From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The words that I want to call your attention to this evening are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Romans in chapter 10, reading from verse 14 to verse 17. From verse 14 to verse 17 in the 10th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

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? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

In other words, we are moving on tonight to a new subsection in this 10th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Those of you who were here and will remember our analysis of the entire chapter back last April or May, whenever it was, will remember that we indicated that this is one of the subdivisions of this chapter. And these verses from 14 to 17 do constitute a subsection of the entire argument of the chapter.

Now, we've got to start this evening, therefore, of necessity, with the mechanics. And it's very important that we should do so. The apostle has a method, and he proceeds from step to step and stage to stage. And it is important that we should see why he's doing it, and how he does it, and why he does things in the way in which he does them. It's not enough merely to understand the particular teaching. It is very interesting and important that we should be able to follow the way in which his mind works. And we've got to do that tonight, and it isn't an easy task.

Dr. Benjamin Jowett, the famous master of Balliol in Oxford 100 years ago, who wrote a commentary on this Epistle to the Romans, says this about verse 14 to the end of the chapter: that these verses as regards style are one of the most obscure portions of the epistle. And there's no doubt at all that he's right. He doesn't say that the teaching is obscure; he says as regards style. In other words, he means very largely the connection of this subsection with the previous one and with what is to follow.

If he, Dr. Jowett of Balliol, found this to be difficult, there's very good reason for assuming that it is difficult. But it does seem to me that though on the surface it does appear to be a bit obscure, if you take trouble with it, it should be possible to resolve the difficulty. All commentators have found it difficult, and as usual, they don't agree in explaining the exact connection between this subsection and the previous one. Therefore, I would suggest to you that the connection is something like this, and I find myself agreeing with the majority certainly with regard to this matter.

The connecting link is in the word "then" in verse 14. "How then," or you might translate that word "then" by "therefore." "How therefore shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" Obviously, the apostle is continuing the argument. He takes up a different facet, a different aspect of the argument, but it's clearly connected. When you say, "how then," you're obviously referring to what you've just been saying. What you've been saying has raised a question, a problem, or a difficulty. So he introduces it by these words, "how then."

Very well then, we are entitled to say that this is a part of the previous argument. It follows in logical sequence from what has already been said. In other words, it is a part of the whole argument of the entire chapter. A very good principle, it always seems to me, when you come across a passage, a subsection such as this or even a verse which seems to you on the surface to be difficult, is not to spend too much time immediately with the immediate connection. Go further back.

Look at the larger context, and very often the larger context will give you the key to the solution of your immediate problem. If I may use a comparison that I believe I've used before, if you come up against a particularly high hurdle which you've got to jump, take a longer run if you want to vault over it. Go back, further back. Don't try and lift yourself up suddenly from where you are on the ground over this very high hurdle. The further back you go, the longer your run, the momentum will carry you over. It's a very valuable principle in exposition of scripture and in the elucidation of some of these problems with which it presents us.

So it seems to me that the way to look at this is to go back and remind ourselves of what after all is the object of the entire chapter. There we have seen that there is really no difficulty at all. The apostle, beginning at the beginning of chapter 9, has taken up this whole question of the position of the Jews. Why is it that the Jews of all people are refusing the gospel and are outside the church? They of all people should have been the first to be in.

They had the prophets and the teaching of the Old Testament, and it was all pointing to this. How does it come to pass that they of all people are outside, whereas the Gentiles who hadn't got the scriptures, who didn't believe in the only true and living God, have been more ready to believe the gospel and have come crowding into the kingdom? Well now, we've seen the apostle has dealt with the main answer to that question in the ninth chapter. But here in the 10th chapter, he deals with it not so much on a high theological level as in a more practical manner.

We've seen that what he's been saying has been this: that the Jews were under a grievous misapprehension on two points. The first was as to the way of salvation. That was their first big difficulty. They believed that a man justified himself before God by his works, his own actions, his own activity. That was fatal. He's already given us his text at the end of the ninth chapter: "But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law."

That was their whole trouble. He takes that up and he expands it, as we have seen, in the first section of this 10th chapter, where he has been establishing beyond any doubt at all that the way of salvation is that by faith. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed. There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all who call upon Him."

