Introduction

As you all know, I love that Robert Murray M’Cheyne quote that says, “Learn much of your own heart; and when you have learned all you can, remember you have seen but a few yards into a pit that is unfathomable…. Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms…. Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him. Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart; and so there will be no room for folly, or the world, or Satan, or the flesh.” 

I love that quote for multiple reasons… First, because it’s true. But also because it’s easy to get discouraged when we focus too much on ourselves. The rate of our sanctification can get very frustrating. But I think the same thing happens when we look at the world.

I would argue the world is also in a process of sanctification much like we are. But it often looks like it’s falling apart. But I think that’s because we look too much at what’s going wrong in the world instead of at Jesus and His gospel promises.

One of the hardest things about the Christian life is trusting God when we cannot understand what He is doing. When everything seems to be going wrong, when our prayers don’t seem to be answered, when people we love walk away from the Lord, when the world around us seems to be filled with war and every kind of darkness—it can be difficult to believe that God really is working all things according to His good purposes.

Paul knew something about that. His own people, the people of Israel, had been waiting centuries for their Messiah. And when their Messiah had come most of them rejected Him. What was God doing? Had something gone wrong? Had His Word, had His plan somehow failed? Not at all.

Even Israel’s unbelief was something woven into God’s good plan to bring salvation to the nations and magnify the glory of Christ. What looked like disaster was actually part of a much bigger story. And that’s something all of us need to remember: when we cannot understand what God is doing, we can still trust the God who is doing it. When we cannot trace God’s hand we can trust His character, because His character is good… Therefore, whatever our God ordains is right.

So with that in mind, look with me at Romans 10:18-21.

Context

In our series through Romans, as of late, Paul has been showing us why so many of the Jews have rejected Christ, and why their unbelief does not mean that God’s Word or His covenant promises have failed. Christ is the end and goal of the Law for righteousness. He is Lord of all, Jew and Gentile alike, and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. In fact, now there are no longer Jews and Gentiles, just believers and unbelievers. Past, pedigree, ethnicity, none of it makes any difference—all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But as we saw last week, in order for someone to call upon Christ they must believe; in order to believe they must hear; in order to hear someone must be preaching; and in order to preach, preachers must be sent—that is qualified men must be ordained by God and His church as Christ’s ambassadors, and must rightly proclaim His Word.

God has ordained to save His people through the preaching of the gospel, so that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Through His appointed messengers, Christ Himself speaks, and His Word accomplishes His sovereign purposes. Which is one of the reasons you should pay close attention when your church officers or the like are leading the liturgy, praying, reading God’s Word, or teaching God’s Word… for they are a means whereby Jesus is speaking to you. Therefore we must give God’s ordained messengers the same attention we would give Christ Jesus Himself. For Christ saves in and through His Word. And that brings us to our text today.

Romans 10:18—Christ Proclaimed

In verse 18 Paul says, “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.’” Paul anticipates someone reasoning, if faith comes by hearing perhaps unbelieving Israel hasn’t heard. Maybe that’s their issue. But Paul says they have heard. And to demonstrate this he quotes Psalm 19, the Psalm I read as our call to worship. Specifically he quotes Psalm 19:4, which in context isn’t at first speaking about the Word of God, but about God’s general revelation in and through creation. But even then, that passage is pointing and building to Jesus and His written and preached Word.

In the first half of the Psalm David says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat” (Psalm 19:1-6).

So here David is talking about God’s creation proclaiming God’s glory. As we sang earlier, it’s God’s power throughout the universe displayed. But David is saying something very similar to what Paul said in Romans 1:19-20, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” All have heard because the creation is declaring God’s glory throughout the whole world. But there’s more going on here than just that.

In the second half of Psalm 19 David focuses on the written Word of God. He says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward” (Psalm 19:7-11).

