Depths of Riches: Sermon on Romans 11:33-36

In the far northwestern regions of Russia, a short distance from the tiny border they share with Norway, there is a modest town – a couple thousand people more than Ephrata, I reckon – a town called Zapolyarny. It used to be bigger; it's been losing population for years. It isn't, I suppose, in the most hospitable surroundings. And if you set out from there through the brown and barren landscape, and you go in the right direction, you won't have to walk or drive more than a couple miles before you come to what's left of what looks like a disaster zone. Just the ruins of a building. Debris strewn all over the place. Looks like a little plot of land that had dreams of being a landfill when it grew up. Walk through the debris, and in the middle of it you'll find a rusted metal cap, no more than a foot wide, bolted firmly into the ground. Now, if I were to drop something valuable down most holes, I could probably hire some experts to help me recover it – if it were, say, the Hope Diamond, it'd be worth it to fish it out from the bottom of a well. But if you could unbolt that cap and drop the Hope Diamond through a nine-inch hole in the ground beneath it, the Hope Diamond would never be seen again – not 'til Jesus comes back, at least.

If the Hope Diamond tumbled into the hole under that cap, it'd have an interesting journey on its way down. It would pass by microscopic plankton fossils, endless layers of granite soaked in water, mud boiling with hydrogen. It'd get hot at the bottom – over 350 degrees. That hole is the Kola Superdeep Borehole. And it goes down quite a ways. Not a hundred feet. Not three hundred feet. Not three thousand feet. No, the Soviets had higher – or, should I say, lower – aspirations than that. It goes down over forty thousand feet into the earth – over seven and a half miles – deeper than the deepest ocean trench. Drop the Hope Diamond into that, and it's goodbye to the Hope Diamond. Unrecoverable. There are a lot of holes we think of as deep. But they're jokes next to the Kola Superdeep Borehole. It's in the name – now that's deep.

Hold that thought. If you've been here the past week or so, you know we've been pressing our way through the incredibly dense and complicated arguments Paul's been making, trying to unpack the mystery of God's plans for history. Most places in his letters, he's had to deal with Jewish groups who think that non-Jews – Gentiles – only get into the kingdom as second-class citizens, if at all. He calls them 'Judaizers.' Here, in Rome, Paul's met the opposite problem: non-Jewish Roman believers who harbor all the traditional Roman prejudices and think that God's done with the Jews, has changed plans.

Paul sees something different at work. He says that all of history from Moses to the end can be split in three, and here's where God gets clever. For that long first stretch we read about in the Old Testament, Israel had a lot of special privileges it usually kept to itself. They were in the spotlight, the center of God's plan to bless all the world. All the other nations were lost... waiting. If it were a race, Israel was way ahead, and nobody else even got the memo. Which was what Israel expected: when they crossed the finish line, then the last generation of the nations could cross and join in the after-party. But as it turns out, that's not the way God wanted it. After Jesus came, most of Israel tripped over him like a stumbling stone, got broken off like branches from a tree. But Paul explains that God's just leveling the playing field. Israel's stumble is just to give all the other nations a chance to catch up and get ahead! Which is what we're seeing now in the second stretch: disciples from all nations, joined together with Israel's small but faithful remnant, are out in front. That's what the Romans see, and they assume that God just doesn't want Israel to make it. Paul tells 'em to hold their horses. Because the idea is that, when Israel sees so many nations getting ahead of them, it'll motivate them to get back up in the third stretch, get into Christ, get with the program, catch up with the rest of God's church – and then Israel and all nations can cross the finish line together. A photo finish, but it's a real tie: Israel and all nations tied for first place. Gold medals all around. That, Paul says, is what God's aiming at.

Last week, exploring what Paul's saying here could be pretty rough. Paul is, after all, taking aim at our ideas and our prejudices and trying to deflate them; he's poking our balloons 'til they pop, which is never pleasant. I bet it wasn't pleasant for the Roman churches, either. It's humbling to see how God's plan is bigger than us, and nobody really likes being humbled that way. God is acting in a way nobody could've expected, nobody could've predicted. How should we feel about everything Paul's just unpacked?

Paul, for one, will tell us how he feels. He points at God and falls to pieces in overwhelmed worship. “O depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!” Paul shouts, “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Romans 11:33)! Looking at this whole plan, Paul says that God is deep – deep, deep, deep. Really deep. “The depths of God” are deep like the Kola Superdeep Borehole is deep, and deeper still (1 Corinthians 2:10). The depths of God have many dimensions, and Paul highlights three here in his song of worship.

First, God is deep in his knowledge. “O depth of … the knowledge of God!” The knowledge of God goes so much deeper than any hole we've ever dug or any hole we could ever dig. It stretches from the heights of the heavens to the heart of the earth and back. And for Paul, Exhibit A of how deep the knowledge of God must be is this: “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew” (Romans 11:2). God knew, all the way back when he was talking to Abraham, exactly what Israel would be like. All their successes. And all their failures. All their moments of tenderness. And all their hard-headed, stiff-necked, hard-hearted scenes of rejection. All their virtues and all their vices. All their credits and all their foibles. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Israel's rough and rocky heart, like the heart of any nation or any person, is a disaster zone shrouded in mud and darkness and storm, spinning wildly in its sickness. It's hopelessly murky. The heart is the least knowable thing the prophets can think of. But God knows it. He knew it long already. He knew the heart of Israel, what made them tick. And he knows the heart of every nation. He knows how we will or will not respond to good news.

Best of all, he knew us – he knew we'd run the race, knew we'd need all the help we could get, so “those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). The knowledge of God is so much deeper than we can imagine; you could pile it in a stack all the way down the Kola Superdeep Borehole, and the knowledge of God would be infinitely deeper still. So why should we be surprised when God outsmarts us? “For who has known the mind of the Lord?”, Paul quotes Isaiah asking (Romans 11:34a). His knowledge is too deep for us to get a handle on. So often, we think we can outfox God. We think we can get ahead of him. We think we can see what he's up to, can crunch the numbers and predict where he's headed. Get real! Who knows all that's going on in the Lord's mind? Not me! Not you! Nobody but the Son and the Spirit, who alone “searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10).

