We're privileged to turn our attention to the Word of God now and to this wonderful chapter that Tom read for us, Jonah chapter 3. We're going to try our hand at the entire chapter, and that's a tall order. There's much here, but hopefully we can make our way through it in a systematic way that will bring some great edification to us. You know, the Lord has saved us into his service, and we are here then to do his work. And we have no choice, but those of us who know him as Savior and Lord would desire very much to be part of that service. And we want to do things right. The evil one has very cleverly manufactured a counterfeit service, counterfeit ways in which the Christian faith is to be lived and which evangelism is to take place and so on. And we want to make sure that we don't get caught up in that and that we do it right. And that's really what this chapter is about. Let me begin by saying that there have been many great spiritual revivals in church history. the reforms in the Book of Judges, for example, and later Hezekiah and then Josiah after him. These come immediately to mind. Then in the New Testament, there is the classic example of Pentecost, the two great awakenings then in New England that came during the time of the Puritans, which were certainly genuine and remarkable. But the greatest spiritual revival ever in history, hands down, was Jonah's evangelistic campaign in Nineveh. Thousands and thousands of people believed God from the king himself down to the lowliest subjects. And we know their belief was genuine because God saved them from his impending wrath. Now, this morning, we're going to read about what makes for true revival. any true spiritual awakening and what you and I have to have in place if we're going to be God's useful participants in this great spiritual enterprise. Now I've couched the main idea for you, this chapter, the main idea of this chapter for you this way. God commissions the recipients of his compassion to preach his message of salvation without exception that he might grant genuine faith, conviction, repentance, and mercy to all without distinction. Since you have it printed for you, I won't read it again, but what we have before us in this wonderful chapter is really an evangelistic primer. By that I mean we have a simple outline of what is necessary for effective evangelism in God's program. That's why this chapter is so very important to us. Let me show you what I mean. It comes in two parts. Part one tells us that God commissions the recipients of his compassion to preach his message of salvation to all without exception. And that's found in verses one to four. You'll notice first that God commissions the recipients of his compassion. And that's in verse one. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Any successful business will tell you that their best advertising is a satisfied customer. They don't spend much time on on adverts because they get plenty of business just by word of mouth from those who have used and appreciated their services. And in the same way, the best advertising for Christian living are Christians who are satisfied in their God, who declare the sentiments of Psalm 103a, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord commissions those to ministry who know him personally and have been affected by his compassion. And we find this to be true of Jonah with this instant replay at verse one. This is a second beginning for Jonah, as was mentioned earlier, with the same call. Jonah wasn't interested, though, in God's call the first time around, and he slipped into a degenerative backslide. But after God restored him in a very dramatic way, he received compassion instead of judgment. And so a wiser and more compliant Jonah was now ready for ministry. After learning the depth of God's compassion while in the deep, he is a perfect candidate to minister God's compassion. And that is the first principle that we arrive at from this text. God commissions us, those who have received God's compassion, to minister to others. You and I have known God's compassion many times over, haven't we? Beginning even with our salvation. If you're like most Christians, you've probably wondered at some point in your Christian walk, why has the Lord kept us here and not brought us right to heaven the moment of our conversion? Have you ever asked that question? What's the point of living a converted life in a fallen and unredeemed world? That's like working a dirty job in an expensive white suit. The Lord could have saved us a lot of pain, suffering, and heartache if He just translated us to glory like He did Enoch and Elijah. Well, there are several good reasons why the Lord kept us here, and the one that especially relates to here, to our passage, is that we are part of God's means to bring others to saving faith. We're part of the means by which God uses to bring others to saving faith. While it's true that God has foreknown and predestined His own, before the foundations of the world. He has also ordained the means by which he brings their conversion about, and it's by hearing Christians, those who know God's compassion personally, preach the word to them. We all have the same basic testimony that serves us best in evangelistic context. We were all destined for a Christless eternity. And then God, in his love, stooped to save us. And since then, our lives have been totally different. We're living testimonies of God's best work of redemption. The late Donald Gray Barnhouse, pastor of historic 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, used to say that fallen and depraved people are so damaged by the fall and the ravages of sin that their depraved condition is like junk. Junk. And with that, he quickly added, God is the greatest junk dealer there ever was. He finds it, buys it, redeems it with the purpose of restoring it to a condition more glorious than its original condition. And the extent of God's compassion transcended even our conversion. It also undergirds our walk of faith, doesn't it? We find His mercies new every day, His enabling grace sufficient, His presence with us and in us, the surety of His covenant promises, His loyal love. Need I say more? From conversion to maturation, our Christian lives are evidence of God's compassion. And that makes us well qualified to tell others about this divine compassion that saves and sanctifies. We see this principle, I think, working out all over the New Testament. Just a couple of examples will suffice. