SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: So today we're we're again we're back in Romans.
SPEAKER_01: And last week we took one of the hardest passages in all of Scripture, Romans 9.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought it went really well.
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was an anointed time.
SPEAKER_01: Many of you have commented on it.
SPEAKER_01: And what we talked about was the foreknowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about predestination.
SPEAKER_01: And the way I explained it was this way: that on one side of the door, God invites anyone, and he's going to say, anyone, he's going to say, whoever, in Romans 10 to us again.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever wants to come, whoever's thirsty, whichever hungry, come.
SPEAKER_01: That's the invitation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's the invitation of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: If you're weary, if you're heavy laden, come.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you can figure that one out, then you just, you need to have three PhDs.
SPEAKER_01: But on the one hand, the Lord says, anyone is invited.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the whole world that he gave his only begotten son.
SPEAKER_01: But on the other side of the door, God knew you were going to make that decision.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So you can focus on the Jesus knew you'd make the decision part, or you can focus on the calm.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter to me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't try to wrap my head around all of that.
SPEAKER_01: The way I've described it to my kids when it's come up has been, I didn't even talk about this last week, but the fact that if I were to have a piano in a room, and I had a baseball and a glove, two gloves, preferably for a right-handed thrower, in a room, and I put Samuel in the room, and I put Isaac or Josh in the room, I can tell you what where they're gonna go.
SPEAKER_01: Josh is not gonna go to the piano.
SPEAKER_01: That will never happen in a hundred years.
SPEAKER_01: But Samuel will, he's a he's a trained piano performance major from DU.
SPEAKER_01: So he's gonna go straight to the piano, and uh Josh or Isaac, in Isaac's case, a collegiate baseball player, high school and college, and then Josh, a high school player, they're gonna pick up the gloves and they're gonna throw the ball.
SPEAKER_01: Well, who made that decision?
SPEAKER_01: They made that decision.
SPEAKER_01: Did I know as a dad the decision they were gonna make?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Because in this case, we can take it even a step further.
SPEAKER_01: I created them.
SPEAKER_01: I guess I did physically create them, but God, the creator, created them, for in Samuel's case to have a love for music, and in Josh and Isaac's case, a love for athletics.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's as good as it gets right there, folks, is that we don't understand that, but that's it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Romans 10, the theme he started in Romans 9 wasn't just about foreknowledge, but it was also about the nation of Israel and their rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: In Romans 10, he talks about the present state of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And then next, the next time I speak on Romans 11, we're gonna talk about the end times revival.
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a revival, a mighty move of God, and he's gonna say in Romans 11, all of Israel shall be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't believe that means every single person, but it means there'll be such a mass movement of God in Israel that the nation of Israel will become Christian.
SPEAKER_01: It will become a Christian nation.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_01: But God's prophesying that in Romans 11.
SPEAKER_01: But in Romans 10, here's what I've decided to call it: believe with your heart, confess with your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Believe with your heart, confess with your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that what we're gonna look at here is the best summation of how one gets saved.
SPEAKER_01: So if you could pick two verses in Scripture and say to someone who doesn't know the Lord and they want to come to Christ, you couldn't go wrong with Romans 10, 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_01: So I've taken that as my theme, that you have to, in your life, at some point, believe with your heart, Jesus is Lord, confess with your mouth that he rose again on the third day to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the formula that Paul gives us.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: It starts off this way: Brethren, my harsh desire in prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Now that sounds exactly the same beginning of Romans 9.
SPEAKER_01: It's obviously Paul's passionate desire is that his people, the Jews, would get saved.
SPEAKER_01: And I would challenge us this morning, two words here: heart's desire and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Look at that.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, that's the best, that's the best kind of prayer to pray, is something you have a desire for.
SPEAKER_01: Don't pray for stuff you have no desire for.
SPEAKER_01: Pray for the things that God's put on your given you a desire for.
SPEAKER_01: And so the question here, even this morning, is what are what's on your heart?
SPEAKER_01: Not just what you pray about, but what is your prayer?
SPEAKER_01: What is it that you find yourself going back to again and again?
SPEAKER_01: I'm willing to wager that for many of us in this room, that's someone that you love, that may be a child of yours, or it might be a spouse of yours, or a relative of yours, might be someone at work, that you have a passionate desire that they would come into the kingdom, that they would be saved.
