Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. If you hear so-called Bible teachers setting dates or teaching that the return of Christ is immediate, you may be sure that they are not speaking under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The course of history shows that many groups set dates for the return of Christ and that all were mistaken.

Most categorically then, the believer is to have nothing to do with date setting. Woe to those who prophesy falsely in His name, the Lord has said. Believe no preacher or teacher who sets dates in connection with prophecy. Follow no leader who announces dates. Heed these words of warning against the flood of false prophets. Go not after them. Wait and live in holiness for the Lord our God will come, and He shall not tarry. And we may be assured of this great fact: all of the works of God are certain.

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 will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, The Folly of Setting Dates. There have been cults, sects, religious leaders, and so-called Bible teachers who have set definite dates for the return of Jesus Christ. But these dates have come and gone to their embarrassment and shame.

If they had paid more attention to the word of God, they would have realized that Jesus himself taught that no man knows the day or the hour of his return. And yet some people today continue to fall into this error. What does the Bible have to say about the folly of setting times and dates for the Lord's return? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 13 and verse 11. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, The Folly of Setting Dates.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We admit that we are nothing in ourselves and can never bring forth anything that could satisfy thee. But thou art the God of all grace and art reconciled to us because of Jesus Christ. We thank thee that thou dost love us. The wonder of that love amazes us, and the fact of that love so satisfies us that there can never be any frustrations in life. All that happens to us has been passed through thy love, and thus we know that thou art at work in our lives, molding us for thyself. Speak to us in this hour to give us great hope in Christ that we may know thee better and love thee more. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we come to the 13th chapter of Romans and the 11th verse: knowing the time. The Bible everywhere announces the ultimate triumph of righteousness through the intervention of God in the second coming of Christ. We have seen in our previous study that neither Christ nor the New Testament writers said anything that would lead men to think that His return and the establishment of the kingdom were to be in their immediate future. We now proceed to show that our text, knowing the time, does not refer to specific dates, but only to the trends which show us how late it is on the clock of God.

The church has been plagued through the ages by those who have attempted to set dates. Let us notice then that the Bible distinctly commands believers to have nothing to do with this practice. Christ announced the restoration of the Jews and said that the entire process would take place within the span of a single generation that is yet to come. He then continued, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the son, but my Father only." A companion statement of great importance was made on the Mount of Olives by the Lord Jesus just before he ascended into heaven. The disciples asked him if the time of restoration of the Kingdom of Israel was at hand. He replied, "It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father has fixed by his own authority."

Most categorically then, the believer is to have nothing to do with date setting. If you hear so-called Bible teachers setting dates or teaching that the return of Christ is immediate, you may be sure that they are not speaking under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now, it should be noted that I am using words with technical definitions and using them in a specific fashion. Although the second coming of Christ may or may not be immediate, it is imminent. It was imminent 1,900 years ago, and it is still imminent. That is to say, no prophetic event must occur before the Lord Jesus Christ can return.

Oh, we like to think that our Lord's return is in the immediate future, but we know the Bible well enough to understand that God could postpone the return of the Lord for another thousand years if he wished. Let's not forget that if in the second half of the first century someone had told the early church that the Lord would not come back for at least 1,900 years, it would have been a very disturbing thought to some, even though it would have been the truth. They knew that the Lord's return was imminent and hoped that it would be immediate. We today, knowing the time, still understand that the Lord's return is imminent, and we selfishly hope that it will be soon, the sooner the better for us. But we do not know, nor will we pry into what is strictly forbidden. He has said, "It is not for you to know."

Now, this attitude is all the more important because of our Lord's own example. While on earth, he himself did not know the time that was set for his return. This raises the question: if Jesus Christ is God, and he is, how could it be that there were some things he did not know while on earth? We say this simply because the Bible teaches exactly that. Paul wrote to Timothy, "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh."

We state only what the Bible teaches: Christ was perfect God and perfect man. His was not a fallen humanity, but it was, nevertheless, humanity. He was born a baby and increased in wisdom and stature. That is, his human body grew and his human intelligence increased. He had no physical defect. He was the lamb without spot and blemish. Neither was there any lack intellectually. He never made a mistake. He voluntarily assumed certain limitations, but he was God perfect without error.

