No Excuse

Guest (Male): The alliance of confessing evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse.
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: So you think you're good. Well, it must not be thought that any ordinary man is just a little better than a bad man, or that a good man is a little better than the ordinary man, and that God is still better than the good man. Human righteousness is unrighteousness with God. The only goodness that he knows is that which proceeds from himself. The only righteousness which he can accept is the righteousness which he has provided in Christ. 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 No Excuse. An Olympic swimmer can easily outrace a non-athlete in a pool, but his superior swimming ability will not be enough to save him if he is dropped into the Pacific Ocean 2,000 miles away from the nearest island. Many people believe they are fit for heaven based on comparing themselves favorably against those of lesser character or achievement. And yet, God's standard of righteousness is completely different. How can anyone meet God's requirements for heaven? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter two and verses one and two. Here again is Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse with the message entitled No Excuse. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee that thou art ready to receive all who come to thee through our Savior. We praise thee that in him thou hast made it possible for thy children to come to thee with holy boldness and with a certain confidence that we will be received and welcomed to thine heart. Bless now thy word to each listening one in this hour. We ask it through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Now in our study of the epistle to the Romans, we come now to the second chapter. It's necessary at the outset to remind ourselves once again that the purpose of this great first section of the epistle is not merely to show us that all men are sinners, for that truth is taken for granted throughout. The object of these chapters is to go from the fact that all men are sinners to the terrible consequences of that fact. We must see that the inevitable result of our sinfulness is the certainty of God's judgment upon all unrighteousness. When we know that judgment and condemnation follows sin as night follows day, we shall be brought to realize that we are in tremendous need of a Savior and that we must flee to him if we are to avoid the wrath to come. The judgment of sin must be born by the sinner if it is not placed on the Savior. May the Holy Spirit arouse you from your fatal ease and drive you by means of the awakening of your conscience to the sense of your own sin so that you may come to rest in the grace that was manifested for you in the death of the Savior. In the first chapter, there was the definite statement that all men were without excuse because the truth of God had been written by him across the face of nature. Now in the opening verse of the second chapter, we find that man is without excuse because the truth of God has been written by him across the conscience of humanity. The chapter begins with the word therefore and this needs some explanation. As a rule, this word is an illative referring to something that has gone before, acting as a hinge to draw a conclusion from a preceding premise. But in this instance, the word does not point backwards to the first chapter, but rather anticipates that which follows. It might well be translated for the following reason. Thou art inexcusable, oh man, whosoever thou art that judgest. The key to the argument is the word inexcusable. The first chapter asks in effect, did you ever look upon nature? The present verse asks, have you ever criticized anyone for anything? Then you are without excuse because your criticism arises from the fact that you have a conscience which now recognizes a sin in another because it is aware of the existence of sin himself. And you have never lived up to the light of your conscience, whatever it may be. Anyone who has ever criticized anything in anybody has thereby written his own condemnation. For even the finest critic has been guilty in some degree of the thing he has judged in another. We can take the most violent contrasts as proof. The meekest old grandmother whoever spoke a sharp word against a Hitler or a Stalin has been guilty of being dictatorial and arrogant at some moment in life or of having the longing for domination. No individual has ever criticized another for lying without having sometime or another been guilty of shading the truth. The conscience that makes you unaware of imperfection in another finds written on itself the guilt of its own imperfection. The present writer stands forth to tell men of their sinfulness, not through any possession of righteousness in himself, but only through the fact that he has come to the cross to receive the righteousness of Christ imparted as a gift and imputed to his account. The only judgment or censure that is allowable in this world is that which is permitted to those who hold up the word of God in order to mirror the sin of mankind, accepting first of all that the one who thus holds aloft the word of God has acknowledged before God his own status and has come to the cross of Jesus Christ for salvation through the grace of God. All other censure or criticism is blind and arrogant folly that will itself be brought to judgment someday. Now it's to be noted that the second chapter changes from the general plural to the specific singular. There is no longer question of they, they, they who have been abandoned by God to all of the depths of vileness. The pronoun now changes. It's the single individual. We read thou. And it's well that each individual should put himself in the seat of the accused, realizing that the revelation of the principles of judgment which are now set forth concern him and that he will be judged by God. The chapter is a very great importance to every man, for in it are set forth the principles by which all those will be judged who have not met God in Christ to have their judgment annulled through him. It makes a great difference to an accused man to know the court in which he will be judged and to be aware of the principles of judgment which will prevail in the consideration of his case. The code by which God will judge his creatures is quite different from that in which men judge each other in human courts. And it is that code, the code of judgment by which you will be judged if you are not a Christian, is now declared. The chapter which we are about to study will present to us the principles upon which men will be judged. And woe unto that man who thinks that he is going to face a God of his own stature or his own devising or a God who thinks with human