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32. What does it say? And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another. Here it is. Just as God also forgave you in Christ, So because you have experienced God's saving forgiveness and love, you then are able to go ahead and extend the same to others. 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3 and 4. This is a great passage. I'll only read just a little bit of it. the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, he comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. James Boyce, who preceded Donald Gray Barnhouse at 10th Presbyterian Church stated in his work, The Foundations of the Christian Faith, that proclaiming the gospel is to be such a part of our Christian lives that we should be willing even to disobey civil authority should they ever outlaw the gospel in our land. And that's how important it is that we live and preach the gospel. Moving on then, next the text says that we who have received God's compassion are to go then into the world with his message only. Verse two, arise, God said to Jonah, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. You'll notice that God does not give the contents of what this message is. He didn't in the original commission in chapter 1 verse 1 either. But what God does add to the second commission is this qualifier. This qualifier. Jonah, you must say exactly what I tell you. No more, no less. Now that may sound a bit odd to you. Why would God need to add this? Jonah's a legit prophet, isn't he? Isn't it a given that Jonah would proclaim God's message? Well, to answer that question, we need to widen our evangelistic, our exegetical lens to capture the greater context of the book. And when you do, you see in chapter four that after a very successful evangelistic campaign, Jonah was greatly displeased and he became furious. Can you imagine? Verse 2, he prayed to the Lord, please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, and one who relents from sending disaster." Now this text indicates that Jonah knew something about the contents of this message that you and I still don't know even this far into the book. He knows something we don't. And it's obvious that Jonah's message was more than what we read in chapter 3, verse 5. This is where Jonah declares, in 40 days Nineveh will be demolished. It's actually less words in Hebrew. But it was not a pronouncement of sure certain condemnation that Jonah gave, which this might indicate to you. Rather, it was a warning. to repent and seek the Lord's forgiveness and be saved from his coming wrath. That has to be the case. Otherwise Jonah would not be furious. Jonah would gladly have proclaimed the certain destruction of Nineveh. But that's not what his message was. We'll have more to say in a few moments about this message, but at this point, let's understand that Jonah could have been tempted to tamper with the message a bit because of how he felt about the Ninevites. Think about this. He also had a history of degenerative backsliding, right? And even though he repented of this and praised God for his deliverance, it would appear that he struggled still with bitterness toward the Assyrians. According to the opening words of chapter 4 that we just read, that's really putting it mildly. He was greatly displeased, became furious that God saved them, and would rather die than live with this praiseworthy outcome. Not so much. He was bitter. So it's not unlikely at all that Jonah could have tampered with God's gospel, emphasizing maybe certain parts to the exclusion of others, other equally important parts that might have motivated the Ninevites to dismiss this particular message. Jonah could have couched it in that way. This kind of tampering has been going on for decades in American Christianity. I will give you an example, although I think you know where I'm going. We see it happening in American Christianity just in the reverse. Many churches are so desperate to get people in the doors and keep them there that they will remove anything that might offend the unsaved ear. Now the folly of this method is that an unsaved person doesn't have ears to hear anyway, and they won't until God gives them new ears to hear. A greater folly is thinking that they can bring anyone into the covenant community of God with an inaccurate gospel. And perhaps the greatest folly of all is when they convince these people that they are now Christians when in fact they are not. And that is a travesty. And it doesn't stop with the gospel either. To keep people who are not generally born again coming back, there must be no offensive message from the pulpit. Don't talk about sin or God's tailored trials. And Bible studies cannot be meaty. So don't get doctrinal. Keep it light. Keep it fluffy. And worship services need to entertain and be man-centered, because