Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: I have held in my hand the hand of a black preacher in Nigeria who had been a cannibal 30 years before, but who, transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ, was now the leader of a flock of more than a thousand believers, most of whom he had led to Christ.

As I stood that day with my hand in his, and the missionary translating our thoughts, there was a gleam in his eyes, and I trust in mine, that spoke more than the words we could utter. There was the communion of the saints. I knew that he and I were one in our Savior.

Guest (Male): God's Word is for God came to teach, rebuke, correct, and train. Equipped by Him, we then pursue the work God has for us to do. God's Word is all the Christian needs to grow in grace and do good deeds.

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 weekly 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 will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Communion of the Saints.

If you are playing soccer, kicking the ball is the right thing to do. But if you were playing basketball or baseball, you would get kicked out of the game for breaking the rules. Just like every organized sport has rules, the Bible sets forth specific rules for prayer that is acceptable to God.

Do you pray according to the manner set forth in the Word of God? Or are you breaking the rules without even knowing it? The Scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter 1 and verses 7 and 8. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled Communion of the Saints.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee for thyself and that thou hast made it possible for us, who were sinners by nature, to become saints by calling.

And that now we have been made accepted in the beloved and are in Christ, new creation, and that we stand before thee because of our Savior. Bless the word to each heart in this hour. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We're studying together in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Rome was the capital of the world at the time Paul wrote. It was the empire city, and to it and from it flowed all of the tides of commerce. Those tides had taken Christian converts from Jerusalem and from the cities of Asia and Greece, and their meeting in Rome had quickly been established as an assembly of the true church of Jesus Christ.

It was founded by the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of many believers, and these travelers, arriving in the metropolis, were drawn together around their common Lord by the indwelling Spirit. We can well imagine how the church of Rome was founded and how it came together. Christians enjoy the company of other believers and seek to find them.

I recall an incident that will illustrate this. Some time ago, I set out for Africa, traveling with a very good friend. We went by way of South America flying, and there were not two seats available in the same plane from Miami to Natal in Brazil. I spent a day in Trinidad while my friend went on to Natal.

The evening of my arrival, we got on a streetcar in that city near the nose of Brazil to ride out to the end of the line. But before we'd gone four blocks, we saw a little church lighted up. We immediately got off the car and went into the meeting.

The next night we took the same car and went to the end of the line and by chance discovered another church with a crowd of people, almost a thousand. And once more, we went in to join in the singing, though we could not fully comprehend all of the Portuguese preaching. But we were among believers, and that was enough.

Rome attracted travelers as New York attracts them in the United States. The last chapter of this epistle shows us that some of Paul's relatives were already in the great city. The people from other towns where he had labored had now made their home in Rome.

And the news came back of others who were saved and of the great faith of the little assembly that was established near the shadow of the palace of Nero. Paul knew that he had been called to preach to the Gentiles, and he had a great desire to go to Rome. He wrote this epistle to prepare them for his visit.

In the first verse, he introduced himself to them with formality. In the fifth verse, he set forth his official position called as an apostle. And now he speaks to them personally, showing them some of his heart, that they might know him better when he should come to them.

If we read all of Paul's epistles, we discover that he was moved by one great desire. He wanted to do the work for the Lord Jesus Christ which he had been called to do. There were souls for whom Christ died, who needed to know the call of the gospel.

And Paul's greatest joy was to hear of their faith, or to communicate that faith to them, or to burnish that faith to greater brightness if they were already walking in its light. So he writes, "I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world."

It was not only for this group, but for all those who name the name of Christ that he thanked God. He will write to the Philippians in chapter 1, verses 3 to 7: "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making request with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day till now, even as it is meet for me to think this of you all because I have you in my heart."

How it warmed him in the midst of his labors to hear of another group of Christians, and he immediately began to pray for them. There are two great thoughts in this text: one about prayer and one about faith. These are common words, prayer and faith, and almost everyone uses them and thinks that he knows the meaning of the terms.

Yet I believe that there are great misconceptions about prayer and great misconceptions about faith. If we can reestablish their original meanings, it can be a real blessing to many. Paul's prayer began with thanksgiving.

It was not thanksgiving for anything that God had done for Paul personally. It was not thanksgiving for good harvests, for health or prosperity, but it was thanksgiving for spiritual blessings in the hearts of others. It was true prayer, for it came to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was in the Holy Spirit.