And if that's true, who's to say that, whatever comes your way, God doesn't know something you don't? Who's to say that, when you just can't see a way forward, it isn't plain as day in front of God's sight? Who's to say that, when you can't explain what's going on, it isn't elementary, dear Christian, the way God knows it? With as deep as his knowledge is, as deep as his knowledge goes, we cannot possibly give God enough credit. He knows so much that we can't fathom. Nothing takes him by surprise. Nothing hasn't been factored into his calculations. His knowledge is deep enough to encompass everything you're going through. His knowledge is deep enough to know what you can handle and what you can't – and, more relevantly, what Christ can handle in you. All we can do, all we need to do, is get down on our knees and trust him.

Second, God is deep in his wisdom. “O depth of … the wisdom … of God!” (Romans 11:33a). We're told all over the Bible that God is wise. Paul will call him “the only wise God” (Romans 16:27). “For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). “In wisdom” did God make all the things he created (Psalm 104:24), for “the LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19). The prophets tell us that God is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom” (Isaiah 28:29). To God “belong wisdom and might” (Daniel 2:20).

In particular, what brings this home for Paul is looking at the way God organized history. It would have been so easy to just let Israel win the race like they always figured they would: for them to come crashing through the finish line, get the gold medal, but then pal around with a couple silver- and bronze-medal nations who came streaming to Zion in the last day. That would've been easy. It also would've been easy to trip Israel up, let them stumble and fall, disqualify them from the race, and then have gold medals for 'civilized' nations like the Roman churches figured. But God had something wiser in store. He figured out a way to stretch his mercy so much further than any of us ever dreamed. In his wisdom, he skillfully wraps his mercy around Jews and non-Jews, around Israel and every nation, that none might be left second-class.

That's the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is so deep that there is no division, no hostility, that he doesn't have a plan to bring together. White and black, red and blue – in his wisdom, in Christ that “dividing wall of hostility” can be broken down (Ephesians 2:14). Broken families – God's wisdom has a plan. Broken countries – God's wisdom has a plan. Broken lifestyles – God's wisdom has a plan. And his plan will unfold especially in his church, “so that,” like Paul says, “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10).

So how dare the Romans try to second-guess God? How dare they think that they can dictate to God who is and who isn't acceptable to him? “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” Paul asks them. He's quoting Isaiah, and Isaiah was talking about how, in spite of their apparent downfall, God was planning to restore Israel. And Isaiah asks, “Wait, do you really think God needs to come to you – to your nation, to your people – for advice on whether he can or should pull this off?” And Paul's got the same question for the Romans: “Do you really think God needs your advice? Are you his counselor?”

So often, we think God needs our advice! We think that God needs to conform to our ideas, our wisdom, our prejudices and agendas. When we hear God tell us to “abstain from sexual immorality,” and that “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” – well, there are plenty of churches and plenty of professing believers who want to be God's counselor, who want to advise him to loosen up on that (1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). And then, when we hear God tell us that “when a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong; you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you the same as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” (Leviticus 19:33-34), and when God tells us to “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (Hebrews 13:2) – well, again, there are plenty of churches and plenty of professing believers who want to be God's counselor. And then when we hear Jesus say, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34) – again we want to be God's counselor. And when things just aren't working out for us, and we can't understand what God is doing or why, and we think he's making a mess of things, and we start doubting, we want to be God's counselor. But we can't. He doesn't need our advice. His wisdom is too deep for that. “No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the LORD” (Proverbs 21:30). His judgments are unfathomable; his ways are untraceable – we've got no view behind the scenes (Romans 11:33b). We can't track his footprints, can't piece together the clues, can't get ahead of him. Just trust and be amazed at his wise plan as it unfolds.

And then third, God is deep in his riches. “O depth of the riches … of God!” (Romans 11:33a). And there is so much in that statement, because God is rich in so many ways. God is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4), he has “riches in glory” (Philippians 4:19), he's got “riches of kindness and forbearance and patience” (Romans 2:4). God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17). All the food you eat – that's from God. All the water you drink – that's from God. All the air you breathe – from God. All the warmth you feel, and every cool breeze – that's from God.

And what this means is, for one thing, God is far too rich to ever be in debt. Which means he is far too rich to ever be in our debt. “Who has given a gift to him, that he might be repaid?” (Romans 11:35). Paul is quoting what God said to Job: “Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?” (Job 41:11a). “We are debtors,” Paul would tell us (Romans 8:12), but God never is. Which means that God will never owe you anything. All he gives, he gives as a gift, as merciful grace. We can never be so good that we entitle ourselves to extra special treatment. We cannot get God into our debt. His riches are just too deep for that to happen.

But the other side of that is that God is richer in blessing than we are in imagination! “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). We know that verse. God is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). We know that one, too. But think about that! God is richer in blessing than you are in imagination. When you pray for this thing or that thing, your imagination is consistently coming up short of what God really aims to give you. And you can trust that he will.

God is far more eager to forgive you than you are to be forgiven by him. God is far more eager to comfort you in your distress than you are in your distress to be comforted. God is far more eager to prosper you than you are to be prospered. Only remember that his value system is higher, and his timing is more far-sighted – see, again, the depths of his knowledge and the depths of his wisdom. But know that he is far more rich in blessing than we are in imagination. Try as hard as you might to conjure up a picture of what he'll give you some day – and you can rest assured that your mental picture doesn't hold a candle to what he's planning. And even now, even amidst our trials and tribulations, God richly blesses us under our radar; we only have to wait in patient faith to see his rich blessings blossom richly. He could pile his stack of blessings with your name on it into the Kola Superdeep Borehole, and it couldn't hold them all.

And for another thing, the depth of God's riches means that his 'divine holdings,' if you will, are vaster and more diversified than any stock portfolio known to man. We've heard him say that “every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills; I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine; … the world and its fullness are mine” (Psalm 50:10-12). Like he said to Job, “Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine” (Job 41:11b), and not only that, but like Moses said to Israel, “to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it” (Deuteronomy 10:14). “For from him … are all things.” He's the Creator of every thing that's out there – every cat, every plant, every person, every mountain, every far-flung galaxy. “And through him … are all things.” He's the Sustainer who keeps all things in existence – they owe their being to a continual, moment-by-moment grant of mercy from the mind of the Lord. “And to him are all things.” He's the Goal it's all aiming toward, and the Owner. No wonder Israel couldn't fall by the wayside. It was and is his, and “to him are all things.” Same with the nations. The greatest diversity there is, is in what belongs to God. Turn away from him to what you have and what you know, and immediately you're limited, you're reducing the variety and richness. God's riches are deeper and more diverse, “for from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36a) – so is there anything he can't provide, if it's wise for him to give it to us? So shouldn't we trust him to provide all he says he'll provide, and give us all he says he'll give us?

