This Sunday we had a Missionary that is headed to Belize give a sermon at our church.  It was an excellent sermon from Romans chapter 10.  The context of the verses sound like it was specifically written for Missionary's, but then he gave us the rest of the story.  The paragraph he was preaching on is preceded by this verse; v. 13, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  What beautiful and comforting words those are.  Although in reading on you see that the next word is But!  His sermon was on the next two verses, 14 and 15; But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

 

  His sermon reversed the ‘but events’ to show more easily what needs to happen before someone can call on the name of the Lord.  All believers have followed these same five actions in their own lives. 

 

Sent >>>Preach >>>Hear >>>Believe >>>Call

 

Everyone has had someone in their life that was ‘sent’ to tell them the Gospel story.  That someone could be any number of people, but usually a parent or a pastor.  Once that sent person has preached, we must hear in our mind and our heart.  Jesus said a number of times, He that has ears, let him hear.... Once the message is in our hearts and we believe, that is when we are prompted by the Holy Spirit to call on the name of the Lord. 

 

     But when you look at this process that sounds humanly simple, it only takes one broken link to miss our place in eternity.  I firmly believe that the sent part has been accomplished in this day and age.  There are many Bible preaching Pastors out there along with a plethora of information both in print and digitally that can take care of the sent.  Which will also deliver the preaching part of the process.  Notice that I did say plenty of Bible Preaching Pastors.  But once the sent people preach the right Gospel message, hearing is what we have to do.  A perfect example of a broken link is when Jesus Himself was on this earth preaching the correct message, and the Jews of that time did not believe, in fact the Jews of that time crucified Him.  So Jesus was sent, He preached, they heard, but the process fell apart on believe.  They couldn’t believe that Jesus was their Messiah.

 

       So, we have to hear with our ears but it has to settle in our hearts, v10, For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified.  When you know it in your heart, that is when you believe, that is when you call on the name of the Lord.  It is through hearing that we build our faith, v17, So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing by the word of God.  Back in those Bible times, the only way to get the message was by hearing, there were no Bibles back then to read, it was all done by hearing the message.  We absolutely don’t realize how fortunate we are today with all of this information at our fingertips.

 

The Jews of that time did have the writings of Moses and the other Prophets, such as Isaiah, Daniel, etc, and with all the information they had about the coming of Jesus, we wonder how they could not have known.  BUT now, we have more information available to us in any format we want to receive it, won’t we be held more responsible to know what is expected of us especially if we fail to do the simple tasks that are required of us?  We will have no excuse for failing to call on the name of the Lord.