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by Katie Erickson

“But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did:
‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’
Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says,
‘I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.’
And Isaiah boldly says,
‘I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.’
But concerning Israel he says,
‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.’” (Romans 10:16-21)

Have you ever really, really wanted someone to do something that you know is good for them, and they just won’t do it? Maybe it’s trying to get a child to eat their vegetables, or a teenager to stop texting while driving. You know it’s good for them, but they just don’t see the good so they refuse to do it.

That’s what Paul is experiencing here with the people of Israel, the Jews. Since the beginning of chapter 9, he’s been emphasizing how salvation is for everyone (both Jews and non-Jews) and how the Jews in particular need to change their way of thinking and recognize Jesus as the Messiah. They’re no longer obligated to completely follow the rules of the law that they had known for generations in order to be saved; they can now experience salvation through faith, because of the grace that God will show them.

In verse 17, Paul gives the condensed version of the steps for salvation from verse 14, that they have to hear the message of Jesus Christ in order to believe it for salvation. Have the Israelites heard this message? Of course they have (verse 18)! Even if they haven’t been specifically preached to, they know the character of God.

In verse 18, Paul quotes Psalm 19:4, which says, “Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.” While this may seem to say that the message of the gospel has gone into ALL the earth, we know that isn’t the case; the message hadn’t even reached all of the inhabited world at that time. This is likely just exaggeration, and Paul is simply using the exact wording of that verse to refer to the rest of the psalm. The main theme of Psalm 19 is how God’s character is revealed through His natural creation. God has also revealed His character to the Jews for generations, and they have the Old Testament Scriptures that very clearly point to Jesus as the Messiah, so they truly have no excuse!

In verses 19-21, Paul then turns to the Old Testament Scriptures again to confirm that salvation is for both Jews and Gentiles. He quotes Deuteronomy 32:21 from Moses’s teaching, and Isaiah 65:1 and 2. While the first two verses quoted show that salvation is for all, Isaiah 65:2 shows that God is really trying to reach out to His people of Israel: “All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people.” Israel continues to rebel and be obstinate toward God, yet He still continues to reach out to them.

God does that today with us too. We continuously rebel against God and disobey His Word, yet He’s always reaching out to us. Salvation is for us, too! The Bible is so accessible today, both in print and various electronic versions, that we have no excuse not to believe. If you’re reading this blog, you have full access to many versions of the Bible online, and in your native language. Bible translators are working hard every day to get the Word into the hands of more and more people, and missionaries are continuously working to share the Gospel message with everyone.

Just like the Israelites, we have no excuse for not believing the Gospel message. The desire of Paul’s heart is that the Israelites believe; the desire of our hearts at Worldview Warriors is that YOU believe. Confess Jesus as Lord with your mouth and believe in Him in your heart today!

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.

by Ami Samuels

Have you ever taken a step in the wrong direction, a step that caused you to stumble? There have been steps that have tripped me up. I have tripped going upstairs, and one of my most embarrassing moments came when I tripped in a softball game.

It was my freshman year of high school, and I was coming in off of the bench to play in right field. It was in between innings, and I was so excited to enter the varsity game that I didn’t realize that my stirrup had come out of my shoe. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, before they made the socks with the colored stripes on the side, we wore long white socks and a colored stirrup sock that came up around the top of your calf and tucked under your heel in your cleats. As I rather enthusiastically ran into right field I tripped on my stirrup sock and went sailing into the wet grass. What an embarrassing moment.

However, today I would like to talk about taking a step in the right direction: one step towards a stronger, more committed relationship with Jesus.

I have found that in life if we aren’t moving forward, we are either standing still or moving in the other direction. So, if we aren’t taking steps toward a personal relationship with Jesus, we are either standing still or moving away from Him.

Where are you? Are you standing still, moving forward and growing in your relationship, or are you moving away from Jesus?

In Matthew 14:25-31, Jesus is walking on water toward the boat that the disciples are in. Not only do they see a man walking on water, but it is in the middle of the night and dark, with the wind and waves crashing against the boat. The disciples were terrified and cried out in fear. Picking up in verse 27: “But Jesus immediately said to them: ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’
‘Lord, if it’s you,’ Peter replied, ‘Tell me to come to you on the water.’
‘Come,’ Jesus said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”

Sometimes I think that people feel that Christianity is overwhelming and so instead of doing anything, they stay put. Peter could have stayed safely seated in the boat like the other disciples, but he listened to Jesus’ commands. Jesus told all of the disciples to “Take courage and don’t be afraid.” Peter was the only one to get out of the boat and the only one to experience walking on water with Jesus. I want to encourage you to NOT stay safely in your comfort zone but to take ONE STEP towards a closer personal relationship with Jesus.

