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(upbeat music) - Welcome to our study together of Romans chapter 10. This is day
four in that study. We're looking at verses 14 to 17 today, talking again about
one of the things that it takes to be an expert witness.

We'll go over all five again tomorrow, but the fourth of those five is that I
have to understand the process of salvation. Sort of how it works out in my life
and in other people's lives. And Paul talks about that in verses 14 to 17.

Listen to what he says. How then can they call on the one they have not believed
in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach
unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who
bring good news.

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, Lord, who
has believed our message? Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

Paul, you see here, is sort of talking about the process. He just sort of walks
through it. He says, how can they call without believing?

And how can they believe without hearing? And how can they hear without
preaching? And how can they preach without someone sending?

Or back that up, talk about the process going the other way. What he's saying
is, God sends someone, and because God sends someone, someone preaches. Now, as
he used the word preaches here, he's not talking about a sermon in a church.

He's talking about someone telling the good news. God sends, someone preaches,
and when someone preaches, someone hears, third step in the process. When
someone hears, someone believes, and when someone believes, someone calls on the
name of the Lord.

It's a very simple process, but he tells us what the process is here. And as
he's talking about that process, he echoes especially some verses from the Old
Testament about the feet of those who bring good news. That may have sounded
like a strange phrase, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.

He's echoing from the book of Nahum and the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament,
some truth. Nahum chapter one, verse 15 says, look, there are the mountains, the
feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace. You can see in that day
that they would often send messengers from one place to the other.

And if somebody was bringing good news from one city to the other, they would be
running from one place to the other. You could almost tell by the way they were
running, that they had good news that they were bringing. There was a happiness
in their run.

So how beautiful are the feet of the one who's bringing good news. Isaiah also
talks about this. He says in Isaiah 52, seven, how beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good
tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, your God reigns.

So from both of these books in the Old Testament, we have this picture of the
beauty of someone who is excited, is joyous about bringing good news. It's
interesting to quickly notice that the context of both Nahum and Isaiah. In
Nahum 115, the good news here is that the judgment was finally going to fall on
Nineveh and the Assyrians.

In Isaiah, the same quotation is used for a future event, not a past event. It
was used looking forward to the return of Christ, the establishment of his
kingdom. And Paul here is talking about a present event when he talks about the
beauty of the feet who bring good news.

He's talking about us as we talk about the good news of what Jesus Christ has
done in our lives. I doubt that as you share your faith, someone's going to look at
you and say, wow, you have such beautiful feet. If they do, I'd be a little bit
worried if they would say that.

But I do think that they might see the joy in your words, the excitement in your
words. And that's what he's talking about here. I want you to notice also,
before we go on to what he says at the end of these verses, that in verse 16, he
notes that not all the Israelites accepted the good news.

Now, when he says not all, remember that some did. All of Jesus's first
followers, all of his disciples were Jewish men. Paul himself is a Jewish man.

Many of the women who followed Jesus in those early days, Mary Magdalene, his
own mother and others, Jewish women. There are many Jewish people who even at
the beginning became believers. When Paul talks about not all accepted the good
news, remember many did accept.

There are many Jewish people who have become believers. There are many Gentile
people who have not. God doesn't deal with us differently as Jew and Gentile.

He deals with us all the same. He doesn't deal with us differently as people who
have been brought up in different religious cultures, Christian and Muslim and
Hindu. He deals with us all the same.

We're all lost. We're all in need of a savior. We're all equally in need of a
rescuer.

We all need to hear what the end of this passage says. Faith comes by hearing.
Probably the most familiar phrase in Romans chapter 10.

Faith comes from hearing the message. That's pretty simple. To me, it's the
simplicity, the picture I give is turning on a light switch.

When I walk into a room, I flick a switch and the lights go on. And it seems
like such a simple thing. And yet behind that simple action is a pretty
complicated process.

There are transmission towers and substations and the dam that the energy comes
from and the underground wires and all of that results in when I flick that
switch, a light coming on. Ray Stedman has said about this picture when it comes
to faith in Christ, that every time an individual comes to a place where in
quietness, he quietly calls out to the Lord, a tremendous process is behind it.
There is the darkness and anguish of the mystery of the cross, the birth at
Bethlehem, the wonder and miracle of the resurrection, the sending forth of the
Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

All this is the process behind a single individual who calls on the name of the
Lord. God is behind it. He has started it.

