So Then, Faith Comes Out of a Message Heard
Romans 10:13-17 · Roger Henderson · Oct 20, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 095
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261936583400

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. So we're going to continue on today. And this certainly is a neat section. I've learned a lot. I've been through these verses in the past, but somehow this seems more, I don't know, more important now. Or not more important, but more exciting. There we go. That probably is a better word, exciting.

So as you're going to see, I'm going take exception with the translations and try to add what I believe is a more accurate understanding as best I can when we get down to 16 and 17. So here's my first crack at verse 17, the first part. So then faith comes out of a message heard. So it's different than what you normally hear. So hopefully I can make my case for why.

In fact, I don't think I ever completely have the complete I'm gonna look at every single word in 17, and we're gonna talk about every single word. So that's the last part. First we're gonna review, but verse 17 is just a really, some of it has been misunderstood or misused, and I think I would say I've learned a lot of how to use it would be better, or how to understand it. Okay, so let's do some review. So here's a high-level summary. And so we've been, I kinda condensed it a little bit. So we've been looking at, How God's way for man to be acceptable to Him. How does God do it? How does He accomplish that?

We know the big picture is Christ died for our sins. on the third day and was raised to newness of life. We know about the wonderful message of the gospel. But what these verses are going to tell us is, how does a person interact with that? And these set of verses give us more detail than a lot of passages. And it's really kind of neat. So let's jump into that. And we've done this before.

So the first part is God's way is available, right? And that wonderful phrase, it's in your mouth and in your heart, you know, in the Jewish system or in that day. If you could talk about it, it had to be in your head. You couldn't write it down. It was in your mouth. It was in your head or in your heart. So that's kind of the first part. It's available. God's Word is available. If you think about today, at least in our country, God's Word is available. Maybe getting less and less as time goes on, but it is available.

So there is a correlation there. So the next is, this is kind of the overview of the next verse, 19 through 17, which I'm going to cover, 9 through 17. So under what conditions is it made acceptable? And then I actually left out a section. Let's go back. I left out, when I did the outline, I left out a section, and that section is what we covered in the past, 9 through 13 or 9 through 12.

If we confess with our mouth, Jesus is the Lord, believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved. So it gives us some details about that. Then the very last verse, which we're gonna cover today again, is a very important verse. And it's actually kind of a summary. Paul thinks backwards. He presents a summary first, and then goes through and shows you how he got to the summary.

The very last verse, 13, which was read, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Just a marvelous verse. So actually 14, The following verses, 14, 15, 16, and 17, will all help us to understand that better. So 14 talks about the details.

There's kind of this pattern, hearing, believing, calling, preaching, and being sent. I don't have that in the correct order, which you'll see shortly here. And then we get into the ones for today. Kind of two ideas show up here. We see the idea, and this is kind of Paul's heart kind of pouring out. He kind of says, but not all have obeyed the good news. Not all have responded to the good news.

And then, once you have heard the gospel, faith is possible is the last part, verse 17. Okay, so let's get into last week. So here's the verses from last week. I've kind of highlighted the key words in here, but let me just read it again, and I'll go back to the key words. for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved."

So now he goes in, he's going to explain the process, but he's going to explain it in questions, in rhetorical questions. How then will they call on Him whom they've not believed? How will they believe in Him who they've not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And 5a is how will they preach unless they are sent?

And then he makes this wonderful statement, just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. So the words in blue, if you can see it there, call, believe, heard, preach, and sent are all part of God's plan of how God will get his message of salvation to you a person that wants to know about Him. And then the ultimate, the end of the path is actually 13. When you've gone through those steps, then you're ready to call upon the name of the Lord.

And I found in my life, some of these things happen simultaneously, and I'll give you that in a few minutes here. So it's not like, well, you gotta do A, you're only at C now, you got D and E to go, get busy. No, it's a lot more of a process, and it's a lot more happen very quickly for some people. Okay.

So verse 13, the idea is whoever will call on, and that's epikaleo, to call by way of adoration, the idea is to call independence upon. And we're gonna see that's kind of what God's about. You may hear something, you may call upon him, but it has to be an interaction with a person, with a person of our Savior. So it's aorist tense, so this is a fact or an event in a person's life. It's middle voice, so it's for your benefit, you're doing this for your benefit, you're calling upon it for your benefit. And the bottom line is, you may call upon him, that's why it's subjunctive, that's why the will is there. You may call upon him or you may not call upon him. And God's desire is that you do call upon him.

