that on the outside that we believe in our heart that Jesus Christ is

Lord with the heart the mouth out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks the mouth speaks what the heart believes that's the understanding that we have here now

I actually went back to an old Paul Washer sermon today to kind of draw out an example to to put some better context into this what would this have meant to the

Christians in Rome that were that were reading or hearing this letter from Paul being read what would this have meant to them and Paul Washer actually gives a great example here to help us understand this verse that has been so taken out of context in America today he helps us understand it better with this illustration

I want to put this really quickly in a cultural perspective let's say that we're all a church about 20 people first century

Roman Empire you know from the epistle of Romans that these Christians are being put to death some of them they're dying like sheep all right now let's say that we have a we're 20 of us and we all work construction so we're working on a some kind of a building there in Rome construction no problem beautiful day it's lunchtime we're taking a break spring we're laying out in the grass having a good time resting and all of a sudden though we hear this we hear drums we look up and we see soldiers coming and they're carrying a little altar and on that altar is a little bowl of incense and a little fire built and we become terrified as all the construction guys come to their feet most of them unbelievers and there we are a little church in the midst of them the soldiers rally us all together and they say come forth pay homage to Caesar and so the first guy unbeliever goes up there gets a little bit of incense throws it in the fire and says

Caesar's Lord walks off as happy as he can be the next one and the next one and finally it comes to the first of us the

Christians and one of us walk up soldier prods him with the sphere pay homage to Caesar yes who says think idios

Jesus is Lord and he dies and the next one of us

Jesus is Lord and he dies and the next one of us and we have taken that truth that Paul is teaching right here that if you truly believe you will confess

Christ even though it cost you your life we have taken that beautiful truth and reduced it down if you pray a little prayer before a bunch of people in a church in America you can be guaranteed you're saved if you think you were sincere that's not what it's talking about again the moment a person calls upon Christ in faith they are saved but the evidence of salvation is not that one time in their life they were sincere when they prayed a prayer the evidence of their salvation is is their genuine repentance is their faith and do those both evangelical graces continue on in their life and grow in other words the evidence of justification by faith is the ongoing work of sanctification through the

Holy Spirit all right does that help you understand Romans 10 9 a little bit better I thought that would provide a good illustration here as we were still in Romans 10 a person is saved by faith it is not by saying magic words it is not by repeating after me it is belief it is realizing the sin that has separated us from God and that only through Jesus Christ can we receive forgiveness and right standing with God and that belief is gonna show from the inside out with all that we say and do there will be an evidence of a continual growth in an understanding of the things of God growth in love for God and an understanding of his scriptures growth for growth in love with the brothers and sisters in Christ these are all going to be evidences of the salvation that we have it is not salvation by works but the works are the evidence of the faith that we have been given by God in Christ Jesus our

Lord and how did we come into that faith by hearing Romans 10 17 faith comes from hearing and hearing through the

Word of Christ so now we're going to go on from there verses 18 through 21 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 asked 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 we go back to verse 18

Paul says but I ask have they not heard indeed they have and I think it's necessary for us to understand this in context he's talking specifically about the

Jewish people the the ethnic a nation of Israel this is not Paul saying that all people on earth have heard the gospel that's not what he's saying here but the

Israelite people have heard the message of God they were given the oracles of God they knew these things their voice has gone out to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world now he's quoting

Psalm 19 for there which is actually a statement of general revelation but Paul is using that verse to specify a specific revelation

I think I was a little bit redundant there but anyway so he takes an example of general revelation and he applies it as a specific revelation to the

Jewish people but I asked did Israel not understand first Moses says then he quotes here from Deuteronomy 32 21

I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation with a foolish nation I will make you angry and if you know something about the end of Deuteronomy that's a pretty significant statement because first of all

Moses is saying to the Israelite people you're gonna go into the promised land and you are going to acquire the land that God promised to give to Abraham to give to the descendants of Abraham you're gonna receive that land now that's what you're going into the promised land to do and as long as you remain faithful to the statutes of God as long as you remain faithful to these commands that are being given to you today you will remain

God's people and he will remain your God but Moses even prophesized to the Israelite people but here's what's gonna happen you're not gonna remain faithful to God you're actually gonna end up falling away from the

Lord and following after these other pagan gods when that happens here's what the Lord is gonna do for you and he is going to turn you over to the exile of your enemies and then he is gonna restore you again so Moses even tells the

Israelites exactly what's gonna happen but tells them to remember these things and to speak them to your children and to their children and on and on down the line so that they will remember the promises of God and how he is gonna restore them from their misfortunes when they fall away from the

