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If you have your Bible, I invite
you to turn to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. We're
continuing our journey through the book of Romans, and today
we're focusing on a mere two verses, but two very important
verses. Two very important verses. So
if you're able to, let's stand in honor of the reading and hearing
of God's word. Romans chapter 10. verses 14 and 15. The Apostle Paul writes, How
then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. May God bless the reading and
the hearing of his word, and let's join together in prayer.
Gracious God, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring The
gospel of peace in these glad tidings. How beautiful are the
feet of your apostles, like Paul, who have brought to us your word
today. Help us to receive. Help us to
meditate upon. Help us to be shaped by your
word. We need your illumination today,
Father. Give it to us. Grant it to us.
We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Today I stand before you as a
preacher who is going to speak to you about a preacher, the
Apostle Paul, who wrote about the centrality of preaching.
So a preacher talking about a preacher writing about preaching. You
know, it seems that in every generation since the time of
the Apostle Paul, there has been a challenge raised against preaching. It has been in almost every generation. You just trace it historically.
There are those who arise and announce that preaching has become
outdated and it needs to be adjusted. It needs to be updated to fit
the time. Here recently in our own days,
a few years ago, there was a conference for leaders in the so-called
emerging church, and one of the foremost leaders in this movement,
a man named Doug Padgett, announced to an audience of hip young ministers
that preaching is broken. He went on to explain that the
evangelical church of our day had missed out on an important
cultural shift, the shift to postmodern thinking. And we had
failed to adjust our preaching ministry accordingly. He explained
that people today are distrustful of authority figures. And so
they didn't like the idea of coming into a place and having
to sit passively while an authority figure, a preacher, stood before
them and explained or expounded the word. He also explained how
that people were distrustful, not just of authority figures,
but also authoritative ideas. The notion that you could have
an overarching authoritative interpretation of a text. of Scripture. That was offensive. It didn't match relevantly to
the way people think today. He even went so far as to say
that traditional preaching was a violent act. I am committing
a violent act against you guys today. He said it is violence
towards the will of the people who have to sit there and take
it. during a sermon. Thus preaching, he said, is unhealthy
and even abusive. Why do I get to speak for 30
minutes and you don't? Because I'm thinking only 30
minutes. That's part of the problem. But these were the challenges.
And then he went on to suggest to these postmodern preachers
and these emerging churches leaders that they should then avoid spending
lots of time in sermon preparation. They should avoid attempting
to work out detailed and well-thought-out messages, but they should instead
merely speak informally, attempting to engage personally with the
audience. They should avoid attempting
to convey complicated propositional truths, and instead they should
focus on narrative and storytelling. And so the preacher would be
more like a Garrison Keillor than he would be like Martin
Lloyd Jones. He would be a storyteller, an
empathetic weaver of yarns that connected with the stories of
the audience. Sermons should be a dialogue
and not a monologue. And by all means, the minister
should not present himself as an expert who had studied and
had come to firm conclusions out of conviction, but instead
he should present himself as a fellow struggler and a fellow
learner. In making this point, Padgett
is actually following in the footsteps of a mainline Protestant
teacher of preaching named Fred Craddock, who wrote an influential
book in 1971 that was titled, As One Without Authority. Saying that the minister should
be one who stands in the pulpit as one without authority. Again, the challenges to preaching
that we are hearing in our day are really nothing new. They
have emerged in every generation since the time of the Apostle
Paul. In fact, recently, I was reading through a book by the
Puritan John Owen, who lived in the 17th century, ministered
in the 17th century. And he wrote a book titled The
True Nature of a Gospel Church. And in that book, he spent a
chapter talking about the role of the pastor. And he said the
very first duty of a pastor in a church is preaching. First duty is preaching. And
as he was discussing that, Owen made this observation. He said,
we have seen and heard some cast scorn on preaching. This is the
17th century. They even discourage laboring
in the word and doctrine. Some have gone so far as to say
that the work of preaching is unnecessary in the church. They reduce all religion to the
reading and rule of the liturgy. I suppose, Owen said, that they
might next attempt even to remove Christ from their religion. They
make a good start in that direction by denying the need for the preaching
of the gospel. So Owen was dealing with this
hundreds of years ago. And again, we could do a survey
and find it at every point along the way in the history of the
church. Certainly, the entire Protestant
Reformation that that revival of biblical religion was a revival
of preaching, because what had happened in the Roman system
was that the mass had had displaced the preaching of the word. The
mass had become the center of worship. And so even physically
in Roman Catholic churches, the altar was at the center and the
pulpit was pushed off to the side. But when the Reformation
came, it was a revival of the preaching of the word. Martin
Luther said the highest worship is the preaching of the word. And so it belongs in every generation
to defend the centrality of the preaching of the word in the
life of Christ's church. And certainly Romans 10, 14,
and 15 are two of the choice verses that the Lord has providentially
given to his church to sustain it in not losing its commitment
to the centrality of preaching. Let's look at the passage together
again. It's just a couple of verses.
