God Uses Earthen Vessels — Rolfe Barnard

God Reveals Christ Through Earthen Vessels

I'm going to have a number of scriptures tonight for Bible study, but before we come to read the first scripture, which will be in the 4th chapter of 2 Corinthians, you may turn to it if you so desire, I want to express a theme I've been laboring a great deal about.

I don't get to do much of this, I'm evangelizing most of the time, and this is a time of people getting together, and it's not to be sneezed at or overlooked or looked down upon, and I relish the opportunity to face you with something tonight that is quite simple, and yet it is tremendously challenging to my own heart.

I'm going to try to give you the theme of what I want to talk about tonight, and as I give you the theme, you'll immediately have suggested to you, it'll just pop into your mind, that it opens up a whole barrel full of problems that only God can solve.

But we are thrashing about, and we are living in the dying, the last gasp, perhaps, of one era or one dispensation or one arrangement, and the what's ahead has not yet been born. But we do know that we are living in a critical hour when what used to work, don't work now.

When we've come to an impasse and we don't know exactly which way to move, so we're thrashing about. You can't move successfully if you go in against the way the Holy Spirit is moving. It just can't be done.

You can't sell vacuum cleaners unless there's a need for them, and you cannot go against whichever way the Lord is moving. But we know that we're in the gasping, the death strangle, of organized Christianders we've known.

We're not yet sure which way the Holy Spirit is leading. Now in the midst of that sort of context, here's a theme that I want every one of you, as God's people, to face with me afresh tonight. It's simple, and yet it is profound.

Here's the theme, written down. I want to face every one of you as I face myself with this simple fact. It is so simple that we've just about missed it by the challenge of it. Here's the fact. That Almighty God always has, and is today, pleased to confront eternity-bound men with his Son, in whom he has spoken his final word with the truth as it is in him, through earth and vessels.

Let me state the theme again. It's so simple, and yet it's so profound. You begin to put your think-cap on as God's people, and questions will begin to boil as they do in my mind, what about this and what about that, and so forth.

Let me state again, Almighty God is pleased, and he always has been, he's never worked any other way to confront eternity-bound men and women with his Son, in whom he has spoken his final word. We have the record of that in the book.

But he is pleased to confront men with his Son by the use of earth and vessels, by weak, sinful human beings. The profundity of that statement is this, that the only way you can hear from God is through a human vessel.

If you think about that a little bit, my soul, it is something that dare to claim to be a product of God's saving grace, and thus a part of the body that he has given the task of speaking in his name, and either taming men or saving them as they respond favorably or unfavorably to God's message that they heard through an earthen vessel.

Submission to Christ Through His Church

Now, I think that this simple theme strikes at the very heart of our predicament today. Our churches are full of people who claim to be in subjection to Jesus Christ. Here is where some of the problems start to boil.

Our churches are full of people who swear on sacred Bibles that they are loyal to Christ and they are subject to him, and they mind him, and his will is the big thing in their life and makes everything tick.

But they are not in subjection to his church, they are outlaws under themselves. Our churches can be described by that Old Testament statement, that every man did that which was right in his own sight.

We were the judges, we decided, nobody could tell us what to do, we wouldn't listen to any man! We got pious and we said, we'll just listen to the Lord. But I propose tonight to show you that there isn't any way on earth that a man can escape hell and gain heaven if he won't listen to the voice of Christ through a human vessel in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You'll either hear from God through a poor little weak vessel and be in subjection there, or you won't hear from God. You won't hear from God. We say we'll follow Christ, but we won't follow any man. But the New Testament says, Obey them that have the rule over you.

This is how Christ speaks. We cannot hear Christ if we won't hear them whom he has appointed to speak for him. The preached message is the only way, whether it be one by one on a street corner or wherever it is, the preached message, proclaimed by lips of clay, is the only way a man can hear from God.

That's right. And if we do not hear the messenger, we can't hear the message. And if you do not hear God's message through God's messenger, and bow to the message, and in order to do that you have to bow to the messenger, there's no way on earth you can hear from God.