“O depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). There is so much about God that is far beyond our ability to explore. The only appropriate response isn't arrogance, and it isn't doubt; it's humble faith. And yet a humble faith that reaches out to what can't be searched out. Because God is determined “in the coming ages” to “show us the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). His aim is that we might “reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden on the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3). “Unsearchable riches of Christ” are God's plan for us in “the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:8-10). This “mystery hidden for ages and generations” is “now revealed to his saints,” and presents us with “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27).

So the only response to the “depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” that make possible to us this “hope of glory” whereby mercy in Christ is stretched over all, is to glorify God: “To him be the glory forever!” (Romans 11:36b). So often in our lives, so often in our society, so often (sad to say) even in churches, we're content to relegate God to the margins, to the sidelines – there if we decide we need something from him, but otherwise a sideshow. But to glorify God is to acknowledge him as the center – as the one “from whom and through whom and to whom are all things” (cf. Romans 11:36a). And here's Paul's point: a God so deep must be a God so central! A deep center, a center deep in riches and wisdom and knowledge, is exactly what's needed in our world and in our lives. The Kola Superdeep Borehole is closed up and sealed off; but God can never be closed up and sealed off. His depths are greater, and we cannot get to the bottom of it. So in all humility and all faith, let us forever glorify this God so knowing, so wise, so rich, so superdeep. “Amen” (Romans 11:36c)!

Riches for the World: Sermon on Romans 10:18--11:32

At least it was a dry heat. The weary crowd stood and fidgeted beneath the desert sun, a few miles south of the ruins of Sodom. They were tired. But they listened closely. They knew they didn't have long yet. All their lives, they'd looked up to him. Revered him. The oldest man they'd ever seen. Their only leader all their days. And he was dying. With what little strength he had left, he wanted to impart final wisdom until he was no more on this earth. He'd just come out of the big tent in the heart of the camp, so they gathered around to hear what he'd learned. And in a wavering voice, he began to sing. Line by line. “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak...” He sang of the greatness and faithfulness of the God who led them. He sang of how one God had found them in a howling waste, had circled and hovered like a mama eagle. He sang of prosperity, satisfaction.

But he sang, too, of abandonment and idolatry, mockery and faddishness: “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers never dreaded.” And the old man sang of the response of an offended deity: “They have made me jealous with what is no god; they have provoked me to anger with their idols! So I will make them jealous with those who are no people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation” (Deuteronomy 32:21). Oh yes, the old man warned – if they persisted in provoking their God to jealousy, he'd return the favor and use the power of jealousy and punishment to get them on the right track again. The old man sang. And he – old man Moses – explained why he sang; for in the tent of meeting, the LORD God shrouded in clouds and swirling mists had told him of how they were itching for affliction, and how “when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness, for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring” (Deuteronomy 31:21).

And so it did indeed. Over twelve hundred years after Moses sang the song and was shortly 'gathered to his fathers,' as the saying went, the descendants of the audience that day in the Jordanian desert were in the rather sad state he'd foreseen and foreknown. The promised one had come. The God that birthed them as a nation, the Rock of their salvation, had stooped to walk among them. This Messiah, this long-awaited hope, “came to his own... and his own received him not” (John 1:11). After his death and resurrection, though, there was a wave of hope. Of gathering. All of a sudden, thousands of scattered Israelites believed (Acts 2:41). More repented on a daily basis (Acts 2:47). Before long, it was five thousand (Acts 4:4). The pace increased, got faster, picked up more steam (Acts 5:14). They “multiplied greatly, … and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). The long-awaited acceptance was here!

Until it wasn't. Things began to shift, change. Wherever the missionaries went, some believed, but then the others, the masses, didn't. So some missionaries like Paul and Barnabas announced, “Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). In time, in places like Rome, a few churches had a Jewish presence, but not all of them did. And during the season when many Jews were exiled from the city by imperial decree, the Gentiles – non-Jews – learned how to get along by themselves. And when the suffering Jews, believing and unbelieving, returned to the city, it got messy. We talked about that the other week: how some Roman Gentile Christians got a new idea. And their new idea was this: that if the door was wide open for them, it might be closing for the Jews; and if they were in God's favor, it meant they, the Gentile Church, were taking Israel's place; and all that Jewish stuff was so old-fashioned now, so obsolete, so out-of-touch with the real condition of the modern-day world. Clearly, they thought, God – and Paul – had rejected the Jews and turned to the Gentiles.

And so Paul has to wade into the muck and mire and do some explaining. And boy, does he have a lot to say! We've been listening to him for some weeks now. And he wants them to know, when it comes to opportunity to be rescued and brought into the heart of God's work now, “there's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him; for 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved'” (Romans 10:12-13). It takes just two things: confessing and believing – both centered in Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah, and the good news about his arrival, his sacrifice, his rule (Romans 10:9).

God, Paul says, sent out messengers to preach this good news to Jews and Gentiles alike. But he has to admit that, at the national level, Israel has ignored them, shot them down, rejected the good news, refused to join in the celebration. “They have not all obeyed the gospel” (Romans 10:16). So what's the problem? Didn't the messengers reach them? That can't be it: “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Romans 10:17). Well, didn't they know the consequences? Sure they did. Not only had they heard the song of Moses, which now confronts them as a witness just like God said, but even Isaiah contrasted God's overtures toward this “disobedient and contrary people” with God being “found by those who did not seek me” (Romans 10:20-21). On that note, it sure sounds like the Gentile Christians of Rome are right: they've replaced a rebellious and thrown-out Israel with their Church.

But Paul explains that the story is way more complicated. “Has God rejected his people? No way!” How can that be? What's the proof? Paul says he, and other Jewish Christians like him, are the proof: “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 foreknow” (Romans 11:1-2) – whom he foreknew even in their rebellion and their apostasy. The way it's always worked is that, even in those moments when Israel was most astray, when Israel as a body was just totally dead-set against God – even then, like in the days of Elijah, God had kept a remnant, an elite mini-Israel, who stood in as a placeholder for the whole until better days (Romans 11:2-4). “So, too, at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). And because of that, historic Israel is split in two: “The elect obtained [what Israel was seeking], but the rest were hardened” (Romans 11:7).

