Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The alliance of confessing evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Suppose a band of thieves should kidnap my child. There is one thing I want from them. I want my child. If one of them asks me to forget all about it, says they will build me a magnificent new church building, I repudiate their offer and ask for my child. Suppose they offer to pay for broadcasting my sermons on every available station. I repudiate their offer and I want my child. And if you trample underfoot the son of God and count the blood of the covenant which he shed for you as a worthless thing, do you think that God is going to accept anything else that you do?

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Gray 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 will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Contention and Disobedience. A teacher will often give her class a pop quiz.

This tells the teacher if the students have received the teaching or have resisted learning the material. Today's study will offer you some test questions that you can apply to yourself to determine whether you are in submission and harmony to the word of God or in disobedience and contention with it. How will you do in this pop quiz about matters of eternal significance? Find out. The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter two and verses six through 10. Here again is Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse with the message entitled Contention and Disobedience.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee that thou hast opened the door of escape from death and hell and made it possible for creatures who deserve thy wrath to have thy blessing. We who have received eternal life that we might walk in newness of life, bless thee for thy grace and pray thee that those who yet walk in darkness shall see the light that is Christ and pass from death to life. And this we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. The judgment of God is according to truth, according to the accumulated wrath of God against those who trample his mercy and according to the works of the individual. In our last study, we saw the third principle of judgment according to works as it is applied to the believer. We now turn our attention to the sixth, eighth and ninth verses of the second chapter where we read that God will render to every man according to his deeds unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also to the Gentile.

It is a much simpler task to set forth that the unbelievers shall be judged according to his works and shall receive the full measure of the indignation of God than it was to show that the believers shall be judged according to their works. It is only in an accommodated sense that the last can be true, as we saw. For salvation is entirely a work of grace and our continuance in the pursuit of well-doing stems as much from the grace of God as does our first step toward the Lord Jesus in salvation. In the whole sphere of Bible teaching on life after death, there is only one logical phase and that is the doctrine of eternal punishment.

There is no logic to the doctrine of heaven, but the doctrine of hell is perfectly sane and comprehensible. Men should go to hell and no one should go to heaven. Yet in spite of that direct fact, there are innumerable human beings who have been the object of the grace of God and who will spend eternity in heaven in spite of their just deserts. Anyone who does not agree with that statement has never seen the biblical truth of the holiness of God and the corresponding truth of the sinfulness of sin. Suppose a legislator should rise in the halls of Albany, Harrisburg or some other state capital and project a measure that would abolish prisons, but which would give to every convicted criminal a life pension and an estate in Florida.

People would say the man was crazy. The state does not reward murderers with pensions and pleasures, but with death. Yet the doctrine of heaven is that God will stoop to the human race and take an individual who has been guilty of any manner of sin will take the sin upon himself as the substitute and will offer the believer the glories of heaven forever. There is no logic in it at all. The logic is all on the side of the doctrine of hell. And in our text, God declares that the human logic which demands punishment for sin is parallel to the divine logic and that he has himself declared that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish shall be upon all unbelievers.

Man, whatever he likes to think of himself, is a sinner exposed to the eye of the holy God and lying helpless even while filled with dreams of pride before the wrath of God. As we consider this judgment, it's worthwhile to note that we are seeing much more than the unrighteousness of man. We are seeing the righteousness of God. Once more, the eternal doom of the unbeliever is set before us in terms so plain that they may not be misconstrued. The day of God's wrath is announced throughout the Old Testament and confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Zephaniah writes, a day of wrath shall be that day, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and wretchedness, a day of darkness and of thick darkness, a day of mist and of whirlwind. Joel describes the day in similar terms. Amos writes, woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. What will it be to you? The day of the Lord will be darkness and not light. Christ, the great preacher of eternal punishment, confirms the advanced teaching of the prophets, comparing the judgment to the destruction that reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, telling men, especially the false preachers, that they would be ordered to depart from him to the lake of fire.

