Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The alliance of confessing evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: You know the editor of a weekly newspaper in Texas made national headlines during the Great Depression by writing in his paper that when the depression started, he began to go into church every Sunday. He then added that as the depression had continued, he'd begun to go to church on Sunday night. And then he said if conditions did not get better, he was going to start going to prayer meeting. It was a whimsical note, but it carried with it a truth that is related to our text. Some who despise riches are forced to turn their attention to heavenly things when the earthly riches disappear.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Gray 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 Misers of Wrath. Ebenezer Scrooge was a cold-hearted penny-pincher who realized in the nick of time that his miserly ways were leading to emptiness and destruction.

The Bible describes unbelievers as misers who were treasuring up wrath to be unleashed upon them in the day of judgment. Scrooge heeded the warnings and became a new person. Are you still treasuring up wrath for yourself or have you let go of these miserly ways and found new life in Christ? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter two and verses four and five. Here again is Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse with the message Misers of Wrath.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee for thy faithfulness to us and that we can come boldly through the advocate Christ Jesus whom thou hast given to us and know that thou wilt receive us because thou art love. Wilt thou 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. We are studying together at the beginning of the second chapter of Romans. We saw that we are to appear before the judgment bar of God.

Christians have been judged through Christ and Christ has taken our judgment for us. But the rest of mankind is to be brought before the judgment bar of God. All those who have not put their trust in the Savior must meet the Lord as their judge. And in the second of Romans, the principles of that judgment are set forth. Let no man be deceived and let no man say he has not been warned. The rules of your judgment are established and the one way of escape has been provided. It is Christ and to settle out of court through Christ or it is certain judgment.

Now we have seen that the judgment shall be according to truth. We now turn to the fourth and fifth verses of chapter two and note that the careless souls who trample underfoot the blood of the Son of God are doing so in spite of his marvelous goodness. They are at peace, a fool's counterfeit peace only because they have not fully realized that the flood of God's wrath is slowly filling up behind the dam of his patience and that the full fury of the gathering storm of judgment will burst upon them when they least expect it.

The second great principle of judgment is here set forth, namely that it will be in proportion to the horde of wrath that the individual has stored up for himself. And this accumulation of wrath is all the more terrible when it is realized that the unbeliever has refused to lay hold upon the righteousness of God, despising all of God's goodness, but has laid hold upon the wrath, storing it up for the day of wrath. Our text reads, or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Now as we study this passage, we shall see that there is common grace for sinners coming from the love of God, that men despise the riches of grace that are showered upon them, that they are ignorant of the purpose of God's grace to them and that the state of their wicked heart leads them to the most senseless folly in that they continue to despise the grace of God, thereby hoarding up the wrath that God reserves for such sin.

And finally, that this accumulated wrath will be poured out upon them in the day when God unveils his righteous judgment. What is common grace? Let us come to the answer by pointing out that the entire human race sinned in Adam and that God does not owe any of his creatures anything. If God had taken Adam and Eve after the fall and sent them to the lake of fire immediately, he would have been just and they would have received no more than their rich desserts. Furthermore, if he had not moved toward them, but had allowed them to pillulate until their progeny infested every foot of the earth and had then brushed humanity all into eternal torment, the righteous angels of heaven would have been able to cry, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, all the earth is full of thy glory.

Now this is a very important truth. God owes absolutely nothing to man. But God has continued in spite of the fact that he owes man nothing, has continued to pour out his blessings upon man. Now we are not here concerned in this moment with the supreme manifestation of God's grace and goodness as we find it in the coming of the Lord Jesus to die in our place that we might have eternal life. That truth will begin to be manifest as we proceed further in this wonderful epistle. But at the present point in our studies, we're concerned with the manifestations of the grace of God toward unsaved men.

