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 There are those who arise and announce that preaching has become outdated and it needs to be adjusted.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.