Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

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

Donald Grey Barnhouse: Oh, the inestimable advantage of having the fear of the Lord. How eternally marvelous that he should have extended his love to us, that we might have life and might live in the knowledge of all that he is and of all that he is doing in the universe. And how brutish that a man should live apart from the fear of God. Within the heart of a man who is a true believer, the voice of the sins of the unbeliever makes itself heard, and within our heart their transgressions cry out that they thus live because there is no fear of the Lord before their eyes.

Announcer: God's word is good for God he came to teach, rebuke, correct, and train. Equipped by him we can pursue the work God has for us to do. God's word is all a Christian needs. Hope in grace can do good. 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 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 Indifference to God. You may not care about science fiction, or you might be such a Star Trek fan that you go to conventions dressed like Mr. Spock. In the final analysis, your level of interest in Star Trek is totally insignificant. The only thing that matters for eternity is your relationship with God, and yet many people care much more about TV, sports, movies, or other insignificant things. What is the solution to the deadly problem of indifference to God? The scripture text for this edition of Dr.

Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 3 and verse 18. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with the message, Indifference to God.

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 thou hast intervened in our behalf and hast shown us the way of righteousness through Jesus Christ and hast brought salvation near to every one of us. May we turn from the ways of self and death and come afresh to build our hopes in the work which thy Son has accomplished in giving himself for us, that we might know thy peace. We ask it through the Lord Jesus Christ and for his sake. Amen. In our study of the third chapter of Romans, we have reached the last line of the paragraph of quotations from the Old Testament, showing the utterly fallen condition of man.

The long indictment comes to its close. The secret of all that has gone before lies in the verse that we now consider: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Let us begin by putting this text alongside another famous text from the Old Testament. In the 14th Psalm we read, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. The fact that the fool declares himself to be an atheist does not in the slightest mean that there is no God actually. No matter what one says, there is God. Not merely a God, but there is God with a capital G, the true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of righteousness, the God of sure judgment.

God rightly declares that a man who says there is no God is insane, for that is the force of the Hebrew word which is translated by our English fool. I am using the word insane in its etymological meaning of against the senses. If a man does not want to believe that there is a sun, the rest of us are going to know at least that he is blind. He lacks one sense and is denying another, and is unwilling to listen to the testimony of those who have eyes and who witness honestly of the facts. On a man who talks thus, no matter what he thinks, we learn to look with profound pity. But the men of our text are in a much worse case.

They do not deny that there is God. They walk along their way without giving heed to the fact of God and the implications of his being. They say that they may believe there is a God, but they choose to ignore him. They do not even take the trouble to deny his existence, but disclaim any responsibility in the matter. That is much worse than saying that there is no God. An atheist seeks to argue God out of existence, but these people seek to ignore God out of existence. In the first case, the men are intellectually foolish. It is a matter of the head against God. In the case of our text, it is a heart matter.

The human heart has exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and finding itself in temporary possession of the world, has decided that it has the right to take the throne of the world. Since God does not crash through with immediate judgment for every transgression, man has considered that he can take possession by the default of God. But God has not defaulted. He has given us a written record concerning his patience. He has set forth all of his dealings in righteousness as moved by his love, and he has offered an amnesty to the rebels if they will surrender to his grace. If they refuse, he has told them in the plainest terms what he proposes to do.

But because men cannot actually see God with their eyes, they, little by little, sink back into themselves and come to the place where they believe that they are in safety and security because they control the means of power over one another. When Christ was about to go to the cross to die, he gathered his disciples in the upper room and spoke to them of the new conditions that were about to prevail because he was going to the Father. But he was not going to leave them alone. He was going to send to them the third person of the Godhead, God the Holy Spirit. But listen to his language. It is in John 4.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall send you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. Now listen, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. It is a terrible indictment of the blindness of the human race. The Lord has made this unbelief of men because of their unwillingness to see the invisible to appear in its proper light. Our fathers knew that there were the colors of the prism, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. For thousands of years, men did not know that there was anything else that could be seen.