fallibility. The chapter that is set before us declares man's sinfulness in such terms and the principles of God's judgment in such terms that the result is absolute condemnation without the remotest shadow of hope for any man who attempts to approach God with any brand of human righteousness. The passage can be made to apply first of all to the Greek or Latin moralists and all who follow in their steps. There were men of high ethical principles in the ancient world who sought the knowledge of good and evil and who wrote with high ethical content on the problems that faced the civilization of their day. The Platos, the Aristotles, the Ciceros, the Senecas of the ancient world and their counterparts in other civilizations are declared by God to be inexcusable before him. This is not the judgment of a man. This is the declaration of God. The passage can then be made to apply to all of the non-Christian philosophers of the past centuries. Here we find Kant, Spinoza, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Huxley and the rest judged in advance and declared to be inexcusable. The Holy Spirit in the Psalms calls attention to the vanity of man's imagination, crying, why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing? And surely the vain thing is to think that it is possible to approach God on human terms. And not only does our text apply to the leaders of human thought who have written philosophies, books on ethics or morals, or who have established what were called schools of morals in ancient times. But our text also applies the word to the common man who may not even have read a book on ethics, but who exalts himself to a place of judgment and takes it upon himself to criticize other people as individuals and to criticize their doings. For the whosoever in this passage is just as broad as the whosoever in the offer of the gospel to mankind. Whosoever will may come and you had better come for whosoever thou art that judgest, thou art inexcusable. Now there are two words for judgment in this passage, though they are both rendered by the one English word. In the Greek, there's a great difference between krino and katakrino. The one is a simple word that is often used for a judgment on the level of selection, choice or estimate. And it is translated determine in the passage where Paul describes the root of his voyage to Rome when it was determined that we should sail into Italy. The other word is much stronger and it's used in the Bible of judgment to death, condemnation by a judge and spoken by Jesus to the woman taken in adultery after her accusers had fled. Hath no man condemned thee? The text might be clearer if it were paraphrased to read, wherefore thou art inexcusable, oh man, whosoever thou art that judgest the person of another man. For in the very matter in which thou judgest the other man, thou art passing sentence of guilt against thine own self. For thou art practicing the same things even while thou art judging them. Now on what basis do men judge other men? There may be more than these, but I set down seven principal grounds that men have occupied as vantage points for criticism. And we shall see that all of them are condemned by the word of God. Men judge each other on the basis of race, civilization, wealth, education, culture, ethics, and religion. Now judgment from the point of view of religion is treated at some length beginning with the 17th verse. The other six are included in the whosoever thou art that judgest and are set forth in our text. Now let us look at the man who judges on the basis of race. Hitler built up his whole doctrine of the super race on the idea that there was one race superior to another. The idea is not new. We read in John 4:9, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. And this demonstrates that there was race feeling in the time of Christ. In the story of Joseph in Egypt, there is race animosity and not a matter of an occupation behind the line that tells us that the Egyptians held all shepherds in abomination. To open lips of clay to declare that there is some superiority attaching to the bones and meat of the body or to the nature of skin pigmentation is to speak words of clay. To all who thus speak, God says, oh man, thou art inexcusable. Oh, it is wonderful to have a fine, healthy body, but you did not beget it nor conceive it. And the difference between you and the incurable is a germ or a virus often too small for the microscope to find. And if the judgment of race be on the grounds of your ancestry, the reply of God is still the same. You are inexcusable. I do not minimize the advantage of a fine heritage. And the Bible itself sets forth the blessings that come upon the children of the godly. But the moment a man or a woman takes the snobbish attitude of criticism of another human being on the basis of superiority of bloodline, that individual confesses that he has human bloodlines. And the word of God tells us that those lines passed through Noah to Adam where the race came under the condemnation and wrath of our holy God. And that spiritually the judging individual died in Adam. Therefore, you confess yourself inexcusable. Now then let us look at the state of the individual who judges another on the basis of civilization or culture. I bracket the two together because the fields overlap. There might be lexicographers who would define civilization in mechanical terms and culture in terms of the arts and letters. Have it your own way. Among the posterity of Cain, we read in Genesis that there was Tubal Cain, the cunning artificer in brass and iron. And there was Jubal, the father of all who handled the harp and the organ. But Cain killed his brother Abel while his descendant Lamech, father of the two boys whose tastes ran to brass and music, not only murdered a man but wrote the oldest poem on record in human history to tell about it. We read in Genesis 4:23, I have slain a man who wounded me. I have killed a young man who merely hurt me. If God will avenge the death of Cain seven times, I will take care of myself 70 times seven. Now that's the oldest known literary work of the human race. In the light of our text, we can say thou art inexcusable, oh man, whosoever thou art that judgest because thou hast come from Adam even as the man you judge. You have made your civilization so that your elevators can carry men faster to the top floors of higher buildings where in air-conditioned engineering rooms your designers can make blueprints of faster airplanes which can carry bigger and better bombs to farther distances in order to be able to destroy more human beings with one explosion. And the wounds of our wars suppurate with a pus that reveals the poison in the bloodstream of the human race. Infected by sin, we breathe destruction and misery across our globe. And