Now, this gets a little binding as we go into it, and I'm taking it pretty slowly. Ladies and gentlemen, God is pleased to provide just one remedy for the condition of men, and that remedy is the preaching of the truth as it is in Christ.

Men are not saved by memorizing scripture. Men are not saved by believing what the Bible teaches, the devil believes every word of it. Men are saved by hearing God speak to them, not apart from the written word, but always by hearing, by hearing.

The only way a person can come savingly to Christ is to come by way of the truth that's in him. And that truth is proclaimed in the gospel, and it's still true that it pleases God by the foolishness of preaching, and by no other way.

I'm not talking about public preaching, wherever it is, one voice speaking to somebody else's ear. That's the way God gets his message into the inside of a human being. This, to me, is very solid. When the scriptures talk about, don't take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, he's not talking about cussing, he's talking about not lightly claiming to be a child of God.

Because if you are a child of God, you have been put by the Spirit into the body of Christ, and the body of Christ and Christ are one, and you can't separate them. And there is no way on earth that a person can be a member of the body of Christ apart from being under the commission as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

What a commission God's people have received from the Lord. We, if the world is not hearing the voice of Christ today, it's because people, congregations who claim to be his people, have shut the door on his commission.

We speak and through our lips of clay men hear from God, and I don't know how to go about it, that speak with the voice of Almighty God. This is God speaking through lips of clay. Now that Jesus, that is preached by the most earnest, sincere people you could possibly think of today, can be accepted because of the Jesus of so-called Christianity today, we have taken the truth about him and the truth of him and hidden it behind our backs because we're afraid it would offend people.

And we thought we'd get them to accept Jesus and then face them with the truth of him later. We had lots of zeal. But the only way on earth that a person can come savingly to Jesus Christ is to come by way of the proof of the Bible about him.

The Absolute Saviorhood and Lordship of Christ

And there are two truths, that the Jesus that we were raised on, we've been careful to whittle it down unto where men can accept him, but not accept him in the truth about him. Those two truths are simply this, the absolute Saviorhood of Jesus Christ.

Everybody believes in Christ as Savior. Nobody objects to Christ being the Savior. But the point of offense is the absoluteness of this Savior. It's him or nothing. It's all of him. And men need him to deliver them absolutely in their sinnerhood, so much sinners, that somebody else has to do the whole thing.

We won't take that truth today. We believe that he'll help us, we'll do our part, he'll do his. God knows it's been so long since in our day the absoluteness of his Saviorhood. There is none other name.

We quote that. But it's so. He must do it. He must do all of it. Without any help from us, he must come to the rescue. And then the other truth about him that we've been careful for generations to hide behind our backs is the absoluteness of his Lordship.

Now, all of us call him Lord, and we say, Yes, sir, he is Lord. But again, the rock of offense is the word, absolute. He is total, 100 percent. And to accept the Christ of the Bible is to accept him in his absolute Saviorhood and his absolute Lordship.

He is Lord of all. I'm telling you, brother, I've been trying 30-odd years to learn how to preach it, and I don't know much about it yet. But here's the wonder of the grace of God. Oh, if I have the slightest evidence.

Back yonder some time I began trying a daily program of renewed surrender to the Lordship of Christ, knowing full well that up until now my response has been nothing to brag about. I tell you, it takes a miracle to bring a rebel like me to sweetly bow to Jesus as my absolute Lord.

To accept Christ means to accept him as he is, not to hide this truth that beats within me. I wish that churches today weren't such enemies of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You can't accept Christ, the Christ of the Word of God, any other way except to accept him in the truth about him.

The Ministry of the Body of Christ in 2 Corinthians 4

And I wanted you to look here in the 4th chapter, 2 Corinthians, afresh, and it leads me to my text, and it's now getting to my text. I want you to find out that this ministry, the U .S .S., this takes in every child of God.

A public preacher has got no right to speak, and a congregation has got no right to exist unless it's with the voice of the living God. It's silent. He's shut himself up to speak in this generation through his body.

In the 4th chapter of 2 Corinthians, verses 3 and 4 give us a description of the terrible predicament that unsaved men and women are in. Do I need to refresh it? We'll read it. I think I'll read verse 1 to start with.

