Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

The word is near thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. A close comparison of our text with the verses that have gone before will reveal that the word of faith which we preach has to do with nothing other than the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not have to go up to heaven for a Messiah. He has come already. We do not have to go down to the abyss of death for a savior. He has risen from the dead. And having ascended into heaven, he has sent down to us his Holy Spirit, who brings all of the truth of redemption to our mouths and to our hearts.

Guest (Male): Over a half a 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 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'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, "The Word We Preach." Countless lives were changed when the apostles preached the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. God has touched hearts throughout the centuries as his word has been proclaimed by brilliant orators in ornate cathedrals, the simplest of country preachers, and missionaries in far-off lands.

Has your life been transformed by hearing the word of faith? The Scripture text for today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 10 and verse 8. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, "The Word We Preach."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We ask thee that thou shalt take the words that are spoken in this hour out across the air through the broadcasting, through the reception in the individual homes, to the ears of the listeners, and then the long distance from the ear to the heart. And wilt thou use this to thine honor and thy glory? We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We're studying in the 10th chapter of Romans, and we come to the eighth verse, which reads, "But what does it say? The word is near thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is, the word of faith which we preach." The argument up to this point has set forth that grace is infinitely superior to law, for the law can make nothing perfect. But the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish full redemption for sinners brought an end to the reign of law and established righteousness, even the righteousness of God through faith for all who would believe.

Now, the quotations from the law of Moses have been set forth negatively, and Paul now quotes from the last part of the book of Deuteronomy to show that the divine word of truth is to be found even in the hearts of men. All that is set forth here could have been expressed in one sentence, but he interrupts the flow of the argument with a question, as though to bring the listener up against a hard wall of thought that he might consider the reality of the truth.

The righteousness which is of faith does not have to go up to heaven to bring Christ down to earth, for he is here. The righteousness which is of faith does not have to talk about bringing Christ up from the dead, for he is risen. Well, what then does the righteousness which is by faith say?

Guest (Male): Phillips, in his paraphrase, brings a little clarity by expressing the quotation in very modern speech. He translates it: Moses writes of righteousness by the law when he says that the man who perfectly obeys the law shall find life in it, which is theoretically right, but impossible in practice. But righteousness by faith says something like this: You need not say in your heart, "Who could go up to heaven to bring Christ down to us, or who could descend into the depths to bring him up from the dead?" For the secret is very near you, in your own heart, in your own mouth. It is the secret of faith, which is the burden of our preaching.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Now, to whom is this passage addressed? As I have gone over it again and again, I am brought to the conclusion that the apostle had different groups in mind as he was writing his epistle. He was addressing primarily the young church which had been established at Rome by the believers who had been brought into the body of Christ on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem.

These travelers had returned to their homes in Rome and had begun to break bread together, remembering the death of their Lord and Savior. And probably this had begun within a very few weeks of Pentecost. In the very opening verses of this epistle, Paul addresses his words to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints. And he soon breaks this down into component parts, saying that he is ready to preach to both Jew and Gentile.

It would seem clear that his heart and mind went out to all believers and through them to the unbelievers among whom they were living. And thus it is that he addresses his readers as though they were definitely saved and needed to be established in the faith, as we read in chapter 1 and verse 11, and a moment later as though there were unsaved among them that needed the gospel preached to them, both Israelites and Gentiles.

Now, as the epistle moves on, it is evident that this same wide audience is in mind. Like a symphony, the theme is carried on the trumpets to Israel, and then on the strings to the Gentiles, and then the full orchestra sings its comfort to believers while wooing and warning all who are yet outside. As the epistle builds up to its great crescendos in the eighth chapter, it is as though a movement of the symphony comes to an end, while another movement begins with new themes running along with the old ones.

Clearly, he has Israel in mind as he moves through the portion of the epistle that now lies in chapters 9 and 10. In chapter 11, he will open a paragraph saying flatly, "I speak to you Gentiles," chapter 11 and verse 13. And then almost at once, he'll go back to addressing the brethren in chapter 12 and verse 1. And the messages will move away from the themes of the evangelization of unbelievers to those of the life and work of the believer and his worship as he is drawn out of himself and into God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The passage that engages our present attention is one of transference. He has been speaking unmistakably on the themes of election as illustrated in God's dealings with his ancient people Israel. He is about to change his emphasis, and if we may change our figure of speech from an orchestra to a rope, the various strands lie intertwined at this point, and we see them in perspective, coming into the center of view and folding away again out of sight.

The unsaved man must be brought to realize that there are great truths that are very near to him, even in his mouth and in his heart. Let us consider these things which an unsaved man knows, truths that are to be found in the heart and in the mouth of even the savages of the forest and the intellectual skeptics in the centers of our civilization. First, in all the human race, there is a basic knowledge of the existence of God. Men know that God is.

They may speak of him as a first cause or as the Supreme Being or just as God, but they are aware of his existence. They do not know him in Christ, perhaps, and therefore they do not know him in salvation. But they know him in his eternal power and Godhead, and therefore they are without excuse. We have brought the evidence on this point in some fullness in our discussion of the first chapter of Romans.