But Paul wants to show us that process. What's the process of getting to the point where you're gonna call upon him? So the idea is calling needfully or independently upon someone, the Lord. That's from Merriman. And the name of the Lord is actually who He is. That's who He is and what He's done, if you think about that. Someone sums up His entire, who Christ is. And we always say that to come to Christ, you must know who He is and what He's accomplished. He accomplished salvation through His death on the cross and being raised on the third day.

And we'll be saved. I hadn't picked it up last week. I mentioned this last week maybe a little bit. We'll be saved. You notice that's future. The will's in there. So we think about that. This is looking ahead. It says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Well we know from the rest of Scripture that once you come to faith You can say, I have been saved, and as you walk the Christian life, I'm being saved, right? And we're now all in the being saved part, right?

And that actually is the hardest part. The longest part and the hardest part. The first part, hopefully you were very joyous, and I know I was. I was confused, not knowing exactly what had happened, but I realized that, I remember asking Bonnie, do I seem different? I felt different. You can't count on feelings, but I felt different.

Anyway, so we're in the being saved, but he says you will be saved. He's looking to the future aspect, which is kind of neat. Okay, so let's go on to 14. So here we go into the, there are four, four statements he makes, and he puts them, you may argue with Paul, you may say, what, Paul, why, you made it hard, why didn't you just flip it around and state it, why'd you have to state it the other way? So he states it kind of in the negative sense, he says, because I think he wants this to, it to be in our mind, you know, we know it, more than just a statement you can forget, this is gonna be, he's gonna ask you a question. He's gonna say, how then, and I put it in the interlinear because I wanted to bring out the verb, how may they call on the one in whom they did not believe? So he asks a question, he says, how can you call upon one that you didn't believe in? I mean, that's like, you know, that's kind of, and I'll get a few more points here.

So they is whoever is, I believe, a 13. That's Jew or Gentile. May call is the idea. It's epikaleo, the same word we have in verse 13, the idea of calling independence upon, in whomever they did not believe. So belief is key in this. The calling, you must believe. So, basically, believing precedes calling on the Lord. Calling on the name of the Lord indicates you have believed.

So the assumption is, remember these are rhetorical questions, so here's the answer. The answer is you can't believe. So you say, well why didn't Paul just flip it around and say, believing precedes calling, Roger? Why did he have to do it the other way? I can't answer that exactly, but he did it that way, so I'm gonna try to unravel that at the end. So the bottom line is, calling on the name of the Lord indicates you have believed on the Lord.

Number two, again from the interlinear, just to bring out the verb, how may they believe him of whom they did not hear? So now we connect believing with hearing. Believing and hearing, there's connectivity between each of these. I want to show you that at the end. There's a connection between believing and hearing, which is no great news to anybody. So the verb is, pistuo, may they believe in him, may believe him, to believe, to trust, to be persuaded. Believing is a potential, it's a possibility as you respond by hearing.

You have to hear first to believe. If you've not heard the facts, you cannot believe them. So the assumed answer here, you can't believe. And once again, you say, well, why did he go to all this? This comes with a negative aspect. No, he wants you to know, you must hear first before you can believe.

So I'm gonna summarize the first 13 and up to the first two points right now, which I found helpful. Calling on the name of the Lord means you believe then called and then I kind of have a little stair step here so I'm at the first three aspects you hear about his name first step then you believe on his name then you call on his name. But we're going to find there's two more steps before these steps. And he's going to do that in the last part of 14 and the first part of 15.

So just to repeat, Paul's reasoning, his thought process is here, flipping it around, you hear about his name, you believe on his name, then you call on his name. Now, for me, I found this very, very helpful because I, to be true, I was a little bit fuzzy about this until I kind of went through my thoughts and looked at it. Hopefully this will be helpful to you.

Okay, his third point is, how may they hear without preaching? So here is a kuo, to hear, to learn, to be informed of, to know. one's preaching. And preaching here is the idea to proclaim, to herald. It has a public sense, but I also think there's a private sense as well. So hearing requires a teller, a speaker, a communicator.

