To get to introduce our preacher today, Dr. Scott Clark is a pastor in the United Reformed Churches of North America. He is professor of church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary in California, and he is the president of the Heidelberg Reformation Association. And in the midst of all those things, I can think of no one who has helped me, encouraged me, and shaped the way that I think about being a churchman. more than Dr. Clark, and so I am very thankful for him. My prayer often is that my son would be at least as faithful as his namesake, and that would be a wonderful blessing in my life. Dr. Clark, please would you come bring us God's word? You please rise for the reading of God's word. It's not fair of Harrison to make me cry. Hang on here, I'll get it together. The only person I know who cries more in public than I is Bob Gonfrey, so I take some comfort in that. God's word from Romans chapter 10, beginning in verse 14. How then will they call on him 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 good news. 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? Well, 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. Lord, add your blessing to this word, write it on our hearts and give us true faith to believe it for Jesus' sake. Amen. You may be seated. Congregation of the Lord Jesus, I bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters at the Escondido United Reformed Church, where I serve as an associate minister, and from Westminster Seminary, California. Thank you for your prayers and support. Your dear friend and mine, Chuck Tedrick, was especially anxious that I bring greetings from him to you as well. At least some of you know Chuck. We're so grateful for him. What a blessing. been to us, all of us, staff and faculty and students. Well, congregation, this letter, this marvelous letter was written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and sent to the Romans from Corinth to the congregation in Rome under Nero about 10 years before the persecution would begin right after the death of Claudius in the accession of of Nero to a mixed congregation. One of the great problems in the first century church is, what do we do with the Gentiles? In the 20th century and before that, the great question across Europe, one that was not answered, obviously, well at all, is what do we do with the Jews? The Jewish question, that's what that entails. And you know the very dark history of the answer to that question in the 20th century. The question in the early Christian church was, however, what do we do with the Gentiles? The early Christian church was predominantly Jewish, and the Old Testament scriptures were pretty clear about how the Jews were to think about the Gentiles. They were, above all things, unclean. It's hard for us to grasp this, so my mind goes to sports analogies. I remember the first time as a boy, so when I was a boy, I'm a Nebraska fan, as Daryl mentioned yesterday, if you were here, and these have been hard years for Nebraska football fans, but back then we were good, and we hated Oklahoma. We hated Oklahoma the way Michigan fans hate Ohio State, right? It's that sort of hatred. It's a holy hatred, but it's a, It's a deep and abiding hatred. And I remember the first time I used to spend some of my summers down in a little town south of Dodge City, Kansas, Mineola, Kansas. And we went with my great uncle and my grandma to see a great aunt of some kind in Texas. And we had to cross the Oklahoma Panhandle. And I remember the first time we crossed over into Oklahoma. And I thought, this can't be good. Something very bad's going to happen. And Grandma had lived through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and she was out working when the orange or red soil rose up and came for about 10 years. And she hated Oklahoma herself for her own reasons for that soil. So it's that sort of thing. I felt like I'm amongst the unclean people, at least as long as we're in the Oklahoma panhandle. And now you have to understand that, you know, for a Jew, God had said, you know, we thought, we deduced from nature that Oklahomans were unclean, but they knew from special revelation and had been commissioned not just to defeat them in a football game, but to slaughter them with a sword. And now God was including them into the covenant people of God. By the way, this is prima facie evidence that Reformed covenant theology is not replacement theology. It's addition theology. It's engrafting theology. It's enlargement theology. God had said to Abraham, I'm going to make you the father of many nations. Those were the Gentiles, and now here they come. It's one thing to know that they're going to come. It's one thing even to know that the Lord Jesus had said in John chapter 12, when the Greeks came, he said, well, this is it. This is, in effect, the beginning of the end. It's one thing to know all that. It's another thing to experience that and deal with it existentially, experientially, personally, psychologically, emotionally. I mean, one week, Gentiles are unclean. The next week, they're not unclean anymore if, oh my. We couldn't use to touch you people, now we have to give you a holy kiss. Oy! Right? I mean, you have to try to imagine that. And then Claudius had sent out all the Jews. He decreed all you Jews, you have to leave Rome. And then when he died, that edict expired. And so the Jews returned to Rome. Rome is like, you want to understand what Rome is like in the 50s and 60s of the first century. You have to think of Washington, D.C. I've only been to D.C. once, and