But as we consider turning to the passage now, verses 14 and
15, we should first consider the context for these verses.
As you know, We've been going through the passage verse by
verse. It's very important to understand
the things around what Paul is saying. First of all, we should
remember what has come before. And what has come before, in
the verses just preceding Romans 10, 14, and 15, Paul has been
stressing what we could call the universal audience for the
proclamation of the gospel. To whom should the gospel be
preached? Okay, you guys believe in the
sovereignty of God. You just think the preaching
should just be to the elect. Well, that'd be great, but we
don't know who the elect are, right? And so that's why we have
to broadcast the gospel to all men, to any who will hear and
listen, and we find out who those are that are like by those who
respond to the gospel. And so there must be what we
could call what the old ministers call a promiscuous preaching
of the gospel, broadcasting the seed everywhere and letting the
Lord determine whether it falls on good soil or not. And so Paul had stressed this
and it came to a climax in verse 13 of Romans 10. where Paul quoted
from Joel 2.32 and he said in verse 13, for whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And you might remember last Lord's
Day we spent a bit of time meditating on what does it mean to call
upon the Lord. The verb here is epikaleo. Epi is a little prefix, epi,
upon, kaleo, to call. What does it mean, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved? And I suggested
last week, borrowing some ideas from James Boyce, that the verb
to call upon, looking at the scope of it in the Bible, can
mean several different things. It can mean to worship, In Genesis
4.26, remember, those who first worshipped the Lord called upon
the name of the Lord. It can mean to pray. As, remember,
we said Elijah at Mount Carmel had said to the false prophets
of Baal, you call upon the name of your God and I'll call upon
the name of my God. It can mean to praise. In Psalm
18.3, I will call upon the Lord, so shall I be saved from my enemies.
Calling upon the Lord is praising God. And then most importantly
we saw that the call upon the name of the Lord in the New Testament
particularly means to believe or to trust in Christ. And so
it's used by Paul in 1st Corinthians 1-2 to describe believers as
those who have called upon the name of the Lord. It's interesting
this same verb epikaleo, to call upon, is used as recorded by
Luke in the book of Acts, in Acts 25 11, Acts 28 19, to describe
when Paul appealed to Caesar. Remember that? He appealed to
Caesar. It's epikaleo, he called upon
Caesar. And so the one who calls upon
the name of the Lord is like one who appeals to a sovereign. to intervene into his circumstances. And so, what had gone before
these passages was the universal audience for the preaching of
the gospel. Whoever, whosoever, calls upon the name of the Lord.
Now, what comes after, in the verses that we'll look at next
Lord's Day, we'll find that Paul will be continuing to describe
the persistent rejection of the gospel by many And most particularly
by his fellow Jews, those he's described previously as his brethren,
his kinsmen, according to the flesh. Even though the preaching
of the gospel has gone out to them, Paul is going to reflect
on the fact that by and large, most have rejected the gospel. And so if you look at verse 16,
the verse right after this, he will start off, but they have
not all obeyed the gospel. So in between him talking about
the universal audience for the gospel and talking about the
fact that not all have obeyed the gospel, we get these two
verses where Paul focuses upon the centrality of preaching.
