Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

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 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’ll be featuring on today’s edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled “Debtors.” Years ago, when Jonas Salk developed the vaccine for polio, it would have been unthinkable for him to keep it to himself in case he needed it. He was obligated to share his discovery and save countless people from this terrible disease. Yet many Christians do not feel obligated to tell others about the cure for the horrible disease of sin. Are you keeping the good news to yourself, or are you sharing it with others out of love and gratitude? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter 1 and verse 16. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with the message entitled “Debtors.”

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 that we can approach thee directly and that thou wilt receive us when we come through Jesus Christ by thy great grace. Speak to every heart in this hour and use thy word to the honor and glory of thy name through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Through all history, there have been people who did not pay their debts. I think of this in connection with our text today, where Paul in the first chapter of Romans says, "I am debtor." Society has imagined many attempted cures for this ill and has inflicted many punishments upon those who failed to keep their obligations. In the days of the Mosaic Law, those who fell into debt and were unable to pay were bound over to the creditor in a slavery that lasted until the year of freedom that was determined according to the law.

As late as the 19th century, debtors’ prisons were common in England, and it was largely due to the works of Charles Dickens that these unwholesome spots were removed from society and that other arrangements were made to take care of the debtor. In our own country, there are laws that permit the repossession of goods when the debt installments cannot be met, and there are laws which permit a lien upon property or upon wages in order that the creditor may receive that which is his just due.

If our civilizations, ancient and modern, have practiced such procedures against those who were in debt in material things, what should be our obligation as debtors in the spiritual realm? For debtors we are indeed, and no amount of excusing will alter the facts. We are debtors to all of the human race the moment we have heard and heeded the gospel of the grace of God.

In the first chapter of Romans and the 14th and 15th verses, Paul states the proposition: "I am debtor, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also." Paul knew that he was a debtor, and he was ready to pay. He was able to pay, and the life that we see him leading can be explained only under the principle that is set forth in this verse: "I am debtor."

And so he writes to the Corinthians: “In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I 40 stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.”

This great passage in Second Corinthians 11 shows us a great truth. What does it show? That Paul was a debtor and he knew it, and he was under compulsion to pay his debt. The word that is used for debtor is one which describes a person who is held by some obligation, who is bound to some duty. It is found in what is called the Lord's Prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Paul was doubly a debtor; he was a debtor to Christ and a debtor to men. And every Christian today has these same debts for which he will be held accountable. You are thus accountable. We are debtors to Christ because we have been bought and paid for by the Savior. The whole basis of Christian living is set forth in the Corinthian letter on the grounds of our purchase by Christ. We were on the auction block, slaves of sin, and the Lord intervened to redeem us.

“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” Because of the cross of Jesus Christ, we are debtors to Christ to do his bidding and carry out his purposes. But we are also debtors to men. Every true Christian in the world has been given some gift that belongs not only to himself but to the whole of the true church of Christ.

The truth of God is like a large diamond, cut with many facets, and each facet revealing new depths of beauty in the hidden flames that burn in the heart of the precious gem. We turn the stone one way and another, and the light flashes from each facet. Some of the tiniest facets may reveal some of the most glorious colors. If we are to understand all of the beauty and truth of Christ, we must see it as it is revealed through every individual Christian of all the ages and of all the tribes of men.

The giant apostle known through the world, Paul, has much to reveal. The simple Christian, unknown to any beyond his narrow circle, has yet to reveal the beauty of the Lord revealed in him. The unknown soldier has on his tomb that he is known only to God. There are multitudes of Christians known thus to God. Let this, then, assure each of us that we individually have a task to perform for the Savior and for our fellow believers. We are debtors to fulfill that task.

This indebtedness is especially great on the part of those who are called of God for the full-time ministry of the gospel. The Bible says that God gives gifts to men, and then he gives the gifted men to the church. No man has anything except it be given him from heaven. This is why no man or group of men can ever be in the position of controlling truth or the grace of God. The truth belongs to those for whom it was intended: the truth of the gospel to all men, and the truths of the glories of the promise to those who have come into Christ.

I once preached a sermon in a summer Bible conference, and a well-known minister arose after I had spoken and said, “That is my sermon. It belongs to me. If you’re in my city next September and come to my church, you’ll hear me preach it.” There was a momentary silence in the audience and they looked at the speaker and at me. I knew, of course, that I had worked out the sermon myself, and I supposed that the man had found the same idea independently and was wondering how I could explain that fact to the people, when he suddenly continued.

“Now I’ll admit that I never heard it before this morning. But when the Lord gave that gift to Dr. Barnhouse, he also gave Dr. Barnhouse to the whole church, so that anything he thinks of, prepares, delivers to any audience immediately is the property of the whole church of Christ. It blessed my soul, and so it has become a part of me, and I am bound to pass it on to my people.” Now what he said was true.

