Well, if you're visiting with us tonight, we're glad that you're here. We have been going through on Wednesday evenings our church's Confession of Faith, which is the London Baptist Confession of Faith. If you did not grab a bulletin, you may want to jump up and grab one out of the hall there. Isaiah has them if you need them. But we'll be going through the bulletin this evening, looking at the confession and the outline that goes with it. And so you may want to have that to follow along as we do that. If you have your Bibles, you can open to Romans chapter 10. Open to Romans 10. There's several verses there that I think summarize much of what this chapter of the confession teaches. The title of this chapter is Of the Gospel and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof, which is not a very clear title. If you just read that title, it would be difficult, at least at first reading, to really know what it's talking about. What does it mean, the gospel and the extent of the grace thereof? Well, it is correct in the way that it's stated, and I hope as we see, it's not all that confusing, but basically all that it's saying is this. The only people who will ever be saved by the grace of the gospel are people who hear the gospel preached and believe. That's really all it's saying. The only people who will ever be saved by the grace of the gospel are those who hear the message of salvation preached and who believe it. That's the extent of the grace thereof. To whom does the grace of God extend? To those who hear the message and believe it. So Romans 10, Paul is speaking about that very thing where he's trying to stir the Roman believers' hearts up to missions, to want to support the work of missions. And so he says in verse 13 of chapter 10, for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. 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? 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. However, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. So Paul's message there, I think, is pretty straightforward. If people are going to believe the gospel, they have to hear the gospel. Even more foundational, if people are going to be saved, they have to hear the gospel. If people are gonna hear the gospel, they have to hear the gospel preached. If they're gonna hear the gospel preached, someone has to be sent to preach it to them. In other words, he's arguing here, no one will ever be saved unless the gospel is proclaimed. The extent of the grace of the gospel is only so far as the gospel is preached and proclaimed. And I'm going to use that terminology, the gospel preached, throughout this talk. I'm not going to try to substitute it with other words here and there. I'll probably just keep saying preached. But I hope when you understand that I say preach, I don't just mean formally, publicly preach, like from a pulpit. but proclaim, herald, to be a herald of the gospel, to be an ambassador for Christ, to teach, to tell others the good news of Jesus. So when I say preach the gospel or the word preached, I just mean whether it's in a pulpit or in a classroom or on the street or in a family room, wherever it is, the gospel is being proclaimed. Apart from the gospel being proclaimed, there is no salvation. So that's the point of the chapter this evening. that if anyone is going to be saved, it's only through the preaching and the hearing of the gospel that they might believe it. Which maybe that seems overly obvious to you. Perhaps it seems like, okay, we know that. We understand that no one can believe the gospel unless they hear it, and we understand that no one is gonna be saved unless they believe the gospel. Those seem like pretty basic truths to us. And if those are basic truths to us, then praise God. That's a good thing. They should be basic truths to us. But unfortunately, they're not basic truths to everyone. In fact, we live in a context and in a culture today that would be very hostile to that sort of argument, that sort of reasoning. And they would say, how closed-minded of you to say that only those who would hear the gospel could be saved. What about sincere people all over the world who are Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindu or some other form of religion, but they're sincere and they have a sincere love for God. They just don't love God the way that the Bible says they should. What about them? They're sincere. Isn't it closed-minded and bigoted to say they can never be saved unless they hear the preaching of the gospel? Well, that's what this chapter is dealing with. Can they be saved? The Bible's clear answer is no, apart from the preaching of the gospel, nobody will ever be saved, can't ever be saved. So we'll walk through this chapter, paragraph by paragraph there. I've broken it down on the outline according to each paragraph. And it starts from the very beginning. The first paragraph has to do with the very beginning, the initial revelation of the gospel. All right, so the argument being made in this chapter is you cannot be saved apart from hearing the gospel. But someone might raise the objection, but wait a second, what about people who were saved in the Old Testament? What about people who were saved prior to the days of Moses? What about people who were saved prior to