FAITH COMES BY HEARING
ROMANS 10:8-17
INTRODUCTION: It is amazing how little people know about the Word of God, especially here in America where virtually everyone has access to the Bible. Back when Jay Leno was hosted the Tonight Show, he frequently did "man-on-the street" interviews. One night he collared some young people to ask them questions about the Bible. "Can you name one of the Ten Commandments?" he asked two college-age women. One replied, "Freedom of speech?" Mr. Leno said to the other, "Complete this sentence: Let he who is without sin..." Her response was, "have a good time?" Mr. Leno then turned to a young man and asked, "Who, according to the Bible, was eaten by a whale?" The confident answer was, "Pinocchio." While such misunderstandings may seem to be humorous, they are in fact tragic. The Bible is far more than just a book. It is the Word of God and provides us with all things that pertain to life and godliness. The importance of God’s Word is reiterated throughout its pages and no more powerfully than in Romans 10:17 where it states, "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" As such we need to know it, stow, sow it, and show it.
I. The Word of God must be heard. (Know it)
A. Romans 10:14 declares, "… how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?"
B. Proverbs 29:18 "Where there is no vision (open revelation), the people perish; but he who keeps the law, he is blessed."
C. Romans 10:17 declares that faith is the result of hearing God speak through the Word of God.
D. The Word of God produces faith in the matter of Salvation
1. 1 Corinthians 1:17-18 "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."
2. Lord, as a pastor sometimes I feel like I’m in sales and promotion. Help me remember that the idea, at the heart of it all, is not to "get" the word out, but to "let" the Word out. – Dick Rasanen, Leadership, Vol. 8, no. 3
3. Philippians 2:16 "Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain."
E. The Word of God produces faith in the matter of growth
1. "I prayed for Faith, and thought that someday Faith would come down and strike me like lightening. But Faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the tenth chapter of Romans, ‘Now Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.’ I had closed my Bible, and prayed for Faith. I now opened my Bible, and began to study, and Faith has been growing ever since." – Dwight L. Moody, Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 4.
2. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
3. Every Christian should own a read Bible.
4. A man who loves his wife will love her letters and her photographs because they speak to him of her. So if we love the Lord Jesus, we shall love the Bible because it speaks to us of him. John R. W. Stott
5. 2 Timothy 2:15 "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
6. I am sorry for men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and the pleasure Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
7. Acts 17:11 "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."
F. Other books were given for our information; the Bible was given for our transformation.
G. When you hear or read God’s Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me." – Kierkegaard
II. The Word of God must be believed and received (Stow it)
A. Hebrews 4:12 "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
B. A person can read the Bible every day of his or her life and still go through life unaffected by its pages and unchanged by its power unless he or she is willing to believe it and receive it.
C. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe."
D. American Jurist Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873) – "There came a time in my life when I doubted the divinity of the Scriptures, and I resolved as a lawyer and a judge I would try the book as I would try anything in the courtroom, taking evidence for and against. It was a long, serious, and profound study; and using the same principles of evidence in this religious matter as I always do in secular matters, I have come to the decision that the Bible is a supernatural book, that it has come from God, and that the only safety for the human race is to follow its teachings."
E. The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives. – D. L. Moody, Leadership, Vol. 9, no. 2.
F. Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."
G. Psalm 119:11 “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”
III. The Word of God must be shared (Sow it)
A. Mark 16:15 "And he said unto them, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature’."
B. Romans 10:14-15 "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? [15] And how shall they preach, except they are 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!"
C. Bonhoeffer studied for a year in New York City. He was uniformly disappointed with the preaching he heard there: "One may hear sermons in New York upon almost any subject; one only is never handled, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the cross, of sin and forgiveness." - "Dietrich Bonhoeffer," Christian History, no. 32.
D. One night very late in the evening when a pastor was called to the hospital. As he was walking down the semi-dark hall, with no people around, a man suddenly ran out of one of the patient rooms. He ran up to the pastor – the pastor had never seen him before--and said to him with joy in his face, "She’s going to make it. She’s better. She is going to make it," and then he made his way on down the hall. The preacher has not seen the man since. He does not know who the man was talking about. Apparently, it was someone very near and dear to him, and he had just received good news. He could not wait to share it. He did not even have to know the person with whom he shared it; it just flowed from him because he had received good news, and good news is to be shared. – Don Mckenzie
E. Acts 4:20 "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
F. Luigi Tarisio was found dead one morning in his home. There were few if any comforts in his home. However, in the home were found 246 exquisite violins, which he had been collecting all his life, crammed into an attic, the best in the bottom drawer of an old rickety bureau. In his very devotion to the violin, he had robbed the world of all that music the entire time he treasured them; others before him had done the same, so that when the greatest of his collection, a Stradivarius, was first played, it had been silent for 147 speechless years. How many of Christ’s people are like old Tarisio? In our very love of God’s grace, we fail to give those glad tidings to the world; in our zeal for the truth we forget to publish it. When are we going to learn that the Good News needs not just to be cherished, but needs to be told? All people need to hear it. -James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 492.
IV. The Word of God must be lived. (Show it).
A. The value of the Bible is not knowing it, but obeying it.
B. Knowing the Bible is of little benefit unless you practice it.
C. James 1:22 "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."
D. Let not thy Word, O Lord, become a judgment upon us, that we hear it and do it not, that we believe it and obey it not. - Attributed to Thomas a Kempis. Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 3.
E. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe."
F. John 14:23 "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
G. Spiritual maturity comes not by education, but by compliance with the known will of God.
H. The best thing to do with the Bible is to know it in your mind, stow it in your heart, sow it in the world, and show it in your life.