Then men developed scientific eyes that could see below the red and beyond the violet, infrared and ultraviolet. They developed Geiger counters that click as unseen radiation rays come to its more sensitive eyes. Yet, though their minds will accept the evidence of these machines which their hands have made, and though they will admit the existence of invisible worlds of light, which the human eye cannot see, they still will not admit the one who taught his disciples to say, "This is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all." What shall be done to a generation of men who have the fear of invisible rays of radioactivity, but who have no fear of the invisible God before their eyes.

But you argue that they have seen the results of the burns on the men and women of Hiroshima, and they have not yet seen the results of the burns of the Lake of Fire. And we call them greater fools than those who deny the existence of God. For there are many people, myself included, who have never seen one person who has been burned by uranium rays or by nuclear fission, but I believe that such burns exist, and I have the normal human fear of such destructive elements. And I know that God is, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen by the things that he has made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Most men will tell you that they believe in God, but almost all men act as though he did not exist. With their eyes they see the universe of God, but there is no fear of God before their eyes. What are some of the reasons for this indifference to God, which is such a mark of our world at the present time? First of all, it is because the eyes of humanity were opened by Satan in the Garden of Eden. The Lord had placed mankind there with a restriction upon him to show them that they were creatures. Satan came saying, "Your eyes shall be opened to know good and evil." They did not know that their eyes would be closed to spiritual things and that they would bring death upon the race, spiritual death as well as physical.

It has often been said that the eyes are the windows of the soul, but most certainly, according to the scripture, they are linked up to the heart and lead the heart to evil. Between the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, God places the lust of the eyes. Peter speaks of men having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin. Perhaps that this is the moment to interject that it should go without saying that the Bible is not referring to the physical eyeballs that catch the reflection of light with the rods and cones of the retina and flash sensory images to the brain. Men have made remarkable discoveries in the physiology of the brain, but no one has made any discovery at all that shows the relationship of the conscious self in the soul and spirit to the physical brain cells, and we doubt in the nature of the case if man will ever make any such discovery.

It is enough for the one who realizes the nature of the evidence that is in this book, that somewhere there is a vital connection between the two, and that God speaks constantly of spiritual things with physical images, and there are enough love songs involving the heart and the eyes to know that this has become common parlance with the human race. When God says, therefore, that the eyes of men are full of adulteries, it is a way of saying that is more than metaphorical, that man's imagination and mind are filled with thoughts of impurity and above all of wandering from God. For physical adultery is always the symbol of spiritual adultery, and a score of times God likens himself to the outraged husband, and he likens mankind to the adulterous wife.

Thus, idolatry is spoken of as the seducer, and any departure for any god other than the one true God is spoken of in terms of going a whoring after strange gods. The same thought has been expressed in one of the verses of a great hymn in which we sing, Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Now, God has made a way whereby we can keep our spiritual eyes upon him and not fall into the ambushes of sin that are in the world round about us. It is that we should keep our eyes upon him as he is revealed in His Word. When we know the Word of God, then we can keep from sin, but if we will not look to the Word, we will always look at the things that charm the eyes of our imaginations.

It is interesting to note that in the history of the children of Israel, they were told three times to take certain facts and to use them as frontlets between their eyes, lest they depart from God. And as with all of the works of God, the first has to do with the shedding of the blood of the Passover and the redemption of his people by the death of the lamb and the placing of its blood upon the doorposts of their houses, so that the angel of death might pass over the children of God and strike only those who opposed the will of God. They were to remember the Passover, which is the shedding of blood.

And we realize that God always deals with his people on the basis of the sacrifice, because he is always dealing with them with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ in mind. So, at the institution of the Passover, it was written, and it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth. And a few verses farther along, the same thought was repeated, that when Israel taught the children the meaning of the blood sacrifices, they were to realize their inner meaning and were to say, therefore I sacrifice unto the Lord, and it shall be a token upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine eyes.

