Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The Christian will not go in for worldly lusts in the modern use of that word. We will not be legalists and the Holy Spirit will always be our guide into the rich pleasures which he has for us in nature, in sports, in music, the arts, in reading, in friendship and social contacts. We will enjoy these things more than the non-Christian can ever enjoy them, for God has given us new capacities with which we may lay hold of all things. And there will never be any remorse following the pleasures which we have in Christ.

Guest (Male): Over a half a 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 ministry 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 The Christian Non-Conformist. In the 1960s, many young Americans rebelled against a society and culture that had largely been shaped by Christian values. This led to a decade of non-conformist counterculture. But the Bible teaches that believers must exert a counter-culture influence as we refuse to conform to the world. Are you being transformed daily by the renewing of your mind?

The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 12 and verse two. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled The Christian Non-Conformist.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ we come unto thee our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We ask thee that thou by thy power shall take the word beyond human hearing, even to the very center of the will. We're so stubborn by nature, Lord, we want our own way. And we ask thee that there may be something in this which is spoken in this hour which shall turn our hearts away from willfulness and bring us back to that union with thee and that commitment to thee that shall bring joy and peace and power in our lives. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

In our study of the 12th chapter of Romans, we come to the second verse today where we read, "Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." When a person has become a child of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he must grow in the new life that has been given to him. If there is no growth, we have every right to question the reality of our salvation.

You will note that I did not say that if someone else does not appear to grow, that you have a right to question the reality of their salvation. That is a matter that is known finally to God alone. Yet it is possible for us to know within ourselves that the divine life is there and that we have truly been made partakers of the divine nature. So we must always question ourselves, as God has told us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure.

The one who knows that he has trusted in the Lord Jesus as his savior is now in our text entreated by God to live a life that is a true Christian life. Back in the first verse of this chapter, we've seen that we are individually to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is an act of intelligent worship. This means that every part of our being is to be given over to spiritual life.

This is not a drab affair. The true Christian may like nice food, but he's not to overeat. The true Christian may revel in all of the joys of married love, but he is not to be a fornicator. The true Christian may be thrifty, but he is not to be a miser. He may be generous, but not a spendthrift. His life is to be transformed. In order to understand all that is meant here, it's necessary for us to take two words from our text and place them beside a third word which is to be found back in the eighth chapter of Romans.

The three words have this in common in English: they all are based on our word form, though in the original Greek they're quite different from each other. In Romans 8:29, we were told that God's purpose in saving us was that we might be conformed to the image of his son. Here in this text, we're told that we are not to be conformed to this world, this age, but that we are to be transformed by the renewal of our mind.

Conformed, conformed, transformed. To put them in their spiritual order as these changes take place in our lives, we would have to say that we are to turn away from our past, not being conformed to this age in the present, but that we are to be transformed as God makes us like the Lord Jesus Christ, conforming us to the image of his dear son, and that all this will come to its fullness at his return for us.

When we have put them in this order, we're immediately reminded of a verse in the first epistle to the Thessalonians. In it, Paul describes their spiritual history in a single sentence of three parts: past, present, and future, which correspond to our text in Romans. For he says of them in 1 Thessalonians 1:9 and 10, "You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come."

Three actions are described. Past: you turned from idols. Present: to serve the living and true God. Future: to wait for his son from heaven. In Romans, our text declares these same three truths. We are no longer conformed to this world. We are being transformed in our daily life. And we shall be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming. Be not conformed to this world.

The Greek word is a long one, but in the middle of it we find the root that has given us our modern word for scheme. The verse might be translated without moving too far from the original by rendering it, "Don't go along with this world's schemes." As the centuries have passed, this word schema has developed several meanings from its root. We can say at once that a Christian is not to be interested in any of the world's schemes using that word in its unfavorable sense.

It should go without saying that the one who has been truly redeemed by Christ will not be interested in the self-seeking and underhand projects and plots of those who are unprincipled. Nothing that is dishonorable and disgraceful can be considered for a moment by one who is controlled by the Holy Spirit. But there is a larger definition of scheme which goes back to the meaning of our New Testament word.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives this important definition of the word: a scheme is a complex unity in which the component elements cooperate and interact according to a definite plan, a system of correlated things, institutions, arrangements, and so on; also the manner in which such a system is organized. Now under this definition, the word scheme is almost synonymous with everything that the Bible describes under the word world in the sense of the whole interrelationship of thoughts and actions which culminated in man's crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ.