If in the years that have followed we have proceeded to copyright the volumes I have written, it is not because the truth belonged to me, but because we had to protect it from the false teachers who might preempt a portion for base ends and confuse the minds of the people. I have had people take sentences out of their context and quote them against the truth that I meant to preach. But it is certainly true that anything that any believer ever receives from me or from any other preacher in blessing is immediately his, and he is immediately in debt to others to pass it on so that they in turn might be blessed.

So Paul knew that he was a debtor, not only because of his incalculable obligation to the Savior who had died for him, but also to the people. He had become a steward, and a steward is a trustee, and the trustee must pass on that which he holds, not for himself but for others. Some time ago, there was an article in the Reader's Digest concerning outstanding acts of honesty. Many little stories were published which gave the details of some act of honesty performed where it would have been impossible for anyone to detect any fraud, and only the individual in the citadel of his own being, in the hidden man of the heart, could make the decision to be honest.

The climax of the article recounted the incident of a Spanish nobleman who waved goodbye to a friend departing on the train. The nobleman said that he was going to purchase a lottery ticket and his friend called out, “Get one for me also.” The nobleman replied that he would do so. And a few months later, he turned over several hundred thousand pesetas to the friend, saying that his ticket had won the prize.

When the amazed friend asked how he knew that it was the ticket purchased for him that had won the prize, the nobleman answered that he had immediately placed one of the tickets in an envelope and marked it with the name of his friend. It was that ticket which had been drawn, and therefore it was that ticket which was the prize winner, and therefore the money belonged to the friend. Now while we can question the standards of a man of honor who would stoop to have a part in a lottery, we can indeed salute his honor, and according to his light, he paid the debt in an honorable way.

There are many of you who have a debt of honor toward those round about you to give to them the gospel which you have yourself received so freely. Did you ever stop to think that you who do not have any right whatsoever—I stress the word, you have no right—to hear the gospel twice until everyone in the world has heard it at least once?

And yet most of you who listen to this today have heard scores or even hundreds of sermons, and the gospel has been preached in your ears on occasions too numerous to mention. Not only have you remained unconscious of your debt to pass it on to others, but in many cases you have allowed the truth to come into your being and remain undigested, fermenting and destroying the spiritual power and strength of your life, simply because you have not been willing to acknowledge your debt of honor and pass on the truth which you have heard to those around you who are in darkness. Or you have been unwilling to give of your means sacrificially to get the message out to the multitudes that lie in the shadow of death, waiting, waiting, waiting.

The Lord said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." He said in another verse, "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." And then he gave instructions that we should give of our means, laying aside in store as God has prospered us. Go, pray, and give.

Would it not be possible for the Lord Jesus Christ to come to you, to me, to most of us Christians today and to say, "I told you to go and you have not gone. I told you to pray and you have not prayed. I told you to give and ye have not given"? We sing a wonderful hymn: “O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling, to tell to all the world that God is light; that he who made all nations is not willing one soul should perish, lost in shades of night. Behold how many thousands still are lying bound in the darksome prison house of sin, with none to tell them of the Savior’s dying or of the life he died for them to win. Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious; give of thy wealth to speed them on their way; pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious; and all thou spendest Jesus will repay.”

Now that is the amazing thing about our indebtedness to Christ and to men. As soon as we begin to pay it, we are reimbursed. God never remains in debt to any man. The moment we do anything for him in love, he is ready to return it to us a hundredfold. All that we have done in sheer joy of knowing that we are bound to the Lord the Creator and that we’re in line with his eternal purpose, working in accordance with that which he desires to be done, and yet he gives us abundantly above.

And our text shows us also that the debt we owe is to every member of the human race. Paul said he was debtor to the Greeks and the barbarians. There were different ways of describing the whole of the race. The Jews had a phrase which divided the whole world into Jews and Greeks, drawing the line on the basis of religion. The Greeks and Romans in their common speech divided mankind into Greeks and barbarians—that is, those who were civilized and those who were not. The line of demarcation was one of culture, civilization. Paul, however, writing to the Romans, uses their phrase and points out that he is debtor to all.

And to underline the fact, he again divides them into the wise and the unwise, using two words which speak of those who were skilled in letters, who were the cultured and the learned, and on the other hand, the uncomprehending masses. The gospel is for all the races of men and for all the degrees of society, however the degrees be measured. Paul was debtor to all, and in a very special sense.

It is true that every Christian is to be a witness, but Paul had a special debt that was above and beyond our debt, for he was the man to whom God made the revelation that was to be passed on to us. Newell points this out as follows: when Moses had received the tables written with the finger of God and the pattern of the tabernacle for Israel, he was bound, he was a debtor, both to God and to Israel, to deliver those tables and that pattern as given to him by God.

To Paul, the risen glorified Christ himself had given the gospel by a special revelation, as we read in Galatians 1:11. And Paul, as we know, was especially to go to the Gentiles, as Peter, James, and John were to go to the circumcision. Just as definitely as Moses received the law for Israel, so Paul received the gospel for us. And he was a debtor both to God and to us till he had the gospel committed to all. How unutterably sad to find many professing Christians shutting their doors in the face of Paul as he comes to pay his debt, comes to tell them the glories of the heavenly message given to him, the unsearchable riches of Christ.