And what we find when we look at these two verses is that Paul
lays out a series of four interlocking questions. And then he closes
the passage after these four interlocking questions, he closes
by citing a passage from the Old Testament. And so the outline
for these verses is very simple. Four questions and a scripture
quotation. So let's walk through the four
questions and the scripture quotation. The first question in verse 14 is this. How then shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? That's the first question. And
this first question implies something that is quite significant. It
is that before one can call upon the name of the Lord in worship,
in prayer, in praise, He must first call upon the Lord in total
belief and trust. No one can call upon the name
of the Lord unless he first believes in the Lord. And of course we
know this only comes by grace, through faith. But what is implied
here is that unbelievers cannot truly offer worship prayer or
praise to God in any regular or worthy manner because they
are devoid of belief or trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The
second question that Paul poses in verse 14 is this, and how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? Again, the questions that Paul
is going to ask are something like links in a chain. To call
upon the Lord, one must believe. But to believe, now Paul adds,
one must hear. To be a believer, one must have
heard or understood or have come to know something of the basic
facts of the gospel. Something like what Paul lays
out in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died for sinners, according
to the Scriptures, that he was dead and buried and that he was
raised again. They must know something of the
core facts of the gospel. They must know something of Jesus. It must have been received. It
must have been heard of them. And then they must have responded
by believing in it. Again, as we noted last week,
this means that there are no anonymous Christians. It's a
view that's been propagated, it's even been propagated by
the Roman Catholic Church, and it's Vatican II documents, that
there are anonymous Christians. There are good people out there,
and although they have never heard of Jesus, God will probably
save them because they're good people. It's an idea that's presented
even in some conservative Baptists, primitive Baptists, who will
talk about people being regenerated, but never professing faith. But this passage tells us, no,
you will not call upon the name of the Lord unless you believe
and you will not believe unless you have heard. And so this verse
tells us that all true believers will at some point consciously
hear the gospel. And then from what we've seen
earlier, from Romans 10, 9, they will also consciously and publicly
confess faith in Jesus Christ. If you confess with your mouth
the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised
Him from the dead, you will be saved. When Paul stresses here
the hearing of the gospel, we can think of what Jesus taught
in John 10.27 when He talked of Himself as being a shepherd.
And He said in John 10.27, My sheep hear My voice. and I know them and they follow
me." When the gospel is preached, those who are Christ's lambs,
His sheep, hear His voice and they respond to Him just as a
sheep or an animal can hear the voice of its master and know
Him and come to Him. The third question is laid out
as well in verse 14, and it continues the links on the chain. And how
shall they hear without a preacher? The word that is translated preacher
here is really a participle in Greek. There is a noun in Greek
for preacher, a kerux. But here it's the participle
that's drawn from the verb keruso, to preach. And so it might well
be rendered, how shall they hear without one preaching? And now
a new link is added to our chain. Calling upon the Lord requires
believing, which requires hearing, which requires preaching. Preaching is required. And what is preaching? Have you
ever thought about that? What's the difference between
preaching and teaching, or what's the difference between preaching
and some other kind of utterance? Here's the definition I would
present to you for what preaching is. Preaching is the verbal and
propositional declaration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is one man called by God and
an officer of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ standing publicly
as Christ's own ambassador to declare that men are sinners
and are deserving of God's wrath. And yet God, who is rich in mercy,
has sent forth His Son to die on the cross for sinners, so
that whosoever believes in Him should not perish. but have everlasting
life. That's what preaching is. The
fourth question. Now we go over into verse 15
for the fourth question. And how shall they preach except
they be sent? And this is the final link in
this chain that Paul has constructed. Calling upon the Lord requires
believing. Believing requires hearing. Hearing requires preaching. And preaching requires sending. The verb for sending here in
Greek is apostello. Apostello. You might guess that
it's the same root from which we get the noun apostle. Because
what were the apostles? They were the ones sent out by
God authoritatively as his messengers to found to be the pillars for
the church. And so this last one brings us
to the centrality of preaching. It also brings us to the centrality
of what we could call mission in the life of the church. Boyce, in his commentary on this
passage, calls this text a stirring plea for mission. one of the
most important in the Bible, and he later calls this text
a classic statement of the need for Christian preaching and for
expanding worldwide missionary enterprise. But then he makes,
Boyce makes a great point. He asks, what does Paul mean
here by sending? Who is it that does the sending? Is it merely the church that
sends out preachers so that there could be hearing, so that there
could be believing, so that there could be calling upon the name
of the Lord? And Boyce, I think, rightly answers,
what would Paul's focus be upon? What's his focus always upon?
God, Christ. It's God-centered. Who is the
one who does the sending? God is the sender. And so Boyce
says this, he says, this is God's work. He says, no one can take
it lightly upon himself. If God does not send the messenger,
the message will not be blessed by him. And those who hear will
not be saved. There's a sense in which we can
draw a parallel between the fact that the church did not choose
the books that are in the canon of scripture and the fact that
in some sense the church does not choose its preachers. God
chooses and calls and gifts his preachers and he is the one who
sends them out. Church has a very important role,
that is to acknowledge those whom God has called. At the end
of Matthew chapter 9, Matthew the evangelist describes
an occasion when Jesus looked out upon a multitude of disciples
who had come out to him. And it says there that he had
compassion upon them. This is Matthew 9.36. Because
they were like sheep that were scattered without a shepherd.