SPEAKER_01: And for Paul, it was the Jews, for you, and for me, it could be something else.
SPEAKER_01: But what's what's that desire?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I want to I want to challenge you as you pray those to believe that God is going to someday move in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_01: The victory of God is going to come.
SPEAKER_01: Tell the devil to leave.
SPEAKER_01: Tell the devil to get out of that person's life.
SPEAKER_01: Tell the devil that that in the name of Jesus they have no right.
SPEAKER_01: They cannot put, he cannot put his hands or it cannot put its hands on your child or on that situation, and you bind his power over that person.
SPEAKER_01: You've been given the keys of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 16, you've been given the keys of the kingdom to bind on earth first, that's your prayer, then it's bound in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: To loose on earth, that's your prayer, and it's loosed in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: To start believing God that the desires of your heart are from Him.
SPEAKER_01: Paul continues, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: So, ever since Israel had come back from the Babylonian activity church, they hated, passionately hated, idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: So, for a committed Jew hating idolatry after the Babylonian captivity, what they did is they began to look at the commandments of Moses, the law of God, to figure out how can we be holy?
SPEAKER_01: If it says keep the Sabbath holy, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy?
SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, Jacob over here, he goes out and he milks his cows on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: But Larry over here, we'll just say his name is Isaac.
SPEAKER_01: Isaac over here, probably a better of a Jewish name, he believes you shouldn't milk your cows on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: So how do you know?
SPEAKER_01: So they came up with two documents called the Mishnah and the Talmud.
SPEAKER_01: And what the Mishnah and the Talmud attempted to do was define the laws of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Interpret and explain the law.
SPEAKER_01: By the time of Paul, when he's writing this, these had become inscribed in the belief system of the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: These laws were arranged according to subject matter, and the Pharisees emphasized these laws.
SPEAKER_01: An example would be, you know, keeping the Sabbath holy, and now there's hundreds, and you can, this is interesting, you can even go into the Jewish sector of New York.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably true in Boston too and places like that, but I think New York has the highest concentration of Jews in the United States in New York on the Sabbath, and you see these wires going and crisscrossing all over the neighborhoods.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you say, what's that about?
SPEAKER_01: Well, they have come up with a law that you're not supposed to leave your house on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have a wire that begins in your house, then you're still in the house if you hook up to the wire, and you can go to the store and you can go shopping and stuff as far as that wire will take you out of their house.
SPEAKER_01: So what had happened for the Jews is they were beginning to worship the law to keep them holy, then worshiping God who keeps you holy.
SPEAKER_01: They had six categories in the Mishnah: agriculture, feast, women.
SPEAKER_01: I see women, it's nothing on men, but there's a category for women.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, women, see, it's your problem.
SPEAKER_01: We have to have a whole category for you.
SPEAKER_01: You're too complex for us.
SPEAKER_01: Agriculture, feast, women, civil and criminal law, sacrifices, unclean things, and purification.
SPEAKER_01: These chapters were then subdivided into tracts, of which there were 63 tracts.
SPEAKER_01: Of those, they were divided into chapters and verses, which resulted in thousands of laws, procedures, attitudes, and obligations.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what Paul's talking about.
SPEAKER_01: You have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you're worshiping the law, not the lawgiver.
SPEAKER_01: For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seek, see what he's saying, and seeking to establish their own righteousness through the Mishnah, through the Talmud, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: For Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_01: So the natural outgrowth of trying to find righteousness, if keeping the Sabbath holy, then if you want to be holy, how do you keep the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_01: It's a legitimate question.
SPEAKER_01: So instead of seeking God about why we keep the Sabbath holy from our heart, they sought the law itself to keep them holy through their outward actions.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, I meet Catholics a lot of time, I meet Catholics a lot like this.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes with Lutherans and Episcopalians less so, but I see it a lot with Roman Catholics.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you come out of a Catholic, you may be visiting with us today, you come out of a Catholic Bank and see if I'm not accurate in this, that when I start asking them about their faith, most of the time I hear about being a Catholic more than about being a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and if I talk to a Lutheran, it's more about being a Lutheran than it is about being a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: I hope and pray, men and women, that you never come to the place where you talk about, well, this is what it's like to be a Christian by being at the road.