So, therefore, seeing we have received this ministry, I'm saying that every child of God makes up the body of Christ and the great commission given to the body of Christ, the Church which is his body, is his representative.

Through it he must manifest himself as he's going to manifest himself in our day. And I'm pleading with everybody that names the name of Jesus Christ, find out that whether you are a toenail or a little finger or a big toe or an eye or an ear, if you have your place jointly together, we are to speak for God.

Having received this ministry, we, we've received it, God gave it to us. No use claiming to be a Christian if you're not going to take your part of this ministry. Therefore, seeing we've received this ministry, as we have this ministry, as we've received mercy, we never lose hope, we get awfully discouraged, but we don't quit, we think not.

And then we try to be honest, but having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, it's no trick at all to get people to accept the popular Jesus of the modern-day pulpit. You think I'm a crank? You can take him, there's no change in your life, you still run your life, still not in subjection, you don't need to pray for forgiveness every day, you're nice tonight, you'll never do things wrong, but you still decide what's wrong, you see.

You're all nice. But having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, trying to slip up on the blind side of lost people and wish a Jesus off on them by keeping the truth behind your back about it, not handling the word of God disincentively, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God, we try to be honest.

But here is the problem with these, but if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost, those in one ear and out the other. And the terribleness of their lostness is this, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, and he blinds unless the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

That's the kind of people to whom we're trying to reach, and then skip to verse 6. Look at what a miracle has taken place. Look at verse 5 in a minute, because I'm trying to get to verse 7. Look at the Holy Spirit's description of somebody that's had a miracle worked in their life.

They've been confronted, as we're going to see in verse 7, with a living Christ who got on a throne by way of a bloody cross. A miracle has taken place in their experience, and there are not more beautiful words in all English language than this verse 6.

Look at the tremendous difference here. Verse 4, a bunch of folk blind as bats see no beauty and no glory in Jesus Christ. They believe in the virgin birth, and they believe in the vicarious atoning death of Christ, and they believe in the body of the resurrection, and they believe in the second coming, and they believe in the verbal inspiration of the scripture!

But they don't see any beauty and any glory in that bloody cross and that exalted throne. The difference in men who are saved and not saved is not what they believe, but the difference is the unsaved man believes all the doctrines.

You can hardly find anybody that will say, Oh, yeah, I believe the Bible, I believe everything. But, oh, the child of God, something's happened. He sees something. Look at verse 6. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, God commanded it.

What's he done? He's shined in our hearts. What did he do that for? Well, he wanted to fix us. He wanted to do something to give the knowledge of the glory of God. Where? In the face of Jesus Christ. You know, dear ones, you can believe that Jesus is Lord and go to hell.

You can surrender to Jesus as Lord and go on to hell. But if it ever comes to the place where you can worship him, worship him, I'm so glad he's on the throne. See, the devil is believing the Lordship of Christ, and you wouldn't find anybody now to argue about it.

But here is this miracle. We've seen something. Darkness, something shined in it. God made a deposit to give us the knowledge, the experience of the glory of God. Where? In Christ. Wouldn't you love to be in a worship service, hungry to be in a service of worship?

Not singing some songs and passing the plate and having a prayer and a preaching. We call it the worship service, with men just praising and worshiping and loving the living Lord. That's worship. Now, brother, if you do not know him in that way, you don't know him.

You don't know him. God don't work a miracle in a man's heart, fix him so he's got to get a whip and make him bow to Christ. No, he sees the glory of God in Christ. Boy, he sees beauty there. That's the difference between lostness and salvation.

Preaching Christ Rather Than Ourselves

Now, how is that affected? Verse 5 says it's affected this, and this is the only way. We preach not ourselves what it's going to do about these blind people. How do you expect anybody to ever experience this wonderful miracle?

This room, all of the lights are off and it's gross dark, and there's just one remedy for darkness in that light. God Almighty shines in a man's heart and gives him the experience, the knowledge of the glory of God.