And then Jesus turns to the disciples. It's another one of the great
mission passages in the scriptures in Matthew 9.37. And Jesus says
to his disciples, The harvest is truly plenteous, but the laborers
are few. And what you might expect next
would be something like, well, then the disciples got together
and they said, who wants to volunteer to go into the harvest? Let's
have a survey of all the disciples and see what everybody's spiritual
gifts are and see if we can take an inventory of your vocational
desires and let's see if we can find some people and appoint
them as laborers to go out into the harvest. No, that's not the
way it works. What comes next in Matthew 9.38
is Jesus says this, Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the Harvest, that
He will send forth laborers into the harvest. Who sends preachers? God does. He is the great sender. Church acknowledges, but it is
God who sends. I think, again, Paul certainly
recognized that it was important for the church to acknowledge
those who were sent. And I want to suggest to you,
Paul had a very practical reason for writing these verses within
Romans. Why? Because he wanted to remind
the Romans that he was being sent by God and also that they
had an obligation, because God had sent him, they had an obligation
to support him. Look later on in Romans. Look
at Romans chapter 15. In some ways, we've called Romans
the great constitution of the Christian church, we've called
it the great systematic theology. But in another sense, Romans
is a great fundraising letter. Because Paul is preparing the
Romans when he comes to visit them to give him support so that
he can be propelled forward to Spain, where the gospel has not
been preached and the name of Jesus has not been named so that
he can preach Jesus there. And he explains that if you look
in Romans 15, verse 20 and following, Yea, so have I strived to preach
that gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build
upon another man's foundation. Paul's calling was to go into
virgin territory, to take the gospel where Christ had not been
named. Verse 21, But as it is written to whom he was not spoken
of, they shall see And they that have not heard shall understand
for which cause I have been much hindered from coming to you.
But now, having no more place in these parts and having a great
desire these many years to come into you, when so ever I take
my journey into Spain, I will come to you, for I trust to see
you in my journey and to be brought on my way thitherward by you. if I first be somewhat filled
with your company." How will they hear without a preacher?
And how will the preachers go unless they are sent? How will
the preachers be sent unless they are supported by God's people
and propelled into places and situations where the name of
Jesus isn't known and the gospel of Jesus hasn't been preached?
And so, this is why Paul is writing. Having worked through these four
questions, we can clearly see, can't we, the interlocking thought
that is being developed here by Paul. Again, he often says
so much with so few words, but he's interlocking these ideas
together. John Murray, in his commentary
on Romans, summarized by saying this, the main point is that
the saving relation to Christ involved in calling upon his
name is not something that can occur in a vacuum. It occurs
only in a context created by the proclamation of the gospel
on the part of those commissioned to proclaim it. The sequence,
Murray says, is therefore authorized messengers, proclamation, hearing
faith, calling on the Lord's name. That's the sequence that
is to take place. The four questions and then the
last part of the passage is a scripture quotation. Look at the end of
verse 15. Paul starts out, as it is written. How many times have we seen that
in Romans? Where does Paul go for his authority again and again?
He goes to the Word of God. Notice that he doesn't start
off saying, now, in my opinion. He doesn't start off saying,
as reason suggests. He doesn't say, as my experience
has led me to believe. But he starts off how? As it
is written. And then here's the quotation.
The quotation comes from Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 7. It's
also echoed in Nahum chapter 1 and verse 15. And this is the
quotation. How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things. Don't be looking at my feet,
John. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel
of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Within this passage,
by the way, the traditional text is different than the modern
critical text, but in the traditional text, the verb to evangelize
Juan Galizo appears twice. So it could literally be rendered,
how beautiful are the feet of them that evangelize peace and
evangelize good things. Now, again, we laughed about
this passage. It's a little bit hard to take
it literally, isn't it? Because we don't typically think
of the feet as a feature of beauty in a person. And that would have
been especially true in Bible times when people traveled on
dusty roads. You remember the scene in John's
Gospel when there's the foot washing? And so we wouldn't think
typically of the feet being something that would be beautiful, but
the image here is not of physical beauty, but it is, of course,
of functional beauty. We are to think of a messenger
who has been on the battlefield and has been a witness to a great
victory, and he runs over a long distance in order to bring the
glad tidings of victory. Many people in the ancient world
would have been familiar with the story of the battle that
happened in 490 BC, that marathon between the Greeks and the Persians.
