Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The ancient oracles of the demon gods used vague phrases that might have many crude interpretations. The word of God was nothing like this, but the prophecies were so definite, so unmistakable, that it was impossible to gainsay them.

Nevertheless, in the midst of words which made definite commitments to Israel, there were hidden promises which must also be applied to the Gentiles. God had made His commitments, but He had reserved to Himself the right to go beyond and make other commitments.

Guest (Male): Over a half century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God’s word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

The application of God’s word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we’ll be featuring on today’s edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled A Short Work.

The Apostle Paul reminded the Ephesians that at one time they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without Christ and without hope in the world. This was the sad state of Gentile peoples before Jesus came. But now, Gentile believers just like first-century Ephesians have been brought near to God by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Has God performed His work of salvation in you? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter nine, verses 25 through 29. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with the message entitled A Short Work.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto Thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. Bless the going forth of Thy word which comes to us sustaining and maintaining us in the midst of the trials of this life. Be with every listening heart in this hour to speak Thy blessing. And all this we ask is in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We're studying together in Romans and come now to the quotations from the Old Testament that sustain the great doctrine that Paul has been setting forth of God's choice, sovereign choice in man. We read in Romans 9:25-29, "As indeed God says in Hosea, those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call my beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, they will be called sons of the living God.

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant of them will be saved. For the Lord will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, if the Lord of hosts had not left us children, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah."

Now throughout this ninth chapter of Romans, the argument has been an answer to those who held that God could not bless Gentiles because He had committed Himself to Abraham. The answer has been that the same causes, hidden in God Himself, that moved Him to choose Abraham rather than some Egyptian or Babylonian, to choose Isaac rather than Ishmael, and Jacob rather than Esau, were still operating in all His choices. He was sovereign and worked always according to the good pleasure of His holy will.

But amazingly enough, what He was now doing for the Gentiles He had caused to be written down in the ancient prophecies. The verses were there in Hosea and Isaiah for all to read. The selfish blindness of a people grown hard in the pride of their own self-righteousness had made it impossible for them to read truth where it was written. But written it was, and nothing could change it.

Let us first look at the prophecy in Hosea in its primary meaning. Hosea had been called upon by God to perform the most difficult task ever committed to one of the prophets. He was to marry a harlot in order to act out a pageant of love linked to unfaithfulness. Hosea would represent God, and the wife would represent Israel, the faithless one.

We now see it as it refers to the teaching that was given by the names of the children of that marriage. Names in the Old Testament are highly significant, and the early part of Hosea is especially so. The children that were born were named by God Himself. The first child was named Jezreel, the second child was named Lo-Ruhamah, and the third child was named Lo-Ammi. Before the story was done, the names were changed to names of grace, but first the names of woe had to be written and the long fulfillment had to run its weary course.

Jezreel is a Hebrew word that describes the action when the human hand grasps an object and throws it away. There was a valley that went by this name, Jezreel, and there Jehu had exterminated the family of Ahab and had taken the power over Israel. But he did not do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and God announced that the power over Israel would depart from his house in the fourth generation and that this would take place in the Valley of Jezreel.

To name this child Jezreel was the announcement by God that He would scatter the children of Israel as a man takes a handful of litter and throws it to the winds. How terribly that prophecy has been fulfilled is illustrated by the fact that the children of Israel today are scattered into the uttermost parts of the earth.

The second child was named Lo-Ruhamah, which means unpitied. It was the announcement by God that the day would come when the children of Israel would have no pity from Him. How terribly that prophecy has been fulfilled we can see. The pogroms of Poland, the concentration camps of Germany, are filled with the stories of ruthless destruction of the descendants of God's ancient people.

Dachau, Belsen-Housen, have become names of infamy where Gentile dogs worried the harried people and where their tears of blood brought no pity to the eyes of their captors. In all the history of the world, there has been no more frightful chapter written, and it was all described more than 2,700 years before the event.

The third child was named Lo-Ammi, which means simply, "not my people". And Hosea heard the terrible word, "Call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people and I will not be your God." Sad as it is to write these words, they must be written. We are still living in the days of this prophecy. Never has so much been said in so few words.

When Churchill wrote his memoirs, he found admirable phrases well-suited to be the titles of the volumes describing the events they covered: "Their Finest Hour", "The Hinge of Fate". But if someone had written a three-volume history of the Jews, it would have been impossible to find titles more exactly describing these last 3,000 years of their history: Jezreel (Scattered), Lo-Ruhamah (Not Pitied), Lo-Ammi (Not My People).

