-Transcript-
00:24 Amen. Glory to God. Thank you for joining me, Pastor Clark Covington here today.
00:29 And we are getting to the second part of a two-part series studying Romans 10, how every verse leads to the gospel and what we are to do with it and why God finds people sharing the gospel so beautiful.
00:41 Let’s pick it up here. We’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
00:47 And then look at verse 11, for the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Well, that is the fruit of the gospel, amen, believing the gospel is how we are saved.
00:57 And once we are saved, we are always saved, believing in eternal security here.
01:03 Now let’s look here at verse 12 through 13, okay? All can be saved here. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
01:14 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so we see here that it’s not for just one group, that it’s not just the Jews, which they thought, right?
01:24 They thought they were God’s chosen people because God told Moses that Moses told them that. It’s okay.
01:29 We’re God’s chosen people. And then this new dispensation comes, this new age comes where Paul is preaching Christ crucified to the Gentiles, and now anyone can be saved.
01:39 And so we see here the universal application of the gospel in Romans 10:12-13.
01:43 And then we see here, guess what? Verse 14, this is how it’s done. This is the vehicle for the gospel. Verse 14, how then shall they call on him whom they have not believed?
01:54 And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So we see in verse 14, the vehicle for delivering the gospel is you, my friend, it’s me.
02:04 God’s using us. This is his program for sharing the gospel. Because if people don’t know what the gospel is, how can they be saved? Amen.
02:13 Now, I had a idea of the gospel when I got saved, a very rudimentary idea, and I accepted the Lord there.
02:23 I believe that’s when I got saved. Back there when I was around 22, 21, 22, 21, 22, 23, that’s kind of a wide range. But I think it was around, I mean, I graduated school, college in 2002 and moved to South Carolina and got saved shortly thereafter.
02:41 But for many years, I didn’t understand it. I mean, I was trying to reconcile, well, how can you be popular in the world and have fun in the world, quote, unquote, and still be saved?
02:54 It was very hard for me to reconcile, hard for me to understand. Well, I got right and moved to North Carolina about six, seven years later, eight years later or so.
03:03 And when I moved out to North Carolina, I started hearing the preacher and the preacher was explaining the real fundamentals of the gospel in a way that was very animated and, if you will, yelling, and that really broke through my little stubborn skull and helped me to understand the true gospel.
03:20 And so I believe I was saved at 22, 23, but I was backslid for sure until I was in my early 30s when I really heard the true gospel. And once I heard the true gospel, then I was able to, number one, really repent and get right with God in a much deeper way.
03:39 And then number two, serve him and share the gospel with others effectively and fruitfully, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if the preacher had not been preaching the way that he was preaching. Amen.
03:47 And that’s why I always have a soft spot in my heart.
03:54 Even though I don’t yell, scream, and spit, I have a soft spot in my heart for that preacher that does because, let me be honest with you, I needed that. I needed that.
04:01 I needed that ice bath Sunday after Sunday, Wednesday after Wednesday, that uncomfortable truth over and over again.
04:07 It took this stubborn person a long time. And so, again, people sometimes, they get on the old-fashioned preacher and they say, oh, man, this is very loud, or my kids will be like, whoa, this person’s screaming when we go to revival or something. And I’m saying, hey, you know what? Some people need that.
04:21 God made that individual to preach that message for a reason. And that’s Romans 10:14, right? How can they hear without a preacher? Verse 15, how shall they preach except they be sent?
04:33 As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. So we need to be sent.
04:41 God is the one that sends people to share it. And this is what God finds beautiful, is when he sends those to share it, we have to be called to the ministry. Someone says it’s a job.
04:50 It’s not a job, amen. It’s a calling, amen. Those that preach the gospel, those that I know that preach the gospel, most effectively, they didn’t sign up for it.
04:59 They didn’t just say, oh, this is what I’m going to do. They were called, amen. God burdened them.
05:05 That’s the idea of surrendering to the Lord, surrendering to preach, amen. All right, for time’s sake, moving on here. Let’s see, verse 16, but they have not all obeyed the gospel.