For example, suppose you are not a believer in the grace of God. You are not in hell, but you are on earth and you're in good health and prosperity. And that's the common grace of God. And as you listen to me speak today, you're comfortably seated in your apartment or driving along in a good automobile. That is common grace. You're not fleeing as refugees along the highways of a country desolated by war. And that's common grace. You come home from your job and your child runs to meet you in good health and spirits and that is common grace.

You go into your house and sit down to a good meal. That is common grace. On the day that you listen to these words, there are more than a billion and a half members of the human race today who will go to sleep without enough to satisfy their hungry bellies. The fact that you have enough is common grace. You certainly do not deserve it. Now this common grace of God that brings blessings to unregenerate men, which allows them to live in peace, to amass fortunes, to live in health, is the product of the goodness, the forbearance and the long-suffering of God.

Here in our text, there are mentioned a trinity of graces in the same phrase. Now our God never repeats himself for the sake of literary effect and there is therefore a lesson to be found in the use of these three words, any one of which might have been sufficient, it would seem from a merely human point of view. The goodness of God refers to his moral goodness. It is a word that's found nine times in the New Testament and never by another writer than Paul. Our English version translates the word kindness four times, gentleness once, and goodness three times.

It's a divine word and the ninth usage is the well-known verse which says of man, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Now God is also rich towards mankind in forbearance. This is a word which means toleration. In classical Greek, it's generally used of a holding back, a delaying. It is as though the Lord had lifted the thunderbolt of his wrath against man and had then cocked his own hand with his other hand, restraining himself from the judgment that is so surely merited. Let this be a word to search the hearts of preachers of human goodness.

The fact is that God merely tolerates the human race and announces the certainty of his wrath against those who will not succumb to the call of his grace in Christ Jesus. The third word is a close synonym carrying with it the idea of slowness in avenging wrongs. It completes the trinity of grace, the goodness, the forbearance, and the long-suffering of God. Now there is also the revelation that these graces do not come in a parsimonious dribble, but that they are poured out in abundance. God himself qualifies the flow of his grace as riches. The arraignment is put in the form of a question.

The prosecutor puts the conviction in a question, but the nature of the matter is such that an affirmative answer is demanded by the question. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering? And the answer is, of course you do. Man is by nature filled with base ingratitude toward God. And we have seen in the first chapter of Romans that failure to recognize the goodness of God, failure to be thankful was a contributing factor in man's departure from God and in his consequent degradation. What is it to despise the riches of God's grace? The English word despise is close kin to spy, a spy.

And its literal meaning is to look down upon. Can it be that the baleful creature has lifted himself so high in his vain imagination that he thinks he has reached a summit from which he can look down on God? Here is the true nature of the sin of man. When man rebelled and disobeyed God, it was an attempt to cast off the rule and authority of God over the human heart. Man wanted to be God himself. The entrance of sin was a cry from the heart and it was not a cry for God to move over in order to let man share the throne, but it was a cry for God to get off the throne and let man have it to himself.

And if you are going to be saved, there must be a complete reversal of position. You must get down off the throne and acknowledge that God alone is God and that you are a creature subject in everything to him. To despise the riches of God's grace is the blackest of all sins. It far outweighs the sins that are a violation of righteousness. Fallen man has a fallen nature. That is why the Lord seemed to overlook the outbreaks of the flesh, knowing man's frame and remembering that man is but dust. You who boast perhaps that you are not guilty of the great fleshly sins, you should realize that the despising of God's goodness is a sin that far transcends any act that might be a called a crime under human law.

Why is God so good towards the lost? Why doesn't he send all to hell tonight? He declares that the purpose of the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering is to lead man to repentance. And he further declares that man does not know the object of God's goodness. And is this not a further picture of the state of man by nature? Can it not be seen that the dark ignorance of unbelief has brought a further fruit of ignorance of the grace of God? You are in good health. Why does God permit it? The answer is that he wants you to turn to him and acknowledge his goodness and accept the riches that he has for you.