And for me, I was driving in the car, I was listening to a cassette tape. I know that probably is something that if you, young people hear that, what's a cassette tape, dad? Or my grandkids, what's a cassette tape? Well, it's that ancient thing you put in this thing and it goes around and around and you get words or music. So I listened to, what I heard was a communicator on a cassette tape, that's what I heard. To announce, to herald a public proclamation So once again, he's doing the flip side of you. They cannot hear without one preaching. You need a proclaimer. If no one's proclaiming, if no one's telling you, you're not going to hear.

Now, Vani pointed out, I was talking with Vani about this, was, Roger, I don't like to talk, that bothers me. How about if I write somebody a note, does that count? She didn't exactly, I'm kind of paraphrasing what she said. She'll probably talk to me later about this, but she didn't exactly say that. She just said, well, what about writing a little note? Isn't that okay? And I can't see why that's a problem, personally. I don't know.

But it talks about, but this is all about preaching or oral communication, which is interesting. And that was kind of the, that's what Paul was used to in his day. Okay, and the fourth one is, how may they preach if they are not sent? They preach as, I'm not sure I can pronounce it, I'll skip that for right now, to herald, to proclaim, and this is from Merriman, God, the Holy Spirit is active in sending the good news tellers, I like that, good news tellers. So you're a good news teller. You have lots of good news to tell people. Every single one you hear have lots of good news to tell people. and the most important is the gospel. Accurate proclamation cannot occur except by one being sent. So think, a believer, to my mind, a believer qualifies you to be a teller, to be a proclaimer. But in this case, it's gonna be, if they are not, if they're not been sent, they cannot preach.

So here we go, here's my little, we're gonna go back and forth in this diagram. So we're gonna start off, we're gonna go backwards. Okay, it says going backwards, you're sent, you're preaching, you're hearing, you're believing, you're calling. So calling was in verse 13. So to call you had to believe. To believe you had to hear. To hear someone had to preach to you. To be preaching you had to be sent. So either way you go. sending, preaching, hearing, believing, calling.

That's what Paul in these short verses has talked about. Boy, to me, that was just such a straightforward way of looking at it, and it really helped me tremendously. But he's not finished yet. So then the last part of 15, he says, he talks about just the delivery, if you will, he's gonna talk about the magnificence of the delivery process, how marvelous is our God. And he quotes the Old Testament verse, It says, how lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, the gospel, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, your God reigns. So that's where he quotes a portion of that in our verse today.

How beautiful So a couple points about that. First of all, the idea of beautiful is this idea of fully bloom, fully mature, this beautiful thing that we're seeing, how wonderful it is. And I was kind of envisioning somebody far off, you see somebody coming, it reminds me of the prodigal son.

When he saw his son coming, Did he just sit down in his chair and say, I'll wait for my son to get here? Boy, he was excited, right? He was pumped. His dad was pumped. He got everything ready. His brother was upset about that, but his dad was excited.

And that's how we are. When we see somebody coming with the good news, we're excited about that. That's marvelous. That's tremendous. And that's the sense, I think, that's here. And then it finishes up with kind of restating, this is interlinear I believe, the ones who bring good news of good things.

So good news here is proclaiming good, literally proclaiming good news, and it's our, the word for good news, our gospel, euangelizo, which is almost all issues of the good news concerning the Son of God as proclaimed in the gospels. Then I just love this verse here, And Paul, you know, Paul was so sure, so convinced that his message of the gospel was correct, he was going to say, even if I'm delusional sometimes, brother and sister, so to speak, even if it comes from me, if I don't tell you what I told you before, disregard it. I told you exactly what God wanted you to understand about the gospel. So here's how he phrases it. But even if we, including himself, are an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. He was so sure that was the right, he didn't have one single doubt.

And in some ways we should be the same way too. If we're a believer, we're sure the gospel is what saved men and women. So we should be sure and confident of that as well. This kind of struck me. And the last part, of good things, describes that's what's being good in character and beneficial in effect. The gospel saves men and women's lives. It's incredible. Okay, let's go on to today's verses. Let me get a drink here. So just read those for a second to yourself, quietly. I'm joking, okay. A lot of good stuff in these two verses.

