Romans 10:14-15So (reversing the order since it is working back in time logically) as we pray for evangelism we pray that God would send (1) anointed preachers (2) and that the Holy Spirit would cause hearing (3), then believing (4), and then that is how you get to calling (5) on the name of the Lord.
But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Don’t miss the “send” in this verse. I think lots of times we stop at preaching and that is understandable because we get to do the preaching. However, the sending shouldn’t be lost in our rush to preach. The sending is a function of the Holy Spirit and the word is the word that makes up part of the name apostle. It is God who sends individuals as His emissaries. We support a missionary but it is implied that they are “called to the mission field” and that we simply confirm and support what God has done, and is doing, in their lives. Jesus made the point in Matthew 9:37-38 when He looked at the crowd and “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Often we stop quoting and don’t get to the “therefore” and the command. The command is that we pray for God to send out laborers. However, here a different word is used for “send” and it has an element of driving out or leading out of the laborers. Therefore, we are commanded to pray that God would forcefully take His laborers into the harvest. So pray that way. I dare you.
Also, to repeat a point, notice that we are commanded to pray to make things different that they would be otherwise. So do not express a fatalistic view of salvation. The Biblical view is that we are called to pray that God would forcefully send laborers into the harvest and send preachers as His representatives to share the Gospel. We make it fitting and right for mercy to flow in revival when we obey His command. If you want to surprise God then you’re not going to be happy but He commands that you work together with Him. While He is transcendent the sad fact is that you are not transcendent most of the time with our feeble minds we are barely immanent. This is your life and you are making decisions regarding your obedience to the His Word.
Isaiah had a tough assignment when it came to preaching to Israel. God told him that things would not go well as he shared God’s word with them.
Romans 10:16-21
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.” Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”
I may not like being called a foolish nation or no nation but I can live with that now that I’m part of the Body of Christ. We found Him when we didn’t seek Him. Remember that we found in Romans 3:10-18 that our condition apart from God was without hope. We were lost, He showed Himself to us and we didn’t ask for Him. Historically, I think the early Church in Egypt and in Rome was an obvious fulfillment of this Scripture. In particular, the origin of such a large number of Christians in Egypt in the first couple of centuries is odd but God did it and I’m sure that it caused jealousy and anger in Jerusalem.
The following Scriptures give us a good and balanced view of how we related to Abraham and the all those Old Testament heroes of the faith.
Romans 11:1-6The first point that Paul makes is that God has not rejected those who are physical descendents of Abraham because He has kept a remnant, chosen by grace, as heirs of Salvation. Paul uses himself as an example and many of those we study in Acts were ethnically Jewish and saved by the Grace of God. The incorporation of those who were not ethically Jews into the Body of Christ was a big deal for those who were ethnically Jewish. Think of poor Peter. He went round and round on the topic. So God kept a remnant in the Body of Christ by His grace. Especially today when we have had such a mobile population we would have a difficult time determining the portion of the Body of Christ that is ethnically Jewish.
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept
for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
Romans 11:7-10
What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”
And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.”
Except for the elect within Israel of Paul’s day, a hardening occurred. God is under no obligation to coddle us when we, by nature, resist the Holy Spirit. So God, particularly in Paul’s day, was not moving within ethic Israel. Gentiles were being raked into the Kingdom but ethic Jews were not. Once again God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Grace and mercy can’t be required of God or they would not be Grace and Mercy.
Romans 11:11-16
So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
So the stumbling of ethic Israel was not without a good consequence. The rejection of salvation brought riches for the world as the Grace of God moved out into the Gentiles. This was/is the manifestation of Jesus’ parable about the wedding guests. We are still living out this parable (Matthew 22:1-14).
The Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matthew 22:1-14)
And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
God has called us to the wedding feast as those originally called rejected the Groom. We are clothed in wedding garments provided for us by the Grace of God. So we look for a time at which God will poor out His Grace on ethnic Israel. We need to seek God for our own nation while we can. The historic animosity felt toward the Jews is satanic and misinformed. What is plain to us is plain to us by the Grace of God. Consider the celebration of Passover that testifies so clearly of Christ that many Christians celebrate it as a worship service. Grace has given life to believers both ethnically Jewish and ethnically gentile who are now the offspring of Abraham.
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