The Holy Spirit through Paul in the chapter that lies before us tells men that they are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, which is to be a revelation of the righteous judgment of God and describes it as a day of indignation, wrath, tribulation and anguish. Just as the born again ones are described in terms of the fruit of their new life, which is to be rewarded in life eternal, so the unbeliever is described in terms of his life. It is to be noted and it is most significant that the works of the unbelievers are not described in terms of their carnal iniquities.

Here is no list of vices. In the first chapter, there was the terrible description of what bestiality can come from the hearts of men who have taken the road of departure from God. But here the description could fit a professor of ethics or a preacher of human righteousness and brotherhood. The wrath of God is to fall on those who are described as coming upon them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. The Greek word is most interesting. Literally, it would read those who are out of contention. Words change their meanings as language is constantly shifting.

A graft was originally a shoot or scion inserted in a slit made in another stock so as to allow the sap of the latter to circulate through the former. But now graft has the added meaning of a little money put into a politician's pocket, something on the side. We say a person is wool gathering if their minds get off the subject. But here in our text, the original Greek word meant to spin wool, to work in wool. And then it began to be applied to those who electioneered for office, who courted popular applause by spinning out trickery and low arts.

By the time of the New Testament, the word began to mean a man who was courting distinction, one with a desire to put himself forward, a partisan and factious spirit which does not disdain low arts, a contender against God. Hodge said that of contention describes and defines unbelievers just as of faith describes and defines the believer. The man who is of faith has the general current of his life in line with the will of God. The man who is of contention has the general current of his life outside the will of God. You can know of which party you are by the thoughts of your heart as you listen, for example, to these expositions.

All we can do is to bring words to your ears or to your eyes. But what effect do they have within your heart? Is there a second voice within which says to you constantly, yes, my child, this is true. Yes, you are in Christ and Christ is in you. If so, that is the witness of the Holy Spirit that you're a child of God and that you are of faith. If on the contrary the truth leaves you cold or if you think redemption by the blood of the Savior is foolishness, it is a proof that you are of contention and that the course of your life is away from God instead of toward him.

The man who fights truth within his heart will be ultimately contending against those who preach the truth. A good illustration of the meaning is to be found in the epistle of James where the word is used twice. Though the meaning is somewhat obscured in the translation by being rendered strife instead of perhaps an attitude of opposition. If we adopt this idea, how rich the passage becomes. I read in James 3, but if ye have bitter envying and an attitude of opposition in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

For where envying and an attitude of opposition are, there is confusion and evil work. The wrath of God in its fiercest form is reserved for those who have an attitude of opposition to the truth of God as revealed in the Bible. The Holy Spirit tells us in the Psalms, Psalm 138 verse two, that God has magnified his word above all his name. When we think of the several hundred different names, titles and expressions revealing the nature of God and then realize that God has put the Bible above the name Jehovah, above the name of the Savior, above the name of the Holy Spirit, above any and all of the names of deity, we can realize what a terrible thing it is to be of contention, contending against God, holding an attitude of opposition against the word of God.

There are some tests set forth in the Bible that can show you immediately whether you are of contention or whether you are of faith. What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Asked the Savior. If you believe that Jesus Christ is God the Son, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, then he came into the world without a human father. And if you have accepted the shedding of his blood as the full payment for your sin and if you believe that the Father raised him from the dead on the third day to become Lord of your life, the probability is that you are of faith and not of contention.

If on the contrary you believe that Jesus was born of a human father and that he had nothing more than a high concept of the Godhead, that he is a son of God in the same sense you consider all creatures to be the sons of God. And if you believe that salvation is by character instead of by blood, then it is not a question of probability, but one of certainty that you are of contention and await in spite of yourself the tribulation and anguish of the wrath of God. Another test question was put by Satan to Eve.

Yea, hath God said? If you believe that God hath spoken and that his word in the Bible is the word of God and that the Bible is his word breathed by him, infallible and without error, if you accept that divine revelation from the magnificent opening, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth down to the divine closing sigh, even so come quickly, Lord Jesus. It is more than probable that you are of faith. But if you think that the Bible is merely the record of man groping after God, that it is a human book with a few eternal truths mixed in that have somehow been surprised by man and pried out of the eternal mind, then it is certain that you are of contention and await in spite of yourself the tribulation and anguish of the wrath of God.