a dignified, God-centered service that exalts God's holiness risks making people feel convicted. Do you see how this works? If you win people over with a faulty gospel, you only win them over to a counterfeit faith, plain and simple. And a counterfeit faith is cultivated by a wrong understanding of progressive sanctification. And it also breeds a toxic ecclesiology, where the church will be run in a way that entertains and pleases people and avoids things like church membership and honoring the Lord's day and biblical one-anothering And let's not forget church discipline. That's right out. So it's very possible this strict guideline that God gave to Jonah was intended to keep him loyal to the message. In fact, God gave the same guideline to other prophets to counter their own particular weaknesses. For Jeremiah, it was the fear of man. So God tells him in Jeremiah 1 verse 17, Now get ready, stand up, and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them, or I will cause you to cower before them. Huh. Interesting addition there. God obviously knew something about Jeremiah that we didn't. He needed this qualifier to keep him fearing God more than unrighteous Israel. And then God gave Ezekiel the same guideline, too. Ezekiel, speak my words to them, whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are rebellious. Now, in Ezekiel's case, I believe God's qualifier here could simply have been meant to assure Ezekiel that success in his ministry will be determined by the faithfulness, his faithfulness to the task of preaching the right message and not by how well he was received, because he was not received well at all. There's also the need for God's people to be careful to handle his word with great precision and care, which is why God gives the warning never to add or to take away in both Testaments. Beloved, it's easier, listen, it's easier to be tempted to tamper than you think. especially when we live in an environment that's so hostile to sound biblical teaching. According to 2 Timothy 4 verses 3 and 4, departure from the truth for a more palatable teaching is what will characterize the end times. for the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth, and they will turn aside to myths. This is in the church context, you understand. Well, we opened our time with a reference to revivals. Ian Murray, renowned Christian historian explains in his masterful work, Revival and Revivalism, which I would recommend to you all, that what was true of genuine revival was that nothing out of the ordinary was done by faithful preachers and churches. Nothing was changed, nothing out of the ordinary. They were faithful to preach God's message, unadulterated, all the time. before the revival, during the revival, and after the revival. And only when God determined did the Holy Spirit move in an extraordinary way to quicken hearts and bring mass conversion. Here's how Murray put it. I'm quoting. The facts are indisputable. A considerable body of men for a long period before the Second Great Awakening preached the same message as they did during the Revival, but with vastly different consequences. The same men, the same actions, performed with the same abilities, yet the results were so amazingly different. The conclusion has to be drawn that the change in the churches after 1798 and 1800 cannot be explained in terms of the means used. Nothing was clearer to those who saw the events than that God was sovereignly pleased to bless human instrumentality in such a way that the success could be attributed to him alone." What a wonderful testimony to the power of the Word of God when it is preached accurately. These men did nothing out of the ordinary. They woke up, they prepared their messages, they preached, they shepherded, they counseled, they taught the same thing in the same way day after day, year after year. And only when God chose the time did the Holy Spirit invade and bring about a revival. You see? Preaching and teaching of an accurate gospel message was constant. Without that, God would not have moved. Next, we see that we must go with God's message without hesitation. If we're to be willing participants, effective means and tools in the hands of God, we go with an accurate message. without hesitation. First part of verse three, Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Are we surprised at all that Jonah answered the call of God the second time around without hesitation? I don't think so. No, no. In fact, we readers expected this after a dramatic encounter with God and God's compassion restoring him in the sea. with the fish and all of that. Everyone who's been pulled over for speeding responds the same way after his confrontation with the police. He pulls away slowly from the shoulder, cautiously minds the speed limit, uses his directionals correctly, right? You're laughing because you've been there. And that lasts maybe a day or two before we forget about the incident and start picking up speed again. The impact of Jonah's deep sea dive did not leave a lasting impression, and his flesh would get the better of him again in chapter four. We'll have to wait for that then. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. What we hear is that Jonah obeyed the Lord. How much time should we put, then, between understanding God's clear command about doing something and when we do it? How much time should we put in between that? A day? Two days? Do I hear a week? Or maybe just a few hours? Well, the right answer, of course, is that it should be immediately. immediately, and asking God for wisdom for how we should carry out his commands doesn't count as lag time, by the way, because it's in that context where we're already poised to obey and are actively looking for the best way to do it. So is there something that you know that scripture bids you to do in your particular station in life that you have yet to comply? Just a question from the text. According to our text, we should comply immediately. And I would suggest to you that if it's not immediate with you, then there's something in your heart that you need to address. In fact, Christians should be willing to obey God whether they know God's will in a particular context or not. We should already be bent in this direction. It shouldn't make any difference where, when, or what the context is. I plan on obeying the Lord immediately, period. I'm reminded again of another gem by Dr. Barnhouse. He said in this vein, I can say from experience that 95% of knowing the will of God consists in being prepared to do it before you know what it is. Hmm, sounds like sage advice to me. Finally, we must take God's message unhesitatingly to everyone without exception. That's found in the last part of verse three and all of verse four. We should proclaim God's message to the lost without exception, no matter how difficult the context. Now, Jonah slips this parenthetical thought at the end of verse three. He says, now, Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three day walk. Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. At the time of Jonah's visit, according to the way the verse is actually constructed in Hebrew, the idea is this was the greatest city on the face of the earth at this time. A huge metropolis that took three days to cross on foot when you consider the neighborhoods and the greater Nineveh area and the farmlands and so on. Verse four says, Jonah began to enter into that city a day's journey, and he cried and said, yet 40 days in Nineveh will be overthrown. Now, no matter how large, how time-consuming, or how daunting the journey was, Jonah was expected to canvas this great city with God's message. Every hill, every dale, every country lane and city street, both the center and the outskirts of the city, Jonah had to ring out God's salvation to everyone so that they would hear. Now just because the city took three days to walk across doesn't mean that Jonah did it in three days. God actually gave Nineveh 40 days to repent before he would unleash his wrath. So it's more likely that Jonah took a longer time, longer than three days, to canvass the area. He would stop and preach, no doubt lingered here and there speaking to individuals from the crowds who would follow up with him and ask questions and clarifications as they did to Jesus and Paul later on. What we're arguing here from Jonah's remarks about the size of the city and his time preaching there is the importance of telling everyone that we possibly can. I think that's the point here. The gospel is to go out to everyone without exception, to all, because all need to hear and believe. Everyone needs to hear this message. And for Jonah, that meant even non-Jews who had been enemies of his people. In the Reformed faith, which is ours here at PRBC, we believe in what's called the general call of the gospel. And that is to say the proclamation of the gospel to every person without exception. We don't discriminate. We tell everyone. And here's how it's stated in one Protestant document, the Canons of Dort, from which we have read many times. Quote, as many as are called by the gospel are unfeignedly called, meaning they are sincerely called. For God hath most earnestly and truly declared his word what will be acceptable to him, namely that all who are called should comply with the invitation. This is everyone without exception. He moreover seriously promises eternal life and rest to as many as shall come to him and believe on him. The entire world needs to hear the gospel, which is why Jesus has commissioned us to make disciples of all nations. Everyone must hear because everyone is responsible to obey the gospel call. What we have said so far, then, is that we are part of a glorious spiritual revival that God chooses to ramp up from time to time. And if we would be willing and effective participants, then we must realize that we are the only ones that are qualified for this mission because we've experienced God's compassion. And as a result, we then need to bring God's unadulterated message without hesitation to all without exception. And it's only under these conditions that God will bring a harvest of souls if and when he chooses. And that brings us to the second part of this text, which will go much quicker. It is so that God might grant faith, conviction, repentance, and mercy to all without distinction. And that's in verses 5 to 10. As large and as complicated as the Bible seems, with its 66 books written in various genres and in the medium of poetry and prose, you might be shocked to know that the entire canon can be summed up very neatly in just one sentence. And again, I'm going to lean on Dr. Barnhouse for his excellent summary. He called it the Bible in 10 words. The Bible is the story of man's complete ruin and sin. and God's perfect remedy in Christ. That is the summary of the Bible. The Bible records for us, really, a particular history, while at the same time not being strictly a history book. It develops the history of God's salvation, how God acted out of a solemn covenant promise to save a people for himself called the Church. It started in Genesis 3.15, and will come to an end, the New Testament says, when the last Gentile and the last Jew are saved. When you think about it, a good case could be made for salvation of God's elect as the number one goal for anything God