Preaching ought to be your top priority
Romans 10:13-17 (NIV)
13 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” 16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?”
17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
Canons of Dordt
Point 1 - God's Unconditional Grace
3 - The Preaching of the Gospel
In order that people may be brought to faith,
God mercifully sends messengers of this very joyful message
to the people
and at the time He wills.
By this ministry people are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified.
Summary
Paul announces the proper - and only - path to salvation by first quoting the prophet Joel: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You will not be saved by accomplishing a certain amount of good deeds or even just by being really sorry for your sins; the only way to come to your Father, as Jesus told His disciples in John 14, is by calling on His name.
But Paul points out the obvious: before a person can call on the name of the Lord, they need to know who the Lord is! Theoretically, a person can come to find out the Lord's name and their need to call on Him by sitting down on their own and reading through scripture; certainly there have been people who've done just that throughout history and found salvation on their own.
But ordinarily, this knowledge necessary for salvation comes via preaching, which is both the public and private proclamation of God's Word. So as the NET Bible puts it, faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached Word of Christ.
Dig Deeper
As you begin your year of coming to understand God's sovereignty as it relates to your salvation - that is, His omnipotent control, authority and presence in choosing you to belong to Him and then shaping all of history to work this election out in your life - you need to be warned of a potential trap so you don't fall into it.
One of the criticisms that are put up against these doctrines of grace is that if God controls every aspect of salvation and everything necessary for it will happen no matter what, that Christians will have no incentive to preach to all people. After all, if God has foreordained a person's salvation, they'll be saved even if they never hear preaching, right?
Consequently, Calvinists like us are often branded the 'frozen chosen,' content to just sit back and wait for God to miraculously convert those He will without any of our effort whatsoever. And unfortunately, many Calvinists have earned this unfortunate moniker.
But the reality is that the most effective evangelists over the past several centuries have been ardent Calvinists, because we know the power of Biblical preaching, and how it is that God uses preachers as His preeminent means of conveying saving grace to His people.
This is why you need to make preaching the central activity in your life - both regularly hearing it proclaimed to you in a formal setting, and then privately proclaiming what you've learned to those closest to you.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who saves His people through the powerful preaching of His Word;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that preaching will be your top priority - both hearing it and sharing it;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Mark 11