And then suddenly, the prophecy continues and God announces that the names of the children shall yet be changed. In the Hebrew manuscripts, there is not so much as an extra space between the letters that end the prophecy of judgment and those that leap the centuries to tell of the promises of blessing. For suddenly, the tone turns from despair to triumph, and we read, "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, you are the sons of the living God.

Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say you unto your brethren, Ammi, and to your sisters, Ruhamah."

Now just as Jezreel is the Hebrew word that describes the action when the human hand grasps an object and throws it away, even so the same word is that which describes the action when the sower takes a handful of grain and plants it for the new harvest. And thus the name of the first child was changed by God from "scattered" to "planted", and that of the second child from "not pitied" to "pitied", and that of the third child from "not my people" to "my people".

Oh, we can well understand that Satan hates this and similar prophecies. That God should be faithful to a faithless people is the revelation of grace which is the heart of the gospel. That this grace was made possible by God's coming in Christ to die and provide redemption for lost men is the defeat of Satan and also the just grounds for his condemnation.

In all centuries therefore, antisemitism has been one of the vilest of sins, as it is a rebellion against the sovereign God. Racial hatred of any kind is despicable, and that which exists between Turk and Greek, between Hindu and Muslim, is selfish, proud, and hateful. But that which exists against the Jew is not only a sin against humanity, it is a sin against deity.

Unfortunately, it has even spilled over into the field of Christian theology, and this demands an explanation. As the Roman Empire advanced through the centuries, the seeds of its dissolution were widespread and luxuriant in their growth. When Rome fell, there were many dwarfs that rushed to pick up portions of its scattered power, and among these were ecclesiastical leaders who attempted to bolster their claims by advancing the totally false doctrine that the church which Jesus Christ had founded was to become an earthly kingdom.

Soon there were theologians who became accessories to this fraud by teaching that all of the earthly promises which had been given by God to Abraham and his seed were really prophecies of the church and that the right to rule had passed to the bishops. As the centuries passed, this false doctrine became embedded in the thought of the Middle Ages.

When light began to dawn in the 16th century, the main leaders—Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Knox, and the rest—were too busy discussing the great points of controversy, such as the central facts of justification by faith, to be occupied with lesser doctrines. Many years passed before it was possible to give proper consideration to these truths.

And since the conflict of the Reformation days brought about fixed statements of doctrine that were frozen into the creeds of the various reformed bodies, there have been followers even to our day who have been afraid to depart from those statements of doctrine, even when there was great biblical evidence to disprove some of their implications. Thus, there are some Protestants today who fail to see that the names of Israel's children are to be changed and that the period of no pity is yet to be replaced by the period of pity, and that the children of Israel so long scattered and treated as no people are to be gathered, planted, and strong as the people of God.

Calvin was honest enough to see the difficulty; he was not enlightened enough to see the solution. He writes on this verse which is our text: "Paul proves now that the calling of the Gentiles ought not to have been deemed a new thing, as it had long before been testified by the prediction of the prophet. The meaning is evident, but there is some difficulty in the application of this testimony. For no one can deny but that the prophet in that passage speaks of the Israelites.

For the Lord, having been offended with their wickedness, declared that they should be no longer His people. He afterwards subjoined a consolation and said that of those who were not beloved he would make some," and this is Calvin's word and not God's, "he would make some beloved, and from," and that again is Calvin's word and not God's, "from those who were not a people he would make a people. But Paul applies to the Gentiles what was expressly spoken to the Israelites."

Now Calvin, still showing great honesty, admits that there is here a knot, and that the interpretation of the hitherto most successful interpreters seems to him to be somewhat strained. And Calvin can offer no better; in fact, his is even more strained. But all becomes clear, however, when we take the simplest possible explanation. The prophecy has an absolutely literal fulfillment for the Jews in the future and a spiritual fulfillment for those who are called from the Gentile world into the spiritual body of Christ.

Calvin says no one can deny but that the prophet in that passage speaks of the Israelites. That confession is quite enough. God has so guarded the prophecy of the book of Hosea that it would be fantastically impossible to spiritualize them to a fulfillment that did not involve the literal restoration of Israel to her land at the time of the end. This should have opened the eyes of the followers of Calvin who insist that there is no future for the Jew separate from the future of the church. There is a great future for the Jew. The future of the Jew is greater than the future of any nation on earth.

Now today it is true there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. Today, in order to belong to God, there must be yieldedness by all alike, yieldedness to God's plan of salvation through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus it is that Peter quotes this same passage from Hosea. If we turn to Peter's first epistle, we find that it is addressed to those of the twelve tribes who had believed in Christ and who were scattered through various portions of the Roman Empire.

They were called, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." After setting forth the basis of salvation by grace through faith and describing the new birth of those who become believers, he calls them to build on Christ as the living stone.