does until the end. There are other lesser goals that are important, of course, but God's primary goal is to build the body of Christ for his own glory. And that goal dips down into the Bible quite strongly in the book of Jonah. And it's represented here in the second half of the passage. I want to unfold it for you really quickly. We begin with the idea that God will grant salvation without distinction. He will grant salvation without distinction. Now that's an important word, distinction. And it's quite different from the first word we used in the first half of the text, exception. God's wonderful gospel goes out to everyone in the world without exception, as Jonah argues and as the canons of Dort declare. But when it comes to God saving a people for himself, he does not save all without exception. since not everyone in human history will be saved, right? Rather, he saves all without without distinction. And this means that God saves people from every tribe and tongue and nation. God from all races and both genders will be represented in God's Church. Everyone without distinction. The Reformed faith also captures this in its creeds and catechisms. It's called the effectual call. And that's because God makes the call effectual in the heart of the person. Here's how the Westminster Confession of Faith describes it, quote, all those whom God has predestined to life and only those, he is pleased to effectually call at his appointed and accepted time by his word and spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature to come to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, end quote. So here's what happens and what we must expect when God calls someone effectually through the proclamation of his unique gospel by us. All right, here's what must happen. There must truly be genuine faith. The truly saved will exercise genuine faith. The first part of verse five we read, so the people of Nineveh believed God. Biblical faith or belief in God is more than an intellectual assent. In other words, it's not enough simply to admit the fact that Jesus was real and even God. James says even the demons believe that and they shudder. Saving faith is the fruit of a truly regenerated soul and its exercises, not just the intellect, When we believe, there is an emotional aspect of believing that we'll get into in the next verse, so hold that thought. And there's also a volitional aspect, that's the will. A person who is convinced of something will not hesitate to act on it. You all obviously believe in the chairs that you're sitting in, otherwise you would not be sitting in them. You believe they'll hold you up, and they have. Same thing with your cars. You believe your car is sound, so you drive it. And this is the volitional part of belief, and it's absolutely necessary to be activated when it comes to believing in Christ. If you truly believe in Jesus, you will act on what He says. You'll trust that His will is the best. You'll depend on His grace. You'll take up His cross and follow Him. As we see, the Ninevites demonstrated that their belief in God was genuine because they acted on it. Let me give you some further examples. The truly saved will also have sorrow for his sin. Sorrow. We find this in the second part of verse 5, straight to verse 8. Let me begin with verse 5, though. And they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them. In the ancient world, to show a contrite heart, one would put on sackcloth, which was a rough and unpleasant fabric, against the skin. And they would also sit on an ash heap. The ashes represented decay from the result of sin. So apparently, all in the city were brought to this contrite state, and there is no indication from the text that Jonah was exaggerating. Even the great king himself was convicted. Look at verse six. Now the word reached the king of Nineveh and he rose from his throne and he removed his robe from himself and he covered himself with a sackcloth and sat in ashes. That's quite remarkable. It's hard to know which king this is, of course, and there are a few possibilities that could be at this period, but the more important fact is that an Assyrian king who led the fiercest army known to the world at this time would actually literally exchange his royal robes for some garb, or the same garb, as his subjects. And that speaks to his genuine sorrow. It is a sorrow, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7.10, that led to true repentance. The king decrees that the entire city should join together in humbling themselves in the display of heartfelt sorrow for their wicked ways. Verse seven, he made this proclamation and it was proclaimed throughout Nineveh. By decree of the king and his nobles, no man or beast or herd of the flock shall taste anything. Let them not eat anything nor let them drink water. It may sound a bit odd to you that animals were included in this practice, but it wasn't unusual to the ancients. Some were known to shave the mane off their horses to express a contrite atmosphere of the people, maybe even decorate them with mournful blankets and things. There was also a general belief among pagan nations that animals suffered, along with the creation, because of man. And biblically speaking, we would say because of the sin and because of the fall. The animals, by the way, are not redeemed in the sense of being saved spiritually, of course, since they do not have a spirit. But neither do they sin. Right? Animals don't sin. My horses don't sin. They're not morally accountable to God for their actions. Right? You will never find a horse on my property, separate from the herd, way off in the corner, sulking over something he did to