Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Narrator: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Almost beyond question, the greatest need in our country today and therefore the greatest need in our churches, is the need for discipline. Paul told Titus to remind those to whom he preached to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, and to be ready for any honest work. This is the type of discipline that the world needs. And it can be motivated in true believers by the combination of goodness and knowledge which are ours in Christ.

Music: God's Word is good for all we need. Truth is reviewed, correct and trained. The Christ by him we can understand the work God has for us to do. God's Word is all a Christian needs to grow in grace and to put deeds.

Narrator: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of 10th 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, "Faith that Knows."

Many people seem to define faith as mere wishful thinking or an uncertain hope that everything will somehow work out in the end. But Hebrews 11:1 gives us this simple yet profound definition. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Does your faith rest with confident assurance upon the Lord Jesus Christ? The Scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 15 and verse 14. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, "Faith that Knows."

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 what Thou hast given us to know in Christ. We praise Thee for thy plan which made it possible for Thee to take us out of darkness and bring us into Thy light.

We thank Thee for all Thy church, and for the knowledge that Thou hast so freely made available for all Thy people. Bless us in this hour as we look again at the fountain of all blessing, and as we find how much Thou hast given us in and through Christ. And these things we ask in His name and for His sake. Amen.

In the 15th chapter of Romans, and in the 14th verse, we read, "I myself am satisfied about you, my brethren, that you yourselves are filled with all knowledge."

For having completed the whole teaching portion of his letter, Paul now turns to his personal relationship with the church at Rome, with the members of a church which he had never yet seen, but which he loved dearly. Because the members were chosen by God and loved by God.

He begins by giving the church a sincere compliment, and it's not to be construed as flattery. This is not a sugarcoating to enable them to take his hard thrusts more easily. This was given from the heart.

And certainly we can believe that this was an absolutely true expression of Paul's attitude toward them. God looked at all believers through Christ. We must see them in this way also.

Paul first saw them as filled with all goodness, as we saw in our last study. And now he refers to them as filled with all knowledge. Theirs was what might be called an educated goodness, a disciplined goodness.

And their knowledge was not the dry as dust intellectual bones without flesh that characterizes so much of theological writing. It was a knowledge encase in goodness, like the helmet of salvation on the head of the believer, who knows the nature of his warfare and the necessity of putting on the whole armor of God.

Now, having considered the goodness in some detail, let us now examine the knowledge with which the believers are to be filled. The New Testament appeals to faith, to faith that is in and through knowledge. It never appeals to ignorance.

The Greek verb "to know" is found many, many times in the New Testament and with a dozen different shades of meaning. It's possible to give Bible references that show all of these various meanings. To know is to feel, to observe, to perceive, to discern, to recognize, to learn, to discover, to make certain, to be aware of, to be acquainted with, to comprehend, to be expert in, and to be familiar with, and to decide. All of these definitions are found in the Bible for the word "to know."

Is it possible for a Christian to live in such a way that he can be filled with such knowledge? Knowledge that would include all these parts? Now, it must be admitted at once that multitudes of Christians have no such knowledge. The disagreements between believers, the evident lack of love, the carping critical attitudes held by many, and the doctrinal differences that divide believers are all proof that the majority perhaps do not possess the divine knowledge which the Lord has for us.

Or at least if they do possess it, they are not living according to that knowledge. I think I can understand this better now than I did in former years. Let me give you an illustration from my own life. In earlier years, I had the attitude, which I now recognize was completely of my fleshly nature, that if I saw anything wrong with the church or with individual leaders, I would strike out against it with all the force of a too aggressive personality.

And then the Lord began a work in me, which was, I believe, the development of this divine knowledge of which our text speaks. When I learned that a man differed from me on some point which I thought terribly important, I began to look at him in a different way.

I began to realize that I must possess a knowledge of men as well as a knowledge of doctrines. And so I'm much less likely to disagree severely with any believer. And certainly I cannot maintain a carping critical attitude toward another man.

As for all the doctrinal differences which might arise between Christians, divine knowledge gives one a whole new compartment of the mind, which might be described as suspension. The differences are placed in that compartment and committed to the Lord of eternity, who is also the Lord of time.

And this means that when I'm working with an Episcopalian, I can simply look past the fact that he thinks that my ordination is worthless because it was not performed by one of his bishops. And if I'm working with a Pentecostalist, I can simply look past the fact that he thinks that I do not have the marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if I'm working with some good friends who believe what I think is a very terrible doctrine, namely, that it's possible to lose salvation after it has once been given by God, I can look past this difference almost with a wry smile. Because when the day comes when all these things are known, it will be seen that we were right, and the justification was really justification, and that we never could have lost it.

Now, although in my present state of earthiness, I would like to pull them by the sleeve and say, "I told you so." I will not really do this, for the Lord will then have removed selfish pride from all of us, and we shall all rejoice in the wonder of the Lord, and we'll forget all the things about which we differed.