But the Word of God goes so far as to say that the man who does not believe in God is insane. This is the true meaning of the verse in the Psalms, "The fool, the insane man, has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" When Darwin came back from his experimental cruise on the *Beagle*, he wrote that there was a tribe of aborigines on the island of Tierra del Fuego that were so low in their civilization that they were as animals without religion, without any knowledge of any God whatsoever.

Almost immediately, a missionary society was formed in London for the purpose of doing missionary work on that bleak and desolate island. Within a few years, devoted Christians went to Tierra del Fuego, lived among the people, learned their ways and their religion, and published articles on it which so interested Darwin himself that he sent financial support to the mission. Man knows that there is a God. The truth of this is near him, even in his mouth and in his heart.

Deriving from this knowledge of the existence of God, there is a universal knowledge of the sinfulness of certain sins. There is a general horror at the idea of murder, for example. The man who has killed another must take flight, even though he can never get away from himself. Housman, in his *Shropshire Lad*, has given us the lament of the man who killed his brother:

Farewell to barn and stack and tree,

Farewell to Severn shore.

Terence, look your last at me,

For I come home no more.

The sun burns on the half-moon hill,

By now the blood is dried.

And Maurice amongst the hay lies still,

And my knife is in his side.

My mother thinks us long away,

'Tis time the field were mown.

She had two sons at rising day,

Tonight she'll be alone.

And here's a bloody hand to shake,

And, oh, man, here's goodbye.

We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,

My bloody hands and I.

I wish you strength to bring you pride,

And a love to keep you clean.

And I wish you luck come Lammas tide,

At racing on the green.

Long for me the rick will wait,

And long will wait the fold.

And long will stand the empty plate,

And dinner will be cold.

Yes, from the time of Cain, this knowledge has been upon man in his mouth, in his heart. And along with man's knowledge of the wrong, the iniquitous wrong of murder, there is a similar knowledge of other sins. This sense of sin is the true underlying cause of all religion. Even paganism is shot through with this sense of sin and its consequence of the fear of death and the necessity of going out to face God.

I can remember most vividly an incident that took place on a trip that I made through the south of China. At one place, we had taken a boat in order to travel down a river that was treacherous with boiling rapids. Two or three miles before we were to plunge into the swift current, the chief boatman went to the prow of the boat taking a chicken, a knife, and a bowl. I saw him kill the chicken and catch the blood in the bowl.

The bowl was then placed beneath the prow on the little deck, and soon we moved over to the shore at a place where stairs were cut in the stones of a high cliff. And then we followed the boatman and his helpers as they climbed several hundred steps to an altar where they placed the blood sacrifice. It was only after such a preparation that they committed themselves to the swirling waters.

We, of course, were trusting in the living God who had made the waters and who controls all things. Although it was impossible for me to communicate with these men as we did not know each other's language, I was able to read written large that they had an evident sense of the supernatural, a belief in powers outside of themselves and greater than themselves, that they had great fear of death and in that which might follow death. These truths were very near to them in their mouths and in their hearts.

The apostle Paul, in the passage which we are now studying, points out that his readers had truths easily available to them. The simplicity of the gospel was also set before them, and it was this simplicity that was the heart of his preaching. What a revelation of the character of Saint Paul. He who had one of the greatest philosophical minds in all history was content to come down to the level of the simplest souls and to present to them the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, in order that they might be saved.

There was no yielding to that pride of intellect which so often accompanies intellects which are not of top quality. But there was the naturalness of the very great genius who had been effectively redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. When Christ saved Saul of Tarsus, he saved him not only from his sins of bigotry, intolerance, and murder, not only from his very great sins against God in a false theology that set himself above the divine revelation, but he saved him also from the natural faults which would have accompanied in a man of another metal such great gifts as those which were possessed by Paul the great apostle.

There are no great swelling words of vanity in his writings. There are no dialectical traps to catch the unwary and lead him from shaky premise to false conclusion. There is no dependence upon mere intellectual prowess. Paul tells the Corinthians, "My brothers, when I came to proclaim to you God's secret purpose, I did not come equipped with any brilliance of speech or intellect. You may as well know now that it was my secret determination to concentrate entirely on Jesus Christ himself and the fact of his death upon the cross."

As a matter of fact, in myself, I was feeling far from strong. I was nervous and rather shaky. What I said and preached had none of the attractiveness of the clever mind. But it was a demonstration of the power of the Spirit of God. Plainly, God's purpose was that your faith should rest not upon man's cleverness, but upon the power of God. And that is God's purpose in all of his dealings with men, with you.

He does not save men by magical deeds and strange formulas, but by the historical fact of the death and resurrection of his son. This is the word of faith which divine righteousness speaks. And Paul sets this forth further to the Corinthians, "The preaching of the cross is, I know, nonsense to those who are involved in this dying world. But to us who are being saved from that death, it is nothing less than the power of God." For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent will I reject."

