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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature Donald Gray Barnhouse. After high school, Barnhouse enrolled in Biola Bible Institute of Los Angeles. He studied doctrine with Reuben Archer Torrey, and he did personal work with Thomas Corwin Horton. Torrey took a personal interest in Barnhouse, allowing him to borrow his personal study notes and copy whatever he wanted. Barnhouse was a pioneer in preaching over the radio. His program was known as the Bible Study Hour. Today's message is taken from Luke chapter one, beginning with a reading from verse 39.
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And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She spake out with a loud voice and said, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? First of all, it says, blessed art thou among women. It doesn't say, blessed art thou above women among women. There are two other women in the Bible of whom the same thing was said back in the Old Testament when a woman took a nail and drove it through the head of a man. Why, they sang a great song when this woman had delivered Israel. And they said, blessed art thou among women, exactly the same phrase. Now Elizabeth goes on. For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed. For there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. Now, you understand the psychology of Mary here. She had seen the angel, and the angel had told her she would conceive, and she did. And she knew now that there was a baby within her body. And naturally, because she was not married, she knew that she would be accused of being a harlot and they might stone her. And so what she did the most natural thing in the world, one of the proofs that the Bible is true. She immediately wanted to talk to another woman. And Elizabeth was her cousin. And when she knew that Elizabeth was well advanced in her pregnancy, Mary started off the hill to tell her. And I'm quite sure she rehearsed it on the way. Now, an angel came to me. An angel talked to me, an angel said. And all of a sudden, in her heart, she must have thought, will she believe me? Because this was quite a story that this girl was bringing. Will she Believe me. And when she arrived suddenly, the Holy Spirit spoke to her older cousin. And Mary knew that the God who had spoken to her and given her the child had prepared the way. And so now comes forth in verse 46, the Magnificat, Mary said, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior. We believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth, that Jesus was born without a human father. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic doctrine, that Mary was born without original sin. This we repudiate. Mary was a human being, a sinner who lived and who died and whose body disintegrated and went into the grave. And who's there yet, waiting the resurrection. The idea that she was taken up into heaven and that she had no sin comes out of a failure to accept that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That there is none righteous. No, not one. And Mary's own confession here. I need a Savior. My spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me this great thing. And holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. And he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. And Mary abode with her about three months and returned to her own house. Now Elizabeth's full time came that she should be delivered. And she brought forth a son. And her neighbours and her cousin heard how the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her, and they rejoiced with her. And it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they were going to name him Zacharias, after the name of his father. And his mother answered and said, not so, but he shall be called John. And they said to her, there is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. They made signs to his father how he would have him called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote down saying, his name is John. And they marvelled all. And his Mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed. And he spake and praised God. And fear came on all that dwelt round about them. And all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, what manner of child shall this be? And the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. For he hath visited and redeemed his people and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all them that hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. And thou, child, shall be called the prophet of the highest. For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet unto the way of peace. And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert till the day of his showing unto Israel. Luke, chapter two. Usually you listen to this around Christmas time. But, you know, it's wonderful to have Christmas in June. And here it is in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled on the tax. Listen. This was the first enrollment when Quirinus was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled each to his own city. Then later on, each person had to pay a denarius, a tribute money piece about. Well, it was the equivalent of a day's wages for a laborer. Whatever your day's wages is, that's what it is. I suppose with today's wages for plumbers and electricians and carpenters and so on, it would be at least $20 equivalent a day's wages for a laborer. Now then, each went to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered, and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in that region there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch o' er their flocks by night. And the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom he is pleased. This is a Greek phrase. Nobody is absolutely sure of the meaning. It can be translated in four or five different ways. To men of good will, good will to men with men whom God is pleased. And you can discover equivalent usages of the word in secular Greek that show these various different meanings. It's a phrase that covers a whole phase that's beyond any one phrase that we have in English. To men of goodwill. Goodwill to men, to men with whom he is pleased is the way that the revisers translate it. And in the notes they say, peace, goodwill among men, and so on. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. I want you to notice they didn't go over and say, let us go and see if this thing has happened. Here's the true meaning of faith. They weren't saying, we won't believe till we see. They said, let's go and see what we believe. Let's go and see this thing which has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child. And all heard it, wondered at what the shepherds had told them. But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when Jesus was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. We come to the third chapter now, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate, being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, tetrarch of Etruria and of the region of Trachonitis and Lysanias, the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests. The word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. This introduction that we have here is an amazing verse from the point of view of the historian, because it's exactly as though someone had said while Eisenhower was President and leader, was governor of Pennsylvania, and Lyndon Johnson was majority leader in the Senate, and Kennedy was Senator from Massachusetts, and Warren was Governor of the Supreme Court, Chief justice of the Supreme Court. Well, if you give enough details like that, you see, if you said Joseph McCarthy being senator from Wisconsin, that would prove it happened six months ago before he died. You add one or change one, and pretty soon you have a pattern that pinpoints this. So that historians can come right to this and say, we know that this happened in such a year. Exactly. And this is the way that Luke is saying, speaking, if you go to the very first verse of Luke, it says in verse three in the first paragraph. It seemed good to me also, having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order that thou mayest know the certainty of these things. And from the historian's point of view, this is another proof of the exact veracity of the word of God. The word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness, and he came into all the country about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now, this is not Christian baptism. That's why they baptized people over again in the Book of Acts when they had had nothing but this baptism. And why they insisted upon rebaptism of those who had no more than the repentance of the baptism of repentance. This was a. A new thing because there was no water baptism at all in the Old Testament. Now, John's baptism was a baptism to Jews only of repentance for the remission of sins. That is to say, their sins, of course, were already taken away by the by the grace of God through the blood sacrifice that had been provided by the high priests, by the priest killing the lamb and the altar at Jerusalem. This was the basis. But applied to them, it was the fact that they repented, which is a Greek word for about face, the same as the military command, about face. And they turned. They had been going in one direction and they went in another. And this was applied to them as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. And the crooked shall be made straight, the rough ways shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Then said John to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. And begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. For I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees. You will note that as we read this, that John the Baptist is the forerunner of Jesus Christ's second coming. Not one word that John speaks ultimately concerns Jesus first coming. Only at the very end of his ministry did he say something that's recorded in John. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. But he's talking as Moses and Elijah will talk when they come back during the great tribulation as it will be preached to the Jews at that time when they look on him whom they have pierced, and the nation shall come back to God. The axe is laid to the root of the trees. This has not happened yet. God is not destroying all things as yet. Every tree, therefore, which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. The people asked him, saying, what shall we do? Then he answered and said unto them, he that hath two coats, and let him impart to him that hath none. He that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized. Now, publicans, this means men who were Jewish tax gatherers working for the Romans, collaborationists, traitorous Jews working for the dominating occupying power. And they said, master, what shall we do? He said unto them, exact no more than that which is appointed you. Because taxes were raised in those days not by a law, but for instance, if the same system of tax raising in The United States were in the United States, as had been in the time of the Roman Empire. Somebody would go to Rome and say, well, I buy the right to raise all taxes in Pennsylvania, and we'll give you the government, hand you over a billion dollars. Then they would come down and they would sell each county, and somebody would buy Philadelphia county for so much, and then they would come down and come out to you and would take everything they could, and the government would get ultimately a billion, and the state man would get 2 billion and the local men would get 3 billion, and it would all go in the pockets. But this is the cheapest way that they had to raise their taxes in those days. They were farmed out and everybody got as much as the pressure could bear. This is the way it was done in China up to the time of the rebellion, just 25, 30 years ago. And the Lord said, exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, and saying, what shall we do? And he said unto them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely. This is because soldiers received only their salt money. Be content with your salt money, your wages. The word salt money in Latin, salarium, has given us our word salary salt money. A soldier received approximately 10 cents a day. All right, he said, you went into the army, that's the amount you take. Well, the soldiers had gone into the army, they got