But notice the Christ-like language in between these two sections when David speaks of what the creation is proclaiming. The voice of creation and the Word that has gone out to the end of the world speaks of the sun coming out like a bridegroom, who is a strongman from whom nothing is hidden, who runs His course with joy and rises from heaven. And this bridegroom is the One who perfectly kept God’s Law, who is altogether righteous, whose heart always rejoiced in God’s Law and the God of the Law. Indeed He ran His course with joy. As Hebrews 12:2 says, Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God because He finished His race well. He lived for us, died for us, rose again for us, and ascended to the right hand of the Father where He rules, reigns, and ever intercedes for us.

Jesus is the Word of God incarnate who spoke the world into existence, and speaks through the world even now. And He’s the new true better Adam, the God-man, who is our Lord and Savior who perfectly kept and fulfilled God’s Word for His people. He’s the One who brings general revelation and special revelation together. This is why the hymn How Great Thou Art starts with the general revelation of creation and ends with the special revelation of the gospel—that God the Son took on flesh, took on our sin, took on our cross, and died in our place to take away God’s wrath due us. In His life and death He took on sin, Satan, and death itself, and He took them out through His victorious resurrection and glorious ascension. That’s true for His people now by faith, but slowly and surely that reality is coming to its fullness, filling the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, until all things are made new.

Both Paul and David have Jesus in mind here. This language is Messianic language. As Psalm 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield…” Or Malachi 4:1-2, “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” The Lord Jesus is the sun of righteousness. He is the great bridegroom, and we, the church, are His bride. But He is also the strongman from whom nothing is hidden. He’s the true Strongman who came to plunder the sake strongman, the false god of this age who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. And for the wicked that is terrifying news. But not so for believers. And here in Romans 10 Paul is quoting Psalm 19 to show us that unbelieving Israel has had general revelation and special revelation, they’ve had the word of creation and the written and preached Word of God both proclaiming to them that Jesus is the Son of righteousness, the bridegroom, the Savior, the Messiah they need. They have heard in every way, but without faith—without ears to hear. So this should be a terrifying thought to hem, but not to us.

C. S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” And indeed, everything else is meant to help us see Christ. You don’t have to wonder whether the sun came up this morning. You don’t need someone to convince you that it is shining. You walk outside and its light is everywhere. You feel its heat on your skin. You see everything else by its light. And that’s the picture David gives us of Christ—the picture Paul is pointing us to. The gospel is not God’s little secret tucked away in a corner of the world. The Sun has risen. The Bridegroom has come. The voice has gone out. And the risen Christ intends to fill this world with His light. And in so many ways He already is, if we would just see… If we would just hear… That is, truly hear with ears to hear. Because Israel heard, but they didn’t listen.

Romans 10:19-20—Christ Given To The Nations

So maybe their problem wasn’t a hearing problem but an understanding problem. And that’s where Paul goes next. In Romans 10:19-20 he says, “But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, ‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.’ Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, ‘I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.’”

Paul quotes two major Old Testament passages to show that if Israel misunderstood it’s not God’s fault. God told them plainly. First Paul quotes God speaking through Moses from Deuteronomy 32:21, saying, “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.” In other words, God always planned to save the nations. In and through Israel’s idolatry and sin, God would graft in the nations, and save the world—every nation and every generation. Israel would make God jealous through their covenant unfaithfulness, but in and through His covenant faithfulness God would bring the nations into the covenant promises of Israel, and in so doing make unbelieving Israel jealous.

Then Paul quotes Isaiah 65:1, where God says through Isaiah, “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ to a nation that was not called by my name.” Once again, because of Israel’s idolatry and sin, because of their covenant unfaithfulness, God tells them He’s going to cut them out and graft in the nations. In Isaiah 65:5 Israel tells God, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” In other words, God told them that they need a Messiah, and He explained that He would provide a Messiah, but they told Him that they didn’t need Him or His Messiah. As Jesus said to the Jews in Matthew 21:43, “Therefore I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” That was always God’s plan, and that’s what He told Israel from the beginning. They heard. They understood. They simply didn’t believe.