Lord and start chasing after false gods so it's in the midst of that prophesying that Moses says

Deuteronomy 32 21 I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation with a foolish nation

I will make you angry and Paul is now applying this to the Gentiles so those that you had previously thought as being fools and we're not a nation at all they were scattered about all the earth that is who

God is gonna reveal himself to and who he is going to give his promise of grace to then

Isaiah is so bold to say this is verse 20 I have been found by those who did not seek me I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me that's

Isaiah 65 1 and so now the Gentiles have received this gift of justification from God though the

Gentiles were not seeking after God verse 21 but of Israel he says all day long

I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people I think of Luke chapter 19 beginning in verse 41 when he drew near and saw the city this is

Jesus he wept over it saying would that you even you had known on this day the things that make for peace but now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and him you in on every side and tear you down to the ground you and your children within you and they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation this is right after the triumphal entry when

Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey and the people shouting

Hosanna Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord but even though there were some that believed there were most of them who did not and so Jesus weeping over Jerusalem that they did not know who had just come within their midst who had been prophesied by the prophets that was going to come that day and yet they did not know who he was how he had longed to gather them to himself and yet they would not come to him verse 21 again in Romans chapter 10 of Israel he says all day long

I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people again he's quoting Isaiah 65 2 and folks for us if we if we come back to remembering the call that is upon us as Christians to go out with the gospel which was been which had been commended there in Romans 10 verses 14 through 17 if we understand this charges has been given to us as believers to now take the gospel that we have heard and deliver it to others that they might hear there are so many that we are going to be holding our arms out to waiting for them to receive this gift that we are offering the the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and they won't take it and it will break our hearts and it will shatter us to watch people that we love turn away from the only message that gives life but we must be very steadfast to the

Word of God because I have seen so many people compromise their understanding of God's Word for a person that they love who would not believe and so they just bend their beliefs just a little bit to try to satisfy the hurt and the ache that they feel in their heart for this other person that they won't believe more often than not

I see this happen between a parent and a child they'll have a child that grows up and won't be a believer in Christ and so they will bend in their beliefs a little bit to accommodate the ache that they feel for the child that does not believe and so suddenly what had previously been a very strict and teach a very strict teaching of you must believe in Jesus Christ to be saved if you don't believe in Jesus Christ you will go to hell suddenly they might change a little bit well my son or daughter is a good person you know they believe in God they're just not going to church you know or something like that they'll bend a little bit on their beliefs to try to soften the blow of realizing that their son or daughter is not walking with the

Lord and that's the example that I'm using but we're gonna see this happen in our lives with people that we know and love who will not accept the gospel of Jesus Christ we must remain steadfast we must remember at the end of Romans 9 verse 33 as it is written behold

I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame they're stumbling over the stone of Christ is what's happening and then if we believe in him will not be put to shame don't be ashamed of what it is that you believe remain steadfast fixed upon the gospel of Jesus Christ and let us pray earnestly for those who do not know

Christ that they would repent and believe in the gospel of Christ I'm turning to first Timothy here as I am talking to you first Timothy chapter 2 starting in verse 1 first of all then

I urge that supplications prayers intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people for Kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way this is good and it is pleasing the sight of God our

Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth notice that Paul is charging here that we pray for all people because God desires that all people would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth let there not be anyone that we would withhold sharing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ with and not softening that message but delivering it with all of its intensity not withholding any part of it so they would truly hear and have a chance to repent of their sins and believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ if we think that there is a part of the gospel that would end up pushing another person away and so we would withhold that part because we don't want that friend or family member to push us away

I tell you if that is the mentality that you have in your mind or in your heart you do not truly love that person you love yourself so much that you don't want to lose that person in your life but what they need to hear from you is the gospel of Jesus Christ they need to hear you call them to repent of their sins so let us remain faithful to this word and obedient to God's calling

Lord we thank you for these scriptures and I pray that we would be reminded to pray for all people for kings and all who are in high positions there was a shift in a lot of political news this week but let us not be jumping to one side or the other or feeling defeated because our sides not winning or whatever the situation might be instead in all situations we lift up in prayer those who are running for president those who are the president everyone in high position that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way desiring all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth even our presidential candidates even the president of the

United States that we have right now we pray for Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Bernie Sanders who are running for president and also for Barack Obama none of these names that I have mentioned have confessed with their mouths that Jesus Christ is

Lord and believed in their hearts that God had raised him from the dead none of those individuals believe that but Lord we desire that they would repent of their sin and come to believe that so that they might lead this nation in a godly way that is pleasing and acceptable to you we pray and ask these things in Jesus name amen

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas Find out more online at www .utt