Romans 10:13-18
Isaiah 6:1-9
The highest vocation a man/woman can engage in is the service of the Lord God. And God, in His infinite wisdom, has blessed mankind with the stewardship of His blessed Gospel. He did not entrust this blessedness with the angels. For the angel sent to Cornelius gave him instructions to send for Peter who would preach Christ to Him. Though we are made a little lower than the angels, we have been blessed with the grace of both receiving the gospel and delivering the gospel. And as we have in our text, salvation comes through the preaching of the Gospel.
Your life’s highest worship is to become the vehicle of God’s grace to others. And as exemplified from Isaiah 6, God did not give the prophet a command to Go, but the gracious opportunity to volunteer. When redemption has come to you -- when the terror of God’s holiness has surrounded you, when the glory of God’s person has enclosed you, when your sin has been evident, your iniquity and guilt overwhelming, and grace has brought painful purging to you. When redemption has come to you -- when you are convicted of sin and find the Savior, not to have his fist clenched in anger, but his arms open wide in mercy. When redemption finds you, picks you up from your iniquity, cleanses your evident guilt, and then you hear God’s need.
How incomprehensible and unfathomable to say God’s need. But the prophet heard it. And today you hear it. What could God need? Whatever it may be, after the redemption you have been overwhelmed with, you are ready to throw both hands into the air and say "HERE AM I." Before you know where the sending will take you, you joyfully lay yourself upon the altar as an acceptable sacrifice to the Almighty.
Paul, in our text this morning is tracing the path of salvation to its source. Unlike in Romans 8, where Paul follows the route of salvation from eternal foreknowledge through this life’s calling and justification and then to eternal glorification. In the text before us, Paul traces the path of salvation in this life, on a reverse course. How does salvation come?
I. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved
A. Whosoever -- white men, black men, red men, yellow men, used car salesman, new car salesman, old men, young men, murderers, thieves. rapists, Democrats, Republicans, Presidents, hobos, Bobos, butchers, bakers, and candle-stick makers
B. Shall Call -- it is a great stumbling block that so great a salvation should come so freely and easily.
Many world religions make you labor an entire lifetime in pursuit of, with no guarantee of, salvation.
Salvation is a call away.
C. On the name of the Lord -- call cannot be to the higher power of your choice, or the goodness within.
There is no other name given, whereby men must be saved. Jesus is the only Savior for fallen men to be reached by the infinite mercies of God.
There is One God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.
D. Shall be saved -- Promise from the God who cannot lie, the assurance from a God who does not change, and the blessed redemption from a God who cannot change.
II. How shall the call on Him in whom they have not believed?
A. Further clarified in the calling on the Lord described before.
B. Faith motivates the call. Faith gives your voice strength to whisper or cry out to God.
C. Faith gives you the good sense to realize you need help.
D. Faith gives you the strength and courage to walk to the altar and bow your knee.
E. Just as no man can confess that Jesus is the Christ, except by the Spirit of God;
no man can call on the name of the Lord, except God’s given you the gift of faith.
F. For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. . .
G. Thank God he put the faith in my heart, the words in my mouth and caused me to call on Himself for salvation.
III. How shall they believe on Him in whom they have not heard?
A. God sows the gift of faith in men’s hearts by the preaching of the Gospel.
B. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
C. God sends His word in the hearts of men and it spawns into saving faith.
D. Never has a man believed without hearing the Gospel.
Even righteous Abram was promised and believed and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
E. Our silence keeps seeds of faith from being planted and growing into salvation
IV. How shall they hear without a preacher?
A. God’s vehicle for carrying the gospel message is here defined
B. Look at your neighbor and say, "You are a preacher"
C. Now look at your neighbor and say, "I am a preacher"
D. God has entrusted you with the stewardship of the Gospel,
Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them;
and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
E. God has given you charge, the responsibility, the blessing of being His vessel to carry
His word to bring salvation to men
V. How shall they preach, except they be sent?
A. Just as calling results from believing, so preaching results from His sending?
B. Paul said, Woe be to me if I do not preach.
C. And now the Lord of the Harvest calls, "Whom Shall I Send, and Who Shall go For us?"
D. Like Isaiah, you have been plunged to grace from depravity, answer "HERE AM I, SEND ME"