the days of Abraham? In fact, what about people who were saved prior to any sort of revelation at all from God to man? Well, the confession answers that argument basically by saying there has never been a time when the gospel in some form has not been preached. There has never been a time after the fall in which the gospel has not been preached. How can that be? In other words, from the time of the garden all the way through the rest of the history of the world, the gospel has been preached and it has been believed and it has been the only means of salvation. How can that be? Well, the paragraph answers that. So if you want to read with me the first paragraph, it says, because the covenant of works was broken by sin so that life could not be gained by it, God was pleased to proclaim the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of calling the elect and bringing faith and repentance to life in them. In this promise, the gospel and its substance was revealed and proved effectual for the conversion and salvation of sinners. So again, the question being asked would be, when was the gospel first revealed? How could people believe if the gospel had not yet been revealed in the beginning? And the answer being given here is actually from the very beginning, the gospel has been preached. And we read that in Genesis 3.15. So if you want to turn there, you can. A familiar verse, I think, for many of us. Genesis 3.15. This is the first gospel. It's often referred to as the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel. In Genesis 3.15, in the midst of pronouncing a curse on the serpent, God actually also simultaneously makes a promise of the gospel. 315, he says, and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. So God, speaking to the serpent, he says, there's gonna be enmity between your seed and the woman, your offspring, essentially, your spiritual seed, those who are evil and wicked, and the woman's offspring. But ultimately, there's gonna be a seed, singular, of the woman who will crush your head to the serpent. And we know that that's speaking of Christ. So God, from Genesis 3.15, promises a Savior. If you notice on the outline, there are four aspects to this promise that I've listed there. The context of the promise is the fall of Adam. When did this promise take place? Immediately after the fall. So think about that for a second. Adam and Eve lived in a covenant of works with God. Meaning, initially God said to them, if you obey, you will live. And if you disobey, you will die. It's that simple. It's a covenant of works. If you do what is right, you will live. If you do what is wrong, you will die. The covenant of works. That covenant was broken through sin. So Adam and Eve then are left in an utterly helpless condition. Completely unable to save themselves. They are condemned by the works that they'd committed. They were condemned by having broken the covenant of works. But it's in that context, in their helplessness, that the first gospel promise is made. And so God doesn't even wait days or possibly even hours, it's almost immediate. They sin, the covenant is broken, they are lost and helpless and hopeless, and almost immediately God meets them. and he gives them something completely different than what they deserve. He gives them a promise of life, ultimate life, by crushing the serpent. The context is, right after the fall, the content is Christ. He's promising Christ here, the seed of the woman. So in Galatians 4, we read that Jesus was born of a woman under the law. He was born of a woman. That phrase, born of a woman, is probably significant in that it points all the way back to this initial promise. The seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head. And Paul is saying, Jesus is the one born of the woman who would crush the serpent's head. So the content is Christ, the nature of the promise, mercy, and grace. He would do it not on the basis of the covenant of works, because that had been broken, but God would accomplish salvation by grace. The serpent would be crushed by a Redeemer, by a Savior. And it wouldn't be because of anything Adam and Eve could do, it would be only because of what the Redeemer does for them, by crushing their enemy, overcoming death through the cross. And the purpose of the promise, why did God give the promise to Adam and Eve? so that they would believe it, so that they could have faith and repentance in the promise of God and be saved. So the nature of the promise was mercy and grace. The purpose was faith and repentance. So why does that matter? Let's pull back a little bit and ask the question, why does it matter that an initial promise of the gospel was made in Genesis 3 verse 15? What difference does that make in our understanding of how God interacts with us to know that he made a promise of the gospel that was based on mercy and grace because of the future redeemer? What difference does that make for us? Well, again, the argument, as I've said, is, okay, I'm saying that this chapter in the confession teaches that you cannot be saved apart from the message of the gospel. And not only is that a New Testament thing, that's throughout the entire history of the world, no one has ever been saved apart from the preaching of the gospel. But then the argument