What might that step look like for you?
Regular church attendance
Daily Bible reading
Daily prayer
Scripture memorization
Making better media choices
Stepping out in service

Pray about ONE STEP you can take to grow in your relationship with Christ this week and take that step toward Jesus.

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.

by Nathan Buck

When we moved back to Pennsylvania after being in ministry in Ohio for 15 years, it seemed like the transition took forever. We knew we were where God wanted us, and we knew we had listened carefully for His direction on when, how, and where our sabbatical would begin. But, here we sat in Pennsylvania waiting for our house to sell in Ohio.

We greatly appreciated the support of our friends who were walking through this with us and helped us keep our eyes on the facts and the plan God had in front of us. We did NOT appreciate the religious outside observers who were all too willing to offer their comments and suspicions as to why our house hadn't sold. Wild speculations and rumors that ranged from us "missing God's plan," to me having some "hidden sin issue" all made their way back to us. It was aggravating, and it hurt.

  To know we had done right and to be stuck in a place where we felt like we were straddling worlds, instead of resting and re-tooling, was challenging enough. The speculations of others who had no investment and no real relationship with us should have been just background noise. But when you are in a hard situation, it's easy to doubt, to fear, to question; it's easy to hear those who decide to voice their criticisms and insults. After all, God quickly sold the houses of other colleagues when they transitioned; maybe we missed something?

It’s so easy to get caught up in doubt, and it's hard to trust God when things aren't going the way we hoped. The truth is, we were in the right place, we just had assumptions about how He was going to tie up all the loose ends of the transition. Our friends who reminded us of the truth, who kept us focused on the pieces we did know, and encouraged us with insight into each step of that season were and are precious to us.

What about those who don't have a relationship with God? If we, who have a relationship with God, struggled to see what was true and keep our perspective healthy - how difficult is it for those who face life's challenges without God? Who helps them check their perspective? Who will they trust to work their situation out to a good end?

Look at what Paul writes in Romans 10:14-15: "How, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'"

The last part of verse 15, Paul is quoting the book of Isaiah 52:7. Whenever a Jewish teacher quotes a verse, it's important to go and read the context. The verses before and after usually underscore the point being made - more so than just the verse they quoted. In Isaiah 52, God reveals part of His plan for a savior who will rescue His people. But just before He does, there is this section Paul quotes from. I encourage you to go and read it, to see how God describes His people being captives to other nations who mock Him.

In that situation of captivity, God promises that He will make His name known and He will rescue His people - in the sight of all the nations. It seems that in captivity, Israel must have begun to forget about God, as they heard the mocking of the nations who had captured them. God specifically promises that His people will know that He is the one who promised and foretold their rescue, and that He alone is in charge ("...your God reigns" in verse 7). It is the one who brings that message to God's people in that dark time that would be greatly appreciated - whose feet would be beautiful.

I don't know how an ancient or first century Jew would have understood "...beautiful on the mountains, are the feet..." but I DO know the treasure it is to have those who remind you of God's love and promises, especially in our most challenging situations. I do know how beautiful it was to hear our realtor call and say, "It's sold!"

And by the way, notice that Paul is challenging believers to be the messengers of God's good news. God fulfilled His promise of sending a savior. God gives us hope in being fully alive through being a follower of Jesus. God promises rescue and provision as we walk with Him, even if it doesn't look the way we expect. As followers of Jesus we are commissioned to be those who bring that message to others.

So how are you doing with that? Do your feet stink, like those who gossip and spread rumors? Or are the people around you hearing truth and being encouraged with hope in God's promises?

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.

by Charlie Wolcott

Many people love to talk about kind and fluffy attributes of God. We tend to love that God is love, that he is faithful, and that he is kind and good. But something we tend to not like as much is that God is sovereign. This means that God is in control and that he is the highest authority on all matters. There are a lot of aspects we can explore with this, but today I want to lay down what it is and how to be careful not to abuse this claim.

