Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Some time ago I saw a cartoon of two fellows riding in the latest fishtailed chrome-gadgeted model of a sports car. One said to the other, "Oh, what's the use of traveling in twice the comfort and twice as fast if we don't know where we're going?" Now there's only one way to know the proper direction in which the creator means the human race to travel, and that is to read the instructions which he has caused to be written for our learning. Then we shall, through patience and the comfort of the scriptures, move along toward his goal for us, the fulfillment of the Christian hope.

Guest (Male): Over a half century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled "The Encouragement of the Scriptures." Barnabas was well known in the early church for his special gift of encouragement.

He could be counted on to give comfort and encouragement in weary, discouraged fellow pilgrims, weak, struggling new believers, and Christians facing hardship and persecution. Today, we cannot pick up the phone and call Barnabas, but we can receive comfort and encouragement from the Lord himself in the pages of holy scripture.

The text for today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 15 and verse 4. Here once again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "The Encouragement of the Scriptures."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. Thou art our God and hast made us for thyself. Though we have separated ourselves from thee through our sins, thou hast made it possible for us to be brought back into loving relationship with thee through the death of thy son, our Savior.

In this hour, we pray thee to give us steadfastness, that through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We continue today in the study of Romans chapter 15 and verse 4, which reads, "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." Now we've seen that this text is one of a great series throughout the whole Bible that teach us the absolute trustworthiness of the scriptures.

We can trust the man who died for us, and we can trust the book which he held so dearly and in which he put his trust. We must live our lives in a world of change, in a world where the future is all unknown. Man looks forward to events that are to come. If he thinks of these events as evil, his attitude is one of fear. If he thinks of these events as good, his attitude is hopeful.

The Latins had a special word for a future that had no hope, and the word has come down to us with little change. The word is despair, literally "without hope." Shakespeare speaks of it as grim and comfortless despair. In *Pilgrim's Progress*, Bunyan writes, "There was a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair."

Our text shows us the road away from despair, past doubt, into learning patience, comfort, and on to our goal, hope. It must be understood that hope in the Bible sense is not the same as hope in our modern civilization. The young man is asked how he fared in his examination. He crosses his fingers and says with a wry grimace, "I hope, I hope, I hope."

The girl who may never have had a date with a young man may fill a cedar chest with linens for her future home, if and when she gets one, and the world calls this a hope chest. Now there is no thought of such uncertainty in the Bible word translated hope, for in the Christian hope, there is all the strength and certainty of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is ultimate, final, and absolute.

The road by which we come to such hope may be short or long, but will follow the chart that is laid down in our text. First, the road to hope leads through learning. Our text says that all that God caused to be written in the past was written for our learning, our instruction. We must understand from the beginning that God is not speaking of mere mental knowledge.

That which is merely learned with the head may become like a hard blood clot that can suddenly destroy life. The learning that is perceived with the heart can be diffused through all of the being and can bring life to every part. The Lord Jesus has given us a remarkable thought on this aspect of learning.

When he taught men that he was the living bread come down from heaven, they murmured at his saying. He answered, "It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Now everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me." This is what Jesus said: "Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me."

There is an aspect of religious emphasis that places all the importance on the techniques of doing things, but this is not biblical Christianity. Lord Dunsany said there is a great tendency nowadays to place technique above inspiration. And if the notion spreads, we shall have the diamond cutters valuing their tools more highly than the diamonds.

The result being that as long as they cut them in accordance with rules of the craft, they will cease to care whether they cut diamonds or glass, and then they will cease to know. Now such an attitude in religious thinking may place a lot of mental furniture on display in the intellectual showrooms, but it will never do anything for the man with the mental furniture store.

And it will be discovered that there is heavy plate glass between the passerby and the furniture that is on display, so that nobody can enter and find an easy chair in which to rest. This is not the type of learning that we need. We do not need that which simply fills the mind. Now certainly I am not decrying education. In fact, I've been accused of placing too much store by education.

But what I am saying is that the learning that is of the head must be balanced by that of the heart. Some time ago I saw a cartoon of two fellows riding in the latest fishtailed chrome-gadgeted model of a sports car. One said to the other, "Oh, what's the use of traveling in twice the comfort and twice as fast if we don't know where we're going?"

Now there's only one way to know the proper direction in which the creator means the human race to travel, and that is to read the instructions which he has caused to be written for our learning. Then we shall, through patience and the comfort of the scriptures, move along toward his goal for us, the fulfillment of the Christian hope.

And it must not be forgotten that the hope that is set before us here is not some fantasy of future life that will cause us to walk on tiptoe gazing far ahead while we ignore our companions along the road. We believe in the hope, yes, but the hope is more than something in the future. It is a certainty which possesses us at the present time and makes us like the Lord Jesus Christ in all our relationships with those with whom we come in contact.

Now since each of us is a human being, we must never forget that we live, walk, and work among fellow human beings. The context of our text is talking about living in love and following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ as we touch other people. The man who forgets this either has not found the road or else, like Peter, he is following Christ afar off.