is, yeah, but there was no preaching of the gospel prior to Christ, was there? Or maybe someone would grant, okay, maybe there was preaching prior to Christ, but only after Moses in the ceremonial law, where we really started to see types and shadows. Or someone might even go further and say, okay, yeah, there was a promise of Christ, but not until Abraham, when his seed was promised, who would bring a blessing to the whole world. But we're actually saying here, no, it goes even further back than that. From the very beginning, enough of the gospel was preached. There was the gospel in seed form, sufficient to bring about salvation for those who believe. The message contained the promise of Christ the Redeemer. The message was a message of grace and mercy, that salvation would be accomplished by God, not by man. And the purpose of that message was to enable us to believe it and to have faith. in the promised Savior. So not everything was revealed, obviously, in Genesis 3.15. There's a lot that wasn't said, but enough was said. Sufficient content was given for there to be faith and repentance in the promised Messiah. So this is how one pastor, Hoffmeier, puts it. He says, it is fruitless to speculate about how clearly Adam and Eve may have understood this, or what conception they had of the work of the Messiah. But one thing is clear. They could see that salvation would only come by grace from God alone through the work of the one sent by him, and that they must put their trust in the promised one alone. The only way for sinners to be saved from Adam to Moses to David to the coming of Jesus until now is by the gospel of Jesus, the seed of the woman who crushed the serpent's head. So from the very beginning, there is one way of salvation. It's been Jesus throughout all of history. There has never been another way to be saved. The gospel has always been preached, beginning in Genesis 3, 15. So that's the first paragraph there, basically making the argument, kind of preemptively to say, if you're going to argue that there was no gospel preached prior to Christ, you're wrong. It was actually preached from Genesis 3 on, and that's how we can rightly argue no one has ever been saved apart from the preaching of the gospel. Then the second paragraph has to do more directly with the necessity of the gospel being preached, the necessity of gospel revelation. And so here you'll notice on the outline two different aspects of revelation. So letter A, the insufficiency of general revelation, and letter B, the necessity of special revelation. So revelation has to do with how God reveals himself to us, how he reveals his will to us, his truth to us. And there are two ways that God reveals himself to us. One of them is through general revelation. The other is through special revelation. What does general revelation refer to? Anyone wanna throw that out? What are we talking about when we talk about general revelation? Creation, it's on the outline, you can cheat. Creation, providence, the light of nature. So there are, Psalm 19 is a great example of this, by the way. If you wanna see a good contrast between general revelation and special revelation, Psalm 19 is excellent. We won't go there now for the sake of time, but it's a great place to go. The first, I think, six verses of Psalm 19 have to do with the way that God speaks through creation. Day to day pours forth speech. The heavens are declaring the glory of God. The created world is telling us things about God. So as we look out on creation, we see something that's true about God. Or as we see how God governs creation, There's a reference there to Acts 14 where it talks about how he provides for his creatures as evidence, as a witness of his existence. As he governs his creation, we see the existence of God. We see evidence of God in the way that he governs. In the light of nature, meaning the innate knowledge that God has given us of his existence, of his law. So Romans 2, the reference there, speaks of the law that's been planted on our hearts, that's been written on our hearts. Whether you're Jew or Gentile, Paul's arguing, it doesn't matter. You have the law of God written on your heart. You know something of the law of God. And so, through the works of creation, through providence, through the light of nature, every human being knows something about God. General Revelation is very useful to teach us that God is, that he is eternal, that he is powerful, that he is good. We can learn all of those things through creation. and providence and the light of nature through general revelation. But what's special revelation? What's that refer to? Bill Shelton is holding up his Bible, so I'll take that as special revelation is the scriptures. It's what God has revealed about himself in his word. So general revelation can teach us a lot about God. It's enough to teach us that we owe our entire existence to him. It's enough to teach us that we are accountable to him. It's enough to teach us that we should worship him and love him and serve him and trust him. General revelation reveals those things to us. But general revelation cannot reveal to us the way of salvation. General revelation, the things God has made, his providence in the light of nature, those things cannot tell you that God has sent you a