There is much of what men call prayer that is not prayer at all in the biblical sense of the word. I've read articles and stories on prayer that have been nauseous to me. Our airplane was shot down in the Pacific. We drifted and they began to look for us. We thought they had spotted us, but evidently not. Second day we thought was pretty terrible. Someone began to pray.

Sharks. The food supply runs low. The sun was terrible. The tenth day, the 20th day. Now we were praying feverishly. One man went crazy and threw himself overboard. The 30th day. Could we stand more? We prayed. Finally, a plane flew over us and circled. Two days later, the rescue boat. Thank God, we believe in prayer.

Well, someone may ask what is wrong with the story. Well, I am simple enough to realize that were there a hundred other parties that were shot down in the Pacific who drifted just as far and just as long and who prayed just as hard and their raft was never seen and they died.

You see, prayer is worthless unless it is within the rules. We must not forget that the Bible describes prayer in terms as rigorously guarded as the rules of a bank made for cashing checks. To say I believe in prayer is as foolish as to say I believe in cashing checks.

First of all, do you have any money in the bank on which you wish to draw your check? And do you have a deposit of saving faith with the Lord God Almighty through the death of his Son? Paul points out that even his thanks to God were addressed to the heavenly Father through Jesus Christ.

This is quite in accordance with that which Christ said himself: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me." How dare anyone address the Creator without coming through the Redeemer?

What affrontry for anyone to pray in any other way than that which God has marked out in his word. I am told that from time to time in the movies, there are scenes where a prayer is said, but that the prayer is never in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Such prayer is false to every Christian principle. I have heard on occasion a prayer given over the radio that ended in a simple amen without the use of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches flatly that such prayer is not acceptable to God.

To attempt to pray to God without coming through the Lord Jesus Christ is as false a method as it would be to approach a businessman with a request for a loan and begin by telling him that his son was illegitimate. We must not forget that the honor of God the Father is bound up in the name and being of his Son Jesus Christ.

It is not even permissible biblically speaking to pray to God and end the prayer saying, "in thy name." For we do not pray in the name of the Father, be it ever so holy and wonderful a name. We pray through the Lord Jesus Christ as Paul did in his prayer in our text.

Now to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is to seek an endorsement of our request and to bring into consideration that what we ask is consistent with the nature and purposes of our Savior. Some people who evidently do not think straight consider that it is permissible to pray for absolutely anything.

It is a well-known fact, verifiable in Baedeker's volume on Belgium, there was a church in Ostend in Belgium with a chapel where prostitutes were accustomed to resort to say a prayer and burn a candle for their health and success. Now it is not that we are teaching that harlotry may not be forgiven, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanseth from all sin.

But God does not save us in our sins wallowing, but he saves us from our sins victorious. We will stumble, all of us, and we will fall before some temptations at times. But we will not be utterly cast down. It will not suffice to quote against me the text in John 14:14, "If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it."

If the attempt is made to give an absolutely literal interpretation to that verse, it will be found false. There are certain things that God will never do, no matter how earnestly one prays. For example, if a young couple zealous and devoted were about to go as missionaries into the jungles of South America, they conceivably might ask a group of friends to join them in prayer that their coming baby should be born without original sin so that they would have an easier time rearing the child and might have more time to devote to their spiritual work.

Well, they could pray till they were all dead, but the prayer would never be answered. When the Lord Jesus Christ said that if we would ask anything in his name he would do it, he expected us to have spiritual discernment enough to understand that this meant, beyond question, if we would ask anything that was consistent with the holiness of his being and the divinity of his purposes.

It is for this reason that the true Christian, perhaps not too sure of the nature of some of his desires, will add to some of his prayers the restricting phrase, "if it be thy will." There are some prayers, thank God, to which we need add no such qualifying words.

Some things are God's will so definitely that we need not hesitate, but may come with all boldness to the throne of his grace expecting to find grace to help in time of our need. From such prayers, the Lord God has never turned away his ear.

Other prayers he will receive with kindness, and in his mercy will not answer them because he knows that we pray in ignorance and that the answer would be far worse for us than we could ever imagine. I can illustrate this by a summary of two letters which I received within the same month from my younger son when he was in college, and both asking for $50.

The first letter was about three pages long and all hedged about with explanations attempting to persuade me to grant the request. There was the recounting of the fact that he was on Dean's List in honors and therefore permitted to cut classes at will.