When people were thronging him, a woman reached out in faith to be healed. Jesus asked, "Who touched me?" So when revealing prophetic truth to his disciples, he announced that neither he nor the angels knew the date of his return. The opening sentence of the book of Revelation states that it is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him. We can conclude, therefore, that when the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven, taking his perfect humanity with him, his perfect deity revealed all truth to his perfect humanity. We are, I reaffirm, in a field of thought that is filled with mystery, but we may go as far as the Bible goes and no further.

Surely this self-confessed ignorance of the date of his return permits us no other position than one of glad acceptance of similar ignorance while we confidently wait for the fulfillment of all that he has promised. In the light of this, we ask: why have men been so prone to set dates? To me, the answer is the colossal curiosity of the natural man. He wants the proud distinction of knowing something so momentous.

If in America gossip columnists grow rich and powerful because they peek through keyholes and learn who is getting married, who is expecting, who is the center of some other impending event, we need not be astonished that a similar curiosity exists among some Christians. The course of history shows that many groups set dates for the return of Christ and that all were mistaken.

For example, consider the madness that swept over Europe during the years 998 and 999. It was the nadir of the Dark Ages, and the darkness was greatest in the churches. Superstition was at its zenith. Those who should have been the shepherds of the people were blind leaders of the blind. The first millennium of Christian history was drawing to a close. Ignorant of principles of biblical interpretation, some seized upon the prophecy of the thousand years near the end of the Bible and applied it to current history. It was the universal belief that Christ would return at midnight of the beginning of the year 1000.

It is impossible to estimate the amount of goods and property and wealth of all sorts which poured into the coffers of the church of that epoch. As December 999 drew to a close, people moved into the church buildings, some with the idea of fasting to the end. As the last week approached, there was no longer room for people to enter the supposedly sacred precincts. Some died. Their bodies were passed out of the church over the heads of the congregation, and the cadavers were allowed to lie unburied. Of what use was a funeral if the resurrection was to take place in a few days or a few hours? The last moments of the year 999 passed amidst the appalling shrieks of masses of people crying out to God for mercy. Midnight came, but no Christ. Dawn came, but no Christ.

And some argued for a later date, pointing out that the thousand years would not be finished until the end of the year 1000. So, at the end of that next year and the beginning of the year 1001, an attempt was made to rekindle the fanaticism. But the vigor had gone out of the movement, and deep cynicism took its place. The masses now plunged into debauchery, and the Dark Age grew darker.

The literature of date setting is now extensive. Let us look at one or two other abortive movements in history. One of the more flagrant was unleashed in England in 1795, six years after the French Revolution and a year after the Great Terror of Paris. This was compared with the biblical prophecies of the great tribulation. The enthronement of a nude harlot as goddess of reason on the high altar of the Church of the Madeleine in Paris was said to be the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet and mentioned by Christ himself in the 24th of Matthew. The return of Christ was determined to be within a year or two.

The predicted date passed, and a few months later the proponents of the theory said they had miscalculated, so they pushed the date down a few years. Once more they were disappointed. But again a few years later, Antichrist Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, so they revised their dates once more.

Throughout the years, people have tried to explain the book of Revelation on so-called historical principles. These exegetes take the seals, trumpets, and vials of the apocalyptic vision and draw them out over the time that has preceded them, fitting the prophecies onto the events and concluding always with events that have been almost contemporary. Then a generation would pass and new events arise that were so important that they must be fitted into the prophetic scheme, and the sad business begins all over again.

One of the saddest of these movements, saddest because the people involved were so sincere, took place in the 20s, 30s, and 40s of the 19th century. The eminent historian Dr. LeRoy Froom has given us thorough documentation of those times. It is almost incredible how the leading newspapers of Boston, New York, and other cities gave headlines and important space to the wildest and most extravagant statements of pseudo-prophets who were dignified ministers of important churches: Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Anglican.

Most prominent was one William Miller, a Baptist minister who had real talent but who fell into one great error and dragged a multitude with him. The confusion arose because Miller took a verse from the book of Numbers and put it alongside a verse in the book of Daniel. There never was any connection between these two verses, and there should never have been any attempt to join them.

