Verse by Verse Bible Study with Dr. Wayne Barber · The John Ankerberg Show

Nauseating Fence Straddlers | Session 3 Part 2

March 18, 2026·22 min·1 clip

Dr. Wayne Barber warns that playing games with God leads to eternal separation when Christ returns as judge.

1. Verse by Verse Bible Study with the late Dr. Wayne Barber continues from the previous session, picking up at Revelation 3:20 — 'behold, I stand at the door and knock.' 2. Dr. Wayne Barber is the teacher; John Akerberg is the host; this appears to be an archival recording, with the episode referencing a 1991 faith promise missions emphasis. 3. The central question of the episode is: what does it mean to 'hear' the voice of Christ knocking, and what gives a fence-straddling churchgoer the ability to open the door? 4. Barber opens by pressing the urgency of the situation: the 'day of grace' will end when Christ returns, but at that point he returns as judge, not savior — and rejecting the offer now has eternal consequences. 5. He structures the debate around the word 'anyone' in Revelation 3:20, noting it has been the flashpoint for the Calvinist-Arminian divide: Calvinists argue Jesus misspoke and means only the elect, while Armenians stress that any individual person can and must open the door. 6. Barber humorously characterizes the two positions as flowers: the Calvinist TULIP (total depravity, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of saints) versus the Armenian daisy ('he loves me, he loves me not'). 7. His resolution is that the text holds both positions in tension: 'anyone' implies universal scope, but 'hears my voice' implies that the capacity to open the door comes from within the hearing itself — citing Romans 10:17, 'faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of God.' 8. Barber shares a brief personal testimony: he was 'a fence straddler and a minister' for years until the morning he got on his knees and heard God speak personally to him — not as 'God's love of the world' but 'God's love of Wayne.' 9. He distinguishes the fence straddler from a believer who struggles with sin: the fence straddler is someone who has 'no absolute intention of ever letting Jesus do anything in his life' — self-sufficient, coming to church to manage conscience, not to surrender. 10. Barber introduces the Mephibosheth narrative from 1 Samuel as an illustration of covenant-based acceptance: David, pictured as God the Father, seeks out Jonathan's crippled son to show him covenant kindness. 11. He describes Mephibosheth growing up in Lodebar, bitter toward David, blaming him for his displacement — a picture of people who have grown up blaming God for their circumstances without knowing what Christ has done for them. 12. The climactic scene has Mephibosheth seated at David's table like a son, the tablecloth covering his crippled legs — a picture of standing before God covered not in one's own merit but in covenant. 13. A servant whispers to Mephibosheth that he doesn't deserve to be there; Mephibosheth internally agrees — but then David deliberately extends his right hand for the biscuits, his sleeve falls back, and the covenant scar from his blood-bond with Jonathan is visible. 14. Barber interprets the scar as the moment Mephibosheth understands: he is at the table not because of his own worth but because of a covenant made with his father's blood — paralleling Christ's death as the basis of access. 15. He notes that covenant in the Old Testament involved cutting oneself and commingling blood so that families on both sides became bound together — arguing this is why 'anyone' related to Jonathan (the Son) can enter David's (the Father's) covenant. 16. Barber closes the sermon with direct pastoral address to those he believes may be present who have been church members for years without genuine surrender, referencing a specific individual named Eddie whom he prays will hear the message. 17. He also clarifies that covenant theology that baptizes infants into family salvation has confused the physical Old Testament covenant pattern with the personal spiritual decision required in the New Testament. 18. The episode is a solo expository sermon with extended narrative illustration, personal testimony, humor, and direct pastoral address — archival audio with some repetition in the transcript indicating Barber's oral preaching style. 19. Evangelical Christians studying Revelation 3, interested in the Calvinist-Arminian debate, or seeking narrative-driven preaching with extended Old Testament typology will find this episode substantive and emotionally engaging. 20. Listeners unfamiliar with evangelical theological terminology, or seeking academic or critical-historical approaches to these texts, will find the content entirely from within a conservative evangelical framework.

As heard by us

A hard-edged call to stop wavering and open the door to Christ.

The message lands as a direct warning: stop wavering, and answer Christ's knock. Dr. Wayne Barber connects that call to missions and faith promise, then keeps pressing the same point, that church can not be treated as a comfortable middle ground.

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Why you'd press play

For a verse-by-verse Bible teaching with an urgent open-the-door message, this one goes hard.

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