Later, when Moses was giving the summary of the law, the great doctrine of the unity of the Godhead was set before them again as that which could keep them from sinning. This too was to be before their eyes. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sitest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And later, in the warnings that were set before the people, they were told to remember the promises and warnings of the Lord. It was pointed out to them that if they departed from God, he would exile them to the ends of the earth, and they would go out of the land. And when they were told that, they were told that they were to take the words of the promises and the warnings and bind them as a sign upon their hands and as frontlets between their eyes. The nature of God, the nature of the atonement, and the nature of the promises in the Word, these are the three things that would have kept the ancient people in the place of blessing, for they would have been before their eyes instead of the natural choices and desires of the eyes of the flesh.

And for us today, these are the things that we are to have in front of our eyes that we may be kept from sin. The nature of God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, absolutely one, absolutely a unity, coming to die for us in the atonement of Calvary and pledging himself to us in all the glorious promises of the Word. These are the truths that will occupy the eyes of faith, lest they swing back to the natural objects of the eyes of the spirit, which are described in God's warnings and which are summarized in our text. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Because the eyes of men were opened by Satan to the knowledge of good and evil, and because their eyes thenceforth loved to feast upon the things of the world, man was in his fallen condition, and because he has refused to turn his gaze upon the word of promise and power, he remains in that terrible state described in our text.

What is this fear of God which is not before the eyes of humanity? The first time the phrase is ever found in the Bible, it is on the lips of Abraham, who is trying to expiate his sin in departing from the Holy Land and attempting to shield himself by having Sarah lie. He says that the reason was because he thought that the fear of God was not in the place of Abimelech. But if we read all of the passages in the Bible where the fear of the Lord is mentioned, we come to some definite conclusions about it. It has nothing to do with fright, this fear, but it is a reverential awe, a trust and a confidence in the goodness and the wisdom of God.

The only fright that is involved is the fear of committing sin, not because of any fright of the loving Father, but because we have such great love for him that we do not want to displease him. In the books of the law, the fear of God is mentioned dozens of times. Take all of the verses on the subject, and here is what you find. Joseph stated that he acted in righteousness because he feared the Lord. When assistants were chosen to help Moses in the government of the people, it was said that he was to choose men who feared the Lord, and then their qualifications are given. They were to be able men, men of truth, hating covetous.

When the Ten Commandments were given, God stated that the reason for the giving of the law was that men might fear him and thus keep from sin. It is the fear of God that keeps a man righteous, that prevents a man from cursing a deaf man or putting a stumbling block before a blind man, says the Code of Leviticus. It is the fear of God that makes a man honor the aged, that destroys oppression, that keeps a man from practicing usury, that eliminates hardness in government, that makes a man walk in the ways of God and love Him and serve Him with all of the heart and all of the soul, that makes a man turn from idolatry to serve the living and true God and to cleave to Him, that gives a man the character of speaking the truth and turning away from perjury.

When our text therefore says that what is wrong with man is that there is no fear of God before their eyes, we are forced to the conclusion that because men have turned away from God and his word, they become unrighteous. In God's definition of the term, they have in them the seeds of meanness that would allow them to curse a deaf man who is unable to hear them, or place a stone in the path of a blind man that he might trip. They dishonor the aged and oppress their fellow men whenever they have the opportunity, practicing usury and extortion. They do not walk in the ways of God, loving him and serving him, but have turned to idols, whether of images or of ideas, and they live in lies instead of in the truth.

Now, when we turn to the Psalms, we find that the fear of God set forth in a score of ways. We are to worship the Lord in fear, says the fifth Psalm. A just man honors them that fear the Lord, for the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant. Men are to fear God because he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. The goodness of the Lord is great that he has laid up for them that fear him. The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, that hope in his mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine.