Their pride was their major problem. And before we shake our heads at Israel, we should ask ourselves how often are we the same way? We may not outright refuse Christ as many of them did, but how often do we seek to be self-reliant? How often do we refuse to ask for help? How often do we refuse to admit we’re wrong—to confess, apologize, and repent? And how often do we just decide that we know best, and seek out sin, seek our own way instead of God and His ways? In our pride we want God’s blessings, but not God’s way. We want a good marriage, but not God’s commands for husbands and wives. We want godly children, but not the ordinary years of discipline, catechesis, worship, and faithfulness. We want peace, but not forgiveness. We want holiness, but not repentance. We want Christ as Savior while resisting Christ as Lord.

We must not let our pride get the better of us. God is clear, He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And so pride was Israel’s downfall.

Romans 10:21—Christ Holding Out His Hands

But that isn’t to say that God wasn’t patient and long-suffering with Israel. In Romans 10:21 Paul says, “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’” There he’s quoting Isaiah 65 again, but this time from verse 2. But notice what Isaiah 65:2 says in its fullness, “I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices…” That’s the key issue.

It’s like what we read from Proverbs earlier, but the opposite. Proverbs 3 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.” Well Israel was trusting in themselves with all their heart and leaning on their own understanding. They were only acknowledging sin, Satan, and self. They were wise in their own eyes. They did not fear God or turn away from evil. They followed their own devices instead of the Lord.

They were giving themselves over to covenant presumption instead working for covenant succession. You see, covenant presumption is pride that assumes that because of who we are, what we have, or what we’ve done that all will be well. That since we’re baptized, since we are members of a church, since we are Reformed, since we are Americans, since we are Texans, or whatever… we are good. Unbelieving Israel was doing something similar—they were presuming upon their covenant privileges and pedigree, not on Christ. And we are always in danger of doing the same.

Bur covenant succession—the idea that God is our God and the God of our children, and that we are to be seeking to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—of Jesus—and seeking to build gospel legacies by bringing every area of life into joyful submission to Christ, in the church, in the home, and throughout society… All of Christ for all of life… That’s what unbelieving Israel had missed and failed to do. And this is why the Lord cut them off. But He didn’t immediately cut them off. He gave them chance after chance. And even when He grafted the nations in, before He completely divorced Israel, He sought to make them jealous in order to get them to repent and believe as well. And this should be a great warning to all of us.

How many times do we go our own way and lean on our own understanding instead of trusting in and following Jesus? How many times have we messed everything up trying to do things our way instead of God’s way? How many times have we let our pride get the best of us instead of humbly going to the foot of the cross? All too often we are just like unbelieving Israel. And while it’s true that God is patient and kind, we must remember that His patience is meant to lead us to repentance, not to give us an excuse to sin. Eventually His patience runs out.

And remember, Israel heard and understood. They had God’s world and God’s Word. Indeed, they were God’s covenant people with all the privileges of the covenant. Israel’s great danger was that they had become accustomed to holy things. They had Scripture. They had circumcision. They had sacrifices. They had priests. They had promises. They had Sabbath after Sabbath. And eventually they could hear God’s Word without hearing God.

That’s a danger for us too. You can know the liturgy. You can sing the Psalms and hymns. You can confess the Creed. You and your children can come to the Table every Lord’s Day. You can know your theology and win arguments about covenant theology—and still harden yourself against the Christ to whom all those things point.

That’s what happened with Israel. He called them back to Himself again and again with a genuine gospel call and all the privileges of the covenant. But in their pride they would not come. They heard, they understood, but they would not repent and believe. They would not trust in Jesus. They gave themselves over to covenant presumption instead of committing themselves to the work of covenant succession.