somebody last week. It won't happen. And we see in addition to stopping an ordinary life, dressing in sackcloth and expressing a deep sorrow for their sin, that the Ninevites literally cried out to the Lord in the first half of verse 8. They shall be covered with sackcloth, man and beast, but shall cry mightily to God. The idea behind mightily is vigorously. They earnestly beseech the Lord, crying out to Him for forgiveness for their sins. And we also say that the truly saved will then repent. Second part of verse eight. And they are to turn, each one of them, from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Please notice that each individual Ninevite turns from his evil ways. In case you're wondering or thinking that there were many in the city who simply obeyed the edict of the king and went through the motions Think again. The Holy Spirit led Jonah to single out each individual and that each recognized his own sins and wicked ways. Their conversion was genuine and personal. Finally, the truly saved will admit that God's wrath is well-deserved and will appeal to God's mercy. I have to say, since the time I got saved back in the summer of 1980, There has been a cheapening of the gospel to such an extent that this particular aspect has really completely fallen out of it. A person will not be genuinely born again until he realizes just how desperate his condition is. Do people really understand that they stand in condemnation? Do they really understand that and that they need God to deliver them from his wrath? a very important aspect of the gospel, so foreign in American Christianity. What we have in verse 9 is the rationale for the turning to God. They say, who can tell if God will turn or repent? God may turn away from his fierce anger and we will not perish. There's no question the Ninevites understood that they deserved God's wrath and they were desperate about it. Make sure that those you witness to understand God's judicial punishment. At some point, you might not want to lead with that. They need to know what they're being saved from. According to 1 John 4, verses 18 and 19, being saved from God's wrath was universally understood by all converts in the first century, which is why John says here, by this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. because as he is, we also are in the world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. There is no more fear of God's judicial punishment when one comes to know the Savior and Lord personally. The end result of the genuine faith and repentance is that God's wrath was averted. In verse 10 it says, God saw their works and they turned from their evil ways and God turned from the evil that He had said that He would do to them and He did not do it. I think we need to understand before we wrap this up that what's really going on here because some heretical views circle around this verse. The second part of the verse says that God turned or repented from evil, which have led some to believe that God changes his mind on the basis of what he sees, this kind of thing. And this is really an easy one to address. We start out first understanding, we start out first with our understanding of God's attributes And here his immutability or an unchangeableness is very much an attribute of God. It argues that God does not change his mind. God does not have a plan B, much to the contrary of what's been touted out there in the world. God has no plan B. He has only one plan, plan A. And it will work. In the second place, we realize that what's being described here really is an expression of God's consistency. See, God is at the same time just and forgiving. As a just God, he must punish sin. He's obligated by his nature to do that. As a forgiving God, he also must forgive when there is repentance. When Christians sin, God responds as his holy nature would dictate and he disciplines. And if you repent, then God responds as his forgiving nature dictates and removes his hand of discipline. When God meets our actions as his nature would demand, he's being consistent. God pierced the hearts of the wicked Ninevites first with his message of salvation. And when that bore genuine belief and sorrow and repentance and an admission of guilt and a desire for God's mercy, he responded with blessing. And salvation came to Nineveh that day. Let me say in conclusion that the Apostle Paul had a great command of the Hebrew Bible, and so he knew Jonah. And one wonders if he had this chapter in mind when he wrote Romans 10. In Romans 10 verses 10 to 12, Paul makes it very clear that the gospel goes out not only to all without exception, both to Jew and to Gentile, but will actually save all without distinction whom the Roman Christians represent in this passage. They represent those who've been saved without distinction. because there were both Jews and Gentiles in the Roman Church. Paul says, For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Scripture says, Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is the Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. With that said, Paul then reiterates the Great Commission in a way that certainly makes all of us accountable to it. And if we believe what he says in verses 10 to 13, then we will know how to answer Paul's cleverly worded rhetorical questions in verses 14 to 15. 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 anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. That's you. We all, beloved, have been sent. Let us, who have been saved by a compassionate God, be true to His gospel and quick to proclaim it to all without exception, that God may, in His time, grant salvation to all without distinction.