05:17 For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? Wow, not everybody obeys the gospel. The need for gospel preaching is as big as ever because many haven’t believed the gospel and certainly aren’t obeying it. Verse 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
05:31 I’ll just keep reading here. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, did not Israel know?
05:42 First Moses saith, I provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people and by a foolish nation that I will anger you.
05:54 But Isaiah is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
06:06 And so we see so much truth here in these last four or five verses. Verse 17 here, the solution for winning souls, the word, okay? So faith cometh by hearing and hearing the word of God. This is how we grow our faith.
06:14 We get into God’s word, amen. I gave the example of being in South Carolina and being in a much bigger church and not really diving deep in the word, not criticizing the church as much as just my youth and so forth and indifference, and wasn’t diving in the word.
06:28 And so my faith was very shallow. And then I went to a fundamental Bible-believing church, Independent Baptist, where we studied God’s word verse by verse, day after day, week after week, year after year, revival and tent meeting, this, that, and the other, youth camp and so on.
06:43 And guess what? As I got deeper into God’s word, oh wow, Romans 10, 17 really started to become true. Verse 18, it’s God’s design is not to withhold the message from anyone. God wants this to go everywhere.
06:57 He wants it to go to the whole world. He wanted it to go to his chosen people. He had it go to his chosen people.
07:06 Read the prophets there in the Old Testament. Read Ezekiel, read Jeremiah, and how they share this gospel truth and prophecy, Isaiah. And yet the Israelites would not believe it.
07:12 They would not take hold to it, amen. And we see here that God says, okay, if you won’t believe it, I’ll turn to the Gentiles. They’ll take hold of it. That’s the prophecy of the gospel future.
07:22 And we see Israel showing great unbelief, the rejection of the gospel by God’s chosen people. So what does God do?
07:32 God chooses to blind them for a season, and he’ll return to his people. He’s not done with his people.
07:37 And by the way, when preachers say he’s not done with his people, God never left the Israelites. God has not left them, okay? He’s not done with his people, and he hasn’t left his people. God loves his people.
07:45 And in the Bible, prophecy shows us that in the end, he will rescue his people, the Israelites, and he will save them, amen, and they will prosper in his hands.
08:00 And that is God’s true love story, not just for us Gentiles to be saved, because remember, we’re outsiders. We’re foreigners. Even the Lord called us dogs, amen. We’re outside the bounds. And we’re saved.
08:13 We’re beautifully grafted in, amen, which is a beautiful idea in the book of Romans that we are grafted in to the family. But God’s not done with Israel, and God has never been done with them. He simply blinded them.
08:20 So you can take Isaiah, you know, 52, 53, and you show it to a Jewish person, and you’re stunned that they don’t see Jesus and all the prophecy that the prophet Isaiah is sharing there.
08:29 And you say, how could they not see it? Don’t be stunned. And certainly don’t be mad at them.
08:34 It’s great to share it with them. But God has blinded them for a season, just the way that we’ve been blinded. The only way that I was saved, amen, is because God opened my eyes.
08:41 He opened my heart. That’s it. God had to do that, amen.
08:46 Now, I had witnesses come to me, and I thank God for that. But it was God that did the saving, amen. And so we just thank God for these verses in Romans 10, every single verse all pointing to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
08:56 Now, for time’s sake, I wish I could just have a few hours with you here, because there’s no way you could rush through what God did for us through Jesus Christ, what Christ endured on the cross.
09:15 And you may be thinking, brother, you ain’t got a few hours, you got a few minutes, amen. Okay, so let me see what I can get here across, because I spent a lot of time going through Romans 10, because I believe God’s word preaches better than I can.
09:26 Number one. And number two, that Romans 10 points to the beauty, I mean, think about the sheer real estate that Paul, through the work of the Holy Spirit, has allotted to God’s gospel and these foundational verses.
09:39 What Christ endured on the cross is a suffering beyond comprehension.
09:47 And if I had time, I would read Isaiah 53:4-10. Look that up if you have a chance. Isaiah 53:4-10, or just read Isaiah 53 altogether.
