For what if some did not believe?...the Wayfarer

For what if some did not believe?

Romans 3:11 KJV

¹¹There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

An old hymn, used as a topic some time ago begins with the words, " Oh well I'm tired and so weary but I must go along Till my Lord comes and calls me calls me away."

That tiredness is eventually felt by all, begging the question ever more often of why the need to toil in a field that stubbornly produces more weeds that require ever more work if the young plants being  cultivated are to survive.

The title of this day's dissertation is a question, asked by Paul, a hearty laborer, and answered by him as well in the same chapter of his epistle to the Romans.

It was, is, and must be the question that drives the lives of those seeking to lighten burdens and light a path for those falling victim to the statement made in the opening verse used today.

The "what if" becomes paramount to those who DO believe as the realization of the result of the unbelief of so many takes precedence to the laborer  despite the exhaustion that can,  and too often does trouble the very soul of the laborer.

Defeatism  then becomes the state of that laborer seeking rest in the middle of the harvest time, as the untended plants are choked out by the surrounding weeds.

The entirety of the third chapter of Romans  gives answer to the need to continue that labor, a labor for souls and the eternity faced by those souls despite the exhaustion that comes with that labor.

Romans 3

King James Version (KJV)

3 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?

² Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

³ For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

⁴ God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

⁵ But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

⁶ God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

⁷ For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

⁸ And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

⁹ What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

¹⁰ As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

¹¹ There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

¹² They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

¹³ Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

¹⁴ Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

¹⁵ Their feet are swift to shed blood:

¹⁶ Destruction and misery are in their ways:

¹⁷ And the way of peace have they not known:

¹⁸ There is no fear of God before their eyes.

¹⁹ Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

²⁰ Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

²¹ But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

²² Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

²³ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

²⁴ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

²⁵ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

²⁶ To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

²⁷ Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

²⁸ Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

²⁹ Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:

³⁰ Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

³¹ Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Reading this passage and the questions posed within it is similar to reading the daily news that brings each of those questions to light to the laborer.

Exhaustion becomes strength as the importance of the labor is remembered, and as the plants that remain viable are seen through the jungle of surrounding weeds.

Hope replaces that exhaustion, as expectation of the result of the labor exceeds the disappointment of the weeds that take root so much more readily in a fertile field intended to grow wheat rather than tares.

The opening verse is replaced by the reminder of the promise given to those who remember its words, despite the evidence of things seen, rather than the evidence of things as yet unseen.

Proverbs 8:17

¹⁷I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.

Despite the unwillingness of so many to search, that search WILL begin if instilled by laborers willing themselves to continue their own search until its completion, and the exhaustion will be rewarded by incomparable  rest upon completion of the labor required in the tending of fields left in the care of those laborers with the eventual harvest yet to come.

Matthew 11:28

²⁸ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The refreshment of that rest remains sufficient for the labor. The expectation of that refreshment remains adequate reason for the continuation of that labor until it is given.

Paul's question in the third verse, from which the title was taken remains paramount to any willing to enter the field, as must any in expectation of the fruits gleaned from the harvest.

2 Timothy 1:12 ¹²For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Amen and Amen
The Wayfarer