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: Now you too can travel with your gifts and your prayers, and can win a part of that for which Christ died, so that you can lay it before his feet as a part of your own heart. Oh, we must never forget that the Lord Jesus Christ, in the last days that he was here on earth, committed to us the task of evangelizing the world.

He told us to go. Have we gone? He told us to give. Have we given? He told us to pray. Have we prayed? May God give to each one of us today a new responsibility of the fact that each of us is a missionary. First of all, a missionary in the circle where we live.

We're a missionary to exalt Christ in school, in office, in store, in shop, in factory, in hospital, in laboratory, in apartment house, in supermarket, wherever we live, wherever we work, wherever we go. Men must see Jesus Christ in us. And if we're not doing this, we are not fulfilling the purpose for which God has left us here.

We're not left here in order to get ready for heaven. We're left here in order to be witnesses for Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, give us a heart for the lost.

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 "Missionary with a Vision." Throughout church history, countless missionaries and mission organizations have been driven by the Lord's words, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you."

The Apostle Paul was driven by his vision to fulfill this great commission by preaching the gospel where Christ was not known. Do you share his vision to spread the gospel to those who do not know Jesus Christ? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 15, and verses 19 and 20. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "Missionary with a Vision."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to you our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank you for your faithfulness and that you commit to us this great message of reconciliation. You came in Christ and made it possible for us to have life and peace through him. Everything that we need for salvation and life, we find in Christ.

And everything that you need in order to accept us, you find in Christ. So our needs and your needs are found in Christ. And this makes it possible for us to have the confidence of full assurance in him. Bless the word to each listening heart in this hour. we ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text today is in Romans 15, verses 19 and 20. "So that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man's foundation." Paul was the first pioneer missionary. He embodied full obedience to the missionary command of Christ.

A close study of the records of the gospel shows that Christ, after he arose from the dead, told his disciples on four different occasions that they were to proclaim the truth of the gospel to every member of the human race throughout all time. The first occasion was in Jerusalem on the evening of the day of the resurrection.

The disciples to whom he had revealed himself in Emmaus quickly returned to Jerusalem and while they were with the 11 and a group of other believers, Jesus himself stood among them. And then he said to them, "These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled."

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."

The second command to proclaim the gospel was made to the 11 alone. As they sat at the table, he said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation." This is in Mark 16, as the first instance was in Luke 24. Now, the third giving of the Great Commission was in Galilee where the disciples had gone to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them as we read in Matthew 28.

And there Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, identifying them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always to the close of the age."

Now the fourth and last giving of the Great Commission occurred just before he ascended into heaven. This is recorded in the first chapter of the Acts. The disciples asked him about the time of the coming of his kingdom. He answered, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."

Now when we study these four passages in detail, we're impressed by the care with which each is distinguished from the others. In each paragraph, there is some detail which sets it off from the others. The first was in Jerusalem, addressed to the disciples and a group of other followers who were not of the 11. The second was said to the 11 alone as they sat at table.

The third was spoken in the north on a mountain in Galilee, and the fourth on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem. One feature they have in common, the Lord was interested in impressing upon all his hearers that one who believes in him must tell all men about him. How is it possible for one who has been transformed by the Redeemer coming into his heart not to tell all men what has taken place?

How can any believer be so callous, knowing that his own sins have been forgiven, to see others in dire need and not tell them of the Savior? Can any human being see people trapped in a burning house and not call out for help and seek to release them? Can anyone see a man drowning and not go to the rescue with all his strength? Some have even lost their lives by going beyond their strength to deliver men who were in physical peril.

How shall we who have been redeemed by Christ withhold the good news from those who are perishing? Oh, 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. Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace, tidings of Jesus, redemption and release.

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. Now, Paul had seen the Lord Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road. He tells the believers in Corinth, "Last of all as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

And now as he finishes his letter to the Romans, he tells them how he has obeyed this command of the Lord. It was in the very fabric of his being so that he had to say, "Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel." Discoverers and explorers have pushed on and on into the unknown because of some inner urge to set foot in a new place.

A great mountain climber, asked why he risked his life to climb Mount Everest, answered, "Because it's there." Paul had this spirit of the pioneer, but with a great difference. His urge was not merely to accomplish the difficult or to discover the unknown. He had to go on and on because there were souls in darkness who needed the light of God.

So long as there were men without Christ at the farther end of any road, Paul had to travel that road. A generation ago, a missionary leader was asked to define a call. What must one hear or experience in order to become a missionary? He answered, "A need felt, and the opportunity to meet that need constitutes a call." And Paul felt that great need and he knew that he was equipped to meet that need and therefore he knew that he was called and he pursued his task with diligence.

There's a story of an uneducated miner in Scotland who began to preach with great power among his fellow workmen. Soon his witness took him far beyond the confines of the mining towns. Someone asked him how he had received his call to preach. He replied, "Oh, I had such a burden on my soul for those who did not know the gospel. I argued with the Lord that I had no education and no gift.