Now, I believe that this attitude which fullness of knowledge brings can be illustrated by a wonderful verse, which concerns the way a man and his wife live together. In 1st Peter chapter 3, is a great paragraph which tells husbands and wives how to get along. First, telling Christian wives how to get along with husbands who are unsaved.

And then Peter tells us the kind of woman God likes. Not a flashy extrovert, but one who has a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. And then he speaks to the Christian husband and tells him that he is to dwell with his wife, listen, according to knowledge. This is the same Greek word that's used in our text.

And it's interesting to note that there are no verses in the Bible which command a wife to love her husband. God seems to take for granted that a woman will love her husband if He allows that love to stay alive. But the Bible tells the older women to teach the younger women how they are to love their husbands, but the fact of the love is taken for granted.

But in several different places, the husbands are commanded to love their wives. However, this verse in Peter tells them to dwell with their wives according to knowledge. And I'm using this as an illustration of the greater knowledge. For the man is to understand the nature of woman and to adjust his life to her nature, just as she must submit her life to his leadership.

A man is generally factual, and a woman is emotional. Over the radio, there comes a song hit from a popular musical comedy. It's the woman who sings, "If you promise me a rose, I go out and buy a pot. My imagination grows into roses by the plot. I've got roses on my doors, on my ceiling and my floors. And if you forget to keep your promise, for some reason or another you fail, how can the dreamer of such sweet roses be bothered by a slight detail?"

"If you promise me a bird, one to sing above my chair, then a dream in me is stirred, and one bird becomes a pair. Then my room is full of song, 'cause the pair becomes a throng. And if you forget to keep your promise, for some reason or another you fail, how can the dreamer of such sweet music be bothered by a slight detail?" Ah, that's a woman. This nature of the woman must be understood.

A man may have to study her as he would study trigonometry. Oh, it certainly is a completely different logic from that of trigonometry, but it has its logical place in fact. Now, if a man truly loves, he will understand the nature of the woman, and he will be doing what the Bible says to do. He will be dwelling with her according to knowledge.

Now, if I may carry this simple illustration over to the whole of life, our text teaches that it's possible for each Christian to live in knowledge and to be filled with knowledge. We can infer this from the fact that Paul was persuaded that all the believers in Rome were filled with the supernaturally given knowledge. If it was possible for them, it's possible for us.

And if we are filled with this knowledge, we shall be considerate of others, overflowing in love toward them, bearing all things, believing all things, enduring all things, hoping all things. Now, from what we've seen, it's evident that this knowledge of which our text speaks is not what has been called book learning by some.

In fact, in Colossians 2, supernatural knowledge is definitely set over against the purely human knowledge of vain philosophy. This passage I always tried to impress deeply into the minds of students who come to me for counsel. We read, "See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of life in Him."

An earlier verse in the same chapter states that Paul was praying for them that their hearts may be encouraged, as they are knit together in love, to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

You see, the reason philosophy is vain is because it is incomplete, dealing only with the rudiments of this world. It can never answer completely the questions of what is reality. But Christ, having come from God, is a demonstration, a manifestation of what God is, and at the same time, He's an illustration of God's knowledge.

In the measure that Christ fills my being, I am filled with His knowledge. This is a position that God has for every believer in Christ. He does not want us to live a life that limps. He wants us to soar and to sing in our faith. And He has given us everything needed to make our life triumphant.

Above all, He's given us the Bible by which we're to check all our thinking. The carpenter uses a square with which every cut plank is tested to see if it is exactly square. And the Bible is exactly this for the Christian. It has many other functions, but we must not forget that this is one of the very important purposes for which it was given to us.

The Lord tells us that the scriptures were breathed by Him. First, for doctrine, that is, in order that our faith might rest on revealed fact. Second, for double proof. For I do not follow either the King James or the Revised Standard Version here where it says reproof, but rather I accept the Roman Catholic Jerusalem Version as the correct translation. For double proof, the scripture is profitable for refutation.

Thirdly, it is profitable for correction, in order that our lives may be straightened out as we are delivered from the aberrations that are brought upon us by sin. Fourth, it is profitable for instruction in righteousness, so that our paths may be kept straight and undeviating in our daily walk.

With this last thought, we now have a transition from the nature of the divine knowledge with which the believer is to be filled, to the purpose of that divine knowledge. And again, we must distinguish from mere earthly knowledge, which God says puffs up, and which he describes as "knowledge falsely so-called."

The true knowledge in God has depths which are unsearchable. Kittel points out that the Old Testament idea of knowledge was "insight into law or grace as the will of God, which is primarily acknowledgment with submission in obedience or gratitude to that which is known." And it might not be amiss to point out that the word "knowledge" is found in the middle of the word "acknowledgment."