SPEAKER_01: No, we want to be whole-hearted disciples of Jesus, of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Not the road.
SPEAKER_01: The road did not go to Calvary and die for you.
SPEAKER_01: Luther did not go to the cross and die for you.
SPEAKER_01: The Pope didn't go to the cross and die for us.
SPEAKER_01: It's Christ, but we see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: We have that tendency, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: We look for things.
SPEAKER_01: We look for outward manifestations of religion.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Paul's talking about here, this battle.
SPEAKER_01: So Isaiah 64, 6, jot this down, really important.
SPEAKER_01: All our righteousness are filthy racks.
SPEAKER_01: Your righteousness, your being good, your being religious doesn't get you any more closer to God.
SPEAKER_01: For salvation, now it does get us closer to God for our sanctification, for us growing in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So I keep the Sabbath holy as a family.
SPEAKER_01: We keep the Sabbath holy in the sense that we always go to worship and we have a worship time with a body of believers.
SPEAKER_01: And I take a nap.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that fits into the Mishnah or not.
SPEAKER_01: But for my sanctification, not my salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Do you understand?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to get saved because I have to.
SPEAKER_01: I do it because I want to, because I'm walking in the faith of the righteousness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what Paul says in Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: To be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.
SPEAKER_01: So it's the difference between my righteousness of trying to be right with God, versus by faith believing in Christ, worshiping him, surrendering to him, and then his righteousness has come into my heart through faith, and now his righteousness flows through my faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: In Galatians, Paul writes, Is the law against the promises of God?
SPEAKER_01: Certainly not.
SPEAKER_01: For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.
SPEAKER_01: But the scripture has confined all of us under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
SPEAKER_01: But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, the law was our tutor, it was our coach, a good word might be, our coach to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, and I've said this so many times in our study of Romans, the law is a mirror.
SPEAKER_01: The law shows us our sin, it shows us our dirty face.
SPEAKER_01: But you don't wash your face with a mirror.
SPEAKER_01: So, so all that the law was to do was to guide us and coach us toward the fact that we can't be righteous in our own power.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying to the Jews right now.
SPEAKER_01: That the righteousness of the law is not going to get you the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: But the righteousness by faith opens up the way to a personal relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so look at Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: You know, look in your Bibles at Galatians 5.
SPEAKER_01: So turn to the right till you come to Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: This is the fulfillment of the law.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Paul is talking about in Galatians chapter 5, about what the fulfillment of the law looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 5, 22.
SPEAKER_01: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_01: Against such things there is no law.
SPEAKER_01: See, that's the greatest passage.
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the greatest passages in the New Testament on what faith in Christ does when we put our faith in Him, we actually begin to fulfill the law supernaturally.
SPEAKER_01: With love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control flowing through it.
SPEAKER_01: Against such things, there's no law.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever happens in Washington, whatever happens in Denver, about laws that come down, nobody, no government, no leader can stop love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and gentleness flowing through you.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody can stop it.
SPEAKER_01: And the greatest witness for Christ for a revival of the Spirit of God falling upon our land are believers who have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_01: If we saw more of that happening, we'd see an explosion of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That's through the righteousness of faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's not through the law.
SPEAKER_01: He continues, verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, the man who does these things shall live by them.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, what he's saying here, if you're going to follow the law, and if you think righteousness comes through the law, you better follow every single one of them perfectly.
SPEAKER_01: Or you cannot have the righteousness of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Because you break one time, you break one law, it shows that you're unrighteous.
SPEAKER_01: It shows that you're a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: But the righteousness of faith.
SPEAKER_01: So if like my Bible, I underline on verse 5, underline righteousness of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Underline righteousness of the law.
SPEAKER_01: But in verse 6 it says, the righteousness of faith, underline that, speaks in this way.
SPEAKER_01: Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above, or who will descend into the obvious, that is to bring Christ up from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: But what does it say?
SPEAKER_01: This is really important.
SPEAKER_01: The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: That is the word of faith which we preach.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that salvation's not complicated, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: It's not difficult to understand.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like we have to go up to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean we have to go down to hell or Hades.
SPEAKER_01: It's right here.
SPEAKER_01: It's right near you.
