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We saw very clearly in Romans nine that God is sovereign over the souls of men. He chose a great number of sinners in His eternal decree to be vessels of mercy. We’ve said it often, if God hadn’t chosen us, we would never have chosen God. We were all dead in our sins, children of wrath in our guilt, and hostile toward God in our hearts and minds. God has to give us a new heart that is willing to trust in Christ.
Now we’re in Romans 10 and God clearly lays the responsibility to believe in Christ on all men and women. We saw in verse 13, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” The fact is, unless you call on Christ to save you, unless you recognize your sin, turn from it in repentance, and submit to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you won’t be saved.
That’s what Paul is telling us in our passage this morning. While God has ordained the end, the salvation of His elect, He uses people to accomplish His ends. He uses people like you and me to bring the gospel to others right here in our community as well as around the world. Paul is showing that the gospel is to be preached to all kinds of people, whether Jew or Gentile. That’s called evangelism, proclaiming the good news of Christ. We need to ask God to use us to spread the gospel just like God has used people who brought the gospel to us. We’ll see those people have beautiful feet. Isn’t it good to just go through books verse by verse and we come to a passage like this? This morning we’ll see two things: how God uses means to bring people to Christ, and then why Israel (and many Gentiles) have rejected Christ.
READ MISSIONARY BIOGRAPHIES.
Before we open this scripture passage, let me encourage you to read missionary biographies. They show us how God sends the gospel to people around the world. William Carey in the 1800s is considered the father of modern missions. When he thought about the lost condition of people in foreign lands and told a group of Baptist pastors the church was responsible to take the gospel to these people, the older pastors said, “Sit down, young man. When God gets ready to save the heathen, He can do it without our help!” That fired up Carey with missionary zeal and he took the gospel to India for the next 40 years. He’s the one who said, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
You should read about Adoniram Judson, again the 1800s, one of the first American missionaries. He took his new wife to Burma and spent 37 years there. He was imprisoned during a war between England and Burma, enduring unspeakable suffering. His dear wife served him and other prisoners courageously.
In the late 1800s John Paton was another courageous missionary from Scotland to the New Hebrides islands in the South Pacific Ocean. He was warned, “You’ll be eaten by cannibals!” He endured intense grief when his wife and child both died on the island of Tanna. He came close to death numerous times, but he faithfully preached the gospel. There are so many more – Henry Martyn, David Brainerd, Hudson Taylor, Jim Elliot, Victor and Oksana and Steve and Merri Davis, and more with beautiful feet who brought the good news to foreign lands. I just became aware of the Welch missionary Watkin Roberts who in 1910 took the gospel to the Hmar people in northeastern India, risking his neck to get the gospel to these savages who loved to chop off people’s heads and display them over their front door! You can learn about God’s work among the Hmar people in a YouTube movie, Beyond the Next Mountain.
GOD’S ORDAINED MEANS OF EVANGELISM – vss. 13-15.
Romans 10:13-15, for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” 14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?
The goal of evangelism is that people will call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Call is the key word in verses 13-14. We know God calls us before we call on Him, but Paul wants Jews and Gentiles and us to know we must call on the name of Christ, the Lord, the God-Man who lived that perfect life, died a substitutionary death, and rose again.
Calling on Christ is the first sign of spiritual life of a believing heart. It implies conviction of sin, a sense of need for forgiveness, no hope in your own righteousness, and that Christ is able to save you. It’s more than just having facts in your mind or doing religious works. The tragedy is that Jesus said many would say in the last day, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we do all these wonderful things in Your name” and He will say, “Depart from me; I never knew you.” Saving faith is a personal response that calls out to Christ based on the knowledge that Christ is Lord and He alone can save. Remember Peter sinking in the water, crying out to Jesus, “Lord, save me.”
No one genuinely calls on the Lord apart from two things: the outer message of the gospel and the inner drawing by God. John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” True salvation comes as God draws, even drags you in your heart, to His Son. If you are convinced you have no other hope for forgiveness and eternal life than Jesus Christ, and you call or cry out to Him to save you, YOU WILL BE SAVED. This is the goal of evangelism. But how do we get there? Paul is going to explain.
THE PLAN GOD USES TO GET THE MESSAGE TO LOST PEOPLE.
Romans 10:14-15, How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!”
CALL Paul lays out five links that brings a sinner from lost to saved, from darkness to light, from condemnation to justification, ultimately from hell-bound to heaven-bound. The goal is calling on Christ. We’ll work back from the call.
BELIEVE Before you call on Christ you have to believe. You must know who it is you are calling on. Believe is personal trust in the message from the Bible about Jesus. Believing isn’t being excited about a neat story – like skyscraper sermons, one story after another. Believing isn’t being coerced by some slick manipulating methods. We had an evangelist come to our first church and I had no idea what we were in for. This guy got up there and yelled and screamed and tried to drive people to come to the front, kind of like herding cattle. I was completely embarrassed. Believing means trusting in the facts and promises of the Bible. Faith doesn’t come out of a vacuum or just a sentimental, “I believe, for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows.” One lady rejected specific faith in Christ. She said, “As long as you have faith in something, that’s what matters.” No, faith is based on the truth of God’s Word, not on your feelings.
