We are thankful to be able to bring this message of the gospel for these few minutes. Thankful that we can come as Isaiah did, come as Paul did; as God sent both of them.
Today, I want to remind you just for a moment of verse 16 of Romans chapter 10 when Isaiah gives that sad cry, "Lord, who hath believed our report?' And then going into that blessed chapter, Isaiah chapter 53, the well know chapter, that describes the suffering of Christ.
In verse 2 of that chapter we read, "that he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him". In the next verse we read how we hid as it were our faces from him. That was true not only of the Jews but it is true of the church today. It was true of the church of Laodicea, when the Lord Jesus said, "behold I stand at the door and knock". He was on the outside because they were filled with pride. They thought they were rich and in need of nothing and did not believe the report that had been brought to them by whatever evangelist or teacher that come into their midst. Yet it is true, as we read throughout scripture that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Oh, are you one that has believed the report? Are you one that has received a true and living faith in God? I would speak especially to you who are troubled, who know you have no peace with yourself , no peace in the world, and no peace with God. You may fling out against circumstance. You may say why this and why that? Remember, another word that Isaiah also wrote, "thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." (Speaking of God) And also the counterpart of it, "that the wicked are like the troubled sea casting up dirt and mire". If we do believe the report, if we do believe the word that God has sent to us by the prophets, by the apostles, the word that is recorded of Christ himself as the gospel writers wrote of his teachings. Then we should believe that true message of God and we should come to a trust in him. We could rightly then lose all faith in self.
Oh, there are those that say, "we can do it." There are those that think that we can as it were pull ourselves up by our bootstraps out of the mire that we have sunk into. There are those who teach what we call the power of positive thinking or even possibility thinking. It gives us maybe a boost for a moment and we think that we are really something. But we soon face again the situation as it is around us and whether we want to admit it or not, we see the hopelessness not only around us but in us. And there will be, and there should be a hopelessness except in Christ. The Lord Jesus, the son of God, who became the son of man, who as he told his apostles just before his death as recorded in John chapter 15, "without me you can do nothing".
That means nothing good. Nothing in a true fruit toward God or a blessing to our neighbor or even a blessing in our own life. Until that we are those that oppose ourselves. Oh, we may fool ourselves for a time, we may try to drown our sorrows by drinking, drugs, may settle our nerves by smoking just for a moment and then the trouble is there again and we need more. But in Christ though we need him continually we can do as Paul himself did when he said, "the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me". Gal. 2:20
We only know that message as reading again here Romans 10:17, "So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God." I want to say more about that Lord willing next week, but this is God's word that I have the privilege of preaching to you. This is God's word of which I could say, thus saith the Lord. The God of heaven who said, "let there be light and there was light" the God who created the heavens and the earth. The God who made you and me. The God in whosehand our life is. It is in him that we live and move and have our being. It is also true as Paul wrote later, "that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment."
If we listen to this God now, if we look to the God of heaven, if we realize that we have here no abiding city, but that by faith we live in God who we can begin to have that which Paul wrote in the 8th chapter, "knowing that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose". If we hear God's voice, if we believe in his goodness, his holiness, his perfection, and above all his love in Christ, then we will in turn love him back. Not because we are so able or willing, but because in believing his holy spirit is also active in us and particularly the spirit of Christ that will renew us, that will create us again unto good works. That will begin a love that we did not have before, and we begin to love God for his goodness. We begin to love God that he was always there and always good. But it was we who refused, it was we who as Israel, as is stated in verse 21 of Romans 10, were "a disobedient and gain saying people." We do sometimes, as the phrase is, we beat around the bush but God is always right. Do you believe in him today? Come back to him through Christ.