In the book of Numbers, God announced through Moses and Aaron that a judgment was to come upon the nation of Israel because of their unbelief. The spies had searched out the land for 40 days, and the people of Israel accepted the verdict of the timid ten rather than the confident report of Caleb and Joshua. God announced that the people would wander 40 years in the wilderness to correspond to the 40 days in which the spies reconnoitered the land. "And your children shall wander in the wilderness 40 years," we read in Numbers 14:34, "after the number of the days in which you searched the land, even 40 days, each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities, even 40 years, and ye shall know my breach of promise."

Now, these religious leaders took that verse from Numbers and exalted it into what became known as the year-day principle. Turning to the book of Daniel, they took a verse which answered the question: "How long shall the vision be concerning the daily sacrifice?" And the answer was, as we read in Daniel 8:14, "Unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Now, these men of the 19th century seized upon the figure of 2,300 days and said, without any authority whatsoever, that it meant 2,300 years. Dating the beginning from events that took place in the time of Daniel, they concluded that the 2,300 years would end sometime in the fourth decade of the 19th century.

If these men had studied Christ's injunctions against date setting as devotedly as they sought to develop the false year-day theory, they would have realized the sinfulness of such speculation and much grief would have been avoided. The predicted date came and passed, and the Lord did not return. However, instead of admitting their error and returning to the simplicity of God's word, they rationalized their error. For on the morning after the "Great Disappointment," as Froom describes it, some of the leaders read the verse from Daniel again about the 2,300 days.

And Miller therefore rationalized: Why, the second coming of Christ did take place last night! Where we made our mistake was in thinking that he was to come from the throne of God down to earth, but in reality he has come from the throne of God and has gone inward to cleanse the sanctuary. And without any biblical basis, this entire human concept of the investigative judgment supposedly performed by Christ since that day has continued as one of the basic errors of a group of true believers whose prophetic errors are based on disobedience of God's command against date setting.

Time fails to tell of the other false doctrines that have been conceived through this same disobedience. We close the unhappy sequence by an incident from the work of Sir Flinders Petrie, knighted for his discoveries of ancient Egyptian civilization. In his autobiography, he tells of catching a date setter in one of the passageways of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. The man was stooping over a step, chipping off the stone with a hammer in an attempt to shorten the measurement of the passageway inside the pyramid. For this man held the theory that it was possible to arrive at an exact date for prophetic events by measuring what he called pyramid inches in terms of years.

Because there was a step at 1,914 of these inches from the entrance, he claimed that he had found the prophecy of World War I. Unfortunately, the inches ran into a dead-end wall a few years ago, and the theory became obsolete. Furthermore, it should be realized that these inches are not related to ordinary inches but were manufactured by the people who decided without any basis whatsoever what the inch should be.

Woe to those who prophesy falsely in His name, the Lord has said. Believe no preacher or teacher who sets dates in connection with prophecy. Follow no leader who announces dates. Heed these words of warning against the flood of false prophets who will no doubt arise to say that the 6,000 years of human history are past and that the 7,000th is about to begin. Go not after them. Wait and live in holiness for the Lord our God will come, and He shall not tarry. And we may be assured of this great fact: all of the works of God are certain.

And our God and Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit shall take these words to each heart. If any listen in this hour who have not been born again, give them great restlessness that they may know no peace until they rest in Christ. But upon all thy believing own may thy grace, thy mercy, thy peace abide and a new sense of joy in waiting patiently for the Lord Jesus, not for a date, but for him. And unto thee be the glory now and forever. Amen.

Guest (Male): No man knows the day or the hour of the second coming of Jesus Christ. We must diligently be about our father's business as we expectantly watch and pray for our Lord's return.

You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you've benefited from today's message, The Folly of Setting Dates. 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 The Folly of Setting Dates, or simply request message number R13-12.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled, The Cost of Discipleship. Although salvation is a free gift of God, it does not come cheaply. It cost Jesus his life to redeem us and will cost us something if we are serious about submitting to his lordship. This free booklet will show you that as pilgrims in this life, we must count the cost of discipleship, learn to travel light, and realize that following Jesus radically changes our relationships. Discipleship is demanding, but the Lord promises that he is always with you. Ask for your free copy of The Cost of Discipleship 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 broadcasts 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. For a full listing of stations carrying our programs, visit us online 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 can also 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, Martin 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.