the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Romans 10:14
‘How shall they believe . . . . ;’
Read Romans 10:1-21
In Romans 10:14-17 the apostle Paul tells us four things which are impossible. He has declared, ‘Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ And we rejoice to know that it is true. Yet we must not ignore the fact that Paul plainly tells us that certain things must take place before any sinner can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
1.No one can call upon Christ for mercy until he believes on Christ. In order for a man to seek the mercy of God in Christ by faith he must believe the testimony God has given concerning his Son: ‘ How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?’
2. No one can truly believe on Christ until he hears the gospel of Christ. ‘How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?’ Sinners today are being asked to ‘believe on Jesus’, but the preachers are not telling anyone who the Lord Jesus Christ is what he has done where he is now or how God in justice saves sinners by the substitutionary sacrifice of his Son. Until the sinner has heard these things faithfully proclaimed he cannot have or exercise true faith in Christ and be saved. No one is saved where the gospel is not faithfully proclaimed.
3. No one can hear the gospel of Christ without a preacher. God has chosen to save sinners by the instrumentality of gospel preaching. God does not call sinners to Christ by the voice of angels or the voice of singers. God calls sinners to Christ by the Voice of a preacher, by the voice of a man proclaiming the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. ‘How shall they hear without a preacher?... Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.’
4. No man can truly preach the gospel of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit unless he is sent of God. ‘How shall they preach, except they be sent?’ When God intends to call his elect to Christ he always sends a preacher, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to that place where his elect are found, just as he sent Philip to preach the gospel to the eunuch.