Why? Why save a remnant of a failed nation? Or why let there be such failure in a nation with a future? Those are the questions on the minds of the people hearing this letter read in all the different Roman churches – some more, some less Gentile-dominated. “Did they stumble so as to fall? No way! Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous” (Romans 11:11). It's just like Moses said long before! Because Israel clung to their ignorance, God wanted to make them jealous with a 'no-people,' a foolish nation, by lavishing his attention on them, so as to provoke Israel into waking up. Israel's stumbling, bumbling non-response to the gospel isn't the failure of God's plan; actually, it's part of God's crafty plan – God's crafty plan to save the Gentiles and the Israelites.

And that, Paul says, is what his ministry is all about: ministering to the Gentiles with an eye toward making his fellow Jews jealous, so that all can be saved. History moves in three stages. Once Israel had rejected the gospel and been set aside from the limelight, it paved the way for massive success in the Gentile mission. But the idea is that that's only step two, because it'll provoke step three: Israel's jealousy, with their acceptance and their full inclusion again – not just a little remnant, but the main mass. That's what Paul is after (Romans 11:12-16).

So Israel isn't obsolete. Israel isn't old-fashioned and outdated. Israel isn't the permanent loser – some second and now-discarded thing alongside the Gentile Church. Israel's salvation is still the end goal that God's driving at. And the whole thing – yes, even the thing that Roman Gentiles have joined – is rooted in God's covenant long ago with a man named Abraham, whom Jewish texts had started to call Israel's 'root.' That's true – and “if the root is holy, so are the branches” (Romans 11:16).

Paul wants to chase that image. He says, Imagine Israel as like an olive tree – a cultivated, cared-for olive tree. But things went a little topsy-turvy. Many of its branches got chopped off. Why? Unbelief – a lack of the fruit of faith. So now there are two things, you could say: a growing tree, with just a minority of its original, natural branches; and then, over in the corner, carefully stacked, a pile of broken-off branches. All are, in a way, Israel. But then, because of how roomy and bare the tree is, God goes and gets branches from wild olive trees, and he grafts them onto this cultivated olive tree of Israel. But once this tree's sap starts flowing into them, these formerly wild branches come to life and are fruitful. A successful operation, restoring fruitfulness to the olive tree called Israel! Yet, lest these recently-introduced branches get smug over that heap of native-Israelite wood in the corner, they need to remember: they aren't a natural fit. The only life that flows through them, comes from the holy root of the patriarchs. And if they still aren't fruitful, God won't hesitate to chop 'em off again. And whenever God chooses to graft natural branches (native-Israelite branches) back in, won't they take to it naturally? After all, it's literally in their DNA. “For if you were cut from what by nature is a wild olive tree, and grafted (contrary to nature) into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree!” (Romans 11:24). It's their own – not like this outlandish Gentile experiment that somehow works. No room for pride.

In fact, Paul says, it's still all God's plan: “A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and in the same way, all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26). It's all so topsy-turvy. Jewish thinkers tended to envision the final turn of events something like this: Israel is in hard straits, but then God restores his people to glory, and the fullness of Israel is saved, and then the Gentiles will see that and be drawn to Zion. Paul flips it on its head: the Gentiles (wild branches) are already coming to join (i.e., be grafted onto) the Israelite remnant (the trunk of the cultivated tree), and when their full number is saved, and when 'mainstream Israel' (the heap of natural branches severed from the tree) is finally fed up with a view from the bench, they'll join the game again (i.e., be re-grafted onto the tree), and all will be brought to glory together. In the meantime, the Gentile Romans are right to the extent they see mainstream natural Israel's hostility to the gospel, but so wrong to think it means God's done with Israel. He can't be – his gifts and calling can't be taken back (Romans 11:28-29). But it's all been God's plan to close both kinds of people up under disobedience at one major stage of history, so that when all's said and done, God “may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:30-32).

That's a big message. And it might seem a bit... I don't know... academic? Is that how maybe it seems to us here, now, today? What are we – us here, right here – supposed to get out of this picture Paul is sketching? Is it relevant? Does it have a practical cash-value for how we think and feel and act? Before we close, I want to propose to you eight lessons – and maybe there are more – but eight lessons, eight points, I think you and I alike should be drawing from this.

First of all, there's this. This is how God sees history. This is history according to History's Lord. The entire sweep of human history over the past few thousand years, and whatever we're adding now, all the way until it wraps up, is about this: God first locked up the Gentiles in disobedience, but when it was Israel's turn, the Gentiles got mercy; but in the end, by the mercy shown to the Gentiles, all Israel will discover mercy afresh. That's what history is about: Israel and the Gentiles, and God's determination to save both in mercy. Everything else is secondary.

Here in America, and especially in the American church, we're so obsessed with the idea that history's about all our stuff. A few years ago, a popular TV show (Parks and Recreation) finished its run, and there was a character on it who humorously gave voice to the way we really think in our hearts. He said: “History began on July 4, 1776. Everything before that was a mistake.” But here's the reality. America is not what history is about. The White House, the legislature, the courts; our Declaration, our Constitution – none of it is what history is about. We are either a sideshow, or just some footnoted details as an example of one mainly Gentile nation within which some of Israel is scattered. America is not a defining feature of God's vision of history.

And that means that all the things that worry us – all the major obstacles and problems and temptations of the day – they aren't the main show either. The rise of secularism in America may not be great. But the fight between secularism and religion in America is not a key part of how God tells history. The role of other major religions in the world today, especially Islam, is a topic that we can't seem to avoid. And God has his purposes, because he's a God of details as much as of the main thing. But when God lets us in on the mystery of history, neither Islam nor any of those others fit in the title. Same's true for the big political questions. 'Conservatism,' 'Liberalism,' 'Capitalism,' 'Communism' – those conflicts aren't the way God tells history. And we'd do well to retrain ourselves to see history – even the history we're still living – the way God narrates it, and less in terms of our own self-appointed anxieties. And the way God tells history is about natural Israel and the now-grafted Gentiles having turns in the limelight, 'til all Israel – re-grafted natural and grafted wild branches, too – will be saved.

Second, what Paul says here should retrain how we think of the Church. What is the Church? Fundamentally, what is the Church? Is it a separate, new Gentile body that came into being as the torch passed out of Jewish hands? No. The Church, as we know it today, is Israel between surgeries. But note the key feature: what we're calling the Church is not a second entity alongside Israel, or a second entity replacing Israel; the Church just is Israel. We all have been grafted into Israel by being included through faith in the life of Israel's Messiah – who, as it turns out, is the main trunk, the whole tree. I don't mean the Middle Eastern country that calls itself by that name, but which is (sadly) mostly part of the pile of broken branches. The living Israel is the Church of Jesus Christ.

