Faith Comes By Hearing…

Do you know what is wrong with this world we live in? Well, it’s not hard to see: A lack of faith in God, a lack of knowledge of God, and a lack of the fear of God. It’s really that simple. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein" (Psm. 24:1). And to add to that; "He is the LORD our God: his judgments are in all the earth" (Psm. 105:7). So it’s God’s world, and things have to be done his way if men expect to be happy and be truly blessed in their lives, regardless of who likes it or not, or who believes it or not. So the "believing” part brings us back to the title, which you may have noticed is part of a scripture (Rom. 10:17). Now let’s look at the whole scripture: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So herein lies the two-fold problem with the whole world, and with the body of Christ as well. First of all nobody knows how to listen to anything. Everyone seems to know how to talk a lot, but the scripture doesn’t say that “faith comes by talking.” I mean I don’t know many folks at all who know how to listen to anyone in an everyday type of phone conversation, let alone about the word of God. The only solution to the woes of this world, as well as God’s people, is first and foremost faith in God. Anything and everything that can possibly be obtained from God, must be obtained by faith. There can be no knowledge of God without faith in God, and there can be no fear of God without faith in God. And there can be no faith gained without being able to hear! But that is only half of the problem, as you may recall my saying that the problem is two-fold. The other part of the problem is even a larger element than nobody being able to listen. Our text verse says that “hearing [comes] by the word of God”.

The problem is, there is so little pure, unmixed truth being preached and established in the world today, that relatively speaking it is safe to say that there is none. Amos foretold of this day, saying “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst" (Amos 8:11-13). And you may note that he did not say that those who would seek the word of God and not find it, would know that they weren’t finding it. The fact is that there are more people today that think they have found the word of God than ever before. The sad fact is that the pure, simplistic "faith that was once delivered unto the saints” has been heavily diluted, even as the law of God was lost to Israel for a long season, until it was discovered accidentally during Josiah’s repairing of the temple (Jude 1:3; II Chr. 34:15). So if there’s not much pure word to hear, and no one is able to hear anything anyway, where does that leave the inhabitants of the earth, as well as the body of Christ? It’s certain that it leaves most people with either none or too little faith in God, little knowledge of God, and almost no fear of God; which leaves the world, as well as the body of Christ in mass confusion and division, and weakened like Samson with his eyes put out. Friend, we all need desperately to “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, [and] call ye upon him while he is near;” so that we might “hear what the Spirit saith unto the [congregations]" (Isa. 55:6; Rev. 2:7). Amen.