A
Study of the Book of Romans
Sermon
#24
“The Power of God to Save.”
Romans 10:8-21
First, The Means
of Salvation (vv. 8-10)
“But what does it say? “The
word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which
we preach): (9) that 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. (10) For with the heart
one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
What does Paul mean in
verse ten when he says that we are to make “confession with our mouths.” We are
of course, to make public confession openly and audibly, but there is more here.
“In saying, then, that
confession is made unto salvation, the apostle does not mean that it is the cause of
salvation, or that without it the title to salvation is incomplete. When a person believes
in his heart, he is justified. But confession of Christ is in effect of faith, and will be
evidence of it at the last day. Faith which interests the sinner in the righteousness of
Christ is manifested by the confession of His name in the face of danger.” [Robert
Haldane, Source unknown - http://www.bible.org/illus/romans]
Dr Boice in his
commentary suggests eight ways in which we can confess Christ.
1. In public worship. We witness of our
2. By observing the ordinances. The
3. Through Association with God’s people.
4. By how we conduct business.
5. In reaching
out to others. (Evangelism)
6. By how we respond to temptation.
7. By how we endure trials. The world is looking; they want to
know if your faith gives you the ability to react differently
in the face of difficulty. Every difficulty is an opportunity
to show a lost world the difference that Jesus makes.
8. By how we meet death.
[James Montgomery
Boice. Romans: God and History (Romans 9-11) Vol.
3 ( Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993) pp. 1209-12]
(11)
For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
Secondly, The Message
Of Salvation (vv. 12-13)
“For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. (13)
For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”
I think that we all understand that
salvation is available to everyone. It
does not matter who you are or what you may or may not have done. You can be rich or poor,
educated or uneducated. Yet the disciples themselves had to have a little help with
understanding this great truth. Peter was
struggling with this very issue when God spoke to him in Acts 10. Cornelius was a devout
Gentile man to whom God had given a vision to send to Joppa and bring back a man named
Simon Peter (10:5).
Meanwhile God was
giving a corresponding vision to Peter to prepare him for the visit. He saw heaven opened
and something like a great sheet descending (v. 11). In it were many animals some were
clean some were unclean. Peter was commanded to get up and kill and eat (v. 13) this he of
course refused to do (v. 14) because these animals were unclean. Three times Peter was
told not to call anything unclean that God has made clean.
About this time the
men from Joppa arrived and Peter understood that the vision concerned their request for
him to go with them. As Peter presents God’s truth to them he begins (v. 34) by
saying that he now realizes that really is not favoritism in the sight of God, that he is
willing to save anyone who call out to Him for salvation. Peter ends his sermon in verse
forty-three by declaring “To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever
believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”
That is exactly the
point that Paul was making in Romans 10:13.
Third,
The Mandate For Missions
“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
unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who
preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things.”
Verse thirteen had declared, “Everyone who calls upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That tells us that it is for
everybody. But how can people who do that unless they know about Jesus? And how can they
know about Jesus unless someone tells them?
It is hard for us to
conceive that there was ever a time in the history of the church when missions was not
seen as central to its purpose but there was. At a ministers'
meeting in 1786, a young cobbler/school teacher/preacher William
Carey raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the
Gospel throughout the world. He classic response he received was “Young man, when God
chooses to save the heathen of India, he will do so without your help or mine.”
Fortunately William Carey persisted, the modern mission movement was the result.
I want to give you a
staggering statistic. It is said that
· 91% of the world’s population has heard
of coke.
· 74% have seen coke.
· 51% have tasted.
· Yet only 10% of the world’s population
has heard the Gospel. [Source unknown- www.bible.org/illus/missions]
Let
me break down the facts for you
“According to a recent report
by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention the world’s
population is 5.3 billion (US Census Bureau [2006] it is now 6.5
billion). Roughly one-third (1.7 billion) are people who would
call themselves Christians. Among the other two-thirds, one-third (1.3 billion) have never
heard the gospel, and the other two-thirds (2.3 billion) have heard it but are
unconverted. The first group, which includes most of the western nations, accounts for 62%
of the world’s wealth. It spends 97% of that on itself. The remaining 3% is divided
between secular charities which get 1% of its resources, and Christian causes of all kinds
which get 2%.