HEAR But before you believe, of course, you have to hear – “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?” Vs. 17 says “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Watch this. When you hear a Spirit-filled gospel message and God deals with you in your heart, guess who is speaking to you? Christ Himself! In John 10:27 Christ says, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow Me.” Christ speaks to people through the gospel message, through His Word. Steve Lawson says, “In every act of preaching there are two preachers: one seen and One unseen.” You hear Christ in your heart as the word of God, the gospel message comes to you with authority and truth.
But this speaking is not some mystical, “I heard Jesus talk to me one day.” This isn’t like “Jesus Calling” messages popularized by Sarah Young. Christ deals individually, personally, in the inner man, in your heart, with those He is drawing to faith. But He does it through His Word. This is why Paul’s last words to Timothy were not “Reform the government” or “Redistribute the wealth” or “Save the Planet.” Paul in 2 Timothy 4:1-2 commanded Timothy, “Preach the Word!” in view of the coming judgment. That’s why you need to be in a church that preaches the Word – so you call, you believe, you hear.
TELL But in order to hear you have to have someone to tell you, right? You need a preacher. Here’s where those old pastors in Carey’s day missed it completely. Evangelism is God’s work. He’s the one who draws and gives new spiritual life, but God uses means. God’s plan is for His people to take the message to others. He uses people like you and me! What an amazing privilege and responsibility to be God’s messenger. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7, some plant the Word, some water the Word, but God gives the increase.
SENT Then Paul adds in verse 15 for someone to tell you they must be sent. Here is God’s great work ever since the church began. God sent His messengers out from Jerusalem to Samaria to Judea to the uttermost parts or the world. This is called the great commission – “Go into all the world and make disciples, believers who follow Me, and baptize them and teach them everything I taught you, and I’ll be with you all the way to the end of the age.”
So, God is sending His people today to spread the good news to lost people here, there, and everywhere. And you don’t have to be an ordained preacher. To preach is to herald and proclaim good news. You’re just the messenger. Just get it right with a good attitude. I read about a brash, self-confident young fellow getting up to preach. An older man was listening and observing this cocky young thing and after the sermon he went up to the man and asked, “Was you sent? Or did you just went?” God’s speakers are humble and loving, but always committed to the truth of the Word of God. That is being useful to God.
If you are sent by God, you have good news, not doom and gloom. You have beautiful feet! Paul uses this picture from Isaiah 52:7 to describe the runner who comes running over the distant hills to bring the good news that Israel’s captivity is over, and they can return to their homeland, the holy city and the temple were about to rise again.
Isaiah 52:7, How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
So, this herald bearing good news comes running and people are thrilled as he brings the message of joy that the nation is about to be restored! What a great picture of believers. We come running over the hills to bring good news, like those angels who came to the shepherds with good news of great joy!
Notice verse 15 ends with “good news of good things.” He came to give sinners good things. What are they? Forgiveness, escape from Satan’s grip, freedom from sin’s tyranny, victory over the grave, the promise of eternal life. Can you remember the beautiful feet that brought you the good news of salvation? Back in 1971 Carolyn and I weren’t looking for God or thinking about the gospel. But one day Lee Hollenbach showed up at our door with his big black Bible, took us through the Romans Road ending at Romans 10:13. We believed God’s Words, called on His name, and our lives were changed forever. God’s Word was His love letter to us. We couldn’t get enough of it. Beautiful feet!
THE PROBLEM OF RESISTANCE AND REJECTION OF THE GOSPEL – vv. 16-21.
All this good news would be wonderful, but there’s a big problem. “However.” Here’s the major problem Paul is dealing with – his kinsmen according to the flesh – his fellow Jews. While many did come to Christ, as a whole and as a nation, they rejected their own Messiah. Why did Israel reject the gospel? Why do people today reject the gospel? Israel is not unlike the majority of the Gentiles today. Paul gives us five reasons why people reject the gospel.
First, many people simply will not heed or obey the gospel.
Romans 10:16, However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?”
Paul quotes from Isaiah 53, which presents the clearest redeeming work of Israel’s Messiah. They refuse to submit to this report or message about the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ and justification by faith alone. Jews interpret Isaiah 53 as Israel’s persecution. John MacArthur explained this passage verse by verse to Ben Shapiro a few years ago. We love Ben. He says he reads the Shema from Deuteronomy 6 to his children every night. I wish he would read Isaiah 53. Pray for Ben. Paul says they didn’t heed or pay attention and submit to this best of all news! The word “heed” really means obey. The gospel is more than an invitation or an offer, although it is that. But mainly the gospel is a command from Almighty God. Paul describes faith as obedience in Romans 1:5. The gospel is a command from God to repent and believe the good news. Some did, but sadly many did not.
Second, if they don’t hear the message of Christ they’ll never come to faith in Christ.