The path to judgment is well marked and descends by clear steps to the final precipice of doom. It may begin by holding an attitude of contradiction against the lordship of God in your heart. It soon moves on to the next step set forth in our text. Those who begin by holding an attitude of contention are soon described as those who do not obey the truth. Nothing else that you can ever do will recommend you to God if you do not obey the truth as set forth in his word about his son. The Lord Jesus laid this truth down flatly as being the first of all truths to be considered by man.

When the crowd came to him the day after he had fed them miraculously with the loaves and the fishes, he told them that they had come for food and not for spiritual blessing and commanded them to labor not for the meat that perishe. But for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life which he would give to them. Then they asked him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. It does not make any difference who you are or what you are doing or what you might wish to present as a substitute.

God will receive nothing from you until you have brought the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then if you want to bring something else as a gift of love, he will accept it and reward you. But nothing is acceptable until you have come to God with Christ as your substitute and Savior. You who began with an attitude of opposition have now arrived at the place where you disobey the truth and refuse to submit yourself to the command to repent and come to the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the truth. Oh Cain, think not that God will accept your basket of fruit if you refuse to bring the blood of the lamb.

The next step towards wrath is now described in our text. Those who began with an attitude of opposition who came to disobedience of the truth now are seen to be obedient unto unrighteousness. You may think that there is no unrighteousness in your life, but that is because you are measuring yourself with your own yardstick. I once heard the story of a little boy of five who had heard the story of David and Goliath in Sunday school. The next day he came into the room where his mother was sewing and said, mother, I'm just as tall as Goliath.

I am 9 ft high. He pulled a short stick from behind his back and held it up saying, I made myself a yardstick. There are 3 ft in a yard and I am 3 yd tall, so I'm 9 ft high. Let me state that you are more guilty of folly than was the boy. He had the simplicity of childhood and the ignorance of life to give some justification to his error. And I am sure he was met with a smile and a hug from his fond mother who explained to him that a yardstick could not be made by just anybody at his own whim.

But you keep on making spiritual yardsticks at your whim. The woods are full of false religions which bear the stamp of their human whittling on every part. Unless you concede they were carved out by Satan and adopted by the unbeliever who found that the lie was more appropriate to his attitude of contention against God than was the truth which penetrates and convicts. If you are not cleaving to the righteousness of God in Christ, you are obeying unrighteousness. It is God's yardstick that will ultimately be demonstrated to be the one true standard. It is he who has said, the plowing of the wicked is sin in Proverbs 21 4.

And if we take the translation of the revisers, even the lamp of the wicked is sin, it is ultimately the same thought. For Christ said, if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness? And to the Pharisees who asked him, are we blind also? Christ answered, if ye were blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, we see. Therefore your sin remaineth. So if you claim as you hear or read these words that you have any spiritual sight apart from Christ and the Bible, you condemn yourselves and are found in the class of the contentious who obey not the truth, but who obey unrighteousness.

And you await in spite of yourself the indignation and wrath of God, the tribulation and anguish of soul that shall come upon you in spite of your background or pretensions because you know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, our text shows us the nature of the eternal doom that awaits the unbeliever. Do we believe in a literal hell? Yes, most definitely. We would write it with a capital letter as we would write any place name. At the present moment, we do not enter into the details of eternal punishment nor point out the difference between hell and the lake of fire.

We do not discuss the location of this in God's vast universe. All of such details are beside the point. In our text, we have one more of the many proofs that the Bible teaches that there is literal eternal punishment and that there is no such thing as annihilation. The word annihilation has in it the Latin word nihil, which means nothing. There are those who take the Bible and who attempt to twist some passages while ignoring completely such texts as the one before us and who teach that the unbeliever will be brought merely to a state of nothingness, annihilation.

He will, as it were, cease to be according to their teaching. The words of our text destroy any such idea. Indignation, wrath, tribulation and anguish are the fruit of judgment with which God must reward the life of the unbeliever. The first of the words translated indignation comes from a root verb which means to rush along, to be in a heat, to breathe violently. From the time of Homer on down through the centuries, it was used of the spirit panting in the body and of the rage with which a man pants and swells. It is the word which is used in the fourth of Luke to describe the rage of the crowd which desired to kill Christ by casting him over the cliff.