He can worship it, he sees it in Christ. How is that going to be brought about? Just one way. We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord. Just keep on confronting man with Jesus Christ and the truth of him.

I finally got to my text, verse 7. Here's the wonder of it, beloved. Here it is. But we have this truth. God gave it to us in earth. There's no flesh. He's an innocent, kind man. You see no beauty in him.

They believe all of the doctrines about him in their head and argue with it until they blow in the face. There's nobody on earth any meaner than a fellow who thinks he's got a little truth, and you cross him and he'll kill you.

We've got this ministry in earth and vessels, but we've got it. God pleased to do that way, read the rest of the verse, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Now, this is the ministry of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Earth and vessels. You're a part of it. You're a member of it. By one spirit have you been buried, baptized into his body. You're one in Christ Jesus, his flesh, bone of his bone, blood of his blood, commissioned by him.

Ladies and gentlemen, please, God commit this ministry to human beings. In the 10th chapter of Luke, just an illustration, verse 16, when the Lord sent out the 70, he gave them this commission and this promise, and therefore this tremendous responsibility.

He that, verse 16, he that heareth you, says the Lord, send him out now, and he that heareth you, says what? Heareth me! You mean, I go out and I'm speaking in the name of the Lord, and the fellow that listens to me, if he'd hear what I've got to say, he'd actually hear the message of the Lord.

That's exactly what he said. And he that despiseth you, despiseth me. He that don't pay attention to what you say, the Lord said, he's rather rejected me. Luke 10, verse 16. And he that despiseth me, despiseth him that saith.

There's enough in that for us to sit in the devil's face and stand up and dare to speak with authority. This is God talking. You reject my message, the message of the Church and the authority of Christ.

And I'm speaking to disappointed messengers. You hear that, you've heard from God. Then in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, one other scripture enforcing this one theme that I'm talking about tonight. The Apostle Paul is writing to the Saints over in Thessalonica, and in verse 13 he speaks after this, why, it's 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 13.

This tremendous verse of scripture, this calls, thank we God, without ceasing, why? Because when you received, now notice every word carefully, when you received the word of God, he heard of us, whose word was it?

It was God's word. But to hear it, Paul said through his lips, he received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, whose word was it? The word, the word of God that you received as the word of God, having heard it through human lips, effectually working also in you that believe.

He said, I came over there and brought the message, it was God's message, but you heard it from me. But you didn't say that's what Paul says about it, you said that's what God says about it. And that will get the job done.

Brother, if the Bible ever gets to be a book that a living God through the Holy Ghost uses to speak his message and make it alive and quicken it to you, now you listen to God. You listen to God. That's what the scripture means when it says, Faith, courage by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Not memorizing scripture, not believing the Bible, but hearing God speak to you through the Bible. Amen? That's it. That's it. Our church is full of folks, they believe the Bible. They never read it, but they believe it.

They wouldn't argue with you. No sir, they believe it. But they've never heard God speak to them, it's never quickened to them, it's never been made alive. Faith, come, you don't have it, come! How? By hearing!

Hearing by the word of God! God makes the things alive! Do you see it? That's the Spirit of God quickening the truth of God. Now it's true whether you believe it or not, but it'll never do you any good unless the Spirit makes it alive to you.

Then you'll say, that's what God said about it, boy, I'll face the devil and everything else, that's what God said. I heard God speak through his word. You fundamentalists, I'm sorry for you, you ain't got much chance of getting to heaven because you're going to go to heaven quoting scripture, go to hell quoting scripture, without God ever having made quickened to ever bleed it in your head and memorize the scriptures.

That's the doctrine's all the same. They're fine in their place not to dismay that. But unless the word is made flesh and quickened to you by the Spirit of God, you'll never get inside, and that's the way people are born.

Nobody's going to take that ministry to himself, and that's the reason the Church is a bunch of folks that haven't elected themselves to an office. They were apprehended of God and commissioned by his grace.

They didn't run for office, praise God. They better go to function. Even Christ didn't seek the office, God appointed him. We must occupy it till he comes. Now I illustrate what I've tried to say and make this statement.

