- 2 years ago
Paul tells us that before a person can call out to God, he must be convinced that there is a reason to do so. Faith comes from hearing. This is the same message that Yeshua gave in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
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Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://social.ttn.place/jaycarper
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From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@AmericanTorah
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://social.ttn.place/jaycarper
Follow me on Twitter: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/americantorah/
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LearningTranscript
00:00J. Carper here again from American Torah, and I'm reading from Romans 10, verses 13-17.
00:10For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
00:15How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
00:17And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
00:20And how shall they hear without a preacher?
00:25And how shall they preach unless they are sent?
00:27As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who
00:30bring glad tidings of good things.
00:34But they have not all obeyed the gospel.
00:36For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed, I'll report.
00:39So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
00:44I think in my last video I talked a little bit about the difference between faith and
00:50faithfulness.
00:52And in the New Testament, both words are, you know, just like in English, they both
00:56come from the same root, pistis or pisteus, depending on context, whether it's a verb
01:02or noun, etc.
01:05And they mean essentially the same thing as the English word.
01:11Faith is a belief that something is true, and by true I don't mean factual, I mean that
01:20it is who it says it is, that it has integrity with itself, that it keeps its promises, that
01:32you can depend on it, that's what it means to have faith in something.
01:36To be faithful to something means that they can depend on you in the same way, that you
01:44keep your promises to that person, that you are obedient, if we're talking about an authority
01:50relationship, and with God, of course, we are.
01:53So if you have faith in God, it means both that you believe He is who He says He is,
01:59and He keeps His promises, and it means that you are faithful to Him, that you take that
02:05belief that you have in Him, and you walk it out.
02:08If you believe that God is who He says He is, you believe His promises are true, then
02:13you will act on it.
02:15If you have faith, you will be faithful.
02:19And which way the word should be translated kind of depends on context, I mean they're
02:23both true, both concepts are all wrapped up together, you can't have faith in God without
02:27being faithful to Him, and you can't be faithful to God without having faith in Him.
02:33So it's a little difficult to split those ideas up separately.
02:37If anyone tries to tell you that believing in God is sufficient, all you have to do is
02:44believe, you don't have to do anything, well, you have to believe that God is who He says
02:48He is, which means that you have to respond to that.
02:52God says that He loves you, wants to forgive you.
02:56He doesn't desire that anybody should perish.
02:58He wants everybody to repent from their sins, make Him Master and Lord, and keep His commandments.
03:07So if you believe that, and you confess that Yeshua is Lord, as Paul said earlier in this
03:18chapter, then you are pledging your faithfulness.
03:23It doesn't mean that you are earning your salvation through works.
03:26You haven't done anything yet except to accept His promise of forgiveness and His Lordship.
03:36That's all you've done, so it's really not, this is still not salvation by works, and
03:39don't let anybody try to tell you that it is.
03:43Pledging faithfulness has not earned you anything, because you haven't done anything
03:48to be faithful yet.
03:52But there is an order to things that Paul is talking about here, wind is picking up,
03:57I hope I don't get rained on, it's been raining almost every day for a week.
04:02There's an order to faith, to believing in God, and believing is usually, in the New
04:06Testament, it's the same word as faith.
04:10And Paul says that preaching leads to hearing, hearing leads to believing, believing leads
04:16to calling out to God, and it's this calling out to God that brings you your salvation.
04:23Let me go back and go to Matthew.
04:28Matthew chapter 13, verses 3-9 first, and this is the parable of the sower, because
04:35what Paul is describing here is exactly what Yeshua is describing in this parable.
04:40Then he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went out to sow, and
04:46as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them.
04:50Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth, and they immediately
04:54sprang up, because they had no depth of earth.
04:57But when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered
05:00away, and some fell among thorns, and thorns sprang up and choked them.
05:04But others fell on a good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and
05:08some thirty.
