Romans 10:17

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

How can I obtain faith?

If I am thirsty, how shall I quench my thirst? By a draught of water. But in what way can I obtain water? It is enough to tell me to go to the tap or the fountain. There is no need to explain that the water is supplied by a reservoir, having been first drawn from the river, which received it from the clouds. To the thirsty all you want to say is, “There’s the water, drink.” A man is hungry, and he asks you, “How can I get bread? …. Go to the baker’s,” you say. If he wants to know how bread is obtained, we can give it to him at another time. And when you are dealing with an anxious person, it will suffice to say, “Faith cometh by hearing”; further information can be supplied under happier circumstances.

I. The way by which faith comes to men. “By hearing.”

1. Negatively. It does not come--

(1) By hereditary descent. The heirs of salvation are born, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.” That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and nothing more.

(2) By sacraments. Is not faith a concomitant of regeneration? and what is that regeneration worth which leaves a person an unbeliever? Faith cannot be sprinkled upon us, nor can we be immersed in it. It is not to be poured into us from a chalice, nor generated in us by consecrated bread.

(3) By feeling. Till certain men have felt what they have heard described in religious biography they cannot believe. You may get the best feeling from faith, but you will be long before you will find any faith worth having from frames and feelings.

(4) By dreams and visions. The notion is still current that if you dream of seeing Jesus, or if a passage of Scripture strikes you, or if you imagine that you hear a voice speaking to you, you are then a believer. Now, though you should see all the angels in heaven, it would not prove that you would go to heaven, any more than my having seen the Pope’s bodyguard would be a proof that I shall be made a Cardinal. Moreover, men saw Christ, and yet blasphemed Him.

(5) Through the eloquence, earnestness, or any other good quality of the preacher. If so, being born of the power of the flesh, it will die, and so prove itself unlike the faith which springs from the incorruptible word of God, for that liveth and abideth for ever.

2. Positively: “Faith cometh by hearing.” Sometimes faith has come into men’s minds by hearing--

(1) The simple statement of the gospel. All some have wanted has been merely to be informed of the way of salvation.

(2) Of the suitability of the gospel to the individual case. While some have heard it preached as a gospel for sinners, they have felt that they were certainly among that class.

(3) Of the condescending pity and the melting love of Jesus. When such texts have been preached on “This Man receiveth sinners,” “Come unto Me, all ye that labour,” etc., that strain has touched the heart, and led the most hardened to believe in a Saviour so kind to the undeserving.

(4) Of its authority. There are persons who, when they have heard the gospel, have not at first believed it, but if the minister has been led to show that God has set His sanction upon it, they have yielded and given over all further question.

(5) Of the veracity of the sacred writers.

(6) The explanation of the gospel. When the preacher takes up one by one the soul difficulties which keep a man from looking to Christ, and when a man shows that all his help for salvation is laid upon one that is mighty, it has often happened that faith has come through the hearing of such an explanatory word.

(7) The gospel preached with peculiar soul-revealing pointedness. Remember the Samaritan woman.

(8) The experience of those who have tasted the word of life; when the preacher tells how he trusted in Jesus, and found peace; when he is able to point to others who have felt the same, then conviction and faith are wrought in the mind. To set the whole matter clearly: Suppose you are labouring under a very serious disease, and a physician professes to heal you, how would you get faith in him? By hearing. You hear him speak, and you perceive that he understands your case, for he describes exactly all your symptoms. He next describes to you as much of the method of cure as you can comprehend. Then you inquire as to the man’s character; you find that he is a skilful practitioner. Moreover, suppose that he does everything gratis, moved only by a kind desire to remove pain and save life. But if, in addition, he shows you his case-book, and bids you read case after case similar to your own in which he has effected perfect cure, and if some of these are your own acquaintances, you will not insult him by saying, “I wish I could believe you.” In the same way faith in Christ comes.

II. The obstructions which often block up this way.

1. A want of intention. Many persons come to hear, but they have no wish to be led into faith. Like the butterflies which flit from flower to flower, they extract no honey because they come not for such a purpose; while the bees dive into the cups and bells of the flowers, and come up loaded with their luscious food.

2. A want of attention. Sleepy hearers are not likely to be led to faith. Wandering hearts lose the benefit of the truth, and vain minds trifle away the privilege of a gospel ministry.