Rejecting the Messenger and Rejecting God

The rejection of the message through the messenger is the rejection of and rebellion against God in Christ. I'm pointing up to this truth, that in the day you and I live in, God speaks through just one voice, and that's the Church, which is his body.

I'm so hungry for a sovereign God to do what we cannot do ourselves except to walk in the light with God and pray for more, and walk in all the light with God. I'm so hungry to see some congregations that represent Jesus Christ, that speak for us.

They speak for us. I told you a lot of problems, I can't unravel them. I'll get to that in just a minute. Rejection of the message, because you reject the messenger, that's just rejection of Jesus Christ.

I've had people take my poor ministry apart, and I do what he preaches, but there's this I don't like about it. But the trouble about it is, if I happen to be a God-anointed messenger, you have to take me, lumps and all.

If you won't take the lumps, you can't have the message. If you can't have my message, you won't have me. See what I mean? That's an illustration. You say, well, he's not perfect. I know, we have this treasure in what kind of vessel?

Earth. Now, let me give you two brief illustrations. This is the way God's always worked. What I'm digging at is this. We've got to have some churches that the ministry speaks with the authoritative voice of God, and the people hear.

There's no way he's got of reaching people. These apologists for churches are on their way out. We're looking to God. For instance, the book of 1 Corinthians 2 tells us about the fact that the day when God appointed a man by the name of Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, that they were baptized unto Moses.

No, you're not, that they were baptized unto Moses. That means under his authority. And the only way to be under the authority of the living God for those people at that time was to be in subjection to a man by the name of Moses.

And the only way you could hear God's message in that day was to listen to a man by the name of Moses. And one time the scriptures say that Moses had some business. He had to go out of town up on the top of the mountain to receive the tablets of the law.

And while he was gone, the people met and had a business meeting and built a golden tab and danced around that tab. What they were doing was bypassing the channel through whom God spoke. And if you turn to the 32nd chapter of Exodus sometimes, you'll find out what a wonderful revival they had.

Three thousand people died that very day. God killed and told the sons of Levi to go around killing and killed three thousand people by passing. On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the eleven.

That's what the scriptures say. He stood up with eleven, twelve people standing. Here is God speaking through the channel of this hour, the church which is his body. And three thousand people believed.

You read it when you get home. They gladly received his word, Peter's word. He is speaking for God. That's what the scriptures say. They gladly received his word. So how do we know this from God? Well, they recognized it.

There was the voice of authority. There was the church, the eleven standing up. But there was God speaking, making Christ known, confronting them with the living Christ. And they heard from God through the lips of a man by the name of Peter.

And they cried out to him what must we do. And he told them what to do, and the folks that believed his word gladly received it, were baptized, and the Lord added them to the church. In Moses' case, they rejected the messenger.

Three thousand people killed. On the day of Pentecost, they received the message through the messenger. This is God's word. Three thousand people saved. In the 7th chapter of Luke, one other illustration, she has one other illustration.

I'm trying to lay down the principle that God is going to establish, reestablish the voice of authority and get his people together in subjection to him where he is, speaking through the appointed ministry.

Men are going to have to hear from God through his church. In the days of John the Baptist, there was just one way that anybody could listen and get God's message. Do you believe that? That's right. If you wanted to hear from God, you had to listen to a man by the name of John the Baptist.

And this is clearly taught in the 7th chapter of Luke's gospel. Verse 27, describing John, says, And as this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

He had a certain job to do. Then he brags on a little bit and says, I say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he is at least in the kingdom of God greater than thee.

Now watch this. Listen to the response. Nobody ever heard of it terribly. God channeled his message through a man, John the Baptist. He was the only message coming from God at that time. And listen to the response.

For I and all the people that heard him, and the publicans, did what? Justified God. They heard John, but they justified God. Do you get it? How did they do it? Being baptized with the baptism of John.

But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of John. No, that ain't what Scripture says. The Pharisees and the lawyers rejected whose counsel? The counsel of God. Well, how did they hear it?

Through John the Baptist. Do you see it? And they turned down, they rejected the counsel of God against themselves. How did they do it? By rejecting the ministry of John, being not baptized of him. See it?