However, they did not all heed the good news of the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? And that's not a positive statement. You first say, well, maybe that's a attaboy. No, that's a negative. He has a negativity. Lord, it's like nobody's responding.

How about missionaries that go to the mission field? Vonnie was reminding me. Some missionaries that went to China, China Inland Mission, I believe. They had maybe one, two converts after 20 or 30 years. You think you'd be down in the dumps after 20 or 30 years? So it's like, Lord, who has believed our report? We gave them the word, but what happened? Nothing happened.

That's kind of the sense there. Okay, so here we go on verse 17. I've really hacked this baby to pieces. Okay, sorry. So, definite article, the faith comes from hearing and the hearing by the word of Christ. But we got a couple more mods to come in here. I feel like a carpenter, like Phil. Take this little piece off, put something else in. I keep chopping away at this first. The from and the by are worth looking at in the Greek as well. Okay, let's get going here.

However, so interlinear, I like the interlinear not because I you know it's good because it shows me word for word what's going on but not all obeyed the good news so but is a strong contrast we see a lot in scripture Allah strong contrast however but Not all, not everyone. So this is Paul's lament. Lord, I took all this to them, and not everyone believed. Shouldn't everyone believe? You're God, why can't you make everyone believe?

Well, God is also gracious. Our brother Hal liked to say, God is a perfect gentleman. He will not force you to believe. I really like that. He will not force us to believe. But isn't it tough when you talk with your relatives and you seem to make no progress, nothing seems to change year after years go by and nothing as much has changed and you say, Lord, like this, Lord, who has believed our report?

It's actually that word for report is actually message. We'll see it in a second here. Okay, obeyed. Important word here. And it's translated obeyed or I like the, it's a compound word. It's to listen under. Hupo Kuo, to listen under. Boy, that helps me to understand what obeying's about. I listen under. I'm an attentive listener. And I was thinking about in modern vernacular, have you ever heard maybe it's parents or teachers say, listen up? And your anticipation is they're not just gonna listen, they're gonna listen and then do something. And that's what this word is about. Hupo Kuo is to listen under and then do something. You just don't, oh, okay, I heard that. I've unfortunately talked to people, I've had people say, yeah, that's good, Roger. I've heard that before. I've heard that back when I was a teenager. That's good, Roger, about Christ dying for you. Yeah, that's good.

I said, OK, let's keep going here. Come on. And it hasn't gone anywhere. Anyway. I'm sure you guys have been there too. So it's aorist tense. So this is an event of them not hearing. I didn't actually phrase that very well. It's factual. So this is an event of them not hearing.

Hupakuo, to listen under, is the idea of, remember the idea to listen with the idea of submitting. To listen with the idea of submitting. I really like that definition. I think it spoke to the point. So, it's just not listening. Akuo, the non-compound word without the hupo in the front is just to listen. But this word is to listen under, to listen under what somebody is saying with the idea of submitting. They did not all listen under the good news. The word here is euangelion, the gospel. So he starts off with this lament, if you will. They did not listen under the gospel.

Okay, so more points about it. So here's a parallel verse, which I think is helpful. 2 Thessalonians 1.8. You should really read the whole context that I didn't put in here for time.

So this is not a, this is a sobering message, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So it starts off with the fact that he's speaking to unbelievers. But he does it in an interesting way. He first addresses those, look carefully, those who do not know God. Then he says, those who do not obey the gospel.

And I didn't do a deep dive into this first, but from my notes, I kind of have, there are two different groups here. So this is a homework assignment. Shoot me an email. There are two different groups here. Some people say the first group is Gentiles, the second group is Jews. But I'm not, I don't know whether I believe that or not. Maybe it's true.

But anyway, the bottom line is, the parallel part is, do not obey is the same word, to listen under. They didn't listen under the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. To obey the gospel is to believe the gospel, from Merriman. And then he says, Merriman says, the Holy Spirit prepares every believer, he gives them the capacity to obey to obey and to disobey the gospel.

And we know that from just God's grace. He's not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. His desire is that every person know the Savior. So every person has the capacity to say yes to God. It's not like some people preach, you have to be, what's the right word, Mike? I've lost it here. Anyway, you have to be predestined to believe. Anyway. Let's go on.