There is absolutely nothing that catches God off guard. He is all-knowing, which is another attribute I will address later. He knows the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning. Yet somehow God is not responsible for everything that goes on. Many question God, suggesting, “If God is all powerful, why doesn’t he stop this or that?” This argument is used to suggest God is either not all-powerful or he is a cruel God. But is this so?

The perfect case study for this argument is Job. Satan went to God just roaming around and God brought Job up to Satan’s attention. It was like a little gamble where God said Job would never curse him with his lips. It was a brutal week where Satan took away Job’s children, his wealth, and his health. His best friends insisted Job had sinned, and Job’s own wife told him it was all God’s fault. Job maintained his innocence but he often accused God of being unjust. He did not curse him, but he constantly asked God what his crime was. When God responded, he did not directly answer Job’s complaint, but simply asked him if he was in the proper place to make such a complaint. And Job responded by saying he was not worthy of charging God of wrongdoing and praised and worshiped him. We have to remember that we are not the standards of what constitutes good or bad, loving or cruel.

God is like an author or a movie director. He is putting all the characters and pieces together to create a masterpiece. And as an author, I can relate. When I create my characters, they really do take on their own personalities. If they don’t, I have not developed them enough. And as I have written my novels, I have had characters fight and re-direct me because I was trying to get them to do something they would not do. That problem arises because I do not know my characters as well as I should. God, however, knows us far better than we know ourselves. So he knows where to put us, what to put in our paths, and what situations we can or cannot handle. But he allows us to choose how we respond to those situations.

There are two extremes, two fallacies, that I have seen in how people respond to God’s sovereignty and I want to caution us against them. The first fallacy is that God is responsible for everything that happens. If God is in control, has the power and authority to address every situation, and is not cruel, then he must intentionally direct every decision made… right? This is the position taken by hyper-Calvinists in how they deal with salvation, that God already determines who will saved and who won’t be. But this is a false teaching, because God is not responsible for sin. Yes, he allowed us to rebel against him, but that is not the same as him causing it.

If God was responsible for every action, then what was the point of giving the law? What was the point of having the Israelites shout the blessings and curses for obedience and disobedience? What was the point of Joshua telling us, “Choose you this day whom will you serve”? What was the point of Jesus saying, “Unless you repent, you too will perish”? The point I can see is that even though God is in control, he allows us to have a choice in whether we respond to him to not. That does not mean we are able to thwart God’s plans. That does not mean if we don’t respond in the way we should that God has to panic and come up with Plan B. No, God’s sovereignty and his plan includes knowing what our decisions are. In the same way as an author, once I know my characters, I can write the plot based on how my characters will make their decisions. I don’t force the decision, but I direct the events based on those decisions, and I create situations where I know how my characters will respond. God does the same idea with us, only he does it perfectly and does not require second or third drafts. To get more of this idea read Nathan Buck’s post “Is God a Cosmic Puppet Master?”

The other fallacy I often see is giving someone platitudes. Let me explain that. Many people will ask, “God, why did you let my relative die?” What about the loss of a loved one? Dealing with cancer or other diseases? Natural disasters? A mass shooter or terrorist attack? Nationwide starvation? What is the deal? If God is in control and he is all-powerful, why doesn’t he do something about it?

These are very real questions and the last thing I could do to help is to give a platitude. Don’t worry; God has it under control. How often do we give nothing more than “pat-on-the-back-answers” that does absolutely nothing to help out with the situation? That is a platitude, a cheap answer that doesn’t cost you anything but sounds doctrinally okay. Can we really answer these questions?

I am not going to try to answer them here, and the reason I should not is because I don’t have all the details. I have seen too many well-meaning platitudes that either do not help or make things worse. I heard of one well-meaning person tell a couple who lost their child, “If you had more faith, your child would not have died.” They intended well, but that was a bitter slap on the face to this couple. Sometimes there are no answers we can give and the best thing to do is to simply mourn with them, not saying anything.

But many times, God does not give us a direct answer. He will often simply ask, “Do you trust me?” Remember his other attributes: love, justice, holiness, mercy, grace. When he allows a tragic event to take place, all these other attributes are playing a role. We cannot see the whole picture and too often we think we could do a better job than God. But I am in the process of learning that God is still in control of every situation. He knows what is going on and he knows what situations we have coming up. And knowing that God is sovereign, knowing that nothing takes God by surprise, gives me peace in the situations I am in. I hope this helps you too in whatever you are facing.

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.

by Steve Risner

[This blog post is part of a series. The previous one is here, and the next one is here.]