Which means that you, you once-wild branches, are, in a sense, adopted Israelites. That's us. Which means that the Old Testament story isn't some other story, some old and foreign story. It's our story. When we read the Old Testament, we shouldn't be saying 'they.' We should be saying 'we.' Think of it like this: When we talk about the American Revolution, don't we American citizens like to say that “we fought the Crown for independence”? Not that we personally enlisted, but that we're identifying ourselves with the same national whole who fought? And when an immigrant comes and becomes a naturalized citizen, don't we celebrate when they start referring to the American heritage as 'we,' not 'they'? Same thing here. When we read the Old Testament, that has become our new backstory, our new heritage. The patriarchs are our root, so long as we're grafted in through faith.

Which is why we keep the Old Testament in our Bibles. It's not just for background research, not just reference, but present as living scripture. The Old Testament scriptures are ours, just as much as anything the apostles wrote. And since it's all our story, we'd better get familiar with it all. But too often, when we tell people the gospel, when we explain to them who Jesus is and what he's all about, you'd get the impression he was crucified in Genesis 4! Too often, we hop immediately from the Fall to the Cross, from our problem to Jesus' solution, without seeing that Jesus on the cross is the organic center of the whole story of God and his mission-carrying people. The story of pre-cross Israel isn't an optional add-on; it's what we imply when we call Jesus 'the Christ.' There's no such thing as a Christian to whom the Old Testament is irrelevant, only Christians who are ignorant of how.

Third, Jewishness remains highly relevant to God's church. The Church is Israel with wild branches grafted in, and temporarily missing most – but not all – natural branches; which God promises to re-graft once all the wild ones meant to be added have found their spot. The church grows from Jewish roots. And the church's present life is predicated on having a Jewish remnant living in our midst. Unlike what the Romans were thinking, and unlike the ways we've tried to normalize it, a totally un-Jewish church would be a bizarrely unnatural thing. And to tell the truth, some big stretches of church history have been major failures here. We've tried to banish Jews and Jewish culture; we've horribly mistreated Jews inside and outside the church. We have to be honest, brutally honest, about those atrocious failures. Whenever that has happened, we've betrayed the gospel.

But on the flip side, when we've embraced our Old Testament heritage (while standing firm in New Testament liberty), and when we've welcomed the 'natural branches' still among us, it's a fruitful blessing to any local body of believers. When we have members who are in fact descended from the patriarchs – members whose ancestors physically stood and heard Moses sing his song for the first time; members whose ancestors lived under the rule of David and Solomon; members whose ancestors stood in covenant with God during long eons when many of our families were still lost – well, when we have members who are descended from the patriarchs like Paul was, we need to cherish and celebrate that! They are living proof of God's promises to all of us. They are the rare surviving natural branches, still fruitfully drawing life and health from the tree. They are the remnant who let the church be what it is. In fact, here in this congregation, we are enormously blessed to have at least one family, maybe more, of such 'natural branches.'

Fourth, all that said, we need to remember this: It really is all about grace, not works. Even for the remnant of natural branches, it isn't an entitlement. It isn't something earned. It's mercy. It's grace. Paul calls them “a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it's by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise, grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:5-6). Not earned. Not entitled. A free gift of God – even for the remnant. And just the same for the wild branches grafted in – the Gentiles. Wild branches don't bring any productivity. Wild olive trees are notorious for that – it's partly why Paul used that image. It can't be by works, for any of us. It has to be by grace, for all of us. God doesn't want anyone to get in under the illusion that they earned a spot. No, no: he wants to be very clear about this. Whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, it's nothing you worked for, it's nothing you achieved; it's grace, conditioned on your perseverance in faith.

Fifth, just look at this strategic mind our God has! This careful balancing of Jewish and non-Jewish interests – this millennia long scheme to lure and entice both into the realm of his mercy – I could never come up with this. I'm just not that smart. All of us, putting our heads together, would never in a million years have come up with this plan. And yet the whole cycle, its full orbit, leads to everyone being treated on even footing. Neither will have room for boasting. Neither will have any excluded who could otherwise have been saved. It's literal divine genius. I urge you, just spend some time looking at how God's mind works – and trust him.

Sixth, note what Paul is expecting people to see in us. He expects that, as mainstream Israel sees the Gentiles enjoying with the remnant all their historic blessings, all the closeness with God that was theirs, they'll be provoked to jealousy and want back in on what they're seeing us having. The entire plan ultimately hinges on that. Think about what we're saying. Paul expects us to be enjoying so much of God that his historic people get jealous over how much deeper into God we're getting through Jesus than they can get outside of Jesus, so that they'll see how much they need Jesus. Is your relationship with God something that practitioners of other religions have reason to be jealous over? Because that's the plan. Think about that. Cultivate that. Dive into that.

Seventh, look at the way Paul talks about what the gospel has brought, right here, right now. Israel's failure means what for the rest of us? “Riches for the Gentiles” (Romans 11:12). What does their rejection mean? “The reconciliation of the world” (Romans 11:15). And what about the consequence of Israel's trespass? What do we get because of it? “Riches for the world” (Romans 11:12). We so easily get caught up in the problems of our lives. Our sickness. Our bankruptcy. Our jobs and our schedules. But do we have our eyes open – open to the fact that, in receiving the gospel, in having the opportunity to be grafted onto the tree God is tending, in encountering grace through Jesus, we're being made rich beyond our wildest dreams? Do we understand, do we see, that the gospel is in fact – right this moment, right here in this sanctuary – “riches for the world”? Jesus came, and the good news is, it's so that “you … might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). And Paul's ministry to the Gentiles, he says, was “making many rich” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Not with money, but with “the riches of [God's] kindness and forbearance and patience” (Romans 2:4), with “the riches of his glory” (Romans 9:23), with “the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7), “the riches of his glorious inheritance” (Ephesians 1:18). For Paul was called “to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). And exactly that is what you have received and can enjoy this very moment, through faith in him, because the Lord Jesus is presently, here and now, “bestowing his riches on all who call on him” (Romans 10:12). Do you see the value? The preciousness of the gospel?

