Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The kingdom of our Lord will be established on the earth, and it will be established under the human leadership of Israel. The fact of Christ's return and the establishment of Israel as God's governing people under their Messiah, Christ the Lord Jesus, is more certain than the existence of the heavens and the earth.

The only instruction given to us concerning the time of this greatest event of future history is that we are not to be concerned about the time of its occurrence. In answer to the disciples' question in Acts 1:6, the Lord replied, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority."

We must learn to live our lives as though the Lord Jesus Christ would return within the next hour, and we must continue to make plans as though He would not return within our lifetime. We are content to have it so, for our Lord God does all things well.

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 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 "Does God Say When." The doctrine of the second coming of Christ has been a vital element of the Christian faith since its earliest days. For centuries, believers have declared He shall come to judge the living and the dead when reciting the ancient confession of faith known as the Apostles' Creed.

But today, there is much confusion about the subject of the end times and the return of Jesus Christ. Some even go so far as to deny that Jesus is coming again. What does the Bible teach us about this complex and controversial subject? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 13 and verse 11. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "Does God Say When."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto Thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We come to Thee today asking Thee to speak a word that will arouse us from our sluggishness and quicken us to learn and to do Thy will. Speak to the sleeping church and cause Thy people to go forth to witness against this present evil age and proclaim Thy love and power to satisfy and to keep. Take all the glory unto Thyself, for what we ask is in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

It is very interesting to me that just at this time, this pivotal hour in the history of the world, that our paragraph in the ordinary course of our exposition in Romans comes now to chapter 13, verse 11, where there are several verses about the second coming of Christ, the time of the age in which we live, and the warning that we should not be asleep, but that we should be aroused.

And so, for several days we are going to be studying together these great questions of Bible prophecy. Romans 13:11 begins, "Knowing the time." Here, you see, the theme of the epistle changes once more. This following paragraph, which will occupy us for several weeks, concerns the second coming of Christ and the conduct of the believer in the light of His return.

Today's study will seek to point out the truth about the time of the Lord's return and to show the errors of those who have tried to set dates for it. First, we will consider the false charge that has been made against the Bible by those who have stated that Christ and the apostles taught that His return would be in their own generation. Isolated verses, taken out of context, have been so manipulated as to make a fool out of Christ.

In the second sermon on the mount, the prophetic address on the Mount of Olives delivered a day or two before He was crucified, the Lord Jesus said, "This generation will not pass away till all these things take place." Now, some critics of the Bible claim that this was a mistaken notion. This charge is of great importance, for if Christ were mistaken, He was not God.

But a very simple explanation will prove His deity. To find this explanation, we must first establish the context. Naturally, if He was talking about the generation that was then living, then He was mistaken. But if He was talking about something else, He was not mistaken. During the last week of our Lord's life on earth, the record shows that He stayed in Bethany each night and came into Jerusalem in the mornings on at least three different days.

First, He rode into Jerusalem on the borrowed ass while the crowd hailed Him with shouts of "Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." Although this occasion is usually spoken of as Palm Sunday, I am convinced by a close study of the narratives that it took place on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. When Jesus reached Jerusalem on that day, He visited the temple and looked around Him. There were no money changers or dove sellers there because it was the Sabbath. This was Christ's entry into Jerusalem as King.

The next morning, He went from Bethany to Jerusalem, this time by the way of the Mount of Olives. Along the road, He saw a fig tree, and He searched it for figs. Finding none, He cursed the barren fig tree and moved on into the city. Perhaps no scene in the life of Christ reveals more clearly the inward heart of the Bible commentator. It's safe to say that more than half of the commentators deride Christ's conduct here. Some actually heap scorn upon Him.

And the least of the critics describes His action as petulant, childish. They not only display the sinfulness of their wicked hearts in criticizing the Lord of Glory, but they also show their own ignorance of the significance of the incident. As we said, the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem as King the day before. Now He was entering the city as Priest. On the morrow, He came again as Prophet.

Just as He had laid claim to the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning His kingship and deity, He was about to reveal Himself as Priest, above all the priests or high priests of Israel. As God's great High Priest, He was about to examine the worship of His chosen people. In the Old Testament, Israel is described under the image of a vine and again under that of a fig tree. The Lord had the right to expect fruit from His people, but He found only leaves.