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them. There is no want in them that fear him. God has a heritage for them that fear him, and his salvation is near to them. He taketh pleasure in them that fear him and fulfills their desire. He will bless them, both small and great. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Here again, I have quoted line after line from every part of the Psalms, showing the wonderful position of those that fear the Lord. Newell gives a cluster of quotations from the great commentators that deserves to be preserved here. Bengel aptly notes, the seat of reverence is in the eyes.

Gaudet says, the words before their eyes show that it belongs to man freely to evoke or suppress this inward view of God on which his moral conduct depends. Haldane comments, they have not that reverential fear of him which is the beginning of wisdom and which is connected with departing from evil. It is astonishing that men, while they acknowledge that there is a God, should act without any fear of his displeasure. They fear a worm of the dust like themselves, but disregard the Most High. And Calvin says, out of the contempt of God cometh all wickedness. Seeing that the fear of God is the fountain of wisdom, when we are once departed from it, there abideth nothing right or sincere.

If it be wanting, we are loosed unto all kinds of licentious wickedness. How then can the fear of the Lord be obtained? What will increase in our hearts this wonderful, quiet, peaceful, reverent awe that is totally without fright and that brings with it the very joy of the Lord. And once more, as in the case with so many questions, the answer comes to us from the word that it is only by the divine revelation of God in the Bible that man can have in the beginning the fear of the Lord and can see it develop in his life. God has said that he would cause men to hear his words so that they might learn to fear him.

And Joshua told the people after they had entered into the promised land that the Lord had wrought the marvels, had dried up the Jordan so that they might pass over dryshod in order that they might fear Him. Here then is the way to grow in the fear of the Lord, this joyful, frightless fear. Contemplate the works of the Lord and study His word. The entrance of His words giveth light. It is the Old Testament way of saying that our Lord Jesus said, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. And it is what the Holy Spirit wrote through Peter saying, Thou therefore as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby.

If then you are one of those who believes that God is and that he is the Lord of the creation and the sustainer and maintainer of all, and yet you find yourself indifferent to his being and cold before the knowledge of his desires on your behalf, you are as unfortunate as the man who finds symptoms within his body that shows a lack of one or another of the essential food elements. If a diagnosis revealed that you lacked vitamin B, you would run to the drugstore to get a bottle. Yet God's diagnosis reveals your indifference and hardness. The answer is the same. Will you flee to the Word today and determine that you will read with open heart and surrendered will so that He may make all things new and give you the glory of His presence?

And we pray thee, our God, that thou wilt give great restlessness to any who listen, who are not born again through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the kindest prayer that we could pray for them, that they might know no peace until they rest in Christ. But upon all thy redeemed own, may thy grace, thy mercy, and thy peace abide, and a new sense of the strengthening power of the word, and unto thee be all the glory, majesty, dominion, and power, now and until our Lord come, and forever. Amen.

Guest (Male): The world is full of distractions that can draw our attention away from our relationship with God. We must continually pursue loving Him with our whole being as our greatest joy and priority. We hope you've benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled Indifference to God. You can listen to additional Bible teaching by the late Dr. Donald Grey 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 Indifference to God, or simply request message number R3-11.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of Dr. Barnhouse's booklet entitled From Depression to Hope. So many people, even Christians, become overwhelmed by life's problems and difficulties and fall into the pit of depression. Sadly, many people never find their way out of this black hole of hopelessness and despair. In this booklet, Dr. Barnhouse confronts depression with glorious gospel truth, that Jesus has the power to lift us from the depths of despair into the assurance of his love and the confident, certain hope that awaits all who trust in him. Ask for your free copy of From Depression to Hope when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is the radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists 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 keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to support and further our work, please contact us by writing Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103, or call toll-free 1-800-488-1888. 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 Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Michael Horton, and Martin Lloyd-Jones. Thanks again for being with us.

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Announcer: On earth, it draws our souls from death to life and rescues us from needless strife. Amazing gift on earth so hard, the life imparting birth of God.