In his last epistle, Paul mourns that all which are in Asia, of which Ephesus was the capital, "turned away from me," he says. And we may add: so soon did they turn away from that which God had sent them. There is a story of some Germans who had received gold medals from the late Kaiser for their great scientific labors. When he plunged the world into the First World War, they decided to give up the honors that had been given to them of the Kaiser, and so they turned the medals over to an organization to fight against the totalitarianism of the German regime. But when it was attempted to turn the beautiful medals into cash, it was discovered that they were made of base metal, lightly covered over with gold.

It is unutterably sad that men have used the gospel as a guilt to cover over the base teachings of apostasy. It is a counterfeit when men present mere ritual religion as the means of saving souls instead of demanding simple faith in Christ. We may overlie it with a gold surface and print on the medal whatever we desire, but it is still false in its core. Each Christian must solemnly weigh these truths and realize that he is responsible before God for his attitude toward the truth.

Paul's sense of indebtedness brings into the clear light once more that he did not in anywise consider himself as a member of a privileged order of the clergy. He was a bondslave, a menial among men for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter wrote against those who "lord it over God’s heritage," tremendous phrase.

Writing to the church of Ephesus, the Lord said—Revelation 2:6—"But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." The word Nicolaitans comes from a Greek root meaning victorious over the people. God says that he hates the deeds of those who lord it over his people. And a few verses farther on, we read in the message to the church of Pergamos, in verse 15, "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate."

It is sobering to consider that what is a deed in verse 6 has become a doctrine by verse 15. In the course of the years, a group of men act in a high-handed way and take the spiritual domination of God’s people. Before many years, they hold that their position is one that is theirs by right, and they make a doctrine of the exaltation of a small group over the whole.

We can well imagine that just such an evolution took place in the early church. A few men inspired by God knew that they were called to go forth with the gospel; they were debtors. They had been entrusted with the gospel by God and were to go forth as the bondslaves and ministers of the people. For the center of the church, humanly speaking, must be the people and not the clergy. Christ is the spiritual center, and the people are the human center. This is the law of the New Testament: not organization but the organism; not wheels and committees but souls and Christ.

Thus we find that Paul was the simple man wanting to serve. He was debtor, he says, and so he was ready to fulfill the debt by preaching the gospel. Dr. Stalker, in his Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, tells a beautiful story which he quotes from a private diary: "I remember when I was a student visiting a dying man. He had been in the university with me, but a few years ahead, and at the close of a brilliant career in college, he was appointed to a professorship of philosophy in a colonial university. But after a few years, he fell into bad health and he had come to Scotland to die."

"It was a summer Sunday afternoon when I called to see him, and it happened that I was able to offer him a drive. His great frame was with difficulty got into the open carriage, but then he lay back comfortably and was able to enjoy the fresh air. Two other friends were with him that day, college companions who had come out from the city to visit him. On the way back, they dropped into the rear and I was alone beside him when he began to talk with appreciation of their friendship and kindness."

"But he said, 'Do you know what they’ve been doing all day? I could not guess. Well, they’ve been reading to me Sartor Resartus, and oh, I’m awfully tired of it.' Then turning on me his large eyes, he began to repeat: 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.' And then he added with great earnestness: 'There is nothing else of any use to me now.'"

And there is nothing of any use for any member of this sick human race. The age draws to a close. The world has divided into two camps. The great climax approaches. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is the gold coin with which we must pay our debt. If we have been redeemed, we are under the obligations of our position. Noblesse oblige, we must say, and we must say it today: "I am debtor and I am ready."

And our God and Father, we pray thee that thou shalt bless the truth to each heart, that thou shalt use it to thine honor and glory, O God, in Jesus’ name and for his sake. We thank thee for the great privilege we have of exalting thy name, and we pray thee that we may approach thee this day in spirit and in truth. We ask thee for each listener. If there be any who have not been born again, we pray thee that thou shalt accompany them with restlessness, that they may know no peace until they rest in Christ. But upon all who are thine own, may thy grace, thy mercy, thy peace abide. And unto thee be the glory and the majesty, the dominion and the power, now till our Lord Jesus come again and forever. Amen.

Guest (Male): We are indebted to God and to all men to go into the world with the gospel and to give generously and sacrificially to advance the kingdom of God. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled “Debtors.” Listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet 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 “Debtors,” or simply request message number R1-14.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled “Temptation and How to Meet It.” This free booklet traces the history of temptation, identifies its various sources and manifestations, and outlines the biblical strategies for effective dealing with temptation in whatever form it takes. Ask for your free copy of “Temptation and How to Meet It” 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. The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast, 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 list of stations carrying our programs, visit our website, Alliancenet.org. Would you like to build your own audio library of Dr. Barnhouse's timeless messages so you can listen to them anytime, anywhere? Then you will be interested in our Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible audio commentary series. Visit our website, Alliancenet.org, or call us, 1-800-488-1888, and find out how you can sign up for the Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible audio commentary series.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. 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 us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. 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 Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.