Okay, so here's his exclamation, Lord, who has believed our report? It's a quote from Isaiah 53.1. Who has believed our message and to whom has the honor of the Lord been revealed?

We're going to see this actually occurs three times, originally in Isaiah, then Christ quotes the same verse again, and then Paul will quote it the third time. So the first, Lord only occurs in the passage where Christ spoke and then where Paul was speaking, not in the original as you see in Isaiah here. Who, and this kind of stumped me for a while, I don't know, it's another homework assignment maybe. The who, the best I can tell is a pronoun, it's singular.

So is that the nation of Israel and possibly all believing mankind? Lord, who has believed? Pestuo, to believe, to be persuaded, to trust, to put confidence in. Since it's Eris, it's speaking of an event. But in the context, it's speaking, once again, it's negative. They did not believe. So it's the event of non-belief, which is pretty sad. They did not believe our message. They did not believe our report.

So our is, So originally, let me just put the other point up here. Originally this was Isaiah's message. And I was thinking back through, Isaiah's message was to the nation of Israel, right? To the Jewish nation. When Christ was speaking about this, he was speaking to the Jews about him in Jerusalem. Who has believed our report. And then Paul, Paul's speaking to Jews again. And then by application you could say he's speaking to us. So this message from Isaiah, from Christ, and from Paul was all to the nation of Israel. Who has believed our report? So what's this report about is the next question. And this is the key to the rest of my talk here today, is that report probably isn't the best in understanding this verse.

It's probably okay, but report is a kuo, actually I'm sorry, I can't, the little e, it looks like with a little thing, actually it's pronounced a, a cool, a cool a. Hearing, it's the idea of hearing, denotes a thing heard. And actually it's a noun. This is not to hear, this is the message heard.

So it's better if we were to replace that, who has believed our message heard. So it seems a little bit cumbersome maybe, but we're gonna see how that helps out in verse 17 a lot. So literally, who has believed our message heard? So from Airman here, Paul's point here is even though they were sent, preached, hearing, believed, called, they met everything, they followed God's entire plan, God sent forth people to preach His message, they didn't believe the gospel.

So actually I was thinking about, Vani pointed out some verses to me that kind of talk about, so why is the nation of Israel so slow to learn? And so I have a couple verses that talk about that and God uses this idea of being stiff-necked And the word stiff-necked, from what I've kind of learned, is about an animal with a stiff neck. You couldn't steer the animal in the right direction. So if he couldn't do that, he was a stiff-necked animal. So Israel is pictured as being a stiff-necked people. They wouldn't listen.

In Acts 7.51, you men who are stiff-necked, uncircumcised in the heart, ears always resisting the Holy Spirit, you are doing just as your fathers did. Another one in Exodus, the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people, a stiff-necked people. And then the last one is in Nehemiah, but they, our fathers, acted arrogantly. They became stubborn and would not listen to your commandments. So that's a characteristic of the nation of Israel.

I can't believe it's any different than any of us, really, if you look at our hearts. So we're not wanting to listen, but God wants us to listen. Okay, so we're going to see this message heard, this noun message heard, it shows up in 16 at the end and it shows up in 17 twice. Okay, so let's go on. So now we go to 17. So in the NASV it says, so faith comes and comes a supplied verb, you could say come So faith is from hearing. That would be just fine. You're supplying the verb, so you get to kind of choose. And actually, there's one guy who chose that, which I liked. He chose what I thought about. So that's cool, right? That must be cool. So faith comes from hearing. OK, so here's interlinear, word for word. Then there's a definite article there. Then the faith comes from hearing. So we're going to dissect every single word here. Then, so we'll start with then. So then is this.

A-R-A means therefore, now, consequentially, and actually it's a connective. Zodiates and Merriman had this to say, it makes a transition from what follows to what was preceded. It's going to connect. This connective that starts 17 connects it back to 16B, the last part of 16. And some translate it then, some translate it so, some translate it so then. So here's my shot at this, with the help of Merriman. So let's connect 16b with 17a.

So, who has believed our message heard, Akue, then, or consequently, or therefore, the faith comes from a message heard. I'll read it again, connecting 16 and 17. Who has believed our message heard? Then, or therefore, the faith comes from a message heard. We're gonna fill in the details even more.