Eighth, the last thing I want to share: All that, everything I just said, is like a trickle, a drip from a clogged hose. But there's a flood in store. “If [Israel's] trespass means riches for the world..., how much more with their full inclusion mean?” (Romans 11:12). “For if [Israel's] rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:15). What we're getting now are the blessings as filtered through the remnant – the apostles and the Jewish believers in every age joined to them. It's certainly proven to be riches for the world. But it's a pittance next to the flood of wealth and blessing and life set to be unleashed when the narrow channel of the remnant is expanded wide to 'all Israel.' There's something more than these presently experienced 'unsearchable riches' yet in store. Not just more, but “much more,” Paul says. It's beyond reconciliation. It's resurrection. It's life from the dead. It's the fullness of seeing face-to-face, of knowing as we are known, of beholding the Father with unshrouded eye and walking in glorious victory in an incorrupt new creation with a resurrected Christ. It's more than words can tell. But it's the “how much more,” it's the “life from the dead,” that's waiting in store for when 'all Israel,' the general collection of natural branches, are graciously grafted in again by faith, accepting and accepted, fully included beyond the trespass – and when God has his way of mercy for all. And for that, we hope and pray – and, like Paul, we hope to “magnify [our] ministry” (Romans 10:13).

Thanks be to the God of Israel, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of the olive tree that grows by grace from its Abrahamic root of richness into the unsearchable riches of Christ! Thanks be to God for the remnant of Israel he's preserved, thanks be to God for the wild branches he's grafting in from all nations, and thanks be to God for the miracle he'll yet do to save all Israel and bring life from the dead. Thanks be to this God in Jesus, the Messiah, our Lord. Amen.

Meet the Hows: Sermon on Romans 10:14-17

“Expect great things; attempt great things.” That was his motto. His parting words to his countrymen before he left his homeland, never to return again. Early the following year, 1793, William Carey had gotten on-board a ship to India, with his wife, his four children, and a friend. He knew what his great thing to attempt would be – and it involved being a missionary in one of the most populous yet least reached lands on the earth. He soon wrote, “I am, notwithstanding the little success we have had, far from being discouraged; and should I never succeed, yet I am resolved in the strength of the Lord Jesus to live and die persisting in this work, – and never to give it up but with my liberty or life. The worth of souls, the pleasure of the work itself, and above all the increase of the Redeemer's kingdom are with me motives sufficient, and more than sufficient, to determine me to die in the work that I have undertaken.” And so he would, forty-one years later – by the end of which, Carey had not only expected great things and attempted great things, but achieved great things.

William Carey had settled in the easternmost reaches of India, in West Bengal. After moving to Srirampur, he'd found an enduring home. Looking back over his life from the end, he had founded numerous schools, even a college; he had accomplished major social reforms of India itself; he had personally translated the Bible fully into at least six languages and partially into nearly two dozen others. Through his ministry, hundreds of locals had been converted; hundreds of souls were saved. And millions more would be, over the coming centuries. Because Carey had done more than go on an isolated journey. He'd sparked a movement.

I wonder if, one late day in the early 1830s, amid the humid breezes and river turns, walking among the thatch-roofed huts and the soaring trees – I wonder if his mind ever turned back to how it all started. He'd been born many decades earlier, in the middle of August 1761, in a tiny and little-known village in the heart of England. Even today, the population there is maybe half that of Gap, and a few hundred less than Terre Hill; how much less in the 1700s? Educated only until the age of twelve, he'd long had a fascination with reading books about travel – the stories and recollections told by voyagers who ventured the globe – so much so, his companions in youth nicknamed him 'Columbus.' While still a teenager, Carey attended the preaching of a dissident minister and was converted to an evangelical faith in Jesus Christ. At the age of twenty-two, in 1783, he got baptized.

Soon, he had three lines of work going on. In the evening, he'd manufacture and repair shoes for people. In the morning or afternoon, he'd teach schoolchildren. And when Sunday came around, he'd preach. To prepare for preaching, he immersed himself intensely in the Bible, even taught himself Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. But to teach his students geography, he kept reading the stories of great explorers, especially Captain James Cook. Gears in his brain started turning. He stitched together paper, made a world map on his wall, started jotting down information on every country on it. Soon, he was ordained as a full-time pastor.

That year, 1786, he was at a pastors' gathering, and the chairman solicited ideas of what they should talk about. All were silent, until Carey suggested the continuing relevance of the Great Commission. Among these church circles, you see, many people thought the Great Commission was only for the apostles, not for later generations of believers. And so Carey got a stern rebuke – was told to sit down and be quiet; that if God wanted the heathen converted, he'd do it himself or send a second Pentecost to restore the gift of tongues to ease the way. Otherwise, they said, it just couldn't be done.

Carey was mortified at the rebuke. But it set his brain into higher gear. He wrote, and eventually published, a little book – it wasn't very big, and didn't sell too well at the time – but a little book called An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Was printed in 1792, a year before he said goodbye to merry old England and set permanent sail for India. It's since been recognized as one of the foundational documents of the modern missions movement in the church. And on the title page, do you know what other words he put under the title? He added a quote from the Apostle Paul. And that quote was this:

For there is no Difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all, is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a Preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?

The very words of scripture we're here to talk about this morning. If you were here last week, you remember the first couple verses of that. Paul insisted that the sequence of salvation included believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and calling on his name, starting with the prayer of baptism, to be saved in relationship to God through Jesus. And that's the same terms given to Greeks, foreigners, as to Jews. And so Paul tells them that the same Lord is Lord over all things, all nations on the earth, regardless of their history (Romans 10:12). And he urges them that anybody, from any nation, from any background, who in any language calls out to invoke the name of Jesus, can thus be rescued from what ails the human heart, soul, and life: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).

But for Paul, that raises some questions – some hard-hitting questions. And all four start off the same way. The same four are the ones we have to face today, because he's asking us just as much as he was asking the churches of first-century Rome. So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I'm delighted to make a formal introduction. I would invite you now to “meet the hows.”

And the first How to come along and shake your hand is this one: “How, then, will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” (Romans 10:14a). See, that's the thing about prayer. That's the thing about calling out in the dead of night, or in the brightness of noon. You can't call on a name you don't think will catch the attention of a viable helper. If I were over at the hospital, and suddenly I felt my chest constrict and my right arm grow numb, and I thought to myself, “This is a heart attack; I need help right now!”, you know what the last thing I'd say is? “Stairway, help me! Elevator, help me! Floor tiles, help me!” That isn't even going to cross my mind! (I'm not that crazy...) See, my trust in a medical emergency won't be in the stairwells or in the elevators or in the floor tiles. But I just might say, “Doctor, help me! Nurse, help me!” Or even if I just cried “Help!”, that's who I'd have in mind. A person with medical training and certified skill, who knows what to do and has the power to do it. In an emergency situation, I'm going to call out to somebody I trust – somebody I think is real, is there, and is able and willing to help, and to whom I entrust myself in a case of urgent need.