and the Greeks were able to defeat the Persians and a messenger
was sent a distance of some 26 miles from Marathon to Athens
and this man ran with all his might to tell the Athenians who
were in their homes afraid masses of Persians are only 26 miles
away from their home and he comes to Give the message and he's
so exhausted by running the 26 miles that when he arrives in
Athens. He he collapses and dies Having
said one thing to them victory Victory and so Paul is here saying
that this is the kind of beauty that we find in the preacher
of the gospel and They run with all their might, and they announce
that the enemies of sin and death have been defeated, that victory
has been won on the cross. As Paul writes in Romans 5.1,
therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. How beautiful. are the feet of
those who evangelize peace, of those who evangelize good things. Now, we've worked through the
passage. Actually, we've done that in
probably a shorter period of time than we normally do. That's
because I want to spend a bit more time on four practical exhortations
that come out of these two verses. Four practical exhortations. Here's the first one. The first one is, those who would
call upon the name of the Lord and believe in Him must first
have access to the hearing of the preaching of the gospel.
Those who would call upon the name of the Lord, believe in
Him, must first have access to the hearing of the preaching
of the gospel. I think the practical ramification of this is That
for those of us who are believers, it ought to fill our hearts with
compassion for those lands and for those individuals who have
not heard of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've heard missionaries tell
of places where you could go and you could survey the people
and you could ask them, who is Jesus? And they would have absolutely
no idea. Does he live on this street? People truly who've never heard
the name of Jesus Christ. And I have to fill the hearts
of those of us who are believers with compassion for them. I told
a story about the famed 19th century pioneer missionary Hudson
Taylor, who even when he was a teenager, the age of some of
our young people who are here in the room today, he had a burden
for the land of China. He once wrote to his mother when
he had read an article that had explained that every year in
those days about 12 million people in China died, just the normal
course of events, about 12 million people a year died. And he wrote
to his mother and said this again as a teenager, he said, think
mother. of 12 millions, a number so great that it is impossible
to realize it. Yes, 12 million souls in China
every year passing without God and hope into eternity. Oh, let
us look with compassion on this multitude. God has been merciful
to us. Let us be like him. No telling
what those numbers are today. of the millions who pass into
eternity without knowing Christ in that land and in many others.
Years later, as an adult, Hudson Taylor actually had gone to China,
founded the China Inland Mission. His body was broken, abused. He'd fallen off a ship and suffered
paralysis for about a year, had to go back to England. They propped
him up in a bed. And the one request he had was
that they put a map of China on the wall in front of him.
so that even while he was paralyzed he could lay there in his bed
and pray that the gospel would be sent to those who had never
heard it. Does this passage awaken in your heart compassion for
those who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ? Second
practical exhortation out of this passage is, and this is
really a no-brainer isn't it, that preaching must remain central
in the ministry of Christ's church. Preaching must remain central. We must turn a deaf ear to those
who arise in every generation who want to replace preaching
with something that they believe is more relevant or more interesting
or more appealing. Preaching is the ordinary means
that God has ordained both for the salvation and the sanctification
of sinners. I quoted this verse last week,
it's so important, it bears repeating again. 1 Corinthians 1.21, Paul
wrote, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. And that has not been altered
since the time Paul and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote it.
It is human hubris and sin to believe that we need to improve
upon what God has ordained. And we must in every generation
reject the attempts to replace preaching. Yes, God can and sometimes
does work through other means. But consider that here in verse
14 of Romans 10, Paul does not say, And how shall they believe
in him of whom they have not received charitable acts of mercy?
He doesn't say, How shall they believe on him of whom they have
not witnessed lifestyle evangelism? You know, your life is the greatest
sermon that anyone will ever hear. God can use that means
But it's not his ordained and preferred means. But what does
it say? How shall they hear? Unless there
is a preacher. Unless there is preaching. That's
how they hear. That's how they believe. That's
how they then come to call upon him. Question 72 in Spurgeon's
Patekism, which we use as a church, asks How is the Word made effectual
to salvation? And this is the answer that is
given. The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the
preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting
sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort through
faith unto salvation. Why are there many lands where
missionaries have labored for years building hospitals and
schools and setting up sports programs in hopes of gaining
a favorable hearing for the gospel, but still, after decades and
huge investments of resources, there is so little fruit that
is produced. Perhaps it is because we have
neglected preaching for lesser things. You know who missionaries
are? Missionaries should be preachers.