their 10 cents a day salt money, and then they went down the road and they stole from the peasants. When the crops came in, they would take part of the wheat, and they were violent men. And he said, you're not to do this. Be content with your wages. And as the people were in expectation, that is to say, because of the fact the Romans were there and situation was hard, they were always hoping that something would come to deliver them. Just as in France, the people were in expectation. As long as Hitler was there, they were waiting. When are the Allies going to land? When will D day come? We're hoping. And all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, the Messiah or not. John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water. I identify you with water. But one mightier than I cometh the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall identify you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor. Now this is a word of what Jesus is going to do in the Second Coming, whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor. This was before McCormick harvesters were able to take wheat and cut it down and winnow it and put the grain in one and the chaff in another and straw in the other. Because in those days, people went out with a little sickle and got an armful of wheat and tied it up in a sheaf and finally brought it into a hard floor. And they had animals step on it. And the ox treaded out the corn. And little by little the wheats came there. And they took the straw away. Then they had to go in. I've seen this in Asia Minor, in the heart of Turkey, Done today as it was done 2,000 years ago. They went in with a sort of shovel and they threw the wheat up in the air. And they had to have it when the wind was just right. Because if they threw it and the wind was too strong, it would carry the wheat away with the chaff. If they did it, when the wind was not strong enough, the wheat and the chaff fell back again in the same pile. So they had to wait until the wind was just right. Then they could throw it up in the air and the wind would drive the chaff away and the wheat would fall down clean together in one place. Now, says God, when Jesus comes, he doesn't have to wait for this wind and that wind. He can blow whatever he wishes. His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his threshing floor. He will take all chaff away and leave only the wheat. He will gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. And many other things. In his exhortation, John preached to the people. But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by John for Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison. Now, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily shape like a dove upon him. And a voice came from heaven which said, thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. And Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, as was supposed, that is to say, he lived in the home. He called Joseph father. That Joseph was not his father, we know from other passages, and also from Jesus lips himself. When he was 12 years old, he went into the temple, as we saw last week, And Mary came and said, you, Father, and I have been worried about you, your father. Because that was what he had come to call Joseph. Your father and I are worried about you. And he looked her straight in the eye and said, wist ye not that I must be about my father's business. Don't you remember, Mother, that he's not my father. Don't you remember? She should have. But little by little, as 30 years had gone by, as 12 years had gone by, then she'd forgotten. Now this. I'm not going to read all of the details of this genealogy. Suffice it to say that this is the genealogy of Mary and that Matthew is the genealogy of Joseph. They're the genealogy of both. And if someone says, why should there be two genealogies? Because if you begin in Matthew, Abraham begat Isaac, Jacob and so on down through David, then in Matthew, David through Bathsheba begat Solomon. While here we see son of Nathan in verse 31, which was the son, Matthatha was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David. So here we have in Luke the line from David through Nathan, while in Matthew we have the line of David through Solomon. Now, the reason for this is because Solomon was a younger brother and Nathan was the older brother, just exactly as the Duke of Windsor has an older prior line to Queen Elizabeth. Now, you can imagine the Duke of Windsor doesn't happen to have any children. But suppose he had a son. Even though in his abdication he renounced for all of his possible progeny, if an accident should take the Queen rather and Prince Philip and their little children and so on, there might be a movement in England. Well, after all, here's the legal line. The royal line is in the younger son, but the legal line was there. Now, the legal line came down through Mary and the royal line came down through Solomon. But if we go back to the Book of Matthew, we discover there was a curse on Solomon's line. Jeconias was there. And God said, write this man childless, no man of Solomon's line, Jeconiah's line, shall ever sit upon the throne. And he was the one who begat Joseph. Now here Joseph was of Heli, the son in law. He came from the other line. And when these two lines brought forth Joseph and Mary, Jesus was born of Mary. And then after the marriage, Joseph. After the birth, Joseph married Mary and the title passed to his adopted son. Therefore, nobody can ever be the Messiah other than Jesus. And so this line goes on back through David and back through Abraham. And in Matthew it says, jesus the son of David, the son of Abraham for a Jew. That was enough. If you could prove that somebody was the son of Abraham and David, nothing else was wanted. But Luke is writing to the Greeks and he comes back the son of Abraham. And the Greeks would have said, well, who was his father? So he goes on back through Tara and Nachor and on back to Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God. This ends the reading of the chapter. And may God bless to us this reading from His Word.
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You've been listening to Donald Gray, Barnhouse. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.