So we must not be like them. Now the answer is not to despise the means of grace. The answer is to receive the Christ who gives Himself to us through them. When His Word corrects you, repent. When He promises forgiveness, believe Him. When He feeds you, receive Him with thanksgiving. When He commands you, obey Him.

Now to be sure, we will only trust in Christ by God’s grace. Paul’s quote from Deuteronomy makes it clear that it is God’s will that is making the nations come to Him. Or as He says in Isaiah 65:1, He shows Himself to those who didn’t seek Him or ask for Him. In other words, none of us would ever truly hear with ears to hear, or understand with a genuine mind and heart, or truly believe if it were not for God’s sovereign grace.

As we read earlier from 1 Corinthians, we were not wise or strong… We aren’t saved because we are smarter than everyone else or something like that. God chose what is foolish to shame the wise…. It is because of Him that we are in Christ Jesus. But with that said, make no mistake, the gospel call that went out to Israel, and that goes out to all the world is genuine. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And all are invited to call. But only those whom God wills, only those who are given ears to hear and eyes to see by God’s sovereign grace will actually believe. God is sovereign and man is responsible. There is no getting around either of these realities.

But notice what God was doing in and through His sovereignty. He wasn’t keeping a people from Himself. He wasn’t ever holding Israel back from grace. But in His grace He did use Israel’s stubborn rebellion for the good of the world. In other words, even His allowing Israel to harden their hearts against Him and become like pharaoh was all a part of His grand plan to save the world.

So though their are some great warnings and cautions for us in this passage, there is also great cause for hope. No doubt it was great discouragement to men like Paul that so many of their kinsmen according to the flesh were rejecting their Messiah. But their rejection was all a part of God’s plan to graft in the nations. Things may have looked bad at first, but there was a bigger story going on. There was a beautiful picture being painted.

Think about a tapestry, a picture made by weaving countless threads together. From underneath, all you see are loose threads, knots, strange colors, and what looks like random lines. But turn it over, and suddenly you see the picture.

Life is typically lived underneath the tapestry. Like Paul with his own kinsmen who were rejecting Christ. Men he loved were perishing in unbelief. But God was weaving something beautiful together. Israel’s trespass meant riches for the world. Their rejection meant the reconciliation of the world.

Well beloved, that’s how it always is. Whatever our God ordains is right, even when we can’t see it, or make sense of it. God has a plan. And His plan is always good. And one day the fullness of His plan will overtake the world, and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

God held out His hands all day long to a contrary people, and through the gospel He is now stretching those gracious hands out to the nations. And Christian, when you want to know what these outstretched hands of God look like, look at Jesus. The God who says, “All day long I have held out my hands,” came in the flesh and stretched out His hands to a rebellious people in a way that Israel wouldn’t have imagined. Those hands healed their sick. Those hands blessed their children. Those hands broke bread with sinners. And finally those hands were stretched out upon a cross. Israel’s answer to God’s outstretched hands was to drive nails through them. But even there Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them.”

But those pierced hands did not remain dead. The Bridegroom rose. The Sun of Righteousness rose with healing in His wings. The Strongman finished His course, conquered death, ascended into heaven, and now from His throne He is gathering His bride from every tribe and tongue and nation. And because He has risen and ascended in power, He has all authority in heaven and on earth, and nothing can stop His will. He will build His church and the gates of hell shall not prevail. And this was His plan all along.

Conclusion

Beloved, Israel heard. Israel understood. And still Israel refused to come. But Israel’s unbelief could not stop the faithfulness of God. And neither can anything else.

So when God’s providence doesn’t make sense to you, remember the tapestry. When the world looks dark, remember the Sun has risen. When you hear the voice of Christ, don’t harden your heart. Hear Him. Believe Him. Trust Him. Follow Him.

Because the Bridegroom will have His bride. The nations will be discipled. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

The Sun has risen, beloved. And nothing can stop His light from filling the world. For our sovereign God has ordained it to be so. And whatever our God ordains is right.