3. A want of candour. If a man hears with a prejudiced heart he is not likely to be convinced.

4. The want of after meditation. The juryman who is most likely to get at the truth of a given case will be the man who, having heard attentively, takes the notes of the evidence, weighs it, and endeavours to sift out the truth. So when you hear us preach, sift the sermon afterwards, pick holes in it if you like, but do search into the truth, and be not content till you find it. Here is a bag, and I drop into it pound after pound, but I find that the bag is just as empty as before; the reason is, there are holes in it, and the money drops through. Too many hearers are as a bag full of holes, and golden sermons will not bless them because they wilfully forget all.

III. The importance that faith should come to us by this way. If you have been a hearer and faith has not come to you, you are, this moment, in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. The wrath of God abideth on you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The faith hearing the word of God

I. What is faith?

1. An historical (James 2:19).

2. A dogmatical (Acts 8:13, Acts 8:33; Luke 4:41).

3. A temporary (Luke 8:13; John 5:35).

4. A faith of miracles (Luke 17:6; 1 Corinthians 13:2).

5. A saving faith (Romans 10:10; Acts 16:31; 1 Peter 2:6).

II. What is the worn by the hearing whereof faith comes?

1. Not the word of men.

2. Not of angels (Galatians 1:8).

3. But of God.

III. What is meant by hearing this word? Hearing it--

1. Read.

2. Expounded.

3. Preached.

IV. How is faith wrought by the word? Not as by the principal, but only instrumental cause. Thus--

1. The minister commissioned by God speaks it to the ear, sometimes of God’s mercy, sometimes of man’s duty (2 Timothy 4:2).

2. The ears of the hearer take in what the preacher speaks, and convey it to the understanding. But that cannot receive it (1 Corinthians 2:14), therefore--

3. The Spirit goes along with the word, and enables the understanding to receive it.

4. The Spirit having done so inclines the heart to embrace it (Philippians 2:13; Romans 7:15; Hebrews 4:12).

V. Use of reprehension.

1. To those who think themselves above ordinances.

2. To those who will not come up to them. This doctrine meets, as the angel did Balaam, with a drawn sword--

(1) Such as will not so much as.come to hear.

(2) Such as will come, but not to hear, but out of custom, or to stop the mouth of a brawling conscience.

(3) Such as will come to hear, but will not hear when they are come (Ezekiel 33:31). They come and bring their ears too, but they are either stopped (Psalms 58:4), dull (Matthew 13:15), or itching (2 Timothy 4:3).

(4) Such as will hear when they come, but do not mind or understand what they hear (Ezekiel 33:32; Acts 9:7; cf. Acts 22:9).

(5) Such as mind what they hear, but will not believe what they mind.

(6) Such as do believe what they mind, but will not resolve to practise what they believe (Ezekiel 33:1.).

(7) Such as will resolve to practise what they believe, but will never practise what they resolve (James 1:23).

VI. Motives. Consider--

1. Whose word it is.

2. What a word it is (Psalms 19:7; Romans 1:16; James 1:21).

3. What thou mayest get by coming to it; what thou mayest lose by staying from it.

4. The time will come when thou wilt curse thyself for every opportunity lost, or bless God for everyone embraced (Matthew 23:39).

VII. Directions.

1. Before hearing--

(1) Consider what thou art going about and whom thou art going before.

(2) Set aside all worldly thoughts, as Abraham his servants, and Nehemiah (13:19, 20), especially sins (James 1:21).

(3) If thou wouldst have God pour forth His blessings upon thee in preaching, do thou pour out thy spirit before Him in prayer (Psalms 10:17; Psalms 65:2).

(a) For the minister (Romans 15:20).

(b) For yourselves, that God would assist the word (Isaiah 8:11).

(4) Come--

(a) with an appetite (Matthew 5:6; Job 29:23).

(b) With large expectations.

(c) With strong resolutions to practise.

2. In hearing. Hear--

(1) Reverently.

(2) Diligently, with hearts as well as ears.

(3) Meekly (James 1:21).

(4) With faith (Hebrews 4:2).

(5) With self-application (Job 5:27).

3. After hearing--

(1) Meditate (1 Timothy 4:15).

(2) Confer with others.

(3) Square thyself according to it, that thy life may be a comment on the sermon (James 1:22; Matthew 7:24). (Bp. Beveridge.)

