Can You Hear Me Now?

Series on Romans

XIV Election and the Plan

B All through Failure

Text: 10:16-21

Introduction

Paul has made clear that salvation does not come through our efforts, nor through our works, nor through keeping the commandments but as the gift of God through the message. This after all is what most of us understand by the word gospel. The best known passage of the Bible, John 3:16 and 17 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. This is probably what most people would suggest if asked to summarize the gospel. These verses actually tell us two vital things: first, they tell us that salvation is a gift of love and mercy, and secondly they tell us that the gift is offered to all, both Jew and Gentile. What we are about to see in the verses in this study is the failure to hear what God has said, and what God has said has not only been spoken in history but it has been written down in the Bible. Now there are two ways in which we do not hear in our day to day lives. One is obvious: it is a defect in hearing caused either by an auditory deficiency, or by an environmental problem such as, for example other noise. The second and less obvious way we do not hear is more common, but often undiagnosed. It can be observed in a marriage. The wife says something to her husband and he claims he never heard it. The problem is not physical, but psychological. He was not interested and he considered it a distraction and shut it out. Even though it was eminently hearable, he wasn’t paying attention. This is the kind of deficiency that Paul is talking about here. Israel had a hearing problem and so Paul talks about the pretense, the progress, and the predictions of the Word.

I The Pretense of the Word

Have you seen those Verizon Wireless phone ads with a geeky looking guy walking around visiting all kinds of difficult places and asking, can you hear me now? They are pushing their company’s service as being superior for making connections. I have been thinking that that was what God was saying to Israel in verse 16, But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Long before Jesus came the nation had a hearing problem. They were ignoring God’s pleas, and promises, and threats. When God commissioned Isaiah the prophet, He told Isaiah that he was going to have a difficult time and the message would be rejected because they were a stubborn people. Paul quotes from Isaiah 53:1 and what makes this even more appalling is that Isaiah 53 contains the heart of the gospel, for example verse 6, We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Israel was being given the description of their Messiah, their Deliverer, and the promise of His saving work and they were not listening. Here was the sin bearer presented and they turned a deaf ear.

II The Progress of the Word

Now in verses 17 and 18 the Apostle quotes Psalm 19 in order to demonstrate the progress of the Word so that it might be clear that the opportunity to believe is there for all. Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of 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.” The principle that faith can only be engendered through the Word is an important one. It is how men are saved, through preaching, and it is how Christians are edified through preaching. It is what we call a means of grace, or in other words a way in which grace is delivered to the hearer. So we read in I Peter 1:23, For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. And the Apostle Paul also writes to Timothy in II Timothy 3:16, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Paul’s primary point here, however, is dependent on the quote from Psalm 19 which teaches us that the Revelation of God has gone out to every corner of the globe. The revelation of which David speaks in the Psalm is the revelation in the natural world concerning which Paul wrote in Romans 1:19 and 20. Paul, on the other hand, is speaking of the revelation of the gospel and the way of salvation. He is drawing an analogy. From the Jewish perspective the gospel had already run through most of the “world” as they knew it in the book of Acts and in the first century. “The rapid progress of the gospel in the early days has ever been the amazement of the historian,” wrote Glover in his book, “The Progress of Worldwide Missions.” Already in 150 AD, Justin Martyr, wrote, “There is no people, Greek or barbarian, or of any other race, by whatever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however, ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things.” Half a century later Tertullian adds, “We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate, and forum. We have left you only your temples.” The word had been preached but many Jews still rejected the message and Jesus as their true Messiah and Christ. Paul would have them see it is their fault.

III The Predictions of the Word

And as we read verses 19-21 this is reinforced by the fact that the law and the prophets predicted this disaster, 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.” Essentially Paul says this is no surprise, and they should have seen it coming. Moses had already predicted that Gentile nations would provoke Israel to jealousy, and Isaiah and the prophets repeated the refrain. Not only is this development unsurprising because predicted, but it is also shocking and scandalous. It is hard to believe, so I think Paul’s words here carry a certain reproach to his own people. How could they not understand what Moses and Isaiah say so plainly. Unfortunately the best explanation is in the closing verse where Isaiah says they are obstinate. He pictures God holding out His hands in entreaty to a people who are refusing to come. This is just as Isaiah says in 1:18 and 19, “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land. So Paul reminds the Church in I Corinthians 1:22-24, Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Before we exult in how good our hearing is and mock all the foolishness of Israel we had better look in the mirror. It is true they worshipped the golden calf, and murmured in the wilderness, and failed go up to the promised land because of fear, and after they did go up they practiced idolatry and intermarried with the Canaanites, and we say, “What folly.” But then in I Corinthians 10 Paul reminds us that these stories from the Old Testament were written for OUR admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. We live in the new age of fulfillment, but Paul says pay attention to these examples so that you do not fall into sin just as they did. We all have a hearing problem.