Of that 2% allotted to Christian causes, 99.9%
is spent in our own countries to provide for our own churches and Christian institutions. Of the remaining .1% spent for Christian work abroad,
0.9% is spent on those who have already heard the gospel but are unconverted and only .01%
on the 1.3 billion who have never even heard the name of Jesus! [As quoted by Boice. Romans: God and
History pp. 1243
The second half of verse fifteen
says, “How beautiful
are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good
things!”
“Donald Barnhouse told of a
man with the disease, elephantiasis. With this disease the leg from the knee down to the
foot can become as large as 12-15 inches in diameter and naturally is quite painful.
This man, from Western Africa, became a radiant
Christian but was able to do little because of his disease. What he knew he could do was
tell others about Christ. He determined that
every soul in the village would hear the good news of salvation. Though it was difficult for him to walk he went
from hut to hut in that village to tell them what Christ had done in his life. Every night
he would come home to be cared for by his relatives.
After several months of enduring the discomfort and pain he had talked to
everyone in the village.
Next he walked the two miles to the
neighboring village. He would walk the two miles to the village, talk to as many people as
possible, and then walk the two painful miles home. After several weeks every person in
that village had heard about the death and resurrection of the Savior also.
The man thought that was all he could do. Soon he
had a burden for a town that was ten or twelve miles through the African jungle. The
missionary Doctor advised him, not to make the long journey to the village. His heart for the lost would not let him stay
home. Early one morning he started off on the difficult journey. He had to stop many times
but he made it to the village a little after noon. His feet were greatly swollen, bruised
and bleeding. The people of the village offered him food but before he would eat, he told
them about God and how he sent his son to die for them and then was raised from the dead.
He told how Jesus had come into his heard and brought him, hope, joy, and peace.
That man went to every home in the village that day
and because there was no place for him to spend the night started off near evening to
return home. He walked through the dangerous
jungle in the deep darkness of night. The man later reported that the only thing that kept
him from being afraid was the wonderful joy of seeing people come to trust the Savior.
Around midnight the Doctor was awakened by a noise at his front door. He found the man at
his doorstep, almost unconscious with his leg stumps wounded and bleeding. The doctor took
him into his infirmary and cared for the feet that were in such terrible shape. As the
Doctor cleaned and cared for those feet he wept at the thought of such love and devotion
to the Savior and for those who needed to hear the message of salvation. The Doctor could
not help but think about the words from the book of Romans.” [Boice, Romans Vol. 3 p. 1250-
1251]
Fourth,
Possible Responses to the Gospel (vv.
16-21)
“But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah
says, “LORD, who has believed our report?”
· Sad
Reality of Unbelief (v. 16)
Yet even when the
gospel is faithfully presented, not everyone is going to believe. That is hard for us to understand! The Israelites
as a whole are prime examples of those who had heard but most still chose not to believe.
We cannot understand how someone would refuse to respond to God’s offer of
forgiveness and eternal life?
Yet we need to
understand this reality or we will become discouraged in our attempts to share the gospel
with others. It is human nature to assume
that when our attempts to witness bear no fruit, it must be because we did something
wrong. But that’s just not true. Your presentation of the gospel can be flawlessly
and still some will choose not believe. We
must not give up, but we must also not be discouraged.
· The Startling Power of the Gospel to Change Lives (v. 17)
“So then faith comes by
hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
The truth that jumps
out at us is, if the lost can only come to faith by hearing the Gospel message; then we
need to make sure that they hear!
· The Sad Excuses For Unbelief
“But I say, have they not
heard? Yes indeed: “Their sound has gone out to all the earth, And their
words to the ends of the world. (19) But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says:
“I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, I will move you to
anger by a foolish nation.” (20) But Isaiah is very bold and says: “I was found
by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.”
(21) But to Israel he says: “All day long I have stretched out My hands To a
disobedient and contrary people.”
Unbelief is not the
expected or desired response to presentation of the Gospel, but the Lord tells us that it
does happen. In Matthew 13 Jesus told of the
difference kinds of hearers of the Gospel in his parable of the soils. The sad reality of
unbelief is seen in
1. Those who are hard.
2. Those who are shallow.
3. Those who are choked by wealth.
(Mark
10:17-22)