It's by calling upon the name of the Lord in your utter failure and desperation, without being able to do anything at all, that you are saved. Very well, that's the first big thing. They were wrong about the way of salvation. And that, of course, in a way, produced their second difficulty. It raised the second thing which was a stumbling block to them, and that was that Paul and others should be preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. That to the Jew was sacrilege. It was terrible. It was almost blasphemy that these dogs, these Gentiles, should have the gospel preached to them.

And that people like the Apostle Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, should now be mingling with these Gentiles and saying that they were all one in Christ Jesus. That was the second great difficulty. And of course, as I say, the two are intimately connected together. Now then, the apostle has already dealt with the first great difficulty. He has established beyond any question that salvation is the result of belief and of faith only. It's entirely apart from works or any condition on man's side.

All man does is to cry out unto the Lord and to believe the message. That is the clear answer to the first difficulty. But in doing that, he had established this point: that it is "whosoever" who calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Because this is the way of salvation, it is for whosoever. No difference, doesn't matter who he is, whether Jew or Gentile or anything else. And as he has proved by his quotations from the scripture, there's nothing new, nothing surprising about all this. It had been prophesied and predicted by prophets like Isaiah and Joel in the Old Testament.

Now then, that having finished that first question and having brought it to this "whosoever," it introduces the second question: "But now" or "how then." What? Well, it comes to this: the second question is, how does anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, become this "whosoever" who calleth upon the name of the Lord? Here's the general proposition: whosoever, anybody who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But what makes anybody call upon the name of the Lord? What brings a man into this company of the "whosoevers" who call upon the name of the Lord?

Now, that's the problem that the apostle is now taking up. And in this section, from verse 14 to verse 17, he has two answers to that question. The first is, a man becomes "whosoever" by first the preaching of the gospel to all, Jews and Gentiles. As it is open to Jew and Gentile, as the whosoever may be a Jew or a Gentile, the first way in which one enters into this company is by hearing the message. So the first answer is the preaching of the gospel to all, Gentiles as well as Jews.

That's what he deals with in verses 14 and 15. But that isn't the only answer. There's a second part to the answer. Here is a gospel then that is preached to everybody, whosoever, Jews and Gentiles. But it's quite obvious and quite clear that everybody doesn't believe it. Though they hear it, everybody doesn't believe it. He makes that particular statement: "But they have not all obeyed the gospel." So that you don't answer the question of what makes a man whosoever by just saying it is the result of the proclamation of the gospel to all.

There must be another factor. Some believe, some don't believe. There is a further factor. What is that? Well, the second factor is, he tells us, that the word is made effective to those who become "whosoever." That's what he deals with in verses 16 and 17. Let me just complete my analysis like this, then. He says, you see, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" Very well, I'll show you how he answers that. There must be the information.

But then, they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Esaias saith, "Lord, who hath believed our report?" So then, he comes to this conclusion: "Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" or "the word of Christ," as we shall see. So that you've got a double answer to this question. How does a man become one of this company covered by the word "whosoever"? And the answer is the proclamation of the message, but something on top of that. Something that differentiates this peculiar kind of hearing that is true of some and not of others and leads them to call upon the name of the Lord.

Now then, if you like this in theological terms, which we've already had to use when we were working our way through the ninth chapter, what he's really telling us in this subsection, verses 14 to 17, is this: that there is a general call to all, but there is also an efficacious call to some. There is a general call to all men everywhere to repent and to believe the gospel. General. But it isn't efficacious in the case of all. And what makes a man belong to the company of the "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord and be saved" is the efficacious call.

The special call, which goes beyond the general. So you can say, if you like, that in verses 14 and 15, you have the general call. In verses 16 and 17, you've got the efficacious call. Now, that is my suggestion as to the connection between this and what the apostle has already been saying. And you see, it follows by an inevitable logical necessity. It's all in sequence. He's carrying the argument a step further on. And it will help him also ultimately to show again why the Jews are out and the Gentiles are in, which was the original point from which he set out.

Very well. Now then, that being the analysis of this subsection. Oh, by the way, for you to have it clear in your minds, from verse 18 to the end of the chapter, he does nothing but to produce a kind of catena, a little chain of quotations in order to prove from the Old Testament that this again, like everything else he is saying, is not something new or novel. It had all been prophesied, it had all been foretold, and what is happening is nothing but a fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament dispensation.