that was plenty. I'm from Nebraska. I mean, that's... strange, weird place, but this is the center of the world. Everybody comes there to make money, chiefly. They call it public service. I've been in non-profit public service pretty much all my life and my dad before me and We never saw a dime, and somehow these folks managed to come to DC with nothing and leave with everything. I don't know how that works. I guess, as we might say back home, they were pretty smart fellers. I'm not sure how that works. But Rome is the center of the world, and everybody who wanted to be anybody wanted to be in Rome. That's where the money was. That's where the jobs were. That's where the influence was. That's where the power was. That's where stuff got done. And there were people, even in the Roman government, who were in the Roman congregation. Imagine that. Talking about unclean. So now the Jews come back, and now you have a mixed congregation. And how does this work? How do we think about this? And the great question that Paul is answering, really, beginning in chapter 9 is, Why aren't more Jews believing in Yeshua HaMashiach? Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, who is the Messiah of Jews and Gentiles alike. Why are not more people recognizing that this is it? This is the one for whom we've been hoping. This is the one that was promised in Isaiah 52, 53, in the fourth servant song. He's the one. It happened right before them. Everything that Isaiah said, they saw it with their eyes. And they heard about it with their ears. And they knew people who had seen it. And yet they didn't believe. Most, Paul says, and it anguishes him. It anguishes him. And at the same time, He wants everyone to know, both Jew and Gentile alike, that, as he said to the Ephesians 2.14, the dividing wall that had separated Jew and Gentile has been broken down. And he makes that point again and again in 9 and 10 and 11, the dividing wall, in one way or another, he says the dividing wall has been broken down. And whatever you do, however you understand this passage, the one thing you may not do is to rebuild that dividing wall. And there are whole systems, ways of reading the Bible that depend on rebuilding that dividing wall. Dispensationalism chief among them. I was never a very good dispensationalist. Kim was a very good dispensationalist. He knew all that stuff. He had all the prophecy charts memorized. He really did. Again, it was just too complicated for me, but I had the general outline in my mind that God had a special plan for Jews as Jews and that the real people of God Right? We're Jewish, and the best thing you could really be was a Jew. And I had a friend, actually, who tried to become a Jew, because that's where the action really is. You're saved by race, not by grace, is really what they were telling me, and by implication. And then I actually read Romans. Honestly, I had not really read Romans and Ephesians, because there was so much I'm searching for the right word, incongruity between what I was thought I was seeing in Romans and Ephesians from what I was hearing and what I knew and had believed and had understood to be the Christian faith that I couldn't make sense of it. But when I did finally read Romans, it was transformational. So how does God save anyone? He's already told us in chapter nine that behind the scenes is the marvelous, inscrutable, mysterious, unconditional, free, electing grace of God and the equally inscrutable decree of God that some should remain, some in that lump of sin, out of whom God has elected his people unconditionally, some will remain in that sin. That's what happens behind the scenes. I like to compare it to a theater. You go to the theater, you see the actors. You see the curtain, you see the actors, you see the stage, you see the lights, you see the set. But there's a whole world that goes on behind the curtain, behind the set. And sometimes in a real fancy theater, underneath the stage. In a big time Broadway theater, there's a whole world underneath the stage, and behind the stage, and above the stage, and back there, and it's amazing if you could see it all. But we're in this theater, and there's a curtain. And behind the curtain is God's mysterious secret operation. His sovereign operation, electing Right, bringing to new life those whom he has elected and leaving in their sins those whom he has reprobated. And we don't know who was who or why. Why me, Lord, and why not someone else? I don't know. I was just a little reprobate 15-year-old. Wicked, dead in sins and trespasses. Why did God bring me to faith? For his glory. I don't know exactly why bringing me to faith is for his glory, but that's what he did. That's why he brought you to faith, for his glory and for the edification of his church, for the advancement of his kingdom, sovereignly, freely, unconditionally, mysteriously, powerfully, in his own good time, his own good pleasure. You don't know where the spirit comes from, you don't know where he goes, John 3 says. You just know that it is. That's what the story that Paul's been telling, but how is it that he actually does bring people to new life and true faith? How does it happen that he brings people to new life and true faith? He uses means. The same God who ordained the ends, Charles Hodge says in his commentary on this passage, also ordained the means. And the means are, in a sense, the dirty feet of preachers. You ever lived in the desert? I've lived in the desert now for, well, altogether more than 30 years. It still amazes me. I can't believe I live in the desert. Nothing ever