Edward Fitzgerald, the famous translator of Omar Khayyam, uses this word in a line from the Rubaiyat that is very revealing: "Ah love! Could thou and I with fate conspire to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, would not we shatter it to bits." Our whole world around us, all that man conceives in his civilization and cultures and the interrelated pattern of life and living is summed up in this phrase, this sorry scheme of things.

Now this is the idea that is in the ancient Greek word which is the heart of our text: be not conformed. When the word was used in a personal sense, it had to do with dress, habit, and bearing. In fact, it comprised everything in a person which strikes the senses: the figure, the bearing, the discourse, the actions, the manner of life. The Christian is not to live his life in conformity with the fashion and form of human civilization.

This fact is brought out even more strongly when we consider the prepositional prefix of this verb suschematizo. Be not suschematizo, be not conformed. Thayer says of the preposition "sun" that it denotes accompaniment and fellowship, whether of action or belief, or of condition and experience. A fellowship far closer and more intimate than that expressed by another preposition "meta" which is often used in Greek.

Now I go into the inner meaning of the Greek word in this fashion because I wish to establish in the mind of everyone who professes to name the name of Jesus Christ that he is therefore exhorted, advised, and earnestly warned to build his life for God and not for this passing age. Having used the word age, I'd like to call attention to the fact that the original language does not use the word world, but the time-word age.

The revised standard version shows this in its footnote. I suppose that common usage is such that most people understand the idea of non-conformity to this world better than they might understand the idea of this age. But I think that we're the losers by this substitution. The age in which we live is the age which began at the time of the Lord Jesus Christ and which ends at his second coming. It is the age which is called by God "this present evil age" in Galatians 1:4.

The epistle to the Galatians opens with the thought that Jesus Christ died to redeem us from this present evil age. Now if it took the death of the Lord Jesus to get us out of it, and if in our position in Christ we are already redeemed out of it, then we can understand our text in Romans. We are not to be conformed to it. We are not to go along with the schemes and projects of this present evil age.

I do not think that it's possible for anyone to understand the nature of the Christian life, no, not even the nature of ordinary worldly life, unless we realize that it has been described by God as evil. Oh, there will be those who cry out against this verdict, but the Bible teacher must answer that he did not write the Bible, that it is his business only to interpret it. God does call man inherently evil, and God does say that everything that man has ever touched has become infected by that touch.

God does say that the sum total of man's evil propensities has produced a world situation that is evil. This does not negate the fact that there are many good things in the world. The Christian knows that the earth-ball is subject to decay, decline, erosion, disintegration. We know that there are earthquakes, fires, floods, epidemics, and other marks of the ruin of the world. But there are also many acts of goodness, kindness, and love.

Even outside of the sphere of Christian faith, there are evidences of tenderness, thoughtfulness, and other characteristics which show the imprint of God's creation of man in his own image; what in another field biologists would call vestigial remnants of that earlier life. But while recognizing that any good characteristics in the world, the Christian knows that they cannot bring salvation nor even contribute to it in any way.

We have turned away from self in order to find salvation in Christ. And this commitment involves turning away from the schemes of this age. We are not to conform to it. Let us look at some practical examples, for ethical studies are worthless if they do not come to us on the level of our daily life. We are living in an age which has its standards and its goals. God says we are not to live by this world's standards nor move toward the goals of this age.

Our age has as its main goals, to mention only four: fortune, fame, power, and pleasure. The Christian is told by God that he is not to go along with the world in its schemes which are directed to these ends. Now it must be understood that these goals are not sins in themselves. There's no reason why an individual should not possess a fortune if he has made it honestly and if he administers it as a trust for God.

The Ten Commandments include the one which states, "Thou shalt not steal." And this not only tells us what we must not do to others, but it also ensures the private possessions of every one of us. I believe that it should even ensure against stealing by the government in excessive taxes. Nor is fame wrong in itself. Those who act nobly, who perform great deeds, or who achieve high goals in government, in business, in the arts, and in the professions will come to fame even though they do not seek it. There's nothing wrong in this.

Nor is there inherent sin in the possession of power. I know a man who has developed a giant corporation and through that fact has come to great power. Yet he uses that power for the benefit of mankind and for the good of his hundred thousand employees and their families. Power often corrupts, but it does not necessarily do so. And then in the fourth place, even as fortune, fame, and power, it must not be said that pleasure is sinful in itself.