any man who boasts of his civilization and culture and who takes that summit of pride for his judgment seat allies himself with the forces of death and writes his own condemnation. What of the man who judges others from the point of view of education? I do not know if there has ever been a man who has thought himself more eligible for heaven because he has more knowledge than others. If so, it has been a profound incomprehension of spiritual principles and a deep ignorance of God's methods of salvation. For the difference between what we might call a moron and what we might look upon as a super intelligence is no difference at all when compared to the vast difference between the highest in the mind of man and the lowest in the mind of God. If I dare to use a phrase such as that, the lowest in the mind of God, it is because he has himself permitted the comparison by using it himself in another wording. We read in the first epistle to the Corinthians, hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the thing preached to save them that believe. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And lastly, for this chapter, we consider those who rendered judgments on the basis of supposed superior ethics. The Bible teaches us that God hates any human pride of race, civilization, culture or education. But it teaches that his utmost in hatred is reserved for any glorification of human ethics or human religion. The religious phase of the question will be treated in a later study. But let us consider now the reality that is hidden in any pride of human ethical attainment. So you think you're good. Well, for any man to form a judgment of another man on the actions of another man, on the basis of a supposed difference in character attainments between the two is to deny the whole of the divine revelation with reference to the nature of sin and the need for redemption. If we read the whole of the Bible for background for the judgment, it is inescapable that the greatest insult a human being can offer God Almighty is to present any ethical attainment as a basis for salvation. We will find again and again in this epistle to the Romans that the basis for salvation is a justification by faith apart from any works done by man and apart from any character development that rises out of the fallen adamic nature of man. For constantly the word of God affirms that human righteousness and divine righteousness are unalterably opposed. That they are of a different kind, a different species, a different genus. Between the righteousness of man and the righteousness of God, there is a great gulf fixed. And that gulf has been bridged only by the Savior. The man who sits in judgment upon someone else whom he considers in an ethical scale below him is as foolish as a man who might have reached the top of Mount Everest, but who would laugh at a man who had merely climbed the hill back of the house in a competition to get to the moon. In more than one sense, a man who has reached the top of Everest is no closer to the moon than the man on the lowly hilltop. Indeed, the man on the hill might be nearer the field where a rocket might conceivably take off for the moon. He might well outdistance the climber of the great mountains of Asia, for he would have no pride that would tie him to his lowly summit. While the mountaineer who had scaled the loftiest height might hold to it through some exaggerated idea of his attainment. This is the meaning of the parable of Christ in which he pointed out that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. There seems to be some evidence that the needle's eye was a small postern gate through which travelers entered the city after the main gate was closed. A camel could be dragged through on his knees, but it was a real task. And the writer, of course, would have to walk through on the level of the swine herd. So heaven's gate is a lowly place. And he who would enter therein must get down from his high pride and come through the straight and narrow gate of the cross of Christ. The man who looks askance at any fellow creature because he thinks he has reached a higher level has misjudged the whole nature of the problem. He is inexcusable because he looks around him and judges what he thinks are lower members of the human race instead of taking the vantage point of the divine revelation where man can be seen as God sees him. A few years ago, I went into a room on the 30th floor of the building across the street from our church in Philadelphia, accompanied by my younger son who was then about seven. He remarked on the automobiles down in the street that looked like toys. I asked him if he could tell the difference between a man who was 6 ft tall and a man who was 5 ft tall. He admitted at once that he could not do it. So a few moments later when we were on the sidewalk, I asked him again, now can you tell the difference between a man 6 ft tall and 5 ft tall? And of course, he could tell the difference between the tall man and the short man. Anyone with an eye could distinguish the difference. So it is with human judgment. We can tell because we're down here in the midst of it, we can tell the variations in wealth, in culture, in civilization, in education, in character and in many other variables that man has devised. But from the point of view of God, all men are on the same level. And he refuses absolutely to accept their petty distinctions. Furthermore, he declares that the man who clings to these judgments is inexcusable. For in making the judgment, he exposes himself to the human comparison and he is seen as wanting by the divine standards. Today, wherever you are, ask God to forgive you for being a member of the human race. A child of Adam and ask him to receive you by virtue of the death of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. For when the father looks at you through the Savior, then your conscience may be at rest forevermore. And our God and father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit shall take this message to each heart. If there are those who are not born again, give them restlessness. That they may know no peace until they rest in Christ. But upon all thy children, may thy grace abide and to thee be the praise in his name. Amen.
Guest (Male): No one can reach heaven by elevating himself above others and looking down on them. We must humble ourselves before the holiness of God and kneel in faith at the foot of the cross. We hope you've benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled No Excuse. 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 No Excuse or simply request message number R2-1. 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 coworkers 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 reform 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.