SPEAKER_01: It is an act of faith.
SPEAKER_01: The word is all around you.
SPEAKER_01: It's very near you.
SPEAKER_01: He's even going to allude to creation later on in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: That it's all before us.
SPEAKER_01: It's right before us.
SPEAKER_01: And even when Paul was preaching in Athens, remember Athens, he's speaking at Acts 17.
SPEAKER_01: Preaching in Athens, he says this to the idolaters in Athens, Greece, they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
SPEAKER_01: You see what Paul's saying here?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that the Bible that you open in your synagogue every day, the Messiah is right there.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is right there.
SPEAKER_01: Every time that the rabbi gets up and he preaches, he's right there.
SPEAKER_01: Every time you look at the rain falling and the crops coming, he's right there.
SPEAKER_01: His word, what does he say in verse 8?
SPEAKER_01: The word is near you.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying it's in your mouth and in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying to the Jews, look, you're already, you're already so close.
SPEAKER_01: You read his word.
SPEAKER_01: I remember my dad and I having many discussions over the years about how much of the Bible is spoken within the Lutheran service.
SPEAKER_01: You have an Old Testament lesson, you have a New Testament lesson, you have a gospel lesson.
SPEAKER_01: It's all right there.
SPEAKER_01: It's very near you.
SPEAKER_01: In the Catholic Church, there's the readings, and that's where Luther, God has it came from his Catholic background.
SPEAKER_01: They're reading it.
SPEAKER_01: It's there.
SPEAKER_01: It's right there.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying to the Jews right now, look, in your synagogues, when you guys go on the Sabbath in the synagogue, the word is right there.
SPEAKER_01: Believe it.
SPEAKER_01: All you have to do is put your faith in it.
SPEAKER_01: And it's called the righteousness of faith, not the righteousness of the law.
SPEAKER_01: And then he gets to his this is the crowning point of our passage that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.
SPEAKER_01: For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the Mouth confession is made unto salvation.
SPEAKER_01: No better explanation in all of the Bible than Romans 10, 9 and 10.
SPEAKER_01: It's not practicing the law.
SPEAKER_01: It's not religion.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's confessing.
SPEAKER_01: And that's homologo in the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: It's agreeing with God.
SPEAKER_01: God already knows you're a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: You just need to agree with Him about it.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have any doubts, you know, ask your spouse about that.
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it's confessing.
SPEAKER_01: It's agreeing with God.
SPEAKER_01: Look, I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the capacity.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: And then believe, not just confess that.
SPEAKER_01: That'll leaves you in a quandary.
SPEAKER_01: But take the next step.
SPEAKER_01: The next step is believe in your heart that he rose again on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason he says that believe in the resurrection of Christ is because you can't believe in the resurrection of Christ without believing in the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't believe in the cross of Christ without believing that he went to the cross to die for your sins.
SPEAKER_01: But he rose again.
SPEAKER_01: He conquered death.
SPEAKER_01: And what is the power of sin?
SPEAKER_01: The power of sin is death.
SPEAKER_01: The power of death is sin.
SPEAKER_01: He's conquered it.
SPEAKER_01: He's broken its power over our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And we overcome, what does it say in Revelation says we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and what?
SPEAKER_01: The word of our testimony.
SPEAKER_01: So there's something about verbalizing, confessing with your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Not just thinking in your heart, not just praying in secret.
SPEAKER_01: As good as that is, there's something better.
SPEAKER_01: And that's believing it, that's saying it out.
SPEAKER_01: That breaks the power of the devil over our lives.
SPEAKER_01: For the scripture says, whoever believes on him will not be put to shame.
SPEAKER_01: For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord overall is rich to all who call upon him.
SPEAKER_01: And this is another one to circle or underline, for whoever, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying Greeks.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying Jews.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying Jew and Gentile, whoever believes shall be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, it doesn't matter whether you're smart or not smart, whether you have a high IQ or a low IQ, whether you're black, whether you're white, whether you grew up in poverty, whether you grew up wealthy, whether you've you know been deeply, deeply embedded into sin, or you came out of a pretty strong Christian background, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_01: It's open to all of us, it's open to everyone.