Very well. You see, the apostle is true to his own method. He always is. And we'll find it now even in this little subsection with its two subdivisions. He does what he always does: he makes a statement and has a scripture quotation to prove it. He does it in both of them. You see, he says here to prove his first point: "As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things." He then proves the second by saying: "For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?"

Apart from anything else, this is the most brilliant arguing. It's brilliant debating, if you like. He's dealing with Jews, he knows how to deal with them, and he always has his scriptural quotation just to clinch what he has already been saying to them. And so leaves the Jew without anything to say at all. His argument is quite unanswerable. Very well. That being the general analysis, let us now proceed to work it out together. We'll start, therefore, with this first division in verses 14 and 15.

And you notice how he puts it. Salvation is the result of calling upon the name of the Lord. This is the way to salvation. Well then, if that is so, he says, it follows of necessity that the knowledge concerning this Lord on whom they're going to call must be available to men and women. If it is for whosoever, well then, the knowledge must be given to all and sundry. It must be made available to all. So the conclusion he arrives at is that Christ must be preached to all.

Now, the way he does that is very interesting. You notice how his mind works. "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" No man will call on the Lord unless he believes in Him. The thing's impossible. You don't ask a person for help unless you're quite sure that that person is able to help you. You must have confidence in him. "How shall they call on Him of whom they have not believed?" But then that raises another question: what is it that brings them to believe in Him?

So he says, "how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" You can't believe in a person of whom you haven't heard and about whom you don't know anything. So it's obvious that if a man is going to call on the name of the Lord, he must have confidence in him. That means in turn that he must know something about him. Well, how did he ever get to know something about him? He puts that in the form of a question again: "How shall they hear without a preacher?"

How do they arrive at this knowledge? How would they ever have known anything at all about Him if someone hadn't told them about Him? In other words, they can't know about Him without a preacher. And then that raises still another question: but whatever makes a man a preacher? Whatever made any preacher go out and announce all this? Where does the preacher come from? How do you explain the existence of preachers at all? "And how shall they preach," he says, "except they be sent?"

Now, there he's moved from step to step and from stage to stage, asking the inevitable question. And it's arrived back at this: the preachers have been sent out to give people the knowledge concerning this Lord in order that they may call out upon Him. And his argument is, of course, that the preachers have been sent out by the Lord Himself. And that is how this whole process of salvation takes place. And then, as I say, in his customary manner, he says it's all right, this is no new doctrine.

All this has been prophesied long ago. And so he proceeds to quote to them Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 7, or Nahum the prophecy of Nahum chapter 1, verse 15. "As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of great joy." Those two prophets had been given a foreview of the age of the Messiah. 800 years or so before it happened, they'd been given a foreview of this great day when all flesh should see the salvation of the Lord.

That great prophecy in Isaiah 40—indeed, the whole of the prophecy. It all looks forward, and here it is in particular in Isaiah 52 and verse 7. The news has come, this wonderful good news. It had all been predicted and it had all been prophesied that this is God's way of saving men: that He makes the news, the good news concerning His Son and His great salvation, known to all men. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. Here it is in the words then of these evangelical prophets.

Well now then, there is more or less a mechanical consideration of our passage, our subsection. But of course, these verses, this statement, is a tremendously important one because it contains teaching concerning matters that are of vital concern and of importance in the life of the Christian church. Let me show you what I mean. That's the apostle's immediate concern. But we never stop at the immediate concern of the apostle. First thing he wanted to do was to show these Jews why he and others preached to the Gentiles.

He justifies it fully in the way that I've just shown you. But of course, in doing that, he lays down certain great principles that are always of validity and always true in the history of the church and in the working of the life of the church. So I want to show you some of these great principles which emerge from this particular section. The first is this: these verses are the great charter for the foreign mission enterprise. And not only foreign mission, but for any missionary enterprise.

But they are in particular, and have always been regarded as, the great charter for the foreign missionary enterprise. The great argument for the need and the necessity and the urgency of the foreign missionary enterprise: that the good news of salvation should be taken to all countries under the sun, and that it is the business and the duty of the church to see that all men and women have this knowledge placed before them, without which they cannot possibly call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.

Now, let's look into this for a moment because there is oftentimes a good deal of misunderstanding about this. The apostle's argument is quite inevitable. He has established that there is only one way of salvation. There is only one gospel. We ended with that last Friday night. There is only, as there's only one gospel, there has always been only one gospel; there will never be another gospel. It is the gospel of the grace of God. He's established that.

