January 1979 in a college dorm room in Stillwater Oklahoma at the age of 20 life’s most important moment happened for me.
1) It was followed up 7 ½ months later when I walked the right aisle, come all the way from the third row from the back at Eastwood Baptist Church in Tulsa Oklahoma.
2) Paul quotes the book of Joel when he states, ‘Whoever will call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved’(13)
LIGHT BULB: seems simple but actually is very complicated process: transmission towers…substations…dam built holding back water….wires strung..Tremendous complecxity behind a simple momentary act. SALVATION seems simple but behind is lies great complexity: mystery of the cross, Incarnation, miracle of the resurrection, Coming of the Holy Spirit, events of life orchastrated under God’s sovereign hand, prayers of believers.
Call upon the Name of the Lord: How does this miracle happen? It is more than just words but it is a moment of faith, an act of grace that truly effects a new nature within us.
1) What is involved in bringing people to a place where they cry out to God in a sense of need and desperation and are saved?
Scriptures used as a basis for the churches missionary program. Go from recognizing God’s sovereign control in chapt 9 to God’s command to go and aggresively and personally participate in the process of people coming to know Him.
PEOPLE HAVE TO BELIEVE (14) How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
1. Salvation has to come to this end: JESUS. It is to call on HIM, to believe in him.
a. Acts 4:12 There is no other Name under heaven by which we may be saved/Acts 16:30-31 What must I do to be saved? Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
b. It is more than just words but to call on Him from a heart of belief. Jn 6:28-29 What must we do so that we may work the works of God? This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.
2. The basis for people believing is for Christians to have an effective witness:
a. Understandable: be ready to make a defense of the hope that lies within you – have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel.
b. Credible: backed up by your life: Our words make the gospel understandable but our lives make it believable.
1) Eastwood crusade counseling young man
2) Brother’s #1 reason for not believing is because of what he sees when he turns on so-called Christian TV.
c. Powerful: A witness bathed in prayer, in combination with the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.
d. Aggressive: On the march, don’t have to be cornered to share the truth, Going….reaching…seeking the lost.
‘The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost’
PEOPLE NEED TO HEAR: How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?
1. People have to hear! People won’t be saved unless people care enough to tell them the gospel.
2. Hear means to hear with understanding. Not just standing behind home plate with a sign reading JOHN 3:16.
PEOPLE NEED TO SHARE: And how will they hear without a preacher?
1. Not ‘preacher’ as we understand the word but kerusso ‘to announce or proclaim something’ Someone who is willing to be a voice for God.
Pastoring is like being on the weather channel. When I definitely want to hear the weather I turn there. When dangerous weather occurs the weather bullitens are on multiple channels. It is too important a news to limit to one station. God didn’t limit the gospel to one station, people should know that if they tune us in by being here each service they will hear it but the most effective outlet is when it should up in the life of ordinary Christians. To many people I am a hired gun but you are a satisfied customer.
Gospel Blimp: 5,000 to drops tracts from helicopter over the plant where I work so everybody could hear. Take some tracts and take some time and share the gospel.
2. Am I sharing my faith? Am I being a voice for God.
a. Question is not ‘Are people saved if no one tells them about Jesus but Am I saved if I don’t tell’
b. What are you selling? Sport’s team, TV Program or Movie(don’t miss, you should have seen), Diet(changed my life, Green stuff) You are telling the world about something meaningful to you, what is it? Is it Jesus?
PEOPLE NEED TO SEND: (15) And how will they preach unless they are sent?
1. Sharing the gospel demands the involvement of the entire body of Christ. God has given each of at least one of many possible gifts. Intention is that we work together to accomplish the task of the Great Commission.
2. Paul said that the harvest was brought in because people were involved in three actions: planting...watering…reaping.
a. May not have the gift of evangelism or teaching or preaching but you have the gift of giving or or encouragement. Criticism and hording are not spiritual gifts. All of us can pray(water)
Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!’
We should be excited to be part of so wonderful a process.
When you have good news to tell: don’t your feet want to run to the car to drive over and tell, don’t your feet want to run to the phone to call, don’t they want to run to that person and share with them? Sailors lost in Yemen: many safe, wouldn’t you like to make the call to family and say ‘your son, daughter, father is safe’ GOOD NEWS IS A JOY TO SHARE!
Feet are not the bodies most pleasant feature. Usually we cover them. Men have about 3 pairs of shoes and wear one most every day while women cover their feet with 100 pairs.