The two great instruments appointed for the propagation of the gospel; and thy duty of the Christian public to keep them both in vigorous operation

I. The general lesson of the text.

1. As all is suspended upon God, and as He reigns with as supreme a dominion in the heart of man as in the world around us, all relating to the salvation of the soul is His work. But on the ether hand, it is evident that though it be God alone that worketh, yet He worketh by instruments. None were more impressed than Paul with the pious sentiment that all depends upon God; yet he says “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” If, in that extraordinary age, when the Author of nature broke in upon the constancy of its operations by miracles, one of His own inspired messengers does not overlook the use of instruments, it would ill become us to overlook them.

2. Now observe that the operation of the two instruments laid before us in the text is somewhat different at present from what it was in the days of the apostles. Those were the days of inspiration; and faith came by the hearing of inspired teachers; and hearing came by the “Word of God--for the apostles spake only as God put the word into their mouth. But whatever is capable of being spoken is capable of being written also; and it was not long before the Christian teachers committed to writing the doctrine of salvation; and if you read what they wrote with the impression that it is the genuine production of inspired men, you are in circumstances likely for receiving faith. Now, however, there is a change in one of the instruments. Instead of the messenger delivering the message in person, you have the substance of it in a written communication. And now faith comes by reading, and reading by the Word of God.

3. We are not to suppose, however, that reading is substituted for hearing. True you can no longer hear the immediate messengers of heaven; but you can hear the descendants of these messengers. And although you have the inspired documents, heaven still gives a saving influence to the living energy of a human voice.

4. In no age of the Church, indeed, does it appear that the one instrument ever superseded the other. Nehemiah not only “read in the book of the law of God distinctly, but gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading.” And this reading and expounding of the law from the days of Ezra formed a permanent institution among the Jews. We meet with traces of its existence in the New Testament (Acts 13:14, etc.; Luke 4:16, etc.). And it has descended, without interruption, through all the ages of Christian worship. The apostles deemed it necessary to leave something more than the written volume of inspiration behind them. They left teachers and overseers; and to this very day, the readings, and the explanations, and the sermons of Christian pastors, are superadded to the silent reading of Christian people; and both are found to be instruments of mighty operation, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

5. Neither instrument is to be dispensed with.

(1) If you have hearing without reading, you lay the Church open to all the corruptions of Popery. You have priests, but you have no Bibles. You take your lesson from the wisdom of man, and throw away from you all the light and benefit of revelation. Keep fast, then, by your Bible. Let not your faith come by hearing alone; but let your hearing be tried by the Word of God. Let it not be said that what you believe is what you have heard merely.

(2) But if you have reading without hearing, you throw away the benefit of a public ministry--an institution sanctioned by the Bible. Though you have no knowledge to receive, you have memories to be refreshed; minds which, however pure, need to be stirred up by way of remembrance.

II. Its application to the evangelisation of the world. The propagation of the gospel is a cause the maintenance of which consists of the providing of Bibles, and the providing of human agents. The latter, by teaching them to read, teaches unlettered people to use one of the instruments of the text; and to the latter belongs the exclusive office of bringing the other instrument to bear upon them--the instrument of hearing. The society whose office it is to provide the former is the Bible Society. The society whose office it is to provide the latter instrument is the Missionary Society. It is the duty of a Christian public to keep both instruments in vigorous operation. Each of these societies has mighty claims upon you. The two go hand in hand. The one ploughs while the other sows; and let no opposition be instituted betwixt their claims on the generosity of the public. (T. Chalmers, D.D.)

Hear and live

A poor man being on his death-bed, asked that the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah should be read to him. Though weak and faint, and full of pain, yet when he heard the words, “Incline your ear and come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live,” he gathered up his strength to say, “What a mercy, sir, that it is not ‘ Read, and your soul shall live,’ for if it had been I could not have been saved, for you know I am no scholar. But, blessed be God, it is ‘Hear, and your soul shall live.’ I have heard and believed, and trust I shall be saved.”

Power to hear, a blessing

It is said that a beautiful countess of one of the Orkney Islands was a deaf mute. One day, when her firstborn child was a few months old, as it was sleeping in its cradle, she softly approached its side, to the terror of the nurse, with a large stone in her hands, and dropped it on the floor, eagerly watching the face of the babe to see the effect of the noise. To the inexpressible joy of the fond mother’s heart the child started and awoke, so that she knew it had the sense of hearing. She embraced both child and nurse, and wept tears of gratitude to God that her own sad affliction was not transmitted to her offspring.