Salvation is only possible in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There never was a way whereby anybody could be saved apart from that; there never will be. Never. Salvation is in Christ and in Him alone. Therefore, He must be preached to everybody. He must be preached to all nations, Jews and Gentiles. In order that this whosoever may come into being, the knowledge must be disseminated, the news must be broadcast. As he puts it so perfectly: "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?"

Very well then, here is, I say, the great reason for sending this gospel right away through the whole world. It is the great charter of the foreign mission movement. Now, there's no difficulty about that. But there is a difficulty that arises even in connection with that, and it's often troubled many people. I've had to answer this question on innumerable occasions. What then is the position of those who have never heard the gospel? See, it's an inevitable question.

What of heathen who have never heard this message? The apostle, you see, raises the question really by his statements. "How shall they call in Him of whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher?" And if the poor man's living in a country where a preacher has never appeared and the message has never been given, how can he believe? What is the position of that man who has never heard the gospel?

Many people are troubled by this. And by the way, by today, they're not only troubled by this question with respect to people living in foreign countries. I'm often asked at the present time, what about people in certain parts of Great Britain where to our certain knowledge no evangelical gospel has been preached for many a long day? What about people who live and die there and who never heard the gospel at all? Because it's possible to live in Britain today and never hear the gospel. We are living in a pagan land.

There is a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. What of such people? Well now then, there is a false position, it seems to me, which is taken by many people with regard to this particular question. And it arises in this way: it is a teaching which tells us that what condemns people now is that they don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They say ever since Christ came and died and rose again, this is the one thing that matters. Does a man believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or not?

The one cause of condemnation now, they say, is that a man does not believe the gospel. Then they say, well, very well, they say at the same time that the gospel is to be preached, and they're great supporters of the foreign missionary enterprise. What is their answer with regard to these heathen who have never heard the gospel? "Oh well," they say, "they obviously will not be condemned for not believing a gospel which they haven't heard. That would be unfair."

Well then, you say to them, "what happens to them?" Well, then they'll give you one of two answers. "Oh," they say, "well, those people of course who've never heard the gospel, they will be judged according to the way in which they've lived." They'll either say that, or else they will say that of course, never having heard the gospel, and therefore you can't condemn them because they haven't believed it, they are all obviously saved because it would be wrong to condemn them for not believing a gospel which they haven't heard.

But you see, that's an impossible position. Let me take both of them. If you say that these heathen who've never heard the gospel are therefore going to be judged by their works, well then you're back on justification by works again, which the apostle has proved has never been the case. He's proved conclusively in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 that it has always been a matter of faith. But here we are going back now to works and saying that these people who never heard the gospel, they're going to be judged according to whether they lived a good or a bad life.

Or take the other argument. The other argument says that because they've never heard the gospel, they can't be condemned for refusing it, and therefore they are all saved by the love of God. But you see, if you say that, well then you should never send out a single foreign missionary for this reason: if you send out a foreign missionary to those people and give them the knowledge, if they now don't accept it, they will be damned. It would have been better for them if they'd never heard it.

If they're all saved because they've never heard it, well then don't send them the news. Because if you do send preachers, some will believe and some won't believe, and the result of your sending out your missionaries is that you're going to condemn some of them to eternal damnation. It would have been better not to send out a single missionary, which is again absurd. Not only a contradiction of the plain teaching of the scripture at this point, but it does indeed reduce the whole situation to one which is simply ridiculous.

Very well then, says somebody, what is the true teaching here? Well now, this is most important. The first thing we've got to be clear about is this: what is the cause of condemnation of anybody's condemnation? Think of somebody dying in unbelief and going to perdition. What is the cause of that? Now, here is where these false arguments always go wrong. The primary cause of anybody's condemnation is the sin of Adam.

Now, you see, the apostle took great trouble to make that perfectly plain and clear to us in chapter 5, verses 12 to 21, which I say once more are in many ways the hinge on which the whole of this Epistle to the Romans turns. It's in the 12th verse mainly: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all men sinned." For until the law—this is just to prove that contention—for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. There is the plain statement. Adam was the representative of the entire human race. And when Adam sinned, we all sinned. That is the statement of Romans 5:12. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. Everybody has sinned in Adam. The entire human race sinned in Adam.