1) Meant to be functional not fashionable but when they carry the gospel they are beautiful.
WHEN HOW BECOMES A HOWEVER: Mixed with this good news and the joy of sharing it is again the sad fact of the Jews condition: (16) However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’
Jewish unbelief is not a new problem: Stephen’s final words, ‘You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted and they have slain them which proclaimed before the coming of the Just One’ 7:51f
Paul quoting first verse of Isaiah 53 which was written 725 years before Jesus was born but beautiful presents the gospel in OT language.
HOWEVERS in your life: People who have resisted, rejected, and refused the gospel.
PEOPLE NEED FAITH TO BELIEVE: (17) So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
1. Faith is essential for salvation:
RON DUNN(illustrate simple faith) Doctor tells us we have a disease we have never heard of, gives us a prescription we cannot read for a medicine we cannot pronounce, we take it to a druggest we do not know who gives us a bottle of liquid that tastes like poison which we drink and then refill it. Question is not that you have faith but what in?
2. Faith is established through Scripture: comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
a. Word of God or Word of Christ. Rhema ‘living Word’ as compared to Logos ‘written Word’. More than just quoting Scripture but hearing a message about a living Savior Who is called in John 1 ‘the Word….became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory’
1) World doesn’t mind hearing a word about God but when you speak of Jesus a different reaction occurs.
b. Faith is built into a life by Scripture being invested into a life.
After defeat of Japan: Soldiers came to Okinawa and discovered a remote hidden village. 30 years earlier a man had traveled thru and spoke to two men about the Lord. He gave them a Bible and left. No missionaries or outside Christian influence had come. There had been no correspondance or Radio. They found this village totally different from others which had been filthy with degrading practices. This was sanitary, people in good health, Christian government in operation, church that regularly met, and everyone they found professed a belief in Jesus Christ. The same two men who had first believed were the one’s who welcomed the soldiers when they came. Sergeant said, ‘If this is what the Word of God does then we have been fighting the world with the wrong weapon.
TWO REASONS WHICH ARE NOT EXCUSES:
1. Maybe they didn’t hear: (18) But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world’.
a. Paul quotes Ps 19 which gives two reasons why they Jews had heard: #1 Creation The heavens are telling of the glory of God which is Paul’s argument in Rom 1:18f #2 Word of God: perfect..sure..right..pure..true
b. The world around them and the Word God had given them both proved that they knew enough to be saved.
2. Maybe they didn’t understand: (19) But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, ‘I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you.’ (20) And Isaiah is very bold and says, ‘I was found by those who did not seek Me, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me’.
a. Their reaction to the Gentiles showed they noticed the gospel. Hated that Gentiles dared to have a relationship with ‘their’ God. Their anger was fueled by the fact that they knew this all had to do with the God of Israel.
b. The response of the Gentiles: Gentile world was being turned upside down all around them because of the gospel. Isaiah had predicted the salvation of the Gentiles.
Scene in Heaven: Angel how many believed today? God we have 3 Jews this month, but today, only 763,000 Gentiles.
1) Jews diligently working his way to God while mindnumb gentiles just minding their own business are getting saved. It stressed them out!
PEOPLE MUST MAKE A CHOICE: (21) But as for Israel, ‘All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’.
1. Paul leaves us with a mental image of God with arms outstretched waiting in vain while people choose to reject His offer of grace. There are no excuses for being lost only disobedience and stubborness. You know enough to belief.
BILLY GRAHAM: Just before his ministry broke wide open he struggled with the Bible. At that time there were some things he didn’t understand. Man named Chuck Templeton, who had gone into the ministry but chosen a liberal seminary which destroyed his faith, encouraged Billy to recognize the Bible couldn’t be trusted. Henrietta Mears was a voice of reason from the other side. Billy took a long walk one day and fell before God saying, ‘I don’t understand everything in this book but I choose today to accept it by faith and to trust it as Your perfect Word’. Within weeks his ministry exploded and his name soon became a household word. Chuck Templeton left the ministry, wrote scathing articles against the reality of God and now is suffering from altimers and nearing the end of life on this earth.
FAITH IS A GIFT FROM GOD: given to each of us a measure of faith. It is strengthened by God’s Word. It is like breathing which is also a gift from God but I can choose to smother myself and physically die. To neglect, ignore, or refuse God’s Word is to spiritually smother out your life and to miss the only truth that could have saved you.