But he said to me, 'Jamie, you know what the sickness is, don't you?' And I answered, 'Yes, Lord, the sickness is sin.' 'And you know what the remedy is, don't you, Jamie?' And I answered, 'Yes, Lord, the remedy is the Lord Jesus Christ.' And he said to me, 'Jamie, just take the remedy to those who are sick.' And that is my call to preach."

And this is the call of every believer to be a witness for Christ. Paul says in our text that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum, he had fully preached the gospel of Christ. Critics who have studied this narrative have claimed that it isn't true because they said there is no proof that Paul ever entered Illyricum.

Oh, why do men show such ill will toward the Word of God? Paul did not say that he entered Illyricum. That land lies on the upper Adriatic in what is called today Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Dalmatia, and Albania. But if we understand Paul's statement in exactly the way we would understand a man who might say, "I have traveled the United States from Canada to Mexico," we'd have no difficulty.

Such a statement would not mean that he had been in Mexico itself, but that he had traveled to its borders. Paul's labors took him over the Greek world from Jerusalem across Syria and Asia Minor into Macedonia and Greece and all the way to the borders of Illyricum. And now he was thinking about far-distant Spain and was writing to the Roman believers of his desire to visit them while on his way to the westernmost bounds of the Roman Empire.

When Paul states that he had fully preached the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum, this does not mean that he preached to every individual in the areas he visited. His missionary methods were quite different from those of many missionary societies in our day. Paul's method was to get in and get out. He went to a city, preached the gospel, found some converts, handed them over in spirit to the Lord, and went on to another place.

He left little organization behind him, but he trusted entirely in the direction of the Holy Spirit. How much we need to learn from him. Today there are missionaries who go out to far fields and sit for 20 or 30 years running the church which they have founded and committing nothing to the national leaders. This is one of the factors which has caused so much trouble in the emerging lands where nationalism is so strong.

I have a friend who went as a missionary journalist to a certain part of Africa. He wanted to start a magazine and put it in charge of Africans. He began his work, appointed one of his fellow workers as treasurer, handed over the funds to him and started the work going. An elder missionary practically exploded to the young journalist, "You can't do a thing like that! They're not ready!

I've been pastor of the church here for 20 years and I've not yet found a deacon whom I can trust to count the collection." The younger missionary, filled with righteous indignation, retorted, "I think you should either get another gospel or go home. Certainly the gospel you preach is not transforming lives." The older missionary was so angry that ultimately the younger man had to leave that mission station and go to another part of Africa.

But in his new place, he has raised up a band of Africans who are doing the entire work of publishing a chain of magazines in several languages. They are making all the decisions. The Africans are handling all the money and are making a wonderful success of it. Now this was Paul's method of fully preaching the gospel of Christ.

He did not leave clergy to stand over the young church with a club, but he left the converts in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Of course they would make mistakes. They would go on slowly through the early centuries, hammering out Christian doctrines in a succession of church councils, but their progress would be upward and onward and spiritual.

Corinth would have its fornicator and its quarrelsome members, but the church would deal with them and so would leave an example for all the churches to come. The example is there even if it is not always followed. The church would plunge into the darkness of the Middle Ages, but God would cause John Huss to rise as the morning star of the Reformation and would bring truth back into prominence with Martin Luther and John Calvin.

A branch of the church would create monasticism as a great testimony to the fact that they were unable to cope with the evil in the world and so would seek to escape from it. What a confession of the failure to use the great power which God has given to us. But in spite of all these downs and ups of church history, the church has come on her triumphant way and within her bounds are countless hosts of believers.

In spite of the tares which Satan has sown within the field of Christendom, God is manifest in the lives of those who live for him. Paul knew this. And so he was content to preach the gospel fully, which meant that he left behind a little body of believers who formed the nursery from which the forest would be planted. Some trees would wither and die, but the propagation would continue from his planting and that was enough.

The next point from our text is that Paul had a divinely given ambition to preach the gospel in fresh fields. The older version translates this "So have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another's foundation." The revision reads, "making it my ambition to preach the gospel." The great Jerusalem Bible of the Roman Catholic Church translates it, "making it a point of honor to limit this mission to those regions where no one called on Christ."

Now the Greek word translated strived is found only three times in the New Testament. To the Corinthians, Paul says that because death means immediate entrance into heaven for all believers, "we labor, make it our aim to please him." He tells the Thessalonians that they are to "study to be quiet, to aspire to live quietly." This word, the same word in all cases, reveals Paul's motive.

He counted it a matter of honor to preach the gospel. He knew what the Holy Spirit meant when he said, "Freely ye have received, freely give." This godly ambition to preach where he was not building on another apostle's foundation was drawing him on to the western part of the Roman Empire. In passing, we should point out that this is one more proof in the long chain of proofs that Peter was never in Rome.