Without the creation account being a real set of events and without Adam and Eve being two real people as they were described in Genesis, there is literally nothing that follows in the Bible that matters. This is the basic idea of today's blog post. Everything has a foundation. If you remove the foundation, you are left with something very unstable. Every doctrine we find in the New Testament is rooted in a literal Genesis account. We’ve spent the last few weeks looking at theistic evolution. The theistic evolutionist has absolutely no basis for their theology whatsoever and they have 2000 years of church history to undo. This is a fact that I have not seen adequately answered by a theistic evolutionist. The truth of the matter—the ultimate crux, I guess—is that creation and redemption are inseparable, but the theistic evolutionist disassociates them. They will call one a myth while they hold on to the other as a fact of history. What a gigantic contradiction!

The issues with rejecting the creation account as a literal history are exceptional. Truly, if we reduce Genesis to a myth with an opportunity to teach us something true (which is strange since God told us this story as though it were an historical account, although it is essentially not true according to theistic evolutionists), we lose every major Christian doctrine and we reduce Gospel to Jesus just teaching us to live right and other such nonsensical ideas, an exquisitely watered down Gospel. Lowering the account to mythology creates more questions and more problems than it answers or solves. When confronted with the decision—is the Biblical account of creation true or is the ever changing, currently popular story told by my culture true—we must have faith in our Lord that His Word is true. Had Darwin never written On the Origin of Species, no one would have any reason to suggest that the creation account is anything but a literal history. In fact, for centuries, this was the commonly held belief. We cannot find just cause in church history or in the Bible itself to suggest what theistic evolution demands. It's really that simple. It's man's attempt to meld secular humanism with Christianity, and our witness is destroyed.

Do you believe that creation and redemption are linked? How frequently have we heard the Gospel start with the creation account? We start with creation, move to the fall, and proceed to Jesus Christ. This is basic Christian teaching. If the fall is figurative, why do you need salvation at all? If Adam, repeatedly referred to as a real person throughout Scripture, is a mythical figure that never existed, how did sin enter the world? If sin entered through the one man who didn't exist, why would we then conclude that the salvation granted by the One Man is real? If Adam wasn't real, Christ, by necessity, couldn't be real either. The nonsensical nature of theistic evolution theology and its clear departure from Scripture is hard to miss.

At what point does the book of Genesis become historical? Does it at all? When was mankind formed in the image of God? Why is Adam referred to as the first man—from the beginning even—if he wasn't? If we are just animals that evolved a little smarter or more complex than other animals, are we different and why? Why do we even need the cross or the resurrection if the fall didn’t happen? What about the crucifixion? What about the resurrection of Christ? What about the ascension? Holy smokes! Gandhi and Buddha taught people how to live. But they did not offer the restorative work that Jesus Christ provided on the cross, in rising from the dead, and in ascending to the Father. If the fall didn't literally happen, then who cares about the rest of the story? Why does it matter? Paul even said if the dead are not raised, then our faith is in vain and we're to be pitied above all others. The Gospel is so much more than Jesus showing us how to live! It's the power over death, sin and the grave! The theological implications here are astounding.

If the creation account is a myth, are we then waiting on the new heavens and new earth for nothing? If perfection wasn't in the beginning, what’s the deal? The Word of God clearly tells us all things will be restored. Restored to what? They would have to be restored to the way they were prior to the fall and curse. Tyler keeps saying these stories are just to teach us something. He neglects to tell us what and he hasn't, that I have seen, explained the rest of Scripture in light of what I will deem his perverted view of the Gospel.

The Bible says many times that each day of creation was “good.” What does this mean? What is the standard by which this creation is being held up against? It's the nature and character of God, of course. At the end of the creation week, we not only see that God believed His work was “good” but we find it was “very good!” This, I believe, is an unimaginably glorious state we will never know until we see Christ face to face as He's seated on the Throne. Theistic evolution paints a very different picture. If the creation is “good” using God as the standard, the entire nature and character of God is nothing like what the Bible paints for us. He would be calling death, mutation, suffering, sickness, struggle, and decay “very good.” How does this work? How is a God that is love and perfect and holy able to see all this and call it “very good”? Would you serve a God that believed death and suffering were good? Is He going to restore all things to a state where death and suffering reign? I sure hope not.