So from, first point here is the from in this, is ek, out of a source? So Weist, I think he does a great job here. He translates it, so then, A-R-A, so then faith is out of a source of that which is heard. Merriman kind of chose message heard, but he says that which is heard, which is pretty good. So I really, this kind of helped me to say I like Weist. So then faith is out of a source of what is heard.

Key point. So what is heard, what is faith, and lots of questions to go here. So here's some more ideas. And this is from Macaulay. So faith is based on the content of the message, not just hearing it. Boy, this is crucial, because this is what you find. People will say they've heard your message. You will tell them the gospel. You will read them a gospel. You will tell it to them.

But they won't hear it. In a sense, it doesn't click. We say it doesn't click. So faith is based on the content of the message, not just hearing it. The faith means saving faith. In this context, the reason I think they have a different article, they're pointing out this is talking about saving faith. The faith is talking about saving faith. It's the kind of faith that places you into Christ. Faith must have an object, and the object here is a person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And you could, I was thinking about this, you could. You know Paul kind of switches gears. Remember in the previous verses he was doing believe, believe, believe, believe. He never mentioned faith one time. Then all of a sudden, he gets into 17 and he goes to faith. Well in my mind you could put believe in here too. I don't think it would destroy the content. So he has believe, believe, believe. Now he talks about faith. So don't get hung up between faith and believing. To my mind they're synonymous. is out from hearing. Once you have heard the gospel, faith is possible.

I like that. Once you have heard the gospel, but not guaranteed, right? Every person, they can read the gospel, they can tell me the gospel, people I talk to, Roger, I heard that. I knew that when I was 17. I watched 10 Jesus movies when I was 17. I knew all about that. It blew my mind. I hadn't realized about that person that they did that, but I was amazed. But unfortunately, they didn't believe. So all this time has passed. They still haven't believed. Sad, sad.

Okay, let's go on. Last part of the verse. So now we have, there's another different article, not in the translation. The hearing from the word of Christ. The thee is supplied there. So now if you think about it, we have another definite article that shows up. So the question you ask, and Mike and I and Miles from Canada there, we're going through this book by Weist. Actually, it's a book, Roy, that you gave me. So Paul actually, so one of the keys, when you see a the before you say, well, why is a the there? The first the was because I believe it was speaking about the faith. saving faith. The faith, I believe, points back to the previous.

He's going to define what hearing is about. The hearing through the word of Christ. He's going to define what that means. He's going to define what the message heard is. Through is dia. It could be through the instrumentality or agency of the word. Hearing is through the instrumentality or the agency of the word, rhema, which is spoken. The word which preaches Christ. I like that. So hearing is through the word which preaches Christ. Pretty neat. That which is spoken, rhema, finds its object in Christ. Hearing through the word is toward Christ.

And it's all about the Some things that I'm not too up on. Objective genitive, I haven't learned enough about that to speak too much. Anyway, so a couple things about the message heard. Two things. The message heard, if they truly hear the message heard, that brings salvation concerning itself with Christ. The message heard is responded to by faith.

Okay, so my last thoughts here. Combination of Merriman and Hodge. I found this guy, the consul quoted. Okay, first point is, and this is from Merriman. I like that the New Testament evangelism, so what do you think about evangelism? Do you think about Billy Graham Crusades? I'm not knocking Billy Graham Crusades, but you think about evangelism, oh, Billy Graham Crusades, get thousands of people out there. Well Merriman's point here is that according to what we just read, you need somebody to proclaim, you need a person. One person to another person possibly, or maybe one person speaking like I'm doing. It's person, it's people to people.

The teller speaks the words about Christ and that is how the gospel is heard. That is God's design. People tell other people about who Christ is. That's the way God wants His message to be put out. So then what is faith is the next question. This is great.

Faith really is Faith really is, in biblical language, is receiving the testimony of God. We've received what God has said. We've read what God has said. It is the inward conviction that God says to us in the gospel that the gospel is true. That, and that alone, is faith. Let me just read that again. Faith really is, in biblical language, is receiving the testimony of God. So we received, we're receiving God's testimony.

He tells us about, it's the inward conviction that God has said to us, the gospel is true. That alone is saving faith. So let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day, Father. Thank you for the blessings we have. In Christ's name, amen.