And the apostle wants us to understand this activity of the sovereign character
of God. Faith comes by hearing. Why is that possible?

Because of all that God has done in human history. He has set things up so that
faith can come by hearing the truth of what he has done. This is a simple
process.

I believe because I hear what someone has said because God has sent them. Now,
there are some questions that revolve around this simple process that I don't
want to leave you with. Romans chapter 10, verses 14 and 15.

Some people wonder how that compares with Romans chapter one, verse 20. In 120,
you might remember Paul says that God uses even nature to let everyone know.
Everyone know that God is evident.

So why then does anyone need to be sent? If we can just see in nature that God
is alive. Why have a preacher?

Why have a missionary? Well, God has made himself evident in nature, but he has
made the truth of his love clear in Jesus Christ. And if I can be a part of
helping someone that I love to see more clearly the love of God, the fact that
Jesus Christ gave his life for them, then that has a process that I want to be a
part of.

I can leave in God's hands, the ultimate decision of how he shares faith with
people. But God has also put into my hands, my personal decision to make clear
to people that I love that God is real, that Jesus gave his life, that Jesus has
resurrected. Now, as we look at what these verses have to say about faith and
hearing it, it brings another question to some people's minds.

What about people who never hear? Do they not get a chance to be saved? What
about someone who lives on some desert island somewhere and they never got a
chance to hear about Jesus?

Or somewhere in human history was in a place where missionaries never went. You
know, I have learned to leave that in the hands of a just and loving God. And I
recognize that this God who has revealed himself through nature and many other
ways, that I can trust him to reveal himself in places that I don't know about
or have never seen.

I leave that in his hands. I've also learned to trust what he says in these
verses. And then in a day where we have the internet, where we have email, where
we have cell phones, where we have so many different ways to communicate, to not
communicate to anyone and everyone as clearly as possible, as quickly as
possible, the love of Jesus Christ is a personal tragedy.

And even with all those methods of communication, sometimes it's the person in
my own house, the person next door that I never communicate with. That's what
this is talking about. I can be a part of this process.

That is an incredible privilege. Some people also ask about these verses. If
faith comes by hearing, why doesn't everyone who truly hears believe?

We're going to talk about that tomorrow. Just because I hear doesn't force me to
believe, I still have a choice. But because I hear, I have a much better picture
of what God has done.

Those are some of the questions that people have about these verses. But of all
of the questions that I've ever heard about Romans chapter 10, I think my
favorite is this one that someone wrote to me once. They wrote, "How do I do
this?

"A middle-aged mom of four. "How can I learn to speak about Jesus in everyday
places "while still being an everyday person? "But most importantly, "how do I
talk to people like my friend and neighbor "who was diagnosed with terminal lung
cancer?

"His heart is hardened to the church, to God and religion. "How can I help to
take that terror from his eyes "as he thinks about the fact that he was told "in
just a few short months he will die? " That's the question.

Faith comes by hearing. So how do I get the message to someone in a way that
they can hear? These verses remind us that it takes someone who is a preacher.

And so I want you to erase that picture you have of someone standing in a pulpit
in a church and realize that a preacher is someone who loves someone enough to
take the time to make the message clear. When I preach a message, it means I
study during the week and suffer over it and try to make it clear. Some of the
most important messages I preach are not in church, they're to an individual, a
person I love, where I suffer enough, where I pray enough, where I think about
it enough and think about them enough so that I can make the message clear.

Faith comes by hearing and the message is heard through the word of Christ. You
are not alone in sharing this message. We have the privilege of sharing the good
news of what Jesus has done in our lives.

So as we pray today, let's pray for faith in our lives and the lives of those
who hear. Lord, we thank you that your word brings about faith as we truly hear
it. And we pray you'd help us.

Help us to be in the best sense of the word, preachers, people who take the time
to think through how we can share the message in a way that's heard. God, help
us to be people who have beautiful feet, who share the good news like it's
really good news with a smile on our face, with a bounce in our step, with a joy
in our lives. And Lord, then we leave the results to you.

It's your message. We're the messengers. You're the one who cares and loves the
people that we're sharing with more than anyone.

And so God, help us to be a part of the process, but to realize it is your
process. It is your message. It is your good news.

And we are thankful for that. In Jesus' name, amen. - Tomorrow, join us as we
finish our look together, day five of our look at Romans chapter 10.