If the creation account and the Flood are mythical and didn't happen, what other supernatural events recorded in the Bible are not real or are mythical? Did God allow Sara to give birth to a child when she was almost 100 years old? Did Joseph really have the ability to interpret dreams that resulted in the saving of a nation and eventually, the saving of his family? Was there a burning bush? Did God send 10 plagues on Egypt? Did He push back the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to cross on dry land? There are hundreds of supernatural events recorded in God's Word that demand an answer; did they happen? Were the miracles Christ did during His earthly ministry real? Does He do miracles in the lives of His people today? Is salvation—the restoration of man to God—a miracle? Is it real?

I have really only scratched the surface here on this idea that creation and redemption are not intimately connected. The theistic evolutionist may claim they believe the two are connected, but the reality is clear they do not. How can an intelligent person hold such inconsistent and nonsensical views? I really would like an answer to this question.

To further demonstrate what I see as the resounding nonsense of theistic evolution, I will quote Ann Lamont:

“When I became a Christian at the completion of my Bachelor of Science degree, I had very little understanding of Christian teaching and had very little knowledge of the Bible, but I had been taught evolution as fact since high school and I had never doubted that it was true. I initially saw no conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, but, as my knowledge of the Bible grew, I came to realize that Christian beliefs and the theory of evolution were incompatible. I also came to realize that, despite having become a science teacher, I was not differentiating between facts (measurements and observations) and interpretations inferred from those facts (e.g. evolution or creation). I then realized that evolution should be rejected.
Unfortunately, when many theistic evolutionist Christians recognize this contradiction, they do not reject evolution. Instead, they lose confidence in the historical accuracy of the Bible and assume that the early chapters of Genesis must only be symbolic. However, once one part of the Bible is re-interpreted to fit in with secular thinking, no part is safe from re-interpretation—not even the message of salvation or Christian moral values (1 Timothy 6:20).”

It's painful to see brothers and sisters in Christ so blindly follow humanist philosophy. It's heart wrenching to watch as they so willfully slide down the slippery slope of secular ideas, reducing the Gospel to “right living” rather than an answer for our lostness, brokenness, and despair.

This is a great resource for more on this topic: http://creation.com/creation-why-it-matters.

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.

by Logan Ames

In our current society of political correctness, people get offended very easily and don’t like it when they feel they are getting “preached at." The word has been given somewhat of a negative connotation from many who don’t really understand what it means. Even if you happen to be speaking truth and are doing so gently, some people don’t like the vulnerable feeling of being lovingly confronted, so they turn it around on you and blame you for getting all “preachy” on them. Despite that negative reaction, we must continue to preach. It is not optional for believers, but something that God commands.

Italian religious leader Saint Francis of Assisi has a quote widely attributed to him: “Preach the gospel always and if necessary, use words." The quote carries so much weight because of how we have misinterpreted the word. In the Bible, the word used most often for “preach” literally means “to proclaim." Who is it that is supposed to “proclaim” truth? Is it only those who went to seminary and took a class on preaching? Of course not! While there is a time and a place for inspiring stories, funny jokes, or thought-provoking metaphors (Jesus often spoke truth in parables), the most important piece of the proclamation is the gospel message, also known as the GOOD NEWS! No matter how much a seasoned pastor can dazzle the congregation with speech, it is all empty talk unless connected to the truth of the gospel.

Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul wrote about the importance of preaching immediately after declaring how a person comes to salvation in Jesus. In Romans 10:14-15, Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions to illustrate the natural process that God has set up for humans to believe in Jesus. Take a minute to read those verses, and look them in light of what Paul had just quoted in verses 12-13. If there is no difference between Jew and Gentile and grace is available to ALL people who view Jesus as Lord, then everyone who calls on him will be saved. But what does it mean to “call” on Jesus? Paul’s questions in verses 14-15 suggest that there does have to be some sincerity to it. Picture yourself as a non-believer. You can’t truly call on Jesus unless you actually believe he is worthy to be called on. You can’t believe that unless you have first heard about it. You can’t hear about it unless someone has proclaimed his truth to you. Finally, there is no one to proclaim the truth to you if no one has been sent out to do so.

God could certainly choose to reveal himself to people without using a human preacher, and there are times where that happens. However, Paul is stating that God’s “typical” way of getting the gospel message out is using human messengers. When you think about the fact that the message began with a very small group of apostles in Jerusalem and spread to the entire world from there, it’s mind-boggling what God has done through simple testimony and truth! But it had to be more than just speaking it. The encouragement in Saint Francis’ quote is that even if you are not a “gifted preacher,” you can proclaim the good news of Jesus with your life. Paul himself writes in his letter to the Colossians that our focus must be on the Lord Jesus Christ whether it is “in word or deed” (Colossians 3:17).