savior to die for you and that the savior that he sent was his own son and that he came in order to pay the price for your sins so that you would be forgiven by grace and that he's been raised from the dead and that he's going to return again for ultimate salvation and redemption and judgment. General revelation can't tell you that. Only special revelation can, only the word of God can tell you that. And so the point being made here in this paragraph that we didn't read of the confession, paragraph two, the point is it's not enough to say that if you search out general revelation, there's a chance you might reach salvation. You could search creation and providence and philosophy and science and everything else all you want and you will never attain to salvation. Because salvation only comes through the preaching and the hearing of God's special revelation, which is the gospel of his son revealed in his word. And again, maybe that's obvious to you. Maybe you don't need the reminder that someone who has never heard of Christ can never be saved. But that's not obvious to everyone, and it's not even obvious to everyone who identifies as a Christian. In fact, as I was preparing for this evening, I did a quick Google search. I think I looked up, I think the exact phrase was, can non-Christians be saved? I was just curious to see what would come up. Can non-Christians be saved? And interesting enough, an article came up with the title, can a non-Christian be saved? So there I had my answer. Just to point it out, that's the first thing that came up on Google. You can test it when you get home. Put it in your computer, can a non-Christian be saved? And this article will likely come up. And it's by a PCUSA reverend or minister. PCUSA is very different than the PCA or the OPC or other reformed Presbyterian churches. This PCUSA is a Presbyterian church, but it's not reformed. And the reverend who wrote this article, his name is Sean Kuhn, He says this at the end. This is how he answers the question, can non-Christians be saved? He gives an illustration. So I'll read his illustration. This is heretical, by the way. So there are some illustrations you should take and apply. This is one you should take to realize this stuff is being said by ministers of the gospel, supposedly. So he says, can non-Christians be saved? Here's how I like to think about it. When I met my wife Carrie in seminary, her parents lived in Ashland, Kentucky. It's on the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and it's quite confusing to navigate. I grew up in Iowa. It was flat, and most of the roads were in a grid. So when this Midwestern boy was dropped in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, I got lost pretty easily. But eventually, I learned how to drive from Carrie's parents' house to downtown, and I was pretty proud of myself. But then Carrie would say, there's a faster way if you go down this street, or if you'd like, there's a neat way to go downtown that goes by the hospital. And each time I would say, no thank you. There may be faster ways, there may be better ways, but there is one way I know, and I know it will get me there, where I need to be, and I will stick with that. I think this is how we can approach Christianity, Sean Coon says. Our faith is a path to God. It is a path to salvation. There may be other paths to God. There may even be better paths to God. But this is the one path we know of, and we know it will take us where we need to go. That's not good, by the way. Again, that's a reverend in a church. teaching that there may be better ways than Christ, and hearing the gospel and believing it, but at least we know that's one way, we might as well stick to it. The Apostle Peter says in Acts chapter four, there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. Unless people hear the message of Jesus preached, and unless they believe that message preached, that there is forgiveness in no other name than Jesus Christ, they will not and they cannot be saved. Is that unfair? Because that's the objection that's raised. That's unfair. That's not just of God. That's unrighteous of God to require that someone living in Southeast Asia who has never heard the message of the gospel, it's unjust and it's unfair to expect that person to believe a gospel they've never heard. or to require that they believe a gospel that they've never heard, and to condemn them for not believing a gospel they've never heard. That's unrighteous, that's unjust. Is it? Is that unrighteous and unjust and unfair of God to condemn those who have never heard the preaching of the gospel? Well, again, general revelation matters. General revelation tells us that there is a God, that there is one God. General revelation tells us that the one God deserves our worship. But how has every single person in Southeast Asia responded to general revelation? And how has every single person in the United States responded to general revelation? Or in South America, or in Africa, or in Europe, or wherever else you want to go, how has every human being throughout all of history responded to the general revelation of God? Romans 1 tells us, by suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness, by exchanging the glory of God for the glory of created things, by worshiping what