For consider: what have the philosopher, the writer, and the critic of this world to show for all their wisdom? Has not God made the wisdom of this world look foolish? For it was after the world in its wisdom had failed to know God that he in his wisdom chose to save all who would believe by the simplemindedness of the gospel message. For the religionists ask for miraculous proofs, and the Greeks, the intelligentsia, for an intellectual panacea.

But all we preach is Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the religionists and sheer nonsense to the Gentiles. But for those who are called, whether Jews or Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And this is really only natural, for God's foolishness is wiser than men, and God's weakness is stronger than men. When we hear that this gospel is called the word of faith, we can see several strong lessons in the phrase.

First, the gospel which we preach is the word which is entitled to faith, and therefore we may call it the word of faith. This is the truth of God, and it is worthy of being believed. God is the only being in the universe who cannot lie. Whatever God says, therefore, demands the answer of belief. Not to believe that which is spoken by the unchanging God, who could say in his son, "I am the truth," is to put oneself in opposition to God, in opposition to truth, and therefore to place oneself as an anarchist in all lawlessness.

When this is understood, we can realize why the failure to believe God's word is set forth in the Bible as the climax of all sins and as good and sufficient cause for separating an individual from God forever, putting him alone into outer darkness. "If you believe not," said the Lord Jesus Christ, "if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins. You shall die in your sins, and whither I go, you cannot come."

And the more we examine these truths, the more we are forced to realize that it will be absolutely necessary to separate from God all who will be so debased that they show by their failure to believe that they think that God is not trustworthy. For faith belongs to the word of faith, and with all faith, we must come and yield to it. And again, we can see that the word of faith can be received only by faith, and this is why it must be called the word of faith.

God has so arranged the facts of truth that sooner or later we will be brought to the place where we must believe on the evidence of his word or turn to our own reason as final, and thus rejecting the nature and the plan of God. The word of faith cannot ultimately be received by reason. There will be some point where the word will transcend reason and demand acceptance and submission.

Our reason will have to say that God cannot be mistaken and that we must therefore commit ourselves to him and believe him because of what he is and because of who he is. He has said that the one who comes to him must believe that God is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. We do not fly in the face of reason. We do not act contrary to reason. But we recognize that faith is something that is above and beyond reason, something that is not far from pure love, pure joy, pure peace, and the other gifts that come from the heart of God himself.

And lastly, the word of faith is properly named because it is the word that begets faith, that supports faith, that nourishes faith, and that maintains faith. God tells us through James, "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth that we might be the firstfruits of his new creation." Or as it has been paraphrased, "By his own wish, he made us his own sons through the word of truth that we might be, so to speak, the first specimens of his new creation."

Now, it is the experience of multitudes of Christians that as we believe, our faith grows. This is my experience and the experience of many others I know. We believe in the Christ whom God has provided for us, and though we may believe timidly at first, we soon find that our faith is becoming stronger. We begin by knowing that we're sinners and that we need a savior and that Jesus Christ is that savior.

We come to the place where we think of him in a personal relationship, and we speak of him as my savior. Then, as time goes on, we grow from strength to strength, and we begin to know Christ in the fullness of his being. He becomes Lord, and his presence begins to transform the whole nature of life and living. That faith begins to live for Christ in such a way that it's possible to say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me."

And then our faith turns to love, and we begin to think of him in terms of the one who has satisfied our every longing. We love him because he first loved us. And then that love begins to radiate throughout our life until we're transformed by it and we can say, "God is love." The man whose life is lived in love does in fact live in God, and God does in fact live in him.

And how has all of this come about? It is little faith in Christ that has fed on itself and grown to feed more and more on Christ until it becomes greater faith. Then, as our faith in Christ has grown, it has encompassed more and more of all that he is for us and all that he has for us. And we go on to discover, and we're going to continue to discover, that all this is an upward spiral that will keep circling larger and higher, growing on and on into eternity forever. And this is the word which we preach.

And our God and Father, we pray thee to bless in a wonderful way the truth as it goes to men, that today there may be those who realize that the word of faith is worthy of their faith, and that the word of faith must be accepted by faith which is above and beyond reason, and that this word of faith begets and multiplies and sustains our faith as we grow in thee. Take the glory to thyself through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guest (Male): The mission of the Church of God is to preach the word of faith throughout the world and proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled, "The Word We Preach."

To listen to more Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, you can tune in anytime, anywhere around the globe via the internet by visiting us 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 Word We Preach," or simply request message number R10-6.

We would also like to make available to you our free booklet entitled *Death is Swallowed Up in Victory*. In this four-chapter booklet, Dr. Barnhouse answers such questions as: what happens the moment you die? Where are the dead right now? Is there such a thing as soul sleep? These and many other questions on the subject of death are treated with profound biblical insight. Are you grieving the loss of a loved one or struggling with the issue of death? Ask for your free copy of *Death is Swallowed Up in Victory* 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.

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