The hard and sour faces that front for the puritan mind cannot be justified by the Bible. God has given us, we read in the Bible, God has given us richly all things to enjoy. The trouble with these things, fortune, fame, power, and pleasure, is that the man out of Christ seeks these things for themselves and finds in them purposes instead of byproducts of living and serving. And thus the life becomes warped because the mind and heart and life are turned to the pursuit of that which can never glorify God and which can never truly satisfy the human heart.

In the world of those who live for the pursuit of fortune, there is a ruthlessness that often stops at nothing. The world lives in the atmosphere of dog eat dog and every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. The Christian is to obey the Lord of God and live for higher things. This does not mean that fortune will not come to him, but fortune has not been his aim. Be not conformed to this age. Do not go along with its schemes for fortune.

In Proverbs 10:22 we read, "The blessing of the Lord maketh rich and he adds no sorrow with it." To try to get merely in order to possess is nothing more than covetousness, and God has told us that covetousness is idolatry. In the world of those who live for fame, there is the same ruthlessness. I have been told that the life of the theater has one element that is sheer horror: namely, the ill-concealed drive for recognition and publicity.

Artists will go to almost any extreme to get their names in large type and to have one's name in top billing or in electric lights in front of the theater is the supreme satisfaction of life. "It doesn't make any difference what they say about you," said one actor, "as long as they spell your name right." And thus we see the world giving fame to motion picture actresses who are little more than harlots when measured by the single married standard of the word of God.

And they give fame to the passing crooner with his visceral singing, that like that of the chirping insect happens to strike the note that arouses the other sex. I've said that there is also an honest fame, but our text tells us that we're not to seek it. Even in the smallest circles we must be content to do the work and not be concerned about who gets the credit. The Lord who sees in secret will reward openly when his time comes.

And if earthly fame comes, the Christian takes it in gratitude to God and uses it as a higher platform from which he can speak to more people of the glories of Jesus Christ. Now much of the same argument that is made about fame can also be applied in the field of power. There are those who wish to dominate. And it is as possible for a person to be greedy of power on a small scale as it is for a dictator to break the lives of thousands on a larger scale.

What horrors there can be in wrong domination of a wife by a husband, or of a child by a parent, or of a worker by his foreman, and of a church by a pastor or a board. The Christian will not be afraid to exercise power when it accompanies his responsibilities, but he will always remember as we read in Psalm 62:11 that power belongeth unto God. Any power that we hold must be exercised as a trust.

So our text says, be not conformed to this world and to its ways. I do not need to expand on this idea in connection with pleasure. There are thousands of legitimate pleasures which God gives to us, and in these we can bask and delight ourselves, giving thanks to our Lord because of these joys. But we must ration the time that we have to give to pleasure and we must always put first things first.

The Christian will not go in for worldly lusts in the modern use of that word. We will not be legalists and the Holy Spirit will always be our guide into the rich pleasures which he has for us in nature, in sports, in music, the arts, in reading, in friendship and social contacts. We will enjoy these things more than the non-Christian can ever enjoy them, for God has given us new capacities with which we may lay hold of all things.

And there will never be any remorse following the pleasures which we have in Christ. So we conclude that we are not to follow the world's methods nor aim at the world's goals. We seek to do that which is well pleasing in the sight of the Lord, allowing the Holy Spirit to dominate our being. In this way, we shall obey the word of God and not follow the world's angles, never being conformed to this present evil age.

Now the Lord willing in our next study, we'll take up the second of the great words and show how we are transformed. And our God and father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit shall take this lesson and blessing to each life. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

Guest (Male): We must not conform to the ways of this present evil world. We must instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds, by the word of God and the spirit of God. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled The Christian Non-Conformist.

You may listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet. Visit 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 The Christian Non-Conformist or simply request message number R12-6.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Sex, Marriage, and Divorce. God designed the marriage relationship to be a picture of our eternal union with Jesus Christ. And yet, Christian marriage is often falls short of this lofty ideal. This free booklet shines biblical truth upon this vital subject. Chapter titles include Lust and Christian Marriage, Marriage and the Home, Divorce and Remarriage, and For Time and Eternity.

Ask for your free copy of Sex, Marriage, and Divorce when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio outreach 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.

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