is made rather than the one who made them, or we could go to Colossians where we're told that we're haters of God according to nature. So there is enough revelation, in general revelation, to make us accountable to God, to show us that we should worship him, And therefore, because of our sin, because we reject God through general revelation, there's also enough revelation and general revelation to condemn us, to make us worthy and deserving of eternal punishment for our rejection of our creator. And so if someone doesn't hear the gospel, it's not unfair. They don't deserve to hear the gospel. They're sinners who have rejected their creator. You and I never deserved to hear the gospel. There is no reason that we should have ever heard the gospel, been given any opportunity at all to believe and to repent except for the grace of God. We like to think that humans have some inherent merit that earns us the right to have the opportunity to believe, but we don't. That opportunity was lost when sin entered into the world. and we have never ceased to reject our God and our Creator. And so there's no injustice in God in condemning those who have never heard the gospel to an eternal punishment. There's only mercy on God's part in allowing anyone to ever hear the gospel at all. And that's the next paragraph. It has to do with God's sovereign dispensation of the gospel, or distribution of the gospel, the spread of gospel revelation. Why is it that some nations, like the United States, have so much gospel revelation, while other places, like Myanmar, or other places in the Middle East, the 1040 window, why is it that those places have so little revelation of the gospel? What makes the difference? The point of this paragraph is to say the only thing that makes the difference between a place that hears the gospel preached and a place that doesn't hear the gospel preached is the sovereign will of God. If you look all throughout history, it's very obvious there are places that have had lots of gospel preaching and there are places that have had no gospel preaching. Why is that? It's the sovereign will of God. The fact that we in the West especially have received so much gospel preaching is not a reflection on us at all. There's no reason we have received gospel revelation. There's no reason we have heard the gospel preached as much as we have. It's God's grace. It's his sovereign will. his determination to send the gospel where he desires. And so there's some references there on the third section of your outline that have to do with that. The letter A has to do with the distinction between Jews and Gentiles in the Old Testament. It's very clear God chose to give Jews the revelation of the scriptures, but he withheld it from the Gentiles. It's very clear later that there are cities that he chose to send the gospel to in the New Testament, But there are also cities that the Holy Spirit prevented the gospel from being preached in for whatever reason. And then today we can see it all around us. And the only reason is the sovereign will of God. And then fourthly, the fourth paragraph, gospel revelation and the Holy Spirit. The point of this paragraph is basically to say you need both the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit if anyone is ever going to be converted. So I'll read this paragraph. The gospel is the only outward external means of revealing Christ and saving grace, and as such it is fully sufficient for this purpose. However, in order that men who are dead in trespasses may be born again, made alive or regenerated, there is also necessary an effectual, insuperable, or irresistible work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul to produce in them a new spiritual life. Without this, no other means will accomplish their conversion unto God. Sam Waldron is a pastor in Kentucky, and he gives a helpful illustration on this. I'll read his example here. He says, the lamp in your bedroom requires two things in order to illuminate it. It must have a light bulb. But this alone is not sufficient. It must also be plugged into a source of electrical power. Raw electricity by itself may electrocute you, but it won't satisfactorily illumine your room. It requires the light bulb in order to perform this function. Even so, the power of the spirit is necessary, but he must work in and through the gospel if the darkened soul is to be savingly enlightened. So, fairly simple, I think. Just like a lightbulb needs to be connected to a power source, and just like a power source needs to be connected to the lightbulb in order for a room to be lit up, so also, if there are going to be conversions of souls, there must be the preaching of the gospel, and there must also be the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. We see that in 1 Thessalonians 1. If you want to turn there, you can. This will probably be the last passage I'll look at this evening. 1 Thessalonians 1. beginning in verse four and then into verse five. Paul says, knowing brethren beloved by God, his choice of you. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. So that's what it looks like when the Holy Spirit joins the preaching of the gospel for the sake of conversion. It comes with power and conviction to save. It convinces a person, when there is the power of the Holy Spirit at work through the preaching of the gospel, it convinces a person of their sin, and of their need for a Savior, and it grants their heart faith and repentance." That's necessary. A human cannot be saved apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. So both the preaching of the gospel as the outward means, which is our responsibility, we preach the gospel, and then the Holy Spirit as the inward means of actually changing a heart and converting the sinner through His power All right, well, we'll end with just these two points of application at the very bottom of the outline. What should be the takeaways from a chapter like this, reminding us that no one can be saved apart from the preaching of the gospel, and that no one can be saved apart from the gospel preached, joined with the power of the spirit? Well, first, I think it reminds us we should make every effort to see the gospel spread. So Jesus gives the great commission, go into all the earth, preach the gospel, make disciples, Preach in Jerusalem, then go to Samaria, then go to the ends of the world. Preach the gospel everywhere you go. That commission loses all of its urgency if it's not necessary for someone to hear the gospel and be saved. If no one can be saved apart from the preaching of the gospel, then it makes perfect sense that we would make every effort to see the gospel spread, whether it's through our own conversations with individuals, or through our resources, or time, or prayers, or whatever else. When we understand no one will ever be saved apart from the preaching of the gospel, there is a sense of urgency to the Great Commission. And then secondly, it should cause us to hopefully rely on the Spirit's power to work through the gospel. The gospel is the Spirit's appointed means. So I think many of us, probably most of us, have loved ones, friends, people we care about, that are lost and are in sin. And if we believe the gospel, then we understand that their unbelief of that same gospel means that they are perishing and that they are going to be condemned because of their unbelief. And it's easy for us when we have loved ones like that to lose heart and feel like the chances of them being saved are slim to none. This chapter in the truths of the scriptures, they remind us the spirit has appointed the means of the gospel as his means of converting the soul. And he is able to use our very weak efforts to accomplish that. And so it may be a sibling or a son or a parent or a friend who has denied the gospel for years. What is required in order for that person to come to faith? nothing more than the simple truth of the gospel in a moment joined by the power of the Holy Spirit. A person can have rejected the gospel for years and years and years and years. They can be apparently the most hardened individual on the planet to the things of God, and yet through one simple communication of the truth of the gospel joined with the power, the converting power of the Holy Spirit, that individual can be converted. Personally, I need that reminder when it comes to people that I care about, because I'm prone to be cynical and skeptical. I need to remember that the Holy Spirit has appointed the gospel as the means of salvation, and He is able to save any sinner through the simple means of the gospel being proclaimed. And so it should produce in us then, first of all, the urgency to see the gospel spread, but also hope, confidence, believing that the gospel can spread and that people can be converted because it's the Spirit's appointed means to accomplish that end. We're going to end with the hymn, Facing a Task Unfinished, which rebukes our slothful ease, to quote the hymn. I think it's a great hymn in challenging us to consider, is there more that we can be doing? Is there more that we can give in our pursuit of seeing the gospel promoted and advanced throughout the world? So just a moment, we'll sing that, but before we do that, let me pray for us. Our Father, we do thank you once again that we have been recipients of your gospel, We thank you that though we have deserved only death and condemnation, we had nothing, no right in ourselves to claim that would cause us to merit the preaching of your word. And Father, yet in your grace and in your mercy and in your love, you have allowed us to hear of Christ, our Savior, to be told of his saving work for us. And we thank you, Father, not only have you shown us Christ through the preaching of your word, but you've and enabled us by your Spirit's power to believe it, and you've given us new hearts. We thank you, Father, that by your mercy and grace you've given us faith in the gospel that saves. We do pray for those that we know who are lost in their sin. We pray that you would help us to not be unbelieving with regard to your ability to save. Help us to not be cowardly in our hesitancy to proclaim your word, but help us to be bold and to trust you and to believe that your gospel is the power for salvation and that you're able to accomplish that even through our weak efforts. Father, we need to be reminded of your power and your gospel's power, so we pray that you would convince us of that even more as we see more and more of your son in your word. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.