Romans 10:17, So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
This is a great little verse that encourages every preacher and witness for Christ. It isn’t your fancy presentation. God gives faith to His elect as they hear the message about Christ. The word for “word” is the Greek word “rhema” which has the idea of the spoken, living word. This is the gospel, the power of God to salvation to all who believe – 1 Corinthians 1:23. People need to hear the message about Christ. People are listening to the wrong message. They’re listening to CNN, MSNBC, FOX, but are they listening to the Word about Christ. They are hearing all about climate change, racial inequality, equity, inclusion, diversity, trans rights, about Covid, Russia, Ukraine, and China. What are people filling their heads with? Not the message of Christ. God uses the message about Christ to give faith to His people. We need to keep the message about Christ front and center. “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). It’s the Word by Christ, from Christ, about Christ.
God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. That Welch missionary Watkin Roberts was forbidden to go into the territory of the Hmar people, so he translated the gospel of John into their language. God worked mightily among them and one of the sons of an early convert, Pudaite, determined to get educated in Greek and Hebrew so he could give his people the whole Bible. He studied in Scotland and America. He said this, “The Bible is the Book that reveals the mind of God, the heart of man, the way of salvation, and the blessedness of believers. It is the Book that tells us where we come from and where we are going. It is the book that set my people free.” It’s a fact. All who are saved are saved because someone with beautiful feet brought the gospel to them. No wonder Satan works overtime to squelch the ministry of the Word.
Third, they have no excuse for hearing the Gospel.
Romans 10:18, But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; “THEIR VOICE HAS GONE OUT INTO ALL THE EARTH, AND THEIR WORDS TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD.”
Paul uses this truth of general revelation in Psalm 19 to press on the Jews their responsibility to believing the gospel. Just as God holds all people everywhere accountable and without excuse for seeking after God and who He is, the gospel had gone out through the whole Roman empire. God sent the gospel out in that first century at warp speed. You can trace it in the book of Acts. It started at Pentecost and ended in Rome in Acts 28. In Romans 1:8 Paul said, “Your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” In the third century Tertullian said the only place you won’t find a Christian is in a pagan temple. They have heard, but they refused to submit to the message. Just like today, there is plenty of evidence for God and the gospel.
Fourth, they didn’t like the people who were responding to the gospel.
Romans 10:19-20, But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, “I WILL MAKE YOU JEALOUS BY THAT WHICH IS NOT A NATION, BY A NATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WILL I ANGER YOU.” 20 And Isaiah is very bold and says, “I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME, I BECAME MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME.”
They didn’t like the Gentiles. They couldn’t imagine the Gentiles on equal footing with the Jews. The Jews thought they were God’s favored people, and the Gentiles were created to fuel the fires of hell. But what does God call us Gentiles – without understanding, not seeking God, or asking for God. That is so true. As you go through Acts 13 to the end, Paul goes from one city to the next, first to the Jews until the Jews got jealous and persecuted them, and then you see Gentiles who were ignorant of the Bible and weren’t seeking God listening to the message and believing and following Paul! Here’s one example from Paul’s first missionary journey in Pisidian Antioch.
Acts 13:45-48, But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming. 46 Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. 47 “For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I HAVE PLACED YOU AS A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES, THAT YOU MAY BRING SALVATION TO THE END OF THE EARTH.'” 48 When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
Fifth, they resisted and rebelled against God’s patient compassion.
Romans 10:21, But as for Israel He says, “ALL THE DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND OBSTINATE PEOPLE.”
The Jews can’t blame God, who patiently like a loving Father held out His arms to this disobedient hard-hearted nation. No sooner does God deliver them from Egypt and they’re worshipping an idol and refusing to trust Him. Over and over throughout Judges they turn away to idolatry and evil and God holds out His arms to them through those judges. For thousands of years up to the present time God has kept Israel identified as a nation, even allowing her to come back to the promised land in 1948. He still has His hands stretched out. But the majority of Jews don’t believe Jesus fulfilled the qualifications of the Messiah.
Ask yourself, what reasons do Gentiles, Americans, use today to resist and rebel against the gospel? Pride, especially spiritual, religious pride. They love their sin and know if they come to Christ, it will mean their life will change and they love their sin too much. Some hide behind so-called science and experts, too busy, or embarrassed. “Christians disagree, so I’m not interested.” Or “If that person is a Christian, I don’t want anything to do with the Jesus they follow. They love the world and themselves and don’t want a God telling them how to live.
But how long has He stretched out his hands to you? If you are still not saved, it is only His patience that keeps you alive. God stretches out His arms through your parents, grandparents, friends, perhaps a spouse, a pastor, people who care about you. If you reject every message and warning, you will be without excuse in the day of God’s judgment, just like these hard-hearted Jews.
SO WHAT?
For believers, let’s pray God will give us beautiful feet. Let’s be ready to give an answer to people about our Christ and our great salvation. You may have an opportunity this week. We are responsible to give out the gospel so people can hear, believe, and call on the name of the Lord and be saved.
For unbelievers, God is calling you through the general call. All nature holds you accountable. Your own knees and elbows and the pattern on a butterfly let you know there is a God you need to know. But God is also calling you through the message preached. Have you heard Christ’s voice in your heart through the Word? Don’t resist. Don’t rebel. You need to respond to the message and trust in Christ. The gospel is a promise and a command. Do not turn an obstinate heart against the goodness and compassion of God who sent His Son to save sinners.