said to me when I was a kid, you're going to live, you're going to spend 30 years in the desert. I'm a child of the corn. I'm not a child of the desert. But I tell you what, you wear, it's hot and it's dry, when things are the way they're supposed to be, and your feet get dirty. You wear sandals and your feet get dirty. And your feet are filthy. And in the ancient Near Eastern world, when you couldn't shower three times a day and you didn't have air conditioning, you didn't have all the fancy soaps that we have and all that stuff, antiperspirant, the ancient world basically smelled a lot. And when you greeted, you know, somebody came to your house, it was hospitable to clean their feet. Jesus did it. How amazing is that? God the Son girded himself with a towel and washed the disciples' feet. He says, unless I wash you, you have no part in me. That's the thought world that Paul's invoking. Now listen again. How will they call on him, Jew and Gentile alike, he says, verse 13, for everyone who calls, Jew and Gentile alike, who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Everybody who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction, I want to say that again, verse 12, between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. So how will they 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? Paul's making an argument here. There's actually a kind of a syllogism here. Calling upon the Lord comes from faith. You know about the ordo salutis, the order of the application of redemption by the Holy Spirit, that you're dead in sins and God gives you new life, calls you efficaciously to new life and true faith, and through faith gives you union with Christ, mystical union with Christ, and you're adopted and you're justified and adopted and united to Christ. and eventually it's sanctified, and eventually you'll be glorified. There's an order, a logical order. It's the dead who are given new life. It's those who are given new life who believe. It's those who believe who are united. It's those who are united who are adopted. That's the order of the application. Not in time, it all happens at once in time, but that's the logical order. I know when I say the word logic, it freaks people out sometimes. It just means you were, it's an empty field in which you plant. That's a logic. Who plants in a field that's got a full crop in it? That would be sort of stupid. It would be destructive, right? So you plant in an empty field. In order to sell cattle, you have to own cattle. There's a logical order, right? That's all I'm saying, and that's all Paul is saying here. Calling upon the Lord comes from faith, and listen to this, faith comes from hearing. By the way, not from seeing, not from baptism, not from the Lord's Supper, not from pictures of Jesus, not from movies of Jesus, not from any of the other clever devices that we've invented in the history of the church, not from the sword, not from crusades. Faith comes from hearing. Faith comes from hearing. Do you believe that? That faith comes from hearing? If you did believe that, that would affect the way you behave. That would affect the decisions you make. That would affect the decisions you make about your children. Well, preacher, you know, my children, they're just kind of wandering from the Lord, you know. Well, you know, in that connection, I have kind of noticed that you and your children have had spotty attendance to the means of grace. Well, you know, there's the football, and there's the traveling baseball, and there's the soccer. Faith comes from hearing. Why aren't your children believing? Because they've never heard. Why aren't they hearing? Because you haven't attended to the means of grace. It's not magic. It's not math. It's not algebra. It's not calculus. It's just attending to the due use of the ordinary means of grace. It's in the word of God, by the way. I mean, it's in our confession, but it's in the word of God. How are they to hear without somebody preaching? And how are they to preach unless they're sent? So you call because you believe, and you believe because you heard, and you heard because somebody preached. What did they preach? Seven steps to a successful life. That's what'll do it. No? That's not good news. Seven steps to a successful life may be good advice, but it's not good news. You know what good news is? When you log on to the internet, Lord willing, soon, and the Jerusalem Post says, peace. That's an announcement of good news, that people aren't killing each other. How about this good news? God the Son became incarnate and obeyed in the place of wicked sinners, hell-deserving sinners. And all the obedience he accomplished is credited to you when you put your trust in him. And he regards you as if you had done everything that Jesus did. You did the foot washing. You performed all the righteous deeds. You've performed all the obedience to the holy law of God. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything which is written in the book of the law. And he did it all. And it's as if you did it. And God looks at you as if you did it. God's not giving you the side eye. He's not looking at you, I don't know. No, he said, my child. Come to me, you're righteous. I love you unconditionally. I embrace you unconditionally. I accept you unconditionally. You didn't do anything. You can't do anything and you can't lose it. I'll never let you go. My son laid down his life for you. And Jesus said, I am the father of one. No one can snatch them out of my hand. And I'm coming back to consummate all of this. And in the interim, I'm interceding and making your prayers known and protecting you, shepherding you, and then I'm coming back. That's the glorious good news. And then at the judgment, it's not like, well, you've been on probation and you've been out on bail, but now it's a reckoning time. Well, I see, Mr. Clark, in 1972, you just about killed your sister with a tape measure. We need to talk about that. I didn't mean to. I was angry and the tape measure was at hand and I chucked it and I guess I'm a better, better at throwing things than I knew. No, that's all been paid for. There are two books. And if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, the one book says, all y'all are righteous. And the other book, Well, that's a very unhappy book. You don't wanna be in that other book. And it just comes through an announcement. How does that work? God the Holy Spirit wonderfully and mysteriously works through the preaching, the announcement of the good news. So every time your minister stands up here and announces that, you should be expecting and praying and hoping that God the Holy Spirit's gonna use that to bring his elect to new life and true faith. And so people say, Yeah, you reform people. You're always talking about bringing people to church. You need to go out and knock on doors. Well, God's free to use people knocking on doors, and I've knocked on more doors than most people. But he hasn't attached a promise to the knocking on doors, but he has attached a promise to the proclamation of the gospel, and that's why we call what the pastor does behind this desk evangelism. That's why we bring people, because this is what God uses. This is what he's promised to use. It's not because we're lazy. It's not because we're scared. I mean, all of those things are probably true, but it's because this is where the promise is being administered. All right, I'll be quicker in the second two points. So one last thing here. Charles Hodge has a great comment in his commentary that this is a great text for the free offer of the gospel, the well-meant offer of the gospel. God's will is revealed. We don't judge his will by his decree. We don't know what that is. We judge his will by what he's revealed in scripture. And his revealed will is that the gospel go everywhere and be announced to everyone. And we say to everyone everywhere, whosoever will may come, why won't you come? Read Mr. Murray's defense of the free offer of the gospel. It's a brilliant defense. He's exactly right. And we above all ought to be about that. We who've received this good news and who've heard the good news and who've been given new life and true faith through the good news, we should want it to go out to everyone everywhere. And especially to Israel. By the way, in this context, especially to Israel. And that's hard, but it needs to be done. And maybe we haven't worked as hard at that as we should. But not all have obeyed the gospel, he says. And then he turns to the tragedy of unbelief. Not all who have obeyed the gospel. Well, what does it mean to obey the gospel? It means, well, there are three things you've got to do. Is that what he says? Is that how he defines obeying the gospel? Well, look at the text. It's in your Bible. It's not a trick. They have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has done what? What's the verb? Believed. How do you obey the gospel? You obey the gospel by believing. Who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. He goes back, really, to the point he was making. And then he returns to the problem and the tragedy of unbelief. So the logic of Paul's argument, and now the tragedy of unbelief. The tragedy is that the voice, their voice, has gone out to all the earth in their words to the ends of the world. This is so interesting because he's actually quoting Psalm 19, and in that section of Psalm 19, the psalm is actually talking about natural revelation. But Paul here applies it to special, the most special revelation, the announcement of the gospel. And it's a little challenging to figure it out, but Mr. Murray is helpful here, as he often is, and he says that now Paul is saying that just as the natural revelation is universal, now the gospel is likewise going out to all the earth and is universal. But still there is a problem in verse 19. But I ask, did Israel not understand? And he goes to explaining here. How does he explain it? Well, I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. What is God doing? Well, he quotes Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. They haven't obeyed the report they haven't believed. Why? Because God is in the process of using us Gentiles to provoke Jews to jealousy and anger as part of his plan to bring all the elect Jews to new life and true faith. To bring all the elect Jews to new life and true faith. We're part of a great, amazing, historical drama. God is in the process now between the ascension and return of Christ, drawing all of his people to himself. And he's using you and me, if you're a Gentile as I am, to bring all of his elect, including the elect Jews, to new life and true faith. And again, this is a reminder to pray. Lord, bring all your elect, Jew and Gentile alike. I mean, obviously, as I'm preaching this, I'm very conscious of the news and all the things that are going on. Now we ought to be on our knees, Lord. Bring all your elect in Israel to new life and true faith. 