Those who do not know fig trees may wonder why He expected to find figs when it was not the season for ripe figs. I was brought up in California. In our own garden, there was a large fig tree from which we gathered a great weight of fresh figs each year. As a small boy, I frequently found figs which had not been gathered in season and which had slowly dried as the months passed. It is not unusual to find edible figs on the tree at almost any time of the year. There was nothing peculiar, then, about our Lord's expecting to find fruit on the tree.

Now, this was a parable in action in which the Lord approached Israel and looked for spiritual fruit. When we realize that He is the Creator of the universe, we understand that He has the right to do what He pleases with His creation. And when we realize that He was also the Lord Jehovah, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of Israel, we understand all the better His right to judge His people.

The withering curse which came from His lips that day explains all the judgments which have since come upon God's ancient people. The destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome under Titus, the horrors of the Inquisition, the pogroms of Poland, and the prison camps of Hitler were all included in this curse upon the fig tree. The Lord Jesus proceeded into the city as the judging Priest and cleansed the temple of its religious foulness. He overturned the table of the money changers and cast out those that bought and sold doves. Once more, He returned to Bethany for the night.

On the third day, as He entered the city, the disciples pointed out to Him what He well knew, that the fig tree had miraculously withered in a single day. On entering the temple, our Lord was called to account by the rulers of the temple for what He had done there the day before. They demanded a sign. He answered that they would have no sign but that of the prophet Jonah. As Jonah had been three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so would He be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He had begun His third day work as prophet.

He closed His tour of the temple as the disciples pointed out the great stones used in its construction by announcing that the building would be destroyed and that not one stone would be left upon another. This prophecy was fulfilled in detail approximately 40 years later. Now, the Lord and His disciples return to Bethany for the last time. On reaching the top of the Mount of Olives, they turn to watch the sunset over the city, one of the grandest sights in the world.

The disciples reminded Him of what He had said about the destruction of the temple, and they asked three questions which He answered, but not in the order of their asking: "Tell us, when will this be? What shall be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" The key to understanding this discourse lies in the fact that His answer did not speak of the end of the age in which we are living, but of the end of the Jewish age which lies yet in the future.

And so, the Lord announced wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, and many other disasters. He then said to His disciples, "From the fig tree, learn its lesson. As soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that the summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that He is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away."

Now, let me paraphrase this in the light of what we have seen. Learn a parable of the nation of Israel. You've seen me go to it for fruit, and finding none, have heard me curse my beloved people. You have seen the tree wither as Israel will wither, but keep your eyes upon Israel. This nation will be preserved in the world in spite of the most violent persecutions. And the time will come when Israel will come to bud and will put forth new growth after a long winter of barren appearance.

When this comes to pass, the generation of Israel that sees the beginning of this new growth will live to see the end of all the judgments and the flowering of Israel as the once more blessed people of the Lord. And thus we see that Christ's cursing of the fig tree and His words concerning the same, far from exhibiting the petulance of a child, show forth the majesty of Him who alone knows the end from the beginning. And far from announcing His own near return, this scene places the fulfillment of prophecy far down in history, even beyond the end of the church age in which we live.

A second charge brought against Christ and the Bible presumes to accuse our Lord of announcing His return as taking place before the death of His disciples. The passage on which this false assumption is made is the last verse in the 16th chapter of Matthew. Let us see what is actually taught here. Once more, we must establish the context. Christ had just warned His disciples of the necessity of taking up the cross and following Him.

He then taught that one moment of eternity is of more concern than all time. "For what will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?" Then, looking forward to the time of judgment, He said, "For the Son of Man is to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay every man for what he has done." If our Lord had stopped at this point, there would have been no problem.

The next verse, however, says, "Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." Some have tried to solve the difficulty by stating that this was an announcement that His kingdom was spiritual and invisible to the world and that the prophecy was fulfilled in the establishment of the church. But such an interpretation creates an even greater problem.