To do the opposite just doesn't make sense. Stuck on the train tracks, I won't be shouting for help from the local ant colony. Caught in a flooding river, I won't be asking for Elvis. Because Elvis ain't around, so far as I can tell, and the ants may be there, but they can't understand me, can't react, can't do a thing for me. I'm not going to call on someone I don't believe is real and available to be present to the situation – I'm not going to call for Elvis. And I'm not going to call on someone or something I don't think I can trust to be useful or worthwhile – I'm not going to ask the ants. You can't, you don't, you won't call on someone in whom you haven't believed. That just ain't how it works. And the first How knows it. That's why he's asking.

So then a second How hops over to join his brother and shake your hand, too: “How are they to believe in him whom they have never heard?” (Romans 10:14b). This How gets brought up a lot when the age-old question comes up, “But what about those who have never heard? Don't they have a chance? And if they don't, can we really still believe in a God who conditions everything on a message some folks never get?” Theologians debate exclusivism and inclusivism – whether can there be such a thing, as Karl Rahner put it, as an 'anonymous Christian.' Well, I'll be dodging that question this morning. Even Billy Graham moved from one side to the other. Whatever the answer is, it's the justice and mercy of God. Whatever contingency plan he may or may not have, I've got my suspicions but no clear word, so we can dive down that rabbit-hole some other time.

The important thing is this: To actually believe, to actually know and trust, requires having heard of them. If I was one of those kayakers who had to get rescued on the Conestoga River yesterday afternoon during all the wild flooding – how likely do you think I am to yell out, “Save me, Mr. Schnickelbüdel!” Not too likely, because I've never heard of any such 'Schnickelbüdel' guy! Now, maybe it turns out that one of the local rescue workers, somebody within earshot, just so happens to be Stan Schnickelbüdel. But if I've never met him, never even heard of him, if the name's never reached my eyes or ears, how am I going to know he's there and call on him by name? I can't! That's the point this How is making. He might well be around and available to help, but if I've never heard of him, I won't be able to believe in him; and, like the first How showed us, if I don't believe in him, I can't call on him and get his attention and get rescued from the mess I'm in.

Just when you had gotten to know the first and second Hows, the third member of this How clan jogs past and reaches over, catching your attention: “How are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14c). If nobody's out there announcing the news, are you going to get the news you need? That's the reason people have been so stirred up the past couple of years about the state of the media. Whatever you think on that, the idea is, with so much neglect and distortion going on, the audience isn't hearing the real news because it isn't being told. Again, whatever your politics, and however well or poorly you think this or that media outlet is actually doing, that's the idea behind the complaint some are making. Whether you think they're right or not, we can see the problem it creates if they're right. If the news isn't being clearly and distinctly announced, if nobody is getting on the air and covering that story, the result is that you won't know about it.

If no media outlet reports, if no eyewitness goes public, if no grapevine of gossip relays, about, say, the suicide bombing against a mosque in Afghanistan on Friday, or about the attempted assassination of the Venezuelan president yesterday – well, if no media outlet reports about them, if no eyewitness blogs about them, if no chain of gossip gets the word to me, I'm not going to know about it, am I? I can't hear what the news is unless there's somebody out there telling it, and unless that telling reaches me – in the black-and-white of newsprint, on the radio, on the TV, on the Internet, in the prayer guide in our church newsletter, or through an in-person relay of information, or however else it might get distributed, unless the news is told and the telling reaches you, you won't hear about it. There has to be a teller if you're going to hear. That's what the third How wants you to get.

And then, as if there weren't already enough Hows around, the last of their household drops in for a visit. This fourth How introduces himself this way: “How are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:15a). The question might strike you as a bit odd. Why does somebody have to be sent? Why can't they just start talking about it? But the word 'preach,' in Paul's Greek, means to be a herald. Back in the old days, how would news get out? Other than the Acta Diurna posted in the Roman Forum, there was nothing even vaguely resembling a newspaper, much less Fox or CNN. And even then, most couldn't read. So how did news get out?

Well, a lot of the time, it was the town crier. The herald. The guy who, in medieval England, would stand in the town square and ring his bell and shout, “Oyez, oyez! Hear ye, hear ye!,” and then give you the scoop. Could be the latest deals in the market; could be changes in the local laws or bylaws; could be royal pronouncements. But they'd get your attention, they'd shout at you to listen, and then they'd tell you what's what. Some heralds had to go a long way to get the message out. You know the story of Paul Revere's ride. Long before that, Pheidippides ran twenty-six miles to Athens to tell the news of a Greek victory over Persia at a spot called Marathon, and then keeled over dead – hence why people I don't understand have run marathons ever since. In Paul's world, there were some heralds sent out by the imperial court, using horses and chariots, to get news and commands quickly to distant parts of the empire.

But to get that news out, they had to be authorized. They had to be sent. The emperor wouldn't be happy if a bunch of random people just started going around the empire peddling lies in his name. To be an authorized herald, to preach whatever 'good news' Caesar wanted told in this or that town, they had to be sent by Roman authority. And Paul says the same thing's true for the gospel. To be an authorized herald, to preach 'good news' from heaven's Lord, there has to be a sending by divine authority. “No one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God” (Hebrews 5:4). There needs to be a sending for the message to be authoritatively announced; and it has to be announced if people are going to hear it; and if it's credibly announced to people who hear it, they might just believe it; and if they believe it, then they can call on the one name that saves.

So once we've met these four Hows, there's just one question left: Has God sent any heralds? And that's when Paul, following hot on the Hows' tracks, whips out his Bible and quotes from the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15b; cf. Isaiah 52:7). And the picture there is an advance scout, showing up on the hills to bring news to a city under siege – news, good news, that reinforcements are on the way, rescuers are riding down, they can lift up their heads and fight knowing the victory is at hand, and safe haven will be soon. Paul quotes this so that we know that God does send heralds. And if God sends heralds, then he must want them to announce this good news. And if he wants his heralds to proclaim the good news, he must want folks to hear the good news. And if he wants folks to hear the good news, he must want them to believe the good news and trust the One at the heart of it. And if he wants them to trust the One at the good news' heart, he must want them to call on him. And if he wants them to call on this Good News Man named Jesus, it can be for one and one reason only: that God is aiming to do some saving!