It's the word that is used of the Ephesians when they heard the gospel and started the riot crying, great is Diana of the Ephesians because they were filled with wrath. It is the word that describes Pharaoh's desire to kill Moses when the latter fled from Egypt. And our text says that our God will break forth as a consuming fire against those who have adopted the attitude of opposition to his word and who have become disobedient to him and thereby obedient unto unrighteousness. The next word translated wrath is the Greek word orge. In a previous study, we noted that this word comes from a root which describes the swelling of a bud as it bursts into blossom.

The first of the words is one that describes a rapid explosive wrath. This one describes a slowly developing anger that will exhibit itself in punishing. Elsewhere in this epistle, the unbelievers are described as vessels into which the swelling sap of God's rising wrath shall be poured. How is it possible for men to think that they can escape? Only because the patience of God at present restrains his wrath can they ever have thought to escape. But the day of his righteousness shall surely come. The third word is translated tribulation. The English word comes from the Latin name of the agricultural tool used for beating the grains out of the straw so that the two can be separated.

One stick tied to another by a leather thong was swung with force to beat the grain from the chaff. We call it a flail. God says the unsaved shall be flailed. The Greek word is just as striking. Thlipsis means pressure, oppressing and reminds us of the terrible figure used in several passages of the Bible where the grapes of wrath are stored in the vat to be pressed out by the feet of brass. As grapes spurt wine, so the Bible speaks of Christ as treading the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of almighty God.

This is the idea of judgment that is set forth in the third of these words. The fourth and last of the group is translated anguish. Elsewhere the word is rendered distress. It's a common Greek word for narrowness. Its root word is used for narrow or straitened circumstances. The dictionary definition is narrowness of place, a narrow space. I'm inclined to include that idea as referring to confinement, prison as well as the sense in which Plato and others used the word to speak of dire calamity and extreme affliction. Perhaps the full meaning would be that of extreme affliction in a narrow space.

And so today I am announcing the truth as it is in the word of God. You may laugh at it. It will rise to mock you one day. You may deny it. It will take jurisdiction over you someday. You may repudiate it. It will grip you and sentence you to the lake of fire someday. I wish that it were possible for me to express the love I have in my heart for you as I say these things. It would be pleasant to tell you that you may do as you please and yet go to heaven.

But that simply is not so. If you're to get out of your predicament, you must come to the cross of Jesus Christ. There is God's only answer. And our God and Father, we pray thee that thou wilt give restlessness to any who have not been born again, that they may know no peace until they rest in the Savior. But on thy redeemed own, may thy grace, mercy and peace abide. Thy love for souls and thy zeal to spread the word of truth and to thee be all the glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guest (Male): God's judgment is reserved for those who live in contention and disobedience to the Bible, but his word is life to those who embrace Jesus Christ by faith and live by the teaching of the scriptures. We hope you've benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled Contention and Disobedience. You can listen to additional Bible teaching by the late Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse anytime, anywhere around the globe via the internet by visiting the alliance of confessing evangelicals website at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free at 1-800 488 1888. Today's message again is entitled Contention and Disobedience.

Or simply request message number R2-5. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of Dr. Barnhouse's booklet entitled Promises to Live By. We have all been disappointed by people who have let us down or have not kept their word to us. But God is always faithful to his word and to his promises. In this free booklet, Dr. Barnhouse shares glorious and unshakable promises from the word of God that will give you strength in any situation in life. Living by the shaky principles of the world will lead to confusion and despair. If you want to build your life on the strong, sure foundation of the Promises of God, ask for your free copy of Promises to Live By when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the alliance of confessing evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The alliance of confessing evangelicals 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 materials which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of our listeners. If you have benefited from this 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 support and further our work, contact us by writing alliance of confessing evangelicals, box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Call toll-free 1-800 488 1888 or visit us online at www.alliancenet.org. Be sure and ask for a free updated resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, daily devotionals, videos and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians including Donald Gray Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Michael Horton and Martin Lloyd Jones. Then be sure and join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.