For Christ's descriptions of the coming of His kingdom were certainly not fulfilled in the establishment of His church. On the day of Pentecost when the church was established, there were no signs in the heavens, the sun was not turned to darkness nor the moon to blood, there was no resurrection of the hosts of believers, there was no establishment of a kingdom in righteousness over the kingdoms of the earth.

The difficulty would not have arisen if the men who divided the Bible into chapters had not inserted at this point in the narrative the fateful barrier which exists in the words "chapter 17." If we remove these words and read the passage without stopping, reading the last verses of chapter 16 and the first verses of chapter 17, we find it thus:

"There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. And after six days, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart, and He was transfigured before them."

I make bold to claim that the transfiguration of our Lord was a vision granted to three of His disciples of what would be in the far distant future when His kingdom shall be established on earth. This is not mere rationalization since one of those three eyewitnesses describes what took place as a revelation of the second coming of Christ in His kingdom.

Turn to Peter's second epistle. In chapter one, after reminding his readers that he was approaching his death, as Christ had told him shortly after the resurrection, Peter wrote, "And I will see to it that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths, cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty."

Peter then goes on to describe what he saw on the mount of transfiguration as a pageant of Christ's kingdom. He identifies the place as the holy mount and quotes the words of the Father from heaven: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." He concludes by stating that this pageant of the kingdom, which he was permitted to view, was a guarantee of the reliability of prophecy.

We see, therefore, that the charges brought against our Lord concerning His expectation of a return to power shortly after His first residence on earth are absurd and baseless. He knew that He would not come until the ultimate end. The next question that arises is this: Did His disciples officially teach that He would return at once? We may first state that if they did think so, it was because of their simple humanity and because they had such a great desire that they set up a timetable of their own devising.

But close examination shows no definite teaching in the epistles as to the certainty of Christ's immediate return. In fact, on the day that our Lord ascended into heaven, the disciples revealed their selfish desire for earthly power by asking if the time had come to restore the kingdom to Israel. Incidentally, let me answer those who argue against the literalness of Christ's coming kingdom by saying that our Lord Himself is responsible for our position.

In the face of the disciples' question, He would have been honor bound to set them straight. Here was the chance to declare, "Dearly beloved, you have been mistaken. There is to be no restoration of the Jews and no literal kingdom." But what did our Lord actually say? His answer confirmed the hope expressed in their question. There is to be a kingdom, and it will be restored to Israel. Let all the world take knowledge of this assertion by Jesus Christ.

Let the United Nations, which established the modern nation of Israel, take notice of this fact. Let all the Arab nations, those cousins of the Jews, take notice of this fact. Let Russia and Syria take notice of this fact. The kingdom of our Lord will be established on the earth, and it will be established under the human leadership of Israel.

The fact of Christ's return and the establishment of Israel as God's governing people under their Messiah, Christ the Lord Jesus, is more certain than the existence of the heavens and the earth. The only instruction given to us concerning the time of this greatest event of future history is that we are not to be concerned about the time of its occurrence. In answer to the disciples' question in Acts 1:6, the Lord replied, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority."

We must learn to live our lives as though the Lord Jesus Christ would return within the next hour, and we must continue to make plans as though He would not return within our lifetime. We are content to have it so, for our Lord God does all things well.

And we pray Thee, our God and Father, that Thou wilt be very near our people in this day, with Thy people, with all of the body of Christ. We who are believers know how arrogant man is and how man believes that he can do all things by himself. We pray Thee that Thou shalt speak to those who are born again, give them patience, courage to go on in the midst of this world that crucified Christ. Oh hear us, we pray Thee. And as the time of Christ's return draws near, give to us a life of holiness as we await His coming. We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Guest (Male): The final words of Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation are, "Yes, I am coming soon." Let us look forward every day with hopeful expectation to the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We hope you have benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled "Does God Say When."

To listen to additional teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online 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 "Does God Say When," or simply request message number R13-11.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled "Death is Swallowed Up in Victory." In this four-chapter booklet, Dr. Barnhouse answers such questions as what happens the moment you die? Where are the dead right now? Is there such a thing as soul sleep? These and many other questions on the subject of death are treated with profound biblical insight.

Are you grieving the loss of a loved one or struggling with the issue of death? Ask for your free copy of "Death is Swallowed Up in Victory" when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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