And that is the cause, the main cause of our condemnation. If we had done nothing at all, we are all already condemned in Adam. It is quite unscriptural and wrong to say that it is belief or rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ that determines now. It doesn't. A man is already condemned. "He that believeth not," says our Lord Himself in John 3, "He that believeth not is condemned already." He's already condemned. Every man is born in sin and in condemnation.

We have all sinned and we're all dead in Adam. But there is a subsidiary cause, and that is our own subsequent action. But they are not the primary cause. The primary cause of every man's condemnation—we are all by nature the children of wrath, even as others, because we are children of Adam. And that is the primary cause of condemnation still for the whole world. And we mustn't substitute anything for that. Then I say the subsidiary, the secondary cause is our own sinfulness, our own willful disobedience.

Whether it is a willful breaking of the law of Moses as given to the Jews, or whether as Paul argued there in Romans chapter 2, which I read to you at the beginning, the law of God which is written on the heart of every man. The most ignorant heathen in the remotest part of the earth tonight has got the law of God written upon his heart. That is this moral sense that everybody has, the law written on the heart. And they show that it's there by else, as he says, accusing or excusing one another.

Very well, there's the first point: that the cause of condemnation then is that we're in Adam. The second proposition is this: that Christ and Christ alone is the only way of salvation. There is no other. Now, you'll often hear people saying something like this. They say, "Ah, about these heathen that you're talking about who've never heard the gospel, they will be judged according to the light which they had in their lives and their loyalty and faithfulness to the light which they had."

But it's wrong. It's unscriptural. It is a denial of the gospel. No man can be saved by being faithful to the light that he's got. There is only one way of salvation. It is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If there was anything else that could save a man, Christ would never have come. It is because there was nothing else that could save anybody that the Son of God had to come and even had to go to the death of the cross.

So we must never talk again about being faithful to the light you've got and so on. There is only one way whereby a man can be reconciled to God, and that is through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. There is no salvation for anybody, never can be, except through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. These are absolutes. One cause of condemnation, one and only one way of salvation.

But now then, you say, if you say that a man can only be saved through Jesus Christ and Him crucified, what about the people who've never heard of Him? Are they all of necessity condemned to everlasting perdition and destruction and punishment? How do you answer that? Well, very well, I accept the challenge. And I suggest that there is an answer. Now the position of the heathen who've never heard the gospel is in essence and in principle no different at all from the position of infants that die almost as soon as they're born.

Here is an infant who's born and who lives, but who dies, let's say, immediately or in a few days or in a few months, but he's still an infant. He dies. What is the position of these infants? Unconscious infants. Infants who can't think, who can't understand, and to whom you can't preach the gospel. What about them? They're in exactly the same position as the heathen. Но again, you see, people tend to go wrong about the infants.

There is a teaching—and to me it's always a mystery how a man like Charles Hodge could ever have taught it—there is a teaching to the effect that all infants, all dying in infancy, go to heaven. That they're all saved. All I can say with regard to that is this: that there is not a single scripture to support that statement. It is pure speculation. I'd like to say it, but I can't say it. I've no right to say it. There is no scripture whatsoever that says that.

It's very nice, I know, and very comforting. But my dear friends, we are not here to say nice things nor comforting things. We are here to expound the scripture. And I know nothing apart from that which I find in the scripture. So we mustn't say that. We mustn't say that about infants anymore than we must say that all the heathen are saved because they'd never had an opportunity of refusing. Well then, what is the answer? Well, I'll put my answer to you like this: there's only one answer to me, and it's the answer of the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans—the sovereign election of God.

I see no other answer. It's a great mystery. I can't give you details, but I can say this: it is God who saves. Chapter 9 has told us that Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated, and that that was true of them even before they were born, when they were still in their mother's womb and hadn't had an opportunity of doing either good or bad. That was the great argument of chapter 9. Salvation is entirely God's work. It is all of God.

And there is this what he calls here the purpose of God according to election, that that might stand. And the moment you begin to look at it like this, I think you see that you can have a little bit of light on this question of the heathen who've never heard the gospel and on the infants. It is a part of the mystery of the working of God. Now, what is the apostle saying here in Romans 10:14 and 15?