Those who are sent into other cultures to preach the gospel. Why are there so many professed
Christians who lack holiness and discipline and comfort in
Christ? Perhaps it is because They have
been so little exposed to the preaching of God's word. As one
wag has said, sermonettes produce Christianettes. And we might
say, you know, sermon clips produce Christian clips. It must be extensive
hearing of the word preached. third practical exhortation coming
out of these verses. Paul implies here that when a
man listens to true preaching, he is in fact listening to Christ
himself. When he listens to preaching,
he is in fact listening to Christ himself. We see this in Paul's
stress on the act of hearing. How shall they hear without a
preacher? What is it that you think Paul
has in the background that he is thinking that men are hearing
in preaching? Remember what Jesus said, John
10, 27? My sheep hear my voice. Does that mean that Christians
will audibly hear the voice of Jesus of Nazareth, how do they
hear the voice of Jesus? How do they hear the voice of
the Shepherd? The Word preached! That's how men and women hear
the voice of their Shepherd. In Luke chapter 10, when Jesus
sent out the 70 to preach in His name, He said this, Luke
10.16, He that heareth you, heareth me. And he that despiseth you,
despiseth me. And he that despiseth me, despiseth
him that sent me. How will they go unless they
are sent? Likewise, and this verse caught
my attention when Daniel and I went to the conference in Greenville,
South Carolina last spring, one of the speakers in the conference
on the Holy Spirit mentioned this passage in Ephesians 4.
In Ephesians 4, Paul writes to the Ephesians about how they
have received preaching and teaching about Jesus. And then he says
in Ephesians 4, 20 and 21 to the Ephesians, But ye have not
so learned Christ if so be that ye have heard him, and have been
taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus." Well, when would they
have heard Jesus? And when would they have been
taught by Jesus? Well, it was when they heard
the apostles, and it was when they heard the officers of their
local church, They're elders, pastors, and teachers preaching
the gospel to them. That's when they heard Jesus.
John Murray in his commentary confirms that a striking feature
of this text is, quote, that Christ is represented as being
heard in the gospel when proclaimed by the sent messengers. And then he adds, the implication
is that Christ speaks in the gospel proclamation. Murray adds
that the dignity of the messengers is derived from the fact that
they are the Lord's spokesman. Here's a frightening thing to
consider for many a church that has abused the minister sent
to her. When they have spurned God's minister and the message
given through him, they have often spurned, Christ Himself. Boyce, in his commentary on this
same passage, responds along a similar line and he says this,
When I and any other minister stands up to teach the Bible,
if I do it rightly, it is not my word you are hearing. It is
the word of God, and the voice you hear in your heart is the
voice of Christ. voice says, I am only the postman. My job is just to deliver the
letters. And when you respond, do not
think that you're responding to me. You are responding to
Jesus. Who is calling you through the
appointed channel of sound preaching. Do you believe that when you
hear preaching, You might actually have opportunity to access, hear
the voice of Christ speaking to you. The fourth practical
exhortation that comes out of this passage is the implication
that God's preachers are only those especially sent and authorized
by the Lord himself. Now, If you think about what
I just said for a second, that's not a very popular sentiment
to express in these days. That God's preachers are only
those especially sent and authorized by the Lord himself. Why? Because we live in a democratic,
egalitarian age, and the evangelical church has been much influenced
by this, And we've also been influenced by other religious
movements like Brethrenism and Quakerism that have. Influence
the evangelical church and so sometimes the idea is put forward
that there should be no distinctions at all among believers There
should be no distinctions between those who are the officers the
teaching elders and pastors those who have been set apart vocationally
for prayer and the ministry of the word and the people the loss
as the group says that the laity and But I believe if we look
at what Paul says here in Romans 10, 14, and 15, we'll have a
challenge to our modern democratic, egalitarian conceptions of these
things. In 1 Kings 12, 31 in the Old
Testament, one of the indictments against King Jeroboam who corrupted
Israel's worship was this. And he made a house of high places
and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not
of the sons of Levi. creating a priesthood that had
not been ordained by God Himself. In Romans 10, 14, and 15, we
have a current against what we might call the open pulpit. Those
authorized to preach are those who have been sent by God Himself. They have been gifted by God.