05:09He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
05:12And then a few verses down, he explains the parable to his disciples, starting in verse
05:1618, going to 23.
05:19Therefore, hear the parable of the sower.
05:22When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the wicked
05:25one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
05:29This is he who received seed by the wayside, but he who received the seed on stony places,
05:33this is he who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy.
05:38Yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.
05:41For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
05:46Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of
05:50this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.
05:55But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it,
05:59who indeed bears fruit and produces, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
06:07Hearing the word, that is, essentially repent.
06:12These are God's commandments.
06:13You failed.
06:15Repent from your sins.
06:16Ask God for forgiveness.
06:17He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins.
06:23This gospel has different effects on different hearers.
06:27Not everyone who hears believes.
06:29Some people hear the word of God and they're not ready for it.
06:34They have been brought up in a way that prevents them from understanding, or they have lived
06:41their lives so dedicated to sin that they're no longer able to hear God's voice, their
06:45conscience is dead, for whatever reason, there could be a thousand reasons.
06:49That person can't hear it, and maybe it's just a matter of timing.
06:55Some people hear the word of God and they believe, but when they're put to the test,
07:02they fail in their faithfulness.
07:05They had faith.
07:06They believed God.
07:07They accepted his promise.
07:08They believe he is who he says he is.
07:10These people are saved.
07:12But then they fall away.
07:16They hit hard times.
07:18They hit temptation.
07:19Something comes and they say, this is too hard.
07:24And doubts creep in, and they stop believing what they used to believe, and they essentially
07:32die.
07:33They are cut out of the kingdom.
07:40The faith that brings a person to call on Yeshua, it comes first from hearing the gospel.
07:47Hearing the need for salvation, and maybe it doesn't have to be hearing by the ears,
07:51it could be hearing through reading something, or a lesson learned, maybe even incidental.
07:58They come to understand that they are sinners, that there is this infinite gap that they
08:04can never close on their own, and so they throw themselves on the mercy of their Creator.
08:10This requires some amount of faith to begin with.
08:13They have to at least believe that there is a Creator, and to an extent, God gives
08:20the initial amount of faith required for salvation.
08:23No human would ever believe if God didn't somehow enable us to.
08:29That doesn't mean, I'm not preaching Calvinism there, every person is born with some amount
08:35of faith, because it's in our DNA.
08:37We are created in God's image, and so we can't help at some level to believe in God.
08:42It takes time and practice and indoctrination to take that faith out of a child.
08:49Atheism is child abuse.
08:50If your parents are atheists and they are indoctrinating you into a belief against God,
08:56or if your father is abusive, and you start to learn that fathers are supposed to be an
09:02image of God the Father in our lives, and so an abusive father can give us a twisted
09:07image of who God is.
09:18But these kinds of things are what destroys that faith that God has already put in us.
09:23And sometimes we will act miraculously to restore some of that, or sometimes we'll
09:27hear something that will trigger a memory, and we'll remember something of that image
09:34that God has implanted into our very DNA.
09:39And so that amount of faith is given to us by God, and we hear the Word, and that Word
09:45interacts with the faith that we have and the experiences we've had.
09:50And maybe we've been hearing about Jesus all our lives, even though we didn't believe,
09:57or we've heard our culture is full of biblical illusions, and so we've got these ideas in
10:03our heads, and we don't even know where they came from.
10:05So then when you hear the Gospel about Yeshua who came and died for our sins, it resonates.
10:11This is fertile soil.
10:13The Word germinates and grows in this person and takes root, and this person becomes a
10:18great man or woman of faith.
10:22But it can take this faith that causes a person to call out to God, it comes from a combination
10:32of factors.
10:33The faith that God gives to a person miraculously, or from conception, both.
10:42The right timing, the right indoctrination, the right experiences, and the right presentation.
10:49All of these things come together to prompt a person to call out to God, and it is that
10:53person's choice.
10:54God doesn't force anybody.
10:56Otherwise it would not take hearing.
