With Romans 10:14 in mind, how do you explain the situation, for example, of a person in a sinking ship who is unsaved and calls out to God to save him or her? Will he or she be heard by God?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ’ (1994).

I take it that the Scripture, 'Whosoever shall call on the name on the Lord shall be saved', stands as a basic principle of the gospel. We have an example at the physical level of the kingly man, the courtier, who came from Capernaum to Canaan, to our Lord, and asked him that he would come down and save his son. And our Lord replied, 'Except you see signs and wonders, you won't believe, will you?'

And the man said, 'Don't stand there talking theology; my son is desperately ill. Come down and heal him, please, if you wouldn't mind. We can talk theology afterwards.'

And our Lord said, 'You've misunderstood me, my good man. Your son is living.'

'My son is living?'

'Yes, you asked me to heal him, well, I've healed him. What I'm saying is, the trouble with you around here, unless you see signs and wonders, you won't believe, but he's healed. You asked me to heal him and I've done it. But, if you can't take my word for it, you're going to spend an uncomfortable twenty-four hours before you get home. That's all. But he's healed anyway.'

'Yes,' you say, 'but the man really believed, didn't he?' Well, yes, he did, and it was a faith that worked. He repented of all else, left his dying son, travelled to Canaan and asked the Lord. It was in complete sincerity of heart.

And if somebody on your hypothetical ship, going down, realises that all his or her life has been as an unbeliever and a sinner, that there is a God, and calls genuinely on the name of the Lord for God to have mercy, I could not find it in my heart to contradict the verse that says, 'They that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' But you cannot treat God as a kind of an old grandfather with a beard, or a genie out of the lamp who, when you rub the lamp, appears and does what you tell him to. And if people are going to believe, says Paul, on the other side, then they have to hear, don't they? Whether it be in the Old Testament like Nahum and hearing of a prophet in Israel that could save, or a Jew in Christian times hearing of Jesus Christ. If a Jew says, 'No, I will not have Jesus, but I believe in God', of course the thing is false, isn't it? For Jesus is God incarnate. How will he come to believe on Jesus? He'll only believe that when he hears in that fundamental sense. It's not just a formal application, so to speak. It's a response to God's invitation.