They have been called by God. They have been set apart by God
for this task. Think of what Paul said in 1
Corinthians 9.14 when he wrote, Even so, the Lord has ordained
that they which preach the gospel should live by the gospel. The implication is that those
who are preachers of the gospel are vocationally those who are
set apart for it, called and gifted for it. I recently read
an article written in the year 1876 by the old Reformed Presbyterian stalwart R.L. Dabney,
titled Lay Preaching, in which he had the temerity, or maybe
it was the courage, to question the then growing popularity of
D.L. Moody, who was an unordained
lay preacher who was very popular in the times and drawing in thousands,
and he went over to Europe and preached and also drew thousands.
Well, Dabney had the temerity again, or the courage, to challenge
that. And he said, if love and duty
to Christ prompts them to preach as laymen, we see not how the
same affections can fail to draw them into the ministry. If you
feel called regularly to preach, then go ahead and enter the ministry.
That is the system that is put forward within the New Testament. In 2010, a group of ministers
in the United Kingdom under the auspices of the Bible League
Trust, wrote out a statement of faith that was entitled, Affirmation
2010. And one of the articles, the
twelfth article, affirms what they call the holy ministry in
the church, which they say has been under attack in recent days. That is, it calls for a called
and set apart ministry for the church according to biblical
practice and biblical admonition. It closes with this denial, quote,
we reject the view that the ministry lies in common so that anyone
may undertake public ministry in the church even as we reject
the idea that women may lead in any part of divine worship
or preach to the gathered church. They add, we also repudiate any
use of drama, mime, puppetry and the like as illegitimate
and improper means to communicate God's revealed truth, since we
believe that God has appointed preaching as the proper way to
make known his truth to this needy world. If you were to read
through our Confession of Faith, the Second London Baptist Confession
of Faith, it especially notes that the work of pastors is to
be diligent in the ministry of the word and prayer. It adds
that it is incumbent upon them to be instant in preaching the
word by way of office. If you read it, though, it also
says that preaching is not peculiarly confined to them, but that others
that are also gifted and fitted by the Holy Spirit for it might
preach. But it adds that they should
be especially approved and called by the church to this duty. There
are going to be occasions with those who aren't ordained ministers
and pastors will preach. Sometimes it will be when a man
is being given a trial of his gifts to see if he might be called
to preach. He has to have the opportunity
to preach. And among the old Baptists, they had men that they
called gifted brothers. We might have called them teachers
who were especially set apart, acknowledged by the church as
having this responsibility. And perhaps we would do well
to go back to that kind of practice today. Our passage today exhorts
us to return to the old paths and to be careful in overseeing
that the preaching of the gospel is by those who have been sent
out by God himself for that task. Well, I've given you four challenging
conclusions or exhortations and as we come to the end of the
passage Let me just say this to you. Today, I stand before
you as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. I come from the battlefield. I've been to the battlefield,
friends, and I have something to report to you. Victory. Victory. has died on a cross for sinners.
Sin and death have been defeated. The grave has been defeated. Yes, there are many who have
not yet heard the gospel, but now you are not among them. You've
heard it. And Christ is now, even now,
speaking to you through the unworthy lips of this unworthy preacher.
And he is saying to you, believe in me. Believe in me. Trust in me. I am your shepherd. Come to me and rest. Come to
me and drink and never be thirsty again. Come to me and live. Victory. We invite you to stand. Let's pray. Gracious and loving
God, we thank you for the living word that is active and sharp. And we are thankful that In particular,
that at some point in your wisdom, O God, you gave to us, you sent
to us preachers. You sent to us teachers. And
you allowed us to have a hearing for the gospel. And for many
of us who are here, you allowed us then to have our stony hearts
transformed into hearts of flesh. And you allowed us to repent
and believe in the gospel. And now we are calling upon your
name. We are worshipping you. We are
praying to you. We are praising you. We are committing
ourselves to you, O God. What a privilege you have given
to us. And so we are thankful. Our hearts well up with thankfulness
today. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
How Shall They Hear?
Series Romans 9-11 Series
| Sermon ID | 814111656574 |
| Duration | 57:40 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Romans 10:14-15 |
| Language | English |
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