A group of his companions, all with the same liberty of movement because of their high marks, wished to leave college for a five-day weekend and drive a thousand miles to the home of one of the boys for a series of parties and good times. His share of the expense would be $50.

He did not use the words, but the equivalent of "if it be thy will, if it be thy will" was found half a dozen times. Now the answer was still no. But about three weeks later, I received a brief letter roughly as follows: "Dear Daddy, there was an accident in the chemistry laboratory today, and the boy next to me broke a beaker of acid. It ran on me and ate a large hole through my trousers. I had to order a suit, but I need $50 by return mail."

Now there was no "if it be thy will" to that letter. A father may not have to give his boy a five-day party weekend, but he does have to keep him in pants. That is one of the obligations of fatherhood. Now in the same way, I may come to the heavenly Father and I may demand blessing upon the going forth of his word as it is preached.

I do not have to restrict the prayer asking God to bless this message today. It is his will, and he has flatly said so. We can ask the Lord to bless the marriage of two young people who are joined in the Lord as true Christians. It is God's will to bless such a marriage, just as surely he will not bless a mixed marriage of a Christian and a non-Christian even if a thousand "if it be thy wills" are added to the prayer.

Now our text not only teaches the channel of true prayer, but it also reveals a great deal about the heart of the Christian Paul who was praying the prayer. This text with similar passages in other epistles registers the temperature of Paul's warmth toward the work of God in all souls.

Paul had a universal yearning for all men and a universal love toward all those who had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. He heard of a blessing in some Christians and was immediately thankful to God for it. It was no mere phrase but an evidence of his own deep spirituality which is a model for all of us today.

He put the Lord first, the Lord's church second, the needs of the lost third, and all else was in the ruck, far behind in the field. In the next verse, he calls God to be his witness to the fact without ceasing in all his prayers he was making mention of that group in Rome of whose faith he had heard such glowing reports.

To me, it is extremely revealing that Paul had to call God as his witness that he was praying for them. Such continued prayer was an evidence of his deep affection and, in my opinion, Paul's personality was one which did not show affection on the surface.

I doubt very much that anyone ever saw Paul weep. There seems to be every indication in the epistles that Paul knew that he was considered as hard by those to whom he preached. Alone in his own heart, he must have longed for the softness of the nature of the beloved disciple John, who whom Jesus loved and who leaned upon our Lord's bosom in the night of the Last Supper.

When John told Christians that he loved them, they all answered warmly to his personality and felt themselves beloved of John. But when Paul writes to a church that he loves them, time and again he calls God to witness, as in this present verse, that it is really true.

There may well have been some that wondered if it were true. We know from his second epistle to the Corinthians that some people did not like him. He hit too hard. Some people thought him dogmatic, didactic, positive. His blows were sledgehammer blows.

They thought that he walked according to the flesh, we read in 2 Corinthians 10:2. They complained that he was weighty and powerful only in his letters, but that his personality was weak and his speech contemptible, 2 Corinthians 10:10. There may well have been those who came to him and said, "Paul, show a little more love."

He would have blinked at them through his half-blind eyes and remained speechless. He knew that he loved them with a burning love, with an intense love. Later in this Roman epistle, he will say to God that he would be willing to be accursed from God, to go to hell if only others could be saved.

Here was love that was beyond their knowing. Temperamentally and psychologically, he was unable to show it. Thus all that he could do was to affirm it time and again, and as here, call God to be his witness. He will be faithful to the word, and he will ask the Corinthians if he acted as he did because I love you not and will answer God knoweth.

And after a passionate declaration of his faithfulness to their best interests, he will come to the climax. "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended and I burn not? The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forevermore, knoweth that I lie not."

And may I, the speaker today, say this, if a candle can compare itself to the sun, that I understand the heart of Paul in this cry to God for witness of his love. For all my life, I have faced this same psychological dilemma.

When God established the genes and chromosomes of my makeup, there was not put into the mixture anything of effervescence. There is little of John in me and much more of Paul. Yet there may be many Christians who have been accused of pride or arrogance or dogmatism who know deep down in their heart of hearts that they are seeking by every way possible to have the Lord Jesus Christ magnified in their being.

They love with an intensity that hurts and which manifests itself in a hardness of outward attitude, though at the same time like Paul they may say, "I love, I pray without ceasing for you," and feel it necessary to add, "God is my witness."