11:00Even if, well, I'm going to go down a road that I didn't mean to, let me read you something
11:12else from Paul.
11:14In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, this is starting in verse 19, going down to verse 23.
11:30For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win
11:34the more.
11:35And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews.
11:37To those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under
11:40the law.
11:41To those who are without law, as without law, not being without law toward God, but being
11:45under law toward Christ, that I might win those who are without the law.
11:49To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak.
11:51I have become all things to all, that I might by all means save some.
11:56Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.
12:01Of course, if the people that Paul was trying to reach were predestined to be saved, contrary
12:08to any will of any person or any actions that anybody could take, then it wouldn't matter
12:13how Paul presented the gospel.
12:15Sorry, the wind is moving my camera, let me adjust.
12:20Paul wouldn't have to become like a weak person to talk to the weak, or talk to the Jews in
12:27their own terminology.
12:29And that's really what Paul is saying here.
12:31He's not saying that he kept Torah when he was with Jews, and did pagan stuff when he
12:36was with pagans.
12:37No, he always kept God's commandments.
12:40He's saying that he tried to speak to people on their own level, using terminology and
12:45analogies that they understood.
12:47But this means that Paul was trying to convince people.
12:51And if people are determined by God to be saved from before creation, before they were
12:59born, no convincing would ever be necessary.
13:03If there's a trigger, you could just say, Jesus died for your sins, be saved.
13:13It's like a button you push, and people are a machine that you push the right button
13:17and they're saved.
13:19But God has predetermined that you're going to push the button.
13:22Paul's strategies, his explanations about how faith comes from hearing, and how he customized
13:29his presentation of the gospel to enable a person to receive it, to make them more willing
13:35to hear what he has to say, and to convince them, shows that Paul didn't believe in that
13:42version of predestination.
13:45Every Christian believes in predestination, we just have a different meaning for that
13:48term.
13:50We are predestined, those of us who have called out to God and been reborn, are predestined
13:56to be conformed to the image of Yeshua.
13:58God has made a plan that we are going to become like his Son.
14:03We're not predestined to ask for forgiveness and be given eternal life.
14:09Those are two completely different things.
14:14The soil that the Word has to sprout in needs to be prepared.
14:19And if you don't prepare it right, if you are abusive to the soil, if you misrepresent
14:23God, if you, being a representative of God yourself, misbehave and give people the wrong
14:30impression of what it means to be a disciple of Yeshua, you are poisoning that soil.
14:35You're filling it with rocks, salting it.
14:38Don't be like that.
14:39Be like Paul.
14:41Keep the commandments yourself.
14:43Teach other people to keep the commandments.
14:46And work on people in a way that they understand.
14:50Customize the Gospel to their language, to their culture, to their circumstances.
14:56I don't mean change the Gospel, I mean customize your presentation of it to appeal to people
15:02where they are.
15:04Because that's where God is going to meet them, where they are.
15:06They're not supposed to stay there, but that's where they're starting, and they're not going
15:11to hear you if you don't speak their language.
15:16Even then, not everyone is going to be ready for your message.
15:19Maybe they're going to hear it better somewhere down the line from somebody else.
15:23So be kind today.
15:25Give the Gospel in as palatable a way as you can, not compromising it, but not being offensive
15:31either.
15:32And maybe the next person, or somebody ten years down the road, they'll hear that person
15:36instead of you.
15:38Not everybody is ready for you.
15:40And some people will never be ready for the Gospel at all.
15:43In fact, most people, they have already decided that they are their own God, and they don't
15:49care about their Creator, or obedience, or submission to anybody or anything.
15:55At least not the right thing.
15:57That's not your problem.
16:00You witness, you share the Gospel with them, you pray for them, you be kind to them.
16:05That's the best you can ever do.
16:07This is Jay Carper from American Torah.
16:09Be blessed.
16:10Shabbat comes along.
16:11Shabbat Shalom.
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