That explains, for instance, when Nicodemus came to Christ, he was one of the Pharisees. He came as one Bible teacher to another and wanted to have a little discussion. The Lord shut the door in his face, you remember it.

He told him, You can't even see the kingdom of God, the precious rule of God. Unless you're born again. Then later he said, You can't enter unless you're born of water and of the Spirit. You can't enter the kingdom of God.

What's the water? It's John's baptism. You couldn't be saved in John's day if you bucked God's message through John. He told them to go and baptize them. And that's their way of a public confession that they were sinners in need of salvation.

And there wasn't any way on earth you could get into God's kingdom in that day if you rejected God's ministry through a man by the name of John the Baptist. I've used that illustration to comment all I've said.

The Church as Christ's Present-Day Body

It's been to say this. This is solemn to me, dear ones. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is one Lord, one Father of all, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one what? B-O-D-Y body. I'm not talking about one floating around up in the sky, but the local assembly.

The Church must set itself to speak with the authority of Christ one more time. As my Father sent me, even so send I you. There can be no salvation in your day and mine apart from being identified with and subjected to the Church, which is the Lord's body.

Oh, my! I believe this is the way when some people begin to see it, begin to try to enter into it, walk together in it, learn what it means to be in subjection to Christ where he is in the local Church, speaking through the constituted authority, being in subjection to him.

It's not laws unto ourselves. It will solve the problem of the mixed multitude. I don't believe, I don't know about this. I don't know how the Lord is going to work, or whether he is going to take all of God's people out of our organized churches, or whether he is going to work a miracle in the churches with God.

I don't know anything about that. I tried to get a bunch of people together and build a pure church. We fell flat on our face. I can't do it. Nan can't do it. There ain't nobody going to bow to authority where it's expressed unless he has been conquered inside.

Do you get that? And I believe that the unsaved and the saved that make up most of our churches, I believe that's how the Lord is going to separate them. I think God is going to come to the rescue over some of these days and raise up afresh in the churches voices of authority.

I don't believe he's got any other way to work now. We don't have John the Baptist now. God don't speak through John the Baptist. He's gone. We don't have Moses now. We've got the church. Amen. The Lord has delegated his authority to earthen vessels here on the earth.

And I think he's going to purify his people, bring them together by restoring the voice of authority. The only remedy I can see now is for God's people to begin subjecting themselves to what authority we can now see in our local churches.

Maybe it's just one voice. Maybe it's two. If the church were in order, we'd have the restoration of the five old ministers, and they'd have their place. And they'd bring God's message, and the people would hear.

And wholeness and healing of our spirits and bodies would come. I'm a member of the church. This is not gossip, and I'm not under subjection to it. I'm under conviction about it. I do not believe in much of its ministry or hardly any of its policy.

But I don't know in Winston-Salem where I could find a congregation calling itself a church that I could be in wholehearted subjection to. And I don't know how to go, I don't know what to do about it.

Do you? I'm pleading, wherever I get a chance in little conferences like this, that the inner circle of our congregation begin to sit at the feet of the Holy Spirit, that he try to teach us to be in subjection to Christ as the scriptures speak, by being in subjection one to another.

I believe if I'm on a facet of truth, and this is the way the Lord is pleased to work, that it's going to get so hot that God's people cannot be a member of a church whose ministry they don't believe in.

I ain't going to have to quit supporting what we don't believe in. See what I mean? Am I clear? I believe it's going to get so hot, I believe the Lord is going to begin to speak with authority. And God's people are going to have to get off the fence like I'm on now.

I don't know which way to turn, except in the little ministry of instruction I'm giving you. I think that if a church is not under the discipline of the Lord, and he delegates that discipline to the voices he's placed in the church, I think it's going to get so hot that God's people cannot continue to walk in an undisciplined fashion.

There are a thousand problems in the field to me, and they're too big for me. If somehow some of us could get the thrill of three statements to come through. Oh, dear ones, pray much together as congregations, and one more time, with the thrill from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet, with the challenge and privilege, listen to me, of being the people of God in our day.