Now an illustration of the departure of mankind from the divine principle of living for our fellow men is found in a gloomy play by Eugene O'Neill, *The Great God Brown*. When Brown finally lies dead in the street, a crowd gathers and a policeman elbows his way into the center of the scene. "What's his name?" he asks. And one of the bystanders replies, "Man."

O'Neill intended for the audience to understand that this character was the prototype of the human race. The callousness and ignorance of most people is sharply brought out by the dialogue that follows. The policeman opens his notebook, takes out a pencil, and begins to write. "What's his name?" he asks again. "Man," replies the bystander. "How do you spell it?" asks the policeman.

Oh, we should not be astonished that men are oblivious to their fellows, when we realize that there was a generation which put to death the son of man. Men killed Christ, and therefore men are going to kill other men. But we who follow Christ, we are to help the infirmities of the weak and we're to begin at the household of faith, and the whole pitch of our life must be toward helping others.

And all that was ever written was written for our learning, that we might have steadfastness in order to live as those who are alive from the dead and be the word made flesh, dwelling in our circumstances. Now it's for this purpose that we have been saved, and all that has been written by God is for our learning.

And we can be sure that if we bow before our teacher, the Holy Spirit, we shall be led safely past all the dragons of doubt that beset our road. I talk with many people about this matter of walking in the Christian life, of progressing, matters of faith. Many tell me of their doubts. But there is an old proverb of the Persians which says doubt is the key to knowledge.

The truth that we believers possess comes to us through men who had grave doubts, who faced these doubts and won through to assurance. Through patience and the comfort of the scriptures, they found hope. Shakespeare said modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

And there is a sense in which Descartes was right when he said, "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it's necessary that at least once in your life you doubt as far as possible all things." But then suddenly, when we come to the end of ourselves and realize that we cannot have any certainty in ourselves, we discover that we can begin with God.

He has come through to us. We become aware of the presence of the new life and go on rapidly to full assurance of faith. Almost the last verse of John's first epistle reminds us that we are given understanding so that we can know the things that are freely given to us by God. Then it is that we advance along the road by patience or steadfastness.

The Greek word used here is most interesting. While it is translated into English by various words, continuance, enduring, patience, patient waiting, it comes from a root word that means simply to stay behind while others are going away. The one whose life takes him into considerable travel soon has to acquire a particular brand of patience and endurance that the stay-at-home does not need.

But our word speaks to the heart of the one whose horizon is small. At times it is necessary to apply the 23rd Psalm to that part of our journey that precedes the valley of the shadow of death. Oh, so many people must say, "Yea, though I dwell in the valley of the humdrum, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me."

And just here, we can turn to the Old Testament and find great strength from God for daily living. Our text says that all that was written before was written for our learning, that we through patience and the comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now how can reading the Old Testament give us patience?

The answer is that the Bible teaches us the most important of all doctrines, the sovereignty of God. When we understand that God is running the world, we can stop thrashing around and can become quiet in him. Oh, the sovereignty of God. How wonderful to know that he has all things under control and that he is working all things after the counsel of his will.

An illustration will help to enlighten this point. While we were in Japan, we went to Gifu, where one of the sights of the world is to be seen. Just after dark, fishing boats come sweeping down the broad river with great fires burning in cages that hang from the prow of each boat. These fires attract the fish to the surface.

A dozen large birds, cormorants, are managed by each master fisherman who has each bird tethered by a cord at the end of which is a metal ring, fitted around the neck of the bird. The cormorant thrusts his bill into the water, scoops up a large fish, which goes down his long throat only as far as the ring. The master fisherman then draws the bird back into the boat.

The bird disgorges the large fish and is fed a smaller one which slips down his throat past the ring. He then dives into the water again to catch another fish. It's amazing to watch the master fisherman hold the cords of a dozen birds and keep them from tangling.

The birds dart about after their fish; sometimes two will engage in a struggle for the same fish, but the master fisherman keeps them all in order without fouling the lines. I applied this illustration to myself and the management of my life. I thought of how I have allowed lines to get tangled and how difficult it is for any of us to keep all our lines of communication from tangling.

A father has to think of his wife and each of his children. As they grow older, there's always danger of much tangling of the cords. We have to come to the place where we simply confess to the Lord that we are not able to manage anything without him. And then we consider the fact that God our Father is running the lives of more than two and a half billion people at the same moment.

And that his purpose is being fulfilled in each and every one of them. Someone may protest that he seemingly is not doing a very good job, but a close study of the Bible and of life shows how magnificently all things are being worked out after the counsel of his own will. All that he is doing, we read, enables him to display his wisdom, and it will ultimately be seen that he has done all things well.

The mass of unsaved men do not want God or his will, and they insist on going their own way. In giving men liberty, God allows them to do this, and thus we can understand the wreckage of the lives of so many of the people of the world. The believer is told to instruct his opponents with gentleness, on the ground that God may perhaps grant that they repent and come to know the truth.