For in the last chapter of the epistle, Paul sends greetings to 26 people by name, as well as to groups in the houses of several: the mother of another, the sister of another, and the brethren of another. Now, could Peter have been in Rome and Paul have neglected to send greetings to him? The fact is Peter was not in Rome then, nor was he ever in Rome.

Further, it should be noted that when Paul ultimately arrived in Rome, there's no mention of Peter coming to meet him, though other brethren came as far as the Appian Forum, 43 miles south of Rome, and the Three Taverns, 10 miles still farther south. Now return to our main theme. Paul may well have desired to come to Rome because of what Rome was.

But he never forgot for a moment that there were believers to be strengthened and lost souls to whom the witness of Christ was to be brought. I can understand this feeling. I have had occasion to go to many far places. I could not honestly say that when I first went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I was interested only in the people there. I had seen too many pictures of Corcovado and Sugarloaf not to want to stand on those peaks and look down upon the most beautiful harbor in the world.

I wanted to see the great stone Christ with arms outstretched, looking down over that wicked city. But I also wanted to meet the Brazilian believers and to greet the pastors and missionary leaders who had worked so long and faithfully there. I wanted to see the Bible House and the Evangelical Bookstore that's doing such a wonderful work of gospel distribution. And I wanted to preach to the people.

I did preach there too. I preached in the two great assemblies of the Pentecostal Church and had the joy of speaking of Christ to several thousand people. I preached in the main Presbyterian Church and had the joy of speaking to some of the leaders of the intellectual and industrial life of the nation. But whether I spoke to the leaders or to the simple souls, I was greeting those for whom Christ died.

I would never have gone halfway to the South Pole for the mere joy of sightseeing. Life is too short and the task is too great to waste time looking at the wonders either of nature or civilization. But these can be seen in passing. They can be taken in course, so long as the main object of the work is the work of Christ. These feelings I believe parallel those of Paul when he wrote to the Romans that he wanted to visit them also.

He considered it a high honor which he loved to bring the gospel to them. And as we look thus into the heart of the great Apostle, may our hearts be kindled to follow him even as he followed Jesus Christ. It is not given to each believer to travel over the world in witness. But it is possible to go far on your knees. I once met a man who spoke intimately of a certain section of China.

He mentioned specific towns and villages, spoke of certain missionaries in the various stations, and knew the names of the Chinese pastors. I asked when he had been in China, but he replied that he had never been there. But years before, his college roommate had gone out there as a missionary and they had corresponded regularly, writing each other once a month.

He spent a great deal of time in prayer for his friend. He secured good maps and marked the trips which his friend described in his letters. He dotted his map with marks identifying churches and chapels and memorized the names of believers about whom the missionary wrote. Without having set foot in China, this man had made a section of it his own parish.

He supported the work with his gifts, sent special sums for special needs, helped to educate some of the young men of the region, and daily lifted his heart to God in prayer for what had become his parish. John Wesley, with even wider vision, said that the world was his parish. Places which he never visited, he nevertheless embraced in prayer.

Now you too can travel with your gifts and your prayers and can win a part of that for which Christ died, so that you can lay it before his feet as a part of your own heart. Oh, we must never forget that the Lord Jesus Christ, in the last days that he was here on earth, committed to us the task of evangelizing the world. He told us to go. Have we gone? He told us to give. Have we given?

He told us to pray. Have we prayed? May God give to each one of us today a new responsibility of the fact that each of us is a missionary. First of all, a missionary in the circle where we live. We're a missionary to exalt Christ in school, in office, in store, in shop, in factory, in hospital, in laboratory, in apartment house, in supermarket, wherever we live, wherever we work, wherever we go.

Men must see Jesus Christ in us. And if we're not doing this, we are not fulfilling the purpose for which God has left us here. We're not left here in order to get ready for heaven. We're left here in order to be witnesses for Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, give us a heart for the lost. And we ask thee, our God, that thou shalt use to thine honor and glory the word that has been spoken today. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

Guest (Male): The Apostle Paul dedicated his life to fulfilling the Lord's command, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." May our hearts be inflamed with a similar missionary vision. An audio copy of today's message, "Missionary with a Vision," is available for you. Simply call us at 1-800-488-1888.

Request "Missionary with a Vision," or simply ask for message number R15-26. You may listen to additional messages by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. The Bible declares that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But what are the implications of the lordship of Jesus Christ for our lives today?

We would like to make available to you a free CD message called "Jesus is Lord" by the great British theologian and pastor Dr. John R. W. Stott. Dr. Stott preached this powerful message at one of our first Philadelphia conferences on reformed theology, and it's our pleasure to offer to you free of charge. Ask for your free CD copy of "Jesus is Lord" 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 reformed 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 teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. 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.

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For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling 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.

When you contact us, be sure and 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 today. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.