Romans 10:16

Romans 10:16

Romans 10:16 says, "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed our report?" There will always be good news for the world. No matter how bad it gets, there is always the good news of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Salvation is free and available. The basic message is very simple in a certain sense. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Almost every human in the world has the capacity to understand the message of salvation that is in Jesus. Even though the message is simple, it’s very profound, and if you receive it, it will go to the very depths of your heart. It will not only change your eternal destiny, but it will also change your life.

The wonderful story of God’s love and forgiveness is still brought to the world by His believers. The good news is given freely. You would think that the majority of people would turn to Jesus for salvation, would gladly give their lives to Him, and would look forward to eternal life and the bliss of heaven. You would think that it would only be a small minority of people who would refuse to listen to the good news, and who would turn their backs on God. But the sad and unhappy reality is that most human beings on the earth do turn their backs to God, and most humans do refuse the free offer of salvation. It’s true today and it has always been true. Paul quoted Isaiah, who lived 2500 years ago. In the days of Isaiah things looked so bad and it seemed that so few believed and followed the Lord that Isaiah asked, "Who hath believed our report?"

Jesus indicated the same thing. He said, "Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it. And broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there be that go in thereat." Even though it doesn’t have to happen this way, the sad truth is that most people will not come to know the Lord and His forgiveness. This is what happens most of the time, in most ages and in most societies. It’s the general rule. The odds are that in the time in which you live and with the people that surround you, most will make the wrong choice. How many people will be saved?-on average a very small number. Of all the population of the earth, probably only a fraction of one percent will be saved. If you are a follower of God and a believer in Jesus then you are a part of a very small minority indeed. Always be ready to be a non-conformist. Learn to be in the world but not of the world.

Relatively speaking, it is a small number of people who come to the Lord to serve Him with all of their heart; but do not make the mistake of looking at the majority who don’t serve God and thinking that somehow you are at a disadvantage. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Because there are so many who do not know the Lord, there is a great need, a great challenge, and a great opportunity to serve God wherever you go. If you are a believer, it’s a major mistake to forget that you have been sent to help reap a harvest. Jesus said, "Say not you, there are yet four months and then comes the harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."

Those who do not believe are given chances by the Lord to hear and then to believe. Rom. 10:18 says, "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." No adult who is in control of their faculties will die until they have a chance to hear the truth about Christ Jesus. In order to be saved you must have faith, in order to have faith you must hear the Word of God, and in order to hear the Word of God, there must be a human being that God has sent to present the Word of God. If the number of people who know and serve the Lord diminishes to the point where there is no one left to send, if it hasn’t already ended; the world will surely end on that day. The day that the Word of God is no longer delivered, spoken, presented, or preached to the world will be a dark and treacherous day: it will be a terrible day indeed.

Information about the great eternal God has been revealed to man and has been written down in the book we call the Bible. The Bible is more than just a book. It’s the only book in the world that is entirely spiritual in nature. It’s a spiritual book and can only be understood by those who are spiritually minded. The origin of the Bible is the direct intervention of God. "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Because the Bible has a divine origin, it is genuine, accurate, and reliable. When we say that the Bible is genuine, we mean that it was written by whom it claims to have been written and in the time and period that it claims to have been written. For example, the New Testament was written by the apostles and the direct associates of the apostles. There is overwhelming textual evidence to support this. The New Testament was not fabricated as a hoax. You don’t have to worry about that or be concerned about it. Because there are so very many ancient texts that were copied at different periods of time and found in different parts of the Mediterranean world, all the evidence that anyone needs already exists to prove the genuineness of the Bible.

The Bible is also accurate. Of course, if the Bible is inspired by God, the Bible must be accurate. There are no errors in the Bible. There have been many brilliant human beings who have opposed the Bible, and who have desired greatly to find errors in it, probably in order to justify themselves and to assuage their own conscience. But there are no errors in the Bible because it was inspired by God. Whenever there are archeological discoveries that are involved in the area and timeframe of Biblical accounts, the discoveries corroborate and substantiate the accuracy of the Bible.

There is plenty of evidence to verify the genuineness and accuracy of the Bible, and it is therefore a reliable account of the character and will of God. It is the will of God that the Bible be the source of spiritual food. Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Religion is viable and meaningful only to the degree that it is centered around and focused upon the primary teachings of scripture. It’s the reading of the Bible, the teaching of the Bible, the presenting of the Bible that is of primary importance: not man’s interpretation or man’s explanation. That’s why some of the best Christian songs are simply the words of the Bible set to music. It is impossible to have true spirituality without a diet of spiritual food, and the Bible is the spiritual food that you need. Jeremiah said, "Thy words were found and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart."

The words of the Bible are essential to salvation. It is Jesus who saves, and it is the Bible that tells us about Jesus. The Bible is the written Word, and Jesus is the living Word. The "word" signifies the communication of the truth of God. That’s why Jesus said, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." You will understand and follow God to the degree that you understand and follow the scriptures. You will be close to God to the same degree that the scriptures are an integral part of your life. If you neglect to have a daily intake of the scriptures, you are dooming yourself to a life without spiritual vitality.

"Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." "How shall they believe except they hear, and how shall they hear except they have someone tell them the Gospel?" Israel should have believed on Jesus because they heard the promises about the Messiah, and then He walked among them and they heard from His own mouth. Rom. 10:19 says, "But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses said, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you."