And that they may become sober again or come to their senses, they who have been captured alive by Satan to work his will. Wherever there's a heart touched by God, the cords are miraculously untangled, and the yielded believer is soon brought to the place where he sees that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

And how wonderfully he holds all the threads so that everything works out for the highest good of all who have submitted to him. On the earliest pages of the Bible, we have a remarkable story that illustrates our point very clearly. Measured by modern ethical standards, the 12 sons of Jacob seem to have been a sorry lot.

We must not forget, however, that they were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit as are believers in our day, and they did not possess even one page of the Bible. Yet the hand of God was upon them for his purpose, and the results were all that could be desired. God had chosen Joseph for the purpose of preparing the way for the little family to be made into a real nation.

They had to be put into a fire where they could be tempered and their iron turned to steel. The special favor which God showed to Joseph aroused the bitterest enmity and jealousy in the hearts of his brothers. They caught him, imprisoned him in a pit, and sold him to a passing caravan. The outcome seemed disastrous at the moment it was taking place.

He was sold as a slave into the house of Potiphar. As though the scene were not black enough, his master's wife attempted to seduce him and he fled from her. In her outraged pride, she denounced him, and he found himself in prison. From the purely human point of view, this story seems to indicate that the Lord God Almighty simply does not know how to run his world.

Here is a young man who has been promised God's blessing and assured of God's love, but he becomes a slave and a prisoner in a foreign land. Suddenly, however, the wisdom and power of God are manifested. In a remarkable way, Joseph is brought to the notice of Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt. It's not long before he is bathed and shaved and stands before this mighty monarch.

He correctly interprets the dreams of the king and is soon installed as second in authority to Pharaoh, with full control over the entire economy of the nation. The famine that he foresaw touches the land from which he had come. His father and brothers soon realize that they're in danger of starving, and the brothers go to Egypt to purchase food.

There, the providence of God brings them before their brother Joseph. They do not recognize him, but he recognizes them. Now it's not necessary to recount the details of how they come to recognize him and of how the father Jacob is brought to Egypt. The little family is now installed in the land of Goshen, most fertile part of Egypt.

And their safety and security are assured for the few centuries that are needed to increase them from a group of about 70 persons to a nation of more than one million. The key verse in the whole story is one that shouts the triumph of God, his knowledge of circumstances, and his control over the hearts of men and the movements of history.

When Jacob died, the brothers were afraid that Joseph might retaliate against them for all the evil they had done, so they sent a message asking his forgiveness. Joseph wept when they spoke to him and fell before him. He said, "Fear not, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today."

Oh, we shall never know how many tears have been shed over this story. Unnumbered millions have read it, and multitudes who were in trouble learned patience from it and took comfort in the truth that God was bringing them too to the place of his hope. How many people when brought to adversity have remembered that Joseph was brought to adversity and that God meant it for his good.

How many young men faced with a lust that would do them harm have sought to draw strength from God and flee from temptation because they learned that God was able to give strength to Joseph at just such a time. How many fathers have been comforted when their children were taken from them to war or to a life in a distant city, by the knowledge that the God who took care of Jacob's son could take care of theirs also.

The applications of this story are unending. Indeed, God has left us a record of how this story affected the heart of David. One of the most beautiful Psalms tells of the comfort which David received from thinking about God's dealings with Joseph. "Oh, give thanks to the Lord," we read in Psalm 105, "give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the people."

He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He is mindful of his covenant forever. When he summoned a famine in the land and broke every staff of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters. His neck was put in a collar of iron until what he had said came to pass.

The word of the Lord tested him. The king sent and released him. The ruler of the people set him free. He made him Lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions, to bind his princes at his pleasure and to teach his elders wisdom. Then Israel came to Egypt, and the Lord made his people very fruitful.

And as David remembered this story, he drew strength from the word of God. So may we as we hold the word of God in our hands. We may draw waters from these rushing fountains and learn that his ways are ways of pleasantness and that all his paths, even though they may seem rough and stormy, are paths of peace leading to the haven and the heart of God.

Yes, all that was written aforetime was written for our learning, that we through patience, steadfastness, and the comfort of the scriptures might be led all the way to the assurance of our hope. And our God, we pray thee to use in this hour the blessing of this word that we may turn afresh back to thy book, to believe it, to trust it, and to know that thou art our God. Hear us and bless thy people, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): If you need comfort and encouragement today, you can find it in the pages of the living, active, and powerful word of God. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled "The Encouragement of the Scriptures." To listen to more Bible teachings 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. That's 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled "The Encouragement of the Scriptures" or simply request message number R15-5. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled *Led by the Spirit*.

In this booklet, Dr. Barnhouse discusses how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of his people. The four chapters cover the topics Led by the Spirit, How to Know God's Will, God's Leading, and God's Sufficiency. These biblical insights can help you understand and grow in your walk with God. Ask for your free copy of *Led by the Spirit* when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by.

We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. 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 radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website at AllianceNet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the 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 help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. You may also write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103, or 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. Thank you for listening today. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.