1948 is an amazing thing from a socio-historical perspective. It has nothing to do with the fulfillment of prophecy, but it is an opportunity. It is an opportunity. And now what's going on now is an opportunity. Lord, bring your elect to new life and true faith. The only way to peace is Jesus. The crucified Messiah is the way of peace. He's the way of life. He's the way of hope. He's the way of righteousness with God. He is the righteousness of God. Keeping Shabbat won't do it. Not touching an elevator button on Shabbat won't do it. Not eating pork won't do it. Because you've not eaten pork, you've not touched an elevator button, but you've murdered your neighbor in your heart. And people, quite justifiably, I mean, from a human point of view, are murderously angry, aren't they, right now? You read the news, it rises up in me. I think, I thought, if I were 30 years younger, maybe I'd get on a plane and take up an AR. It's so infuriating. But that's not the way to righteousness with God. The way to righteousness with God is through the shed blood of a suffering servant who said, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. Who stood and looked over Jerusalem and he said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks. And who allowed wicked men to take him and beat him and force him to haul a cross up Golgotha, and allowed them, the Lord of glory, who spoke everything into existence. N-R-K-A-N-H-O-L-O-G-O-S. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and nothing came into existence that didn't come through the Word. The one who was at the top of Sinai and who thundered, and if anybody touches the mountain, you die. That one, we all crucified. And that's the one to which we have to call our Jewish neighbors and say, that's your Messiah. I know it's a stumbling block. But he said, I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. And that's the great tragedy of unbelief. Third point, quickly here, verses 18 through 21, specifically, 19 and 21, or I will go to 20, because I already touched on 18 and 19, so verse 20, almost done. Then Isaiah is so bold to say, and he turns to Isaiah 65, I have been found by those who did not seek me. I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me. The Greeks and the surrounding pagan nations had been God's enemies, and now God has come to them. The gospel has come to the ends of the earth. Farmington Hills, Michigan is the ends of the earth. Do you understand what we were if you have a European background? We were sheer, ignorant, blind, murderous pagans, tree-worshipping pagans. The apostle to the Frieze went initially to the Germans, and he cut down the oak of Thor, and they were all very impressed. Yeah, well. His God must be more powerful than ours. And then he built a chapel out of it, talking about transforming the culture. He didn't build anything, he built a church out of it. And they were very impressed with that. And then he went to the priest who promptly killed him and ate him, by the way. But they did that because they were pagans. And look at what God's done. He's shown the light of the gospel on us. It came all the way from the Mediterranean world. Those, 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, this is the last thing here, right? The twofold progress of the gospel. The one aspect of the twofold progress of the gospel is that all the elect are being brought to new life and true faith, even blind, murderous, stubborn, ignorant Gentiles. who knew nothing of God or His ways, other than what they knew of nature. And here's the, there's another side, and this is, I hate to end this way, but it's where the passage ends. But in Israel, he says, all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. That's the other side of the two-fold progress of the gospel. There is election and there is reprobation. Now, we don't know God's decree. We shouldn't guess God's decree. You never ever ask, am I elect? You never ever ask, am I a reprobate? You only ask, do I believe in Jesus? So this is what we do now. We beg God, we pray, Lord, call all your elect, Jew and Gentile alike, to new life and true faith. Send your gospel, send me. Let me help you send the gospel. Let me participate in some way. You can participate for free on your knees. It doesn't cost you anything but calluses and time. God will use that. And you can give, and you can serve, and you can help, and maybe you can go. I don't know what God's calling you to do. Maybe there's a young man in this congregation whom God's calling to ministry. We're facing a real shortage now. For the first time in my life, we have a shortage of ministers, a real shortage. Young man, is God calling you to ministry, to stand up here and do this? He won't be here forever and I know I won't be. Who's gonna follow us and stand up here and announce this? And go and announce it. Plant a church in Jerusalem, plant a church in Tel Aviv, plant a church in Haifa. I didn't say it was gonna be easy. The government's gonna fight you every step of the way. When David Taddock planted the church in Tel Aviv, they had to go to the Supreme Court of Israel. but they got it done in the providence of God. And he's preaching the gospel and people from all over the world come to Israel, Russian Jews, their services are in three languages. We'll leave the reprobating and electing to God and we will go and we will pray and we will preach. Let's pray. Father, we're so grateful for your word, for your promises, for the good news, and for the way that you use the foolishness of preaching. And we pray that you'll do that this morning. And we pray that you'll continue to do it to the glory of your name and the upbuilding of your church and the salvation of all your people, Jew and Gentile alike. For Jesus' sake, amen.