It is possible to sit under sound preaching every week, read your Bible every morning, and still walk away unchanged. The problem isn't access to the truth. The problem is whether we believe it. God’s word does not work simply because it passed through our ears or under our eyes. For the word of God to produce an effect, it must be believed.
Learning from Israel’s Unbelief
The subject of Romans 9-11 is the nation of Israel, which sought righteousness by the works of the law, not faith in Christ. God sent them His Son, and the Son sent them apostles. Israel heard and had no excuse.
“But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?” - Romans 10:16
Israel’s problem was never a lack of information. It was unbelief, and that is exactly what we need to learn from.
Faith Cometh by Hearing
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” - Romans 10:17
Scripture uses the word “hear” in more than one way, and Romans 10 uses two of them. Sometimes it means simply receiving the message with the ear, being given the word of God. “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” (Rom 10:14). In that sense, Israel heard plenty through the Scriptures, the Son, the prophets, and the apostles: “Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth” (Rom 10:18).
This first kind of hearing is simply exposure to God’s word, and it reaches us in more than one way. We hear it preached, or we read it for ourselves on the page. Either way, you are still responsible for how you respond to it.
Other times, hearing means receiving the word with faith, taking it to heart and yielding to it. Notice how Romans 10:16 sets “obeyed the gospel” alongside “believed our report.” Scripture calls this second kind “the hearing of faith” (Gal 3:2).
Israel had the first kind of hearing without the second. In His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus said of them, “they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Mat 13:13). In this He saw Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed” (Mat 13:15). At the close of Acts 28, Paul applied those same words to the Jews in Rome (Acts 28:26-27). Their ears and eyes worked fine, but their hearts did not. They needed faith.
Scripture itself gives a helpful definition of faith:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1
Put simply, faith is believing God at His word. Faith comes when both kinds of hearing meet: the word must be given, and it must be received in the heart. Head knowledge, religious tradition, works, and familiarity with Bible stories are not faith.
Faith and the Gospel
This is first true of salvation. The gospel of Christ “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom 1:16). The power is in the message, but it is applied to the one who believes it. A person can have head knowledge of the gospel, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day (1Co 15:3-4), and still be lost if he never trusts in Christ’s finished work alone for himself. Saving faith needs the right message to believe, but that faith comes from the heart (Rom 6:17-18).
“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.” - Ephesians 1:13
Notice the order here. You hear the gospel, you believe/trust it, and God seals you with His Spirit for eternity the moment you first believe. Our standing in Christ rests entirely on what He accomplished, received by faith alone, and not on how many sermons we have sat through, the “good works” we have performed, or even how often we read our Bibles.
Faith in Our Daily Walk
The same principle of faith governs the believer’s walk after salvation.
“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe”. - 1 Thessalonians 2:13
The word effectually works (produces the intended effect) in those who believe it. Suppose you read that you are dead to sin and alive in Christ (Rom 6:1-11), accepted in the beloved (Eph 1:6), and complete in Him (Col 2:10), yet you keep thinking and living as though you were condemned and enslaved by that very sin. You have heard it with the ear but not with faith. The truth has gone in one ear and out the other. The word did not fail. It simply was not believed.
Believing it once is not enough, either. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:11). To reckon is to count it as true. The flesh, the world, and our own feelings argue against the truth of God and His grace every day, so we must first know it, then keep remembering what God has said and keep counting it so. A truth believed once and then forgotten produces very little in the daily walk.
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. - Hebrews 4:12
That is why we must stay consistently in God’s word and in prayer. The word exposes the thoughts and intents of our hearts, and prayer helps keep our hearts and minds soft to and focused on the things of Christ (Php 4:6-7). Together they keep us tender toward His truth so we can be changed by faith.
Spiritual growth does not come by willpower but by renewing the mind with sound doctrine and believing it in the heart (Rom 12:1-2). So let “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16). Keep reading it, hearing it, praying through it, and when it exposes your wrong thinking or heart, believe God instead of making excuses for yourself through your own arrogance.
Hear It and Believe It
Israel had the oracles of God, the prophets, and their Messiah walking in their streets, yet most did not believe. Let that be a sober warning to us, not a reason for pride. We are no better than they were. By the blood of Christ and the blood of many martyrs, we hold God’s word in our hands. But it does us no good if we don’t open it, read it for ourselves, and believe what it says, rightly divided (2Ti 2:15). Hear it, believe it from the heart, and watch it work.