SPEAKER_01: So he said in 1 Corinthians 1 that the idea of the cross is considered foolishness to some, but to those who are getting saved, it is the wisdom of God, it is the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: So in our lives, I remember so many times looking at the Christian community and thinking, how boring.
SPEAKER_01: Why would anybody want to go to church on Sunday?
SPEAKER_01: But I did it because I had to, because I my mom made the meals.
SPEAKER_01: But then when I was 18, that whoever became me.
SPEAKER_01: And I put my faith in Christ, and I was born again.
SPEAKER_01: And same for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been born again, it's whoever, it's for any of us.
SPEAKER_01: It's all available, every bit of it's available to every one of us in this room.
SPEAKER_01: And then in this last part, he talks about how people get saved.
SPEAKER_01: How does this happen?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in whom they have not heard?
SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, hearing.
SPEAKER_01: So the first part of people coming to know Christ, they got to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: They gotta be able to hear the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Then he explains how they hear.
SPEAKER_01: And how shall they hear without a preacher?
SPEAKER_01: So you need to hear, and to hear, you need a preacher.
SPEAKER_01: You need someone who shares the gospel with you.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, there's gonna be four points here, and all of them have to happen for anybody to get saved.
SPEAKER_01: In most cases, I have heard of people having just divine encounters with God, but that's rare.
SPEAKER_01: This is typically the way it works.
SPEAKER_01: And how shall they believe in whom they have not heard?
SPEAKER_01: So we have to hear.
SPEAKER_01: How shall they hear without a preacher?
SPEAKER_01: We need someone to share the gospel, and how shall they preach unless they are sent?
SPEAKER_01: So you're sent out every Sunday morning to be a preacher to someone, to share the gospel that God puts in your life.
SPEAKER_01: All of us, not a missionary.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have a passport that's been stamped.
SPEAKER_01: We're all missionaries.
SPEAKER_01: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things.
SPEAKER_01: So you can't bring the good news if you're the bad news.
SPEAKER_01: And some of your bad news.
SPEAKER_01: You got a bad attitude.
SPEAKER_01: Work on your attitude.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got a bad attitude sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: But I like what it says.
SPEAKER_01: It says, you know, gospel of peace.
SPEAKER_01: So be a peacemaker wherever you go.
SPEAKER_01: But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report?
SPEAKER_01: So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: So the fourth point is you've got to have faith.
SPEAKER_01: So you've got to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody's got to share it, somebody's got to be sent to bring it, and then it's by faith that we accept it.
SPEAKER_01: But I say they have not heard.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, indeed, their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
SPEAKER_01: So actually, um, Paul is quoting Psalm 19.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read you the first few verses of Psalm 19.
SPEAKER_01: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.
SPEAKER_01: Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: There is no speech nor language with which their voice is not heard.
SPEAKER_01: You know what he's saying?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, look, I'm talking about a preacher.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about a preacher being sent.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about you being able to hear and put your faith in that.
SPEAKER_01: And then he quotes Psalm 19.
SPEAKER_01: I think what he's saying here is, look, you have the witness of creation and the witness of revelation from the word.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, to those that he's writing, you have no excuse.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't, if someone hasn't given you a clear explanation of the gospel, just walk outside and look at the rivers and look at the sun and look at the moon.
SPEAKER_01: They testify, they preach the gospel also.
SPEAKER_01: But I say, did Israel not know?
SPEAKER_01: First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.
SPEAKER_01: But Isaiah is very bold, and he says, I was found by those who did not seek me.
SPEAKER_01: I was made manifest to those who did not ask for me.
SPEAKER_01: But Israel, he says, all day long, I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Peter 3:9, Peter writes, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but he is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, God lifts out his arms to Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He lifts out his arms to us, and he says, I'm gonna provoke you to jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna provoke you to jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: May you provoke others to jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: May your righteousness, your love, your joy pervade your life enough that others are provoked to want that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what about this guy.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what they go to some church about a it's about a high highway or something, or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the road.
SPEAKER_01: They go to this church called the Road or something, and uh and they got crosses and stuff in their house.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, they've got these sayings on the wall with with a person's name and some numbers after it on the wall.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't understand all that, but here's what I do know is I want that kind of joy in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I want that kind of peace in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Let's provoke people to jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way God used the Gentiles for the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: May He use us in Colorado Springs to be that.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.