09:56 The idea here is that Christ had to drink from the bitter cup of sin for all humanity for all time. So think about this. Christ didn’t just die for the sins of one or a few, he died for the sins of all.
10:12 And as he died for the sins of all, it wasn’t just for his time or for his time plus the past. It was for his time, all the past and all the future is for all time.
10:26 And so Christ being perfect, being the propitiation, being the substitute, being the atonement for our sin debt, being perfect and sinless, being born of a virgin, living on earth 33 and a half years, perfect, never sinned.
10:42 Okay. I always think of that too, when you read the red letter text, you’re like, this is coming from Jesus who never sinned. It’s just incredible.
10:47 Okay. Perfect. Perfect.
10:48 Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
10:51 Perfect. Jesus on our best day, we are very, very, very imperfect. So yeah, he had to go die on the cross.
10:56 Why? For sin for everyone’s sin for Hitler’s sin for the child rapists sin for the murderers sin. There was no sin that Christ didn’t go to the cross for. I believe that now he didn’t save all those people because they have to accept his free gift of salvation.
11:14 But he drank of that bitter cup to atone for all sin for all mankind. And again, you get into Isaiah 53 and it says that he was bruised for our iniquities, our sins. He was chastised for us.
11:29 It pleased God for Jesus Christ to suffer the most brutal, horrific death ever in the history of mankind. And he didn’t deserve it. Matter of fact, he didn’t speak.
11:40 He did not speak. He could have spoken. He could have justified himself.
11:44 He could have said, look, I just be clear here, I’m God and I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for you. So yeah, you want to go ahead and humiliate me and mock me and ridicule me and punish me and torture me.
11:53 That’s all fine. But it’s not true. I don’t deserve it.
11:56 No, he took, he took it as one deserving of it, even though he didn’t deserve any of it. That’s why he asked the Lord to let that cup pass, but nevertheless let his will be done.
12:05 That’s why he sweat blood drops in the garden there as he prepared for his passion on the cross.
12:14 That is why it was the most excruciating thing that anyone could ever go through, dying on the cross. That is what Jesus Christ did for us. And I think of my own sin.
12:24 And as I read the Bible, the Lord convicts me of just how much of a sinner I am and how badly I need a savior and how forgiven I am. Amen. And that’s why I’d say it is Lord convicts me of how forgiven I am through Jesus Christ.
12:33 But I think of my own sin and the own bad things I’ve done. And I think that Christ died for all of those sins and all of your sins.
12:42 The bad ones, the awful ones, the unexplainable ones, Christ died for those was buried three days and rose again miraculously by the power of God so that we could be saved so that we could be saved.
12:59 It’s absolutely phenomenal. It’s absolutely awe-inspiring. It’s absolutely eternally valuable.
13:07 In eternity, we will praise Jesus Christ for what he did on the cross forever. We’ll never stop praising him. The praise will go on and on and on and on, and it’ll be so beautiful.
13:18 It’ll be so beautiful. I believe there’s a fountain of blood there in heaven, amen. I believe the blood has been preserved, amen.
13:24 And we will celebrate Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross at Calvary to save us when we couldn’t save ourselves, amen, to save us when we couldn’t save ourselves.
13:38 So what are you going to do with that, understanding what Christ has done for you? Are you going to be like that family that I gave in the introduction that on the outside by all appearances are living as God would have them to live,
13:51 but biblically are not living as God would have them to live because they surely are not understanding that the power of his gospel, the truth of his gospel, beholding Christ on the cross, understanding what he’s done for them, and then doing something to be fruitful for God.
14:06 We are born again to do what? To be fruitful, amen.
14:15 God put us here to help win souls, and we can’t win souls until we’re saved. But once we’re saved, amen, we need to be about our Father’s business. So what will you do?
14:21 Will you commit to seeking the Lord and sharing the gospel today? I believe the Lord will bless you if you will.
14:26 Seek the Lord to share the gospel. Thank you for listening. Take care.
14:29 God bless and amen.