You have other blessings that come from the common grace of God. The purpose of such riches is to cause you to turn about face and come to him for further blessing. Oh how this nation has been blessed and we despise the blessings as a nation, taking them all as something that belongs to us instead of realizing that we would be as the nations that are overrun by war if it were not for the restraining grace of God. A few years ago, I had occasion to cross this continent by car with my family. My children were largely educated in Europe up to that time.

And one of the diversions which I invented in order to beguile the tedium of the road was to offer a prize to the child who could see the most things in our American life that did not exist in Europe. It was interesting to see our country through the eyes of my children. The list soon grew long and the list went on and on as the children would say, oh there's something we never saw in Europe. We do not realize here that we as a nation have the riches of God's goodness forbearance and long-suffering and yet we give but a tip to the needs of the world.

Such a nation is despising riches and is treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Now our text in Romans two says that all of this manifold riches of grace is for the purpose of leading us to repentance. Has it been so with you personally? Because of your blessings, have you bowed before God? You know the editor of a weekly newspaper in Texas made national headlines during the Great Depression by writing in his paper that when the depression started, he began to go into church every Sunday. He then added that as the depression had continued, he'd begun to go to church on Sunday night.

And then he said if conditions did not get better, he was going to start going to prayer meeting. It was a whimsical note, but it carried with it a truth that is related to our text. Some who despise riches are forced to turn their attention to heavenly things when the earthly riches disappear. But there are the hard-hearted and the impenitent who will not turn for good, nor will they turn for evil. For them, the wrath of God is being stored up and accumulated against the day of the pouring out of that wrath. Why will you not repent?

God's purpose in the riches of his goodness is to bring you to himself. What is repentance? Now you must erase from your mind the false definition that has grown up on the fringes of Christianity that looks upon repentance as being a sort of self-chastisement for sin. To go to the mourner's bench and weep and wail is not of necessity a sign of repentance. There can be a true repentance that is dry-eyed. The original word metanoia in the Greek indicates a change of mind. It's a soldier's command about face. In a Sunday school class, a little boy said that repentance was being sorry for your sins.

A little girl added it was being sorry enough to quit. But I believe that there's much more than any human sorrow for sin and the true idea of repentance. Let me return to the military figure of about face. A group of men are facing south. The officer gives the command. There is an immediate pivoting. The group comes to its new position facing north. Now you today are facing yourself and your hope and your confidence lie in your character. Your face is turned towards yourself. You look upon what you have done, upon your good works. Behind you is the Lord Jesus Christ, despised and rejected by you.

If you hear God's command, repent. If you are drawn by the sweet wooing of the riches of his grace, there will be an about face that will change the direction of your walk forever. Now you will know values in their true light. You shall put all of your hope and confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ and in him alone. On the other hand, you will see yourself despised and rejected by yourself. Now if it's also simple to be saved, why are men such fools as to remain lost with their faces turned toward hell? And the answer is here in our text.

It is because of the hardness and impenitence of the human heart. The Greek word for hardness is sclerosis and the doctors have adopted the word for the disease of the hardening of the arteries. That's why they speak of arteriosclerosis. You should realize that the hardening of the arteries may take you to an early grave, but the hardening of the heart spiritually will take you to the ultimate lake of fire. The other word which our Bible translates by impenitent comes from an original Greek word which suggests that the being admits no change of mind. What a picture of the human heart.

We shall see it more and more as we advance through this chapter and the opening part of the next. It is a development of Jeremiah's great text in Jeremiah 17:9 which in the Hebrew reads, the heart is deceitful above all things and incurably sick. Who can know it? Or come to the realization today that God's verdict is true and that your heart is indeed deceitful. Do not believe it's specious reasonings. The goodness of God does surround you. He does call you to repentance. Do not cling to your folly, but turn to the cross of the Savior.

For if you do not come, the conclusion is now expressed with great simplicity. You become a hoarder of wrath against the day of God's wrath. The figure of speech is most striking. The picture is that of a miser who saves odds and ends of wrath and who tucks all his collection away, unwilling to comprehend that he is like a man who is collecting the eggs of serpents, bringing them into a warm room where they will someday hatch at the same moment. Oh you misers of wrath, abandon your folly. Why do you insist on treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath?

Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, saith the Lord. For why will ye die? Misers of wrath, you are taking the germs of death into your own throat. Turn ye, for why will ye die? You are cutting down the tree that has sheltered you and it must fall upon you. Turn ye, for why will you die? You are weaving the rope that must hang you. Turn ye, for why will you die? You are lighting the fire of your own doom. Turn ye, for why will ye die? You are sharpening the sword that must pierce you.

Turn ye, for why will you die? You are forging the chains that must rightfully bind you. Turn ye, for why will ye die? You are digging beneath the foundations of your house and the edifice must crash upon you. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, saith the Lord. For why will ye die? For the text now ends with the statement of the hopelessness of your position. If you continue to reject the grace that is in Christ Jesus, drop by drop by drop, you have stored up wrath against the day of wrath. Every time you have rejected mercy, you have added to the divine wrath.

Every doctor knows that there are some medicines that will cure some people and will kill others. For example, the sulfa drugs will work wonders with certain types of pneumonia. Yet there are human bodies that are allergic to these drugs which enter the bloodstream and destroy one type of the white blood cells and bring the patient to death. The thing that should be curing an infection is actually destroying a defender against infection. So it is with the riches of the grace of God. The Lord pours his mercy upon you. If you will receive it, your sins are removed and life eternal is given to you by the abundance of his loving kindness.

But if you reject these riches of grace, they become the wrath that will destroy you. Every supply of goodness that is given to you by God and which is rejected by you becomes a supply of wrath which you must harvest in the evil day. The assets of the grace of God become liabilities of the wrath of God. And finally, our text gives us a synonym for the day of wrath that forever removes any thought of escape for the one who has rejected mercy. We read that the day of wrath is none other than the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Oh how many people there are who are deceived by the hope that somehow they shall get by with God. It will not do you any good to cross your fingers and say that you hope, you hope, you hope you'll be in heaven. There is no chance involved in the matter. You are saved or you are lost. You have fled to the cross of Calvary where the judgment of God struck down your substitute or you stand unforgiven, about to receive the blow that must fall from the righteous judgment of God. Be not prisoners of false hope.

Hear the word of the Lord. Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee. There it is, double or nothing. If you abandon your false hope and flee to the Savior, he will pour out double blessing upon you. If you refuse, you will have nothing of mercy and double of wrath. You cannot win unless you play by his rules. If you're stubborn and refuse his way, you will come to a judgment that is according to truth and that is based on the wrath which you have misered up, stored up against the day of wrath.

Come while it is yet today. And our God, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit may take this message to each heart, give restlessness to those who are not believers and upon all thine own give them a love and gratitude to thee for thy love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Guest (Male): Are you a spiritual miser clinging to your sin and self-righteousness and storing up wrath for yourself? Let go and discover how rich you can truly become through Jesus Christ. We hope you've benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled Misers of Wrath. You can listen to additional Bible teaching by the late Dr. Donald Gray 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 Misers of Wrath or simply request message number R2-3.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of Dr. Barnhouse's booklet entitled Overcoming Fear in Witnessing. Are you intimidated about sharing your faith? Does fear hold you back from telling your family, friends, and co-workers about Christ? This free booklet will help you boldly and confidently proclaim the good news. Dr. Barnhouse explains how the Lord can help you overcome the barriers to effective witnessing so you can share the gospel clearly in love and without fear. If you want to be a bold, confident witness for Christ, ask for your free copy of Overcoming Fear in Witnessing when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the alliance of confessing evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The alliance of confessing evangelicals 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 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 us 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. Call toll-free 1-800-488-1888 or visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure and ask for 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 Gray Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Michael Horton, and Martin Lloyd-Jones. Again our phone number 1-800-488-1888. Then join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.