We may say that the purpose of knowledge is in order that we may accept it and act upon it. That's very important. And Kittel further points out a very important distinction between worldly information and divine knowledge. There is no thought of speculative knowledge of God.

Christian knowledge of God is service of God, not arguing about Him, and not discussing what He might be, but getting into His obedience and service. And though there may be a theoretical element in the knowledge of God, such an idea is never predominant. If there is not obedient recognition of God's will by an individual, it cannot be said that such a man knows God.

On the other hand, if a man really knows God, he must, by the divine impulsion that comes from the awareness that we are loved, submit to Him and seek to be well pleasing to Him. I can remember my student days. The classes in philosophy, the graduate seminars in Plato, and the dreary parade of all the guesses that have been made by those so-called thinkers, but whose thoughts never are brighter than twilight.

If there had been the brightness of dawn, one could hope for the daylight. But there was never any indication that those of past centuries who gave themselves to philosophical speculation would ever arrive at anything but blackest midnight of outer darkness.

The whole process of knowledge, so far as the believer is concerned, begins not with man, but with God. We are known by Him before we can know Him. Before the world was created, He had planned His people. And we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, known by God in that eternal purpose.

We ultimately come to know Him, and that knowledge must transform the life. It's a contradiction in terms to hold that a man can bring his brain to bear on the problem of the Deity, arrive at certain speculative theories about God, and then stop there. The believer who is filled with the knowledge of God must have an immediate change of outlook on life.

In the words of the philosopher, he has a new *Weltanschauung*, a new world outlook. We have been shifted from the center of our ego to the center that is Christ. And there must be a new circumference to life. The about-face of repentance means that where once we faced ourselves, and hoped in ourselves, while Christ was behind us, despised and rejected by us, as by all men, we now swing about and face Him with all our heart's purpose focused on Him, with all our desire centered upon Him.

In other words, in conversion, we must adopt the same attitude toward the Lord Jesus Christ as that which is held by God the Father. I come back once more to the very important doctrine, so often neglected in modern preaching, that God the Father loves the Lord Jesus Christ.

And He loves Him so much that He is ordering the universe so that there may be a vast company of believers so transformed that their one delight is to love God's Son also. As time goes on, I realize how radically my thinking has been transformed. My feet are very much on the ground. I have not lost touch with all that is simple and practical.

But my heart is centered at the throne of God. And there my mind goes when it has little else to think about. The whole purpose of the knowledge of God might be expressed in that great exhortation that's found in Colossians 3, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, and not on things that are on Earth, for you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

And now lastly, having seen the nature and the purpose of this divine knowledge with which we are to be filled, let us ask the very important question as to how we today may be assured of the possession, the permanent possession, of this divine knowledge. In answer to this question, we have the divine assurance that this knowledge does not come by the process of natural reasoning.

We read in 1st Corinthians 2:14, "The man dominated by his old soul does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." When we meet with unregenerate men, especially in the classrooms of philosophy, they look at us as though we were from another world, and so we are. Our supernatural knowledge, so foreign to them, is a knowledge that we have gained only by the new birth.

John closes his first epistle with the clear explanation that our knowledge is a gift from God. We read in 1st John 5:19 and 20, "We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding to know Him who is true in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life."

Now, because we possess this divine gift of supernatural knowledge, we can never be ashamed of our faith. We know, and we know that we know. But knowing that we have the implantation of this knowledge, we must continually seek to let it master us. And we can only be mastered by our faith as we learn to master it.

When we reach to this place in spiritual life, we can say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed." And when we do know Him whom we have believed, we can share with those early believers in Rome, the commendation by Paul, "I am satisfied that you are filled with all knowledge."

And we pray Thee, our God, that indeed we may understand this. Thou hast given us the life that is Christ. May it possess our minds, may it direct our thinking, may it be the guide of our footsteps, may we walk in Thy light. Speak to each listening heart. And may there be a great thirst after Thy righteousness. For Thou hast said that those are blessed who hunger and thirst for Thy righteousness, and that they shall be filled. And this filling is what we desire of Thee, and we give Thee the praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Narrator: Authentic biblical faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It rests with quiet confidence upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his redemptive work. We hope you've benefited from today's message, "Faith that Knows."

To listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online 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, "Faith that Knows," or simply request message number R15-99.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled, "Sex, Marriage, and Divorce." God designed the marriage relationship to be a picture of our eternal union with Jesus Christ. And yet, Christian marriages often fall short of this lofty ideal. This free booklet shines biblical truth upon this vital subject. Chapter titles include, "Lust and Christian Marriage," "Marriage and the Home," "Divorce and Remarriage," and "For Time and Eternity."

Ask for your free copy of "Sex, Marriage, and Divorce" 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.

We also produce 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.

For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling 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. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.

Music: The Bible has come and equipp'd us to do the saving work on us. It draws our souls from death to life and rescues us from the desp'rite. Amazing gift, oh, what a soul heart. The life imparting word of God.