Think about the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others. Their only responsibility was to obey God and speak his truth no matter the audience, circumstances, or personal cost. We don’t read anywhere that they were given special education or training other than how the Holy Spirit prepared and molded them for their task. They would receive a word from the Lord and then they would proclaim it. In my time as a pastor, I’m seeing more and more how true that still is today. It’s not always about digging deep into the Biblical languages or creating stories. It’s much more often about me (or any preacher) experiencing the Lord personally and then proclaiming that truth to others. Paul later tells Timothy to “preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2). This is part of his FINAL instructions just before he dies!

There is nothing more important for believers young and old than to keep proclaiming the gospel in word and deed when it is popular and when it is not. The same word for preaching is used in both Romans 10:14-15 and 2 Timothy 4:2, and it has little to do with what we do on Sunday mornings. It’s much more about how we live our lives. It is important for churches and individuals to receive specific callings to be sent to certain places or people groups to bring the gospel. But aside from those, I believe Paul’s words in this week’s passage are true for ALL believers. Maybe you are wondering where you are being sent; I want to encourage you today to begin with those closest to you. You’ve got your family, friends, co-workers, fellow students, colleagues, neighbors, teammates, and strangers you see at the bank and grocery store. Look at Romans 10:14-15 and put some of those names in there. They can’t call on Jesus unless they first believe in him, which comes as a result of hearing about him, which happens when you are faithful in proclaiming the gospel in how you live and speak. Are you ready to be sent?

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.

by Bill Seng

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” ~Romans 10:14-15

The working out of God’s plan is absolutely magnificent! When it is considered that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and is present everywhere all of the time, one might conclude that God, therefore, will himself bring everyone to repentance. The funny thing is that this statement is true but can be misleading. Rarely ever does God bring someone to repentance without using a human being to deliver his message.

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” It is hard for a country that has been immersed in the blessings of God to understand what a blessing it is to be brought out of the darkness of a wicked land into the glorious riches of the church. Israel had embraced God’s law and his love for quite a while. But when their relationship with God became nothing more than a religion, people started to go astray in horrifying numbers. They turned away from their God to foreign false gods. In Isaiah 51, it states that, “The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm” (51:5). The islands seem to be referring to, aside from the literal meaning, people that had never heard the message of God, people who are secluded from the rest of the world.

I tend to think of the Native American community in this regard. They were in America when this prophecy was being written. They had never heard the message of the one true God. Even though many people glorify their former way of life, it was a brutal existence. There was no peace and there was no security. Even though the native people of America suffered great loss at the hands of the settlers, they also heard the Gospel and many turned to the true God to be their peace. Missionaries back then saw the atrocities that were being carried out against the natives. They were enslaved, their women were raped, and their children were slaughtered. This is not so much characteristic of what the settlers did, but those who came to America to reap the benefits of its hidden wealth. When missionaries rose up against this brutality, they were criticized, threatened, and even forgotten (in a historic sense). What is not considered by historians is that these missionaries made an eternal impact on those they reached. No doubt, they were beautiful in the eyes of those they were reaching.

These imperfect prophets and missionaries are often the vessels God uses to lead people to repentance. He could use people that are nice to look at, eloquent, and charming but his purposes are not served as well when those who are attractive are attracting people. His purposes are better served by the lowly. He could even reveal himself through a cyclone of fire to everyone if he chose to. He does not do that. He chooses to use people to convey his message because it is through people that it can be seen that the weakness of God is greater than mankind’s power.

The above passage puts it clearly. Someone must teach the message so that people can believe it. It is through the preaching of the Gospel that the Holy Spirit makes the truth clear to the individual. A person can harden his or her heart against the work of the Spirit, but the Spirit works powerfully when the Word is preached. If the Word is not preached, people cannot hear. If people cannot hear, it follows that they cannot believe. God’s specific identity can only be revealed when people spread the message about who God is.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder… Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given… And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:2-3, 5-6). You know who he is and if you do not, you know now. He is Jesus. You never forget the person who brought you the good news because they have impacted you in a way that no one else could in their own power. God works through us to touch lives and he works in us to impact us.

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