Peter knew the meaning of the name the Lord had given him, and almost as though he anticipated that some people would foolishly believe that Christ would found the church on himself, a man, Peter cries out against such an idea, saying that Christ is the rock. And he then describes unbelievers and comes to the climax of this portion of his epistle by describing the remnant out of Israel who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."

Now here we see that God looked upon the outward form of the nation as being apostate, as being no more His people. But there was the slender remnant of those who believed in Jesus as the Messiah Savior. This remnant of believers, slender though that remnant may be, provides the continuity for the fulfillment of all the promises of God until the day comes when all Israel living at that moment shall be brought back into the fullness of blessing, and the nation shall once more be fully established and government shall go forth from Mount Zion to the uttermost parts of the earth.

In the ninth chapter of Romans, the main theme is not the eventual blessing of Israel, but the present blessing of Israel and Gentile alike, as individuals are called out of both groups to form the body of believers that is the true church. And suddenly, the wonder of the prophecy breaks forth. God had planned for a group that should be more than governmental subjects. Israel was a chosen people, an elect nation, but the church was to be made up of a company of sons. The title that is now ours in Christ is that which had been announced prophetically: sons of the living God. What wonderful grace is here.

Once we were bearers of other names that were names of horror. We were goyim, Gentiles, who were called dogs even by the Lord Jesus Christ. We were the uncircumcision. And when the name is used of Gentiles in the New Testament, there is the lash of scorn to be found in it. Before Christ came, we were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, without God in the world.

And then in our texts, almost suddenly, the Apostle quotes two verses, this time from Isaiah, which take us down through the future to the end of Israel's history. At the time of Paul, the nation had been set aside and God counted the fulfillment of His promises in a feeble remnant, of which Paul himself was an outstanding member. The people who were objecting to the grace of God for Gentiles had to know that though their number became as the sand of the sea, God would not be bound to do anything for the whole of the nation simply because they acted as though they had a patent and a copyright on God. The remnant of them will be saved.

The prophecy then leaps over the centuries to the end of this age. "The Lord will finish the work," literally the Lord will close the account, "and cut it short in righteousness, because a short work the Lord will make upon the earth." Having mentioned the remnant with which the Lord is going to deal in the future, the Spirit describes the swift action by which the restoration shall take place.

There may be a flourishing population, even many of the physical descendants of Abraham, but there will be sudden judgments that will carry away the mass of men and leave but the remnant with which the Lord will begin His kingdom plans. The work that is to be finished is the work of judgment. Men have laughed at God all too long. Men have acted as though God was not concerned with His creation and as though they could follow their own will with impunity.

But though God's judgments are slow, they are very sure. The passing of centuries has given to men a boldness and a carelessness with God, but the day will come when He will relentlessly accomplish the fulfillment of every judgment that He has announced. It was once the fashion to believe that these prophecies were so terrible that they would be impossible of fulfillment. But now we know that the means exist to bring these prophecies to literal fulfillment. Hydrogen bombs and cobalt bombs and the fallout after the explosion of such bombs give a terrible literalness to these prophecies in our day.

Babylon is described in the Bible as the culmination of political, religious, and commercial power organized by man to defy the true God. In the book of Revelation we read of the destruction first of religious Babylon and then of political and commercial Babylon. We read: "Therefore shall her plagues come in one day: death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and have lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her and lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come."

And if this be true of the Gentile hosts, we can understand our prophecy that very few will be spared of Israel also. The Lord will make a short work upon the earth. But the remnant of Israel shall be saved. God is faithful. God has said it. And our God and Father, we pray Thee that Thou shalt bless the truth as it goes forth to each heart and use it to Thy praise, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): We can rejoice in the Lord's grace and mercy in that we are now called sons of the living God through faith in Jesus Christ. We hope you have benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled A Short Work. You can listen to additional Bible teaching by the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse via the Internet by visiting us at alliancenet.org.

An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today’s message again is entitled A Short Work, or simply request message number R9-15. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Led by the Spirit. In this booklet, Dr. Barnhouse discusses how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of His people.

The four chapters cover the topics Led by the Spirit, How to Know God’s Will, God’s Leading, and God’s Sufficiency. These biblical insights can help your understanding and grow in your walk with Christ. Ask for your free copy of Led by the Spirit when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview.

Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. The Alliance also produces the radio broadcasts The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full listing of radio stations carrying our programs, please visit our website at alliancenet.org.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of our listeners. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888.

Again, that’s 1-800-488-1888. You can also write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Or you can visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding Reformed teachers and theologians, including Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening, and please join us again for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.