And yet there are people in this world who are still drowning in the river. There are people in this world still stuck in the path of that oncoming train. There are people in this world still languishing and falling and dying. There are people who seldom call on the name of the Lord and who appear, maybe very openly, to have no saving connection to Jesus. Some of them live in the Middle East. Some of them live in India and China and Japan. Some live in Europe. Some live in DC and the Windy City and the Big Apple. And some of them live in Lancaster County, and maybe not too far from your door. Do all your friends and relatives and neighbors have a saving connection to Jesus, confessing his Lordship and believing in his resurrection and calling on his name? Probably some do, but does each and every one? And if not, where's the breakdown?

There can be no breakdown between the calling and the saving – that's a promise straight from God: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). So is the breakdown between the believing and the calling? For some, it might be, if you define believing as just mental assent. Agreeing with ideas isn't Paul's idea of believing. But there are people out there who have some stuff in their head that never makes it to their heart. One of William Carey's assistants was a local man named Ramram Basu. And Ram helped Carey translate the Bible into his native language of Bengali. And Ram wrote books denouncing idolatry and praising Jesus. And Ram wrote the very first Christian hymn in his language – the first one! But into his dying days, so far as anyone knows, Ram stayed a Hindu. He wrote, “I understand something of the gospel, and can make it known a little to others, but I cannot leave my caste. This is my great difficulty.” There were things in his Hindu life he knew he wasn't willing to give up, so in spite of knowing the good news and seeing its goodness, he wouldn't call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Some are like that.

But not everybody. For the rest, is the breakdown between hearing and believing? Maybe the words get in their ears, but not into their heads or their hearts? For some, sure. Paul quotes Isaiah again, the next chapter, and the words he finds go like this: “Who has believed what he heard from us?” (Romans 10:16b; cf. Isaiah 53:1). So some don't “obey the gospel” – a disconnect between hearing and believing (Romans 10:16a). Maybe some of your neighbors fall in that camp – they've heard, somebody's told them, it's reached their eyes and ears, but they just aren't buying it and aren't obeying it. Some of the fault may rest on our lives being very unconvincing advertisements for the gospel; and some of the fault may rest on their hardened hearts. Some are like that.

But not everybody. For the rest, is the breakdown between preaching and hearing? People try to tell them, and it isn't that the recipients don't let it sink in, but that they don't even stick around long enough to really get it in their ears; they just push the messenger away? Well, sometimes, sure. But I think even today, just as in William Carey's time, a bigger breakdown falls between sending and preaching. Oh, the sending happens – God authorizes heralds – but then the heralds stay home and stay quiet. And in many cases, even here in Lancaster County, let alone that wild and woolly world out yonder, here's the problem.

See, when Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18), he wasn't just talking to the eleven men standing in front of him. Nor was he limiting himself when he said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). It's for all of us. We're all commissioned. We're all authorized. We're all heralds. We're all sent. Ours are meant to be those beautiful feet on the mountaintop, bringing news of rescue to a city under siege!

But here's the problem, and William Carey had our number in 1792 in his Enquiry. He wrote: “...multitudes sit at ease, and give themselves no concern about the far greater part of their fellow-sinners, who to this day are lost in ignorance and idolatry.” Can we honestly say that we aren't Carey's targets there? Isn't it true we have a tendency to “sit at ease, and give [ourselves] no concern about the far greater part of [our] fellow-sinners, who to this day are lost in ignorance and idolatry”? They may be lost in the house next door; they may be lost just down the street; they may be lost at your family reunion! And still we don't think about it, and even if we think about it, we think, “Well, that's a shame,” but yet we just sit and don't do anything.

So when Paul introduces us to the Hows, he's got a good reason. Do we realize that God has been trying to send us? Why aren't we going to those “lost in ignorance and idolatry”? Why aren't we announcing the good news, why aren't we preaching? Don't we realize that, if we aren't preaching, it means they ain't hearing? And if they aren't hearing, they sure ain't believing? And if they aren't believing, they sure ain't calling on the Lord? And if they aren't calling, they sure ain't finding safety on the higher ground called Christ our Rock? If we want them to be saved, we have to see them call; and if we want them to call, we have to help them believe; and if we want them to believe, they need to hear; and if we want them to hear, it's got to be us who get up and preach it?

Is that always a comfortable thing? No. In William Carey's early years on the field, he was lonely, he was sick, he was miserable. He lost children. His first wife cracked under the strain and went literally insane. To preach the gospel in India was, for William Carey, a costly thing. It took him seven years before he saw his first native convert. And even then, progress was slow. Nor did it always pan out. He later admitted that many of his early converts “have pierced us through with sorrows.” Amidst it all, he wrote, “This is indeed the valley of the shadow of death to me. But I rejoice that I am here notwithstanding; and God is here.”

He was right. God was there. Another Bengali man was saved and then went back to his family and said this:

At length I heard of there being a new way preached at Serampore. I have been there, and I have heard glad tidings, that Jesus Christ came into the world and bore the punishment due to sinners. This is a great word, and it has filled my soul with hope and joy. Hence I have laid aside the proud thought of making amends for my own transgressions. I make my refuge in his death, and consider all my holiness as a heap of sin. I have been baptized in his name. If I can believe in him, and obey his command, I shall get over my everlasting ruin. If you can unite with me in becoming the disciples of Christ, then I shall find my home, my mother, my brother, my wife, and a Savior all at once; but if you cannot, then I will abide in my Savior, and go everywhere proclaiming his name. If I die in this work, under a tree or anywhere else, verily it shall then be well with me.

See the sequence. A 'new way' was being preached. When he was there, he heard the glad tidings. And what he heard, he believed. And so he called on the name of Jesus and was saved. And once saved, he determined to “go everywhere proclaiming his name,” including to his family. And we're told that, when he preached to them, they heard, believed, called, and were saved, too. Like the Apostle wrote, “Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

And William Carey said, “Surely a crown of rejoicing like this is worth aspiring to. Surely it is worthwhile to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause and kingdom of Christ.” It was worth it, because God was there. And God is here, too, no less than in India two centuries ago or in Rome two millennia ago. And here, God is sending us. God is sending us to preach, so that others may hear, believe, call on Jesus, and be saved. Will we? Will you? The Hows, and their God, are waiting for our answer. Will we? Will you?