By the infinite wisdom of God, He is always able to fulfill multiple purposes in the things that He permits to happen. The casting away of Israel was not only a chastisement of them for their failure to believe, but it was also an attempt by God to awaken the Jews to their current condition of spiritual poverty. Perhaps when the Jews see how much the Gentiles are blessed by their relationship with God through Christ, perhaps the Jews will reconsider the mistake that they made in rejecting Jesus. The circumstance of all the Gentiles who find God is recorded in Rom. 10:20. It says, "But Isaiah is very bold and said, I was found of them that sought me not: I was made manifest to them that asked not after me." Salvation is the work of God. If someone is saved, it is because God visited them and saved them.

The reason that Israel has not been saved is recorded in Rom. 10:21. It is a quotation from the Old Testament and says, "But to Israel he said, All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and contrary people." The gospel is presented and preached, and then it’s either believed or it’s refused. If you do not believe the gospel, it means that you have refused it and you have disobeyed it. Unbelief is really disobedience. "God commands all men everywhere to repent." Those who do not change their mind about their godless ways have chosen to reject the love and mercy of God that is in Christ Jesus. That’s the condition of the nation of Israel even today.

But in spite of the great unbelief of the nation of Israel, and in spite of the fact that they have gone so many centuries as a people outside of the fellowship that they could have enjoyed with the God of their fathers, God is not finished with them. They appear to have totally and completely and eternally rejected Jesus the Messiah; but God has not totally and eternally rejected them. Salvation always works like that. The horrible failure and sin of mankind is never so great that it finally and totally blocks out the mercy and love of God. God always finds a way to get through the obstinacy and the unbelief and to reach the unreachable, and to touch the untouchable.

When humans think a situation is totally hopeless, that’s usually when God is just beginning to work. It certainly will be the case with the nation of Israel. Paul said in Rom. 11:1-2, "I say then, has God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, God has not cast away His people that He foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah? how he made intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed your prophets, and digged down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life."

Even though Israel as a nation has been set aside in the current age, God is not finished with the Jews. They still fit into His plan and purposes. The Apostle Paul uses himself as an example of that truth. He was a Jew in the lineage of Abraham, and Paul knew and served the one true God through Jesus Christ. God will permit other Jews to do the same thing, and God desires that other Jews would do the same thing. We live in an age where Jews and Gentiles are equal: equally sinners and equally offered salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Messiah.

Paul also quotes from the Old Testament book of I Kings and uses a situation in the life of the prophet Elijah to show that God is not finished with the Jews, and that God has not stopped dealing with the Jews. There was a time in the life of Elijah when he looked at the humans who appeared to be opposed to him, and he became discouraged, and he stopped thinking about the greatness and the power of God, and Elijah said, "I am left alone." He was wrong. He was not alone, and he was not in the minority, because if you are on God’s side, then you plus God make a majority no matter how many turn their back on God, and no matter how many appear to be opposed to you. He was not alone because God was with Him, but he forgot to think about that. For a small period of time Elijah let go of the important truth about the omnipresence of God. Jesus said to His followers, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." David wrote in the Psalms, "Where could I go to be out of the presence of God?" You could go into a submarine to the bottom of the ocean, or explore the deepest cave of the earth, or go in a spaceship to the planet of Mars, but you will never leave the presence of God.

Elijah also was not alone because he was not the last one who served God. There were others. Don’t ever think that you or your group or your church is the last one that knows or serves God faithfully. The Lord is in the business of redeeming people, and He has ways of touching hearts all over the world in every culture and every society. Don’t ever think that you are alone. They are many who are fighting the same battles of faith that you are, and who are serving the same God. You may not know them now, but you will one day in the hereafter. They are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Rom. 11:5 says, "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace."

A remnant is that which is left over, that which remains. It’s a smaller part of a larger group. The emphasis is on the fact that the group is not entirely gone: some of it is still left. There is a remnant who are the people of God. On a percentage basis, a remnant is usually small: perhaps only a fraction of one percent of the total population of the world. But the number or the percentage is never given. That’s probably because the door is always open for more to be saved: should they change and choose to go towards God instead of going away from Him. But even a fraction of one percent of the total population of the world is a lot of people. That would still be millions of people. When you consider that there are between 2 and 3 billion people in the world, a fraction of one percent equals millions of people. "Even at this present time there is a remnant."

After Peter made his confession that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the living God; Jesus said about the confession, "Upon this rock I will build my church." There is only one church: it’s built by Jesus and it’s made up of all the true believers in the world. There is a remnant. And Paul emphasizes again how someone becomes a part of this one great unit that is the people of God and that Paul calls here a remnant. He said at the end of Rom. 11:5 that it is "according to the election of grace." We are chosen, that is we are called, by means of the grace of God. Grace is the free gift of God.

It’s not someone’s lineage that will bring them into the company of the people God. It’s the grace of God. Nor is someone’s good works that will bring them into the company of the people of God, and that will make them one of the remnant. Rom. 11:6 says, "And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." Grace and works are mutually exclusive. It’s either a free gift that you are given freely, or it’s something that you earn and pay for. It’s one or the other. It cannot be both. It cannot be partly one and partly the other. According to the Bible, according to the book of Romans, according to the Apostle Paul who was inspired by God, it’s by grace and not by works. Hopefully, you have received the gift of God through grace by faith in Jesus the Savior.

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