Is he saying that the only way whereby a man can be saved is that he hears the preaching of the gospel and believes it? He is not saying that. What he is saying is that that is the normal and the customary method. But he doesn't say it is the only method. If that were the only method, then what does happen to your infants and what does happen to your heathen? Fortunately, the apostle doesn't say that. Let me read to you on these verses the words of John Calvin of all men.

Listen to him. He says: "But if any man shall here by contend to prove that God could not otherwise than by the means of preaching infuse or pour His knowledge into men, we deny that to be the meaning of the apostle, who had respect only to the ordinary dispensation of God and would not prescribe any law or limitation to His grace." What that means is this. What Calvin is saying is that all the apostle is saying here is that normally God does save men through the preaching of the word, but he does not go on to say that that's the only way.

He doesn't say that God cannot if He chooses do it in some mysterious manner which he calls here by infusing or pouring His knowledge into men. Now then, let me give you another quotation from the Second Helvetic Confession of Faith, the second confession of faith drawn up in Switzerland by the reformers in the 16th century. They put it like this: "We at the same time admit that God, having said that the normal way is by preaching, we at the same time admit that God can, even without an outward ministry, illuminate men whom and when He pleases. It lies in His power. But we are speaking of the means and manner which He ordinarily uses in teaching men and of the commandment and example which is given us by God."

You see the distinction? Normally God does it by preaching, but not always. We at the same time admit that God can, even without an outward ministry, illuminate men whom and when He pleases. And that is what I profoundly believe and have indeed always believed and have taught. I'll put it to you like this: salvation is of God, and there is no limit to what God can do. Show me a man, if you like, who's dying on his deathbed and who's never believed the gospel.

You say to me that man's going to hell. I say you can't say so. He may not. "Well how," you say, "he's never heard the preaching of the gospel?" I agree with you. But what is there to stop the Almighty God to illumine the man's mind? To give him a revelation of Christ and the gospel concerning him even in the last agony of death? Do you tell me that God cannot do that? I believe He can do it.

I believe He can do that to a heathen who's never heard the gospel: that God in His own mysterious manner by the Holy Spirit can give that man the knowledge of Christ which is adequate to save him. He can do the same to an unconscious infant. And it is there I see the salvation of the unconscious infant. It is no more difficult for God to save an unconscious infant than it is for Him to save an adult by preaching. It's God who does it in both cases.

It isn't the preacher. It isn't the man who listens. It isn't my preaching, it isn't your power of decision, it isn't your exercise of your willpower, it isn't your deciding for Christ. Christ, God in Christ by the Spirit saves everybody. And it is because it is God who saves. He can save an infant unconscious. He can save a heathen who's never heard the gospel. He can give them the knowledge and the understanding and the ability without any difficulty. And I believe He does so.

And that is my answer concerning the heathen. All the heathen are not lost. All the heathen are not saved. But that's just to say exactly the same thing as I say about the people in this country who've heard the gospel. All the people who've heard the gospel in this country are not lost. All the people who've heard the gospel in this country are not saved. Exactly the same. It is God who saves in all cases.

And from God's standpoint, there is no more difficulty in the one than in the other. You see, we don't know, do we? We are so ignorant. And we are so ready to put forward our opinions and our theories and suppositions and imaginings and speculations. But the scripture teaches that it is always the work of God. And there is nothing here which confines it to this. This is the usual, this is the habitual, this is the ordinary.

But it isn't the invariable method. As God dealt with Saul of Tarsus in a special way distinct from that of the other apostles, so He still does, and so He will still continue to do. Very well then, let's leave it at that for this evening. But the question, you see, arose quite inevitably. On the surface, it appears to be saying here that unless a man has heard the gospel and believed it and cried out he can't be saved.

It doesn't say that. It says that is the normal way of saving men. It does not say that it is the only way. But we've already been told in chapter 9 that it is the action of God in illuminating, giving the knowledge and the illumination, and thereby saving men. Great is the mystery of godliness. Let us be humble and give glory to God and not try to intrude into matters that are beyond our understanding and beyond the revelation given. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we do indeed humble ourselves before Thee. We acknowledge our smallness and our folly. But we do admire the marvel and the mystery and the wonder of Thy ways. And here, oh Lord our God, we see hope where there was formerly no hope. And we thank Thee that Thy ways are perfect and that Thine Israel shall be perfectly gathered in. And now, oh Lord, we pray Thee to look upon us and to bless us as we part from one another. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night and evermore. Amen.