The love that Paul had for the little group of believers at Rome was a true love for souls. It can never be pumped up. I do not even think it is ever given to anyone in answer to prayer. That may startle some, for there are those who pray the Lord to give them a greater love for souls as though it were something that could be handed to them on a platter.

True love for souls is the white heat of a passion that has been ignited at the cross of Calvary. It sees the world lost and hopeless apart from Christ and realizes that the Lord came from heaven to do something about it.

Because we have been redeemed by him, we desire that his purposes be satisfied and that for his sake, the lost shall be brought to him. Isaiah tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is satisfied when he sees a sinner make the soul of the Savior his substitute sin offering.

It is wonderful to contemplate the importance of his salvation to any sinner. But it is ten thousand times more important to contemplate the satisfaction that the sinner's salvation brings to the heart of the sinner's Savior. It is when we see the travail of Calvary and know the heart of the Savior that we will develop a true love for souls.

For that love will be a very small byproduct of our love for the Savior and our desire to see him have what satisfies him. It is for the sake of the Savior that we must bring to his feet those for whom he died.

This love of Paul for the infant church of Rome is one of the earliest illustrations of the truth which became fixed in one of the clauses of the Apostles' Creed. We recite very often, "I believe in the communion of the saints." Now here in our study is the true meaning of that phrase.

All who believe in Christ are truly one. The Holy Spirit dwelling in me and the Holy Spirit dwelling in another believer is the same Holy Spirit. He must inevitably draw us together. It would be possible for me to close my eyes and think of a thousand places where I have met with little groups of believers.

I can think of hundreds of incidents where people have come to me after meetings to express their joy in the Lord. At times, highly intellectual men have gripped my hand with a quiet, "Oh, praise God," and I have known this oneness of the Spirit with them.

At times, the simple and the ignorant have come almost speechless with the fullness of the blessing. I have known Christians who burst into tears because of the pent-up fullness of their joy in the Savior and one who declared almost hilariously, "You know when you preached last night, I felt as if my heart were turning cartwheels."

The expressions may come in any language and with varied emotions according to the background and the culture of the individual. But the great reality is there, that we are one in Christ Jesus. This is what lifts our hearts and causes us to pray for groups of believers we have never seen and to joy in all those which we do not know.

And sometimes when we open the pages of the books of our libraries, we will find a warm sentence spoken by someone whose body has been mouldering in the grave for centuries and we are warmed by his words and feel our oneness with him across the years.

How many times when I've been reading the writings of the Fathers or the Reformers or Bible students of modern times have I felt this oneness? I've felt it when I have read of some of Luther's magnificent statements of his joy and glory in Christ.

You can read it and know it when you read Augustine in the City of God. You can find it in Chrysostom, you can find it in Wesley, in Moody, in Spurgeon and Torrey. Throughout the years, as you open the books and as you read of men writing for God or as you read of men dying for Christ, this great truth is a fact. We are one with them.

The apostles, the martyrs, the early missionaries. Some go to the cross or burn at the stake, dying for the Lord and as they lift up their hearts, we say, "Oh God, it is the same with my heart and with theirs." Like the young marine who enters the service and puts on his uniform and he walks down the road the first day and he holds his shoulders a little backer.

He knows that from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, men have borne that uniform and been in that service. And though he himself may be untried and feel his own weakness, he says in his heart, "I am one with a great group. I belong to them."

And perhaps today we can feel with Paul as he loved that early church in Rome and we can feel with that early group of believers as they knew of the apostle's prayers for them. We are all bound together in the bundle of life. We are all one in Christ Jesus, and that oneness is one of the proofs of our salvation.

We know as we read in 1 John 3:14, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. And our God and Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit in this hour shall draw us together to thee for then we shall be nearer one another and love the brethren.

And may if there be unbelievers, may they know no peace and rest till they rest in Christ. But upon all thine own, may thy grace, mercy, and peace and a new knowledge of our oneness in Christ be ours. And unto thee be the glory and the majesty, the dominion and the power, now till our Lord come and forever. Amen.

Guest (Male): The communion of the saints means more than worship and fellowship with those in your church. True Christians are one with Paul, Augustine, Calvin, and all believers throughout history. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled Communion of the Saints.

Listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet. Visit us at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled Communion of the Saints, or simply request message number R1-9.

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Ask for your free copy of Overcoming Fear in Witnessing when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is the radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 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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