Preparing Ones Heart to Recieve the Truth (Incomplete) — Rolfe Barnard

Preparing the Heart to Receive God's Truth

I wondered what to say. There's so much in the book. I hope that what I finally decided on is the mind of the Lord. At any rate, I want to speak very carefully as I can tonight on the subject of preparing one to receive God's truth.

The Engrafted Word in James

Preparing the engrafted word which is able to save the soul. In reading in the first chapter of James, well, we'll begin with verse 16 of James chapter 1. My beloved brethren, every good gift and every perfect gift is from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness shadow of turning.

Beget he us with the word, we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, listen to this carefully, if it be true that of God's own will, by the use and means of truth, we were born into the kingdom of God.

Desperately we need to hear if we value our souls this 19th verse. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear the goodness of God. Speaking to us now, wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.

Meekness, the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. Because of the word, I'm sure that we would not address someone whom we wish to have about us and what spiritual discernment we have about us.

We would say that person is not one of God's children yet, he's not been brought by faith in the Lord to God. We wouldn't address him as a brother, beloved brethren. But I'm persuaded that the early Jewish preachers, and James was a Jewish preacher, might so have addressed his fellow Hebrews in these terms.

They didn't mean that they believed they were in Christ, but they were fellow Jews. Whether that be true or not, you notice here it says in verse 16, he addresses them as my beloved brethren. And he's talking to somebody that he loves.

I do believe, whether that's the right interpretation of this or not, that the words of James here in verse 19, wherefore my beloved brethren, are excellent advice. We're going to continue down through verse 21, three verses.

Excellent advice who is not yet united to the Lord Jesus. Here's three of advice, here are three things in these verses. To unsaved men and women who would prepare themselves in verse 21, the engrafted word.

And he says of this engrafted word, that it's able, it may seem strange that the preacher would say that if anybody wishes to become vitally united to Christ, not just stand afar off and claim to believe in his atoning word, but to be united to Christ.

For we definitely hold that you cannot have the merits of Christ's blood unless you have him, that you cannot separate him from what he did. We believe with all of our hearts that multitudes of people, honestly and earnestly, are doing what they say, trusting in the shed blood of Christ, but they're not saved.

Because we do not believe that unless you have regenerated, you can participate in the merits of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And thus we say to men and women, that if you would in these days of religious confusion, where everybody has a gospel and everybody has a doctrine, and everybody has six interpretations of those individual doctrines, and what I say is just what I say, and there's not much respect for what anybody says, that if you value your soul's welfare, the function of the prophet James, yeah, the apostle James, to prepare, unless your heart is prepared, and prepared by you, you will never.

The Necessity of a Prepared Heart

Now you're trusting in the blood, but an unprepared heart cannot receive the word of truth. And the only way you can be born of the spirit is by the incorruptible word of the living God. And that introduces me to the biggest tragedy of my ministry as I go from place to place.

I wonder if anybody gets saved because nobody's got time to prepare his heart. You didn't prepare your heart. Whatever message the Lord would have for you tonight, you didn't have time, did you? Did you?

So it'll just bounce off of you, and it'll go in one end and out the other. It won't be my fault. It won't be the fault of the word. Your heart cannot receive truth unless it's been plowed, unless it's been prepared.

Do you see it? That's so. I don't care if you're a Christian. You don't get a thing out of anybody's divine service. I don't care what kind of service it is in these days, because we don't have time, nor do we feel the necessity in preparing our own hearts, so that if the seed were to drop, it'd fall on good ground.

We're reminded, of course, in the book of Proverbs, chapter 16, verse 1, you can turn to it later if you want to, that the preparation of the heart's the work of God, aren't you? I've got it marked, the preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue is where?

It's from the Lord. But we're also told in the word of God, in Hosea, I also got that marked, so one takes so long to find it, soul to yourselves in righteousness. Now, there's something that the sinner's addressed.

He said, now, God said, you, over in Proverbs, said, this is the work of God. That's so. In Hosea, God tells the sinner, the soul to yourselves in righteousness, and if you do, you'll reap in mercy. Break up your fallow ground.

Break it up. Break it up. Break it up. For it is time to seek the Lord, and you seek him till he come, and reign righteousness upon you. Now, any spiritual truth on bad ground doesn't bear fruit, does it?

Isn't that right? In the 13th chapter of the book of Matthew, we are told plainly over and over again, and those different parables, I'll not turn to them, but you remember the parable of the sower and the seed.

He went out and he sowed seed, and the seed was good, nothing on earth. Wrong was the seed, or the sowing of the seed, the trouble was, that he sowed it on four kinds of ground. Now, it was prepared. And so the seed fell on some ground, and the fellow was gloriously converted.

You remember how old Bill got gloriously converted. You remember about that, you know. And he shouted, and he just knocked a home run, and he went down on the streets, and he told everybody about how God saved him, and two weeks later, taken down the flag and taken out.

You see, there was no root there, the scriptures say, and he flourished for a little while, but because the seed didn't take root. Is that right? First time a little windstorm of adversity came, he played out.

He played out and on and on. But there was one type of ground and one type of owner that had been thoroughly prepared. And this is interesting in view of the fact that James is inviting men and women, is giving some advice about how we are to hear.

We're to hear the word of God, and the book of Hosea will advise us to sow to our self-righteousness, and to break up. Somebody says, explain that, I don't have to, I didn't write them, I'm not the author of the Bible.

They say, well, I can't understand that. Well, that makes two of us. There's very little in the life about us that we can understand, but thank God we can believe. If any kind of spiritual truth, unless you have to receive truth, you can't receive it.

It just can't be done. The truth just bounces off. I was preaching in Texas the other day, and he said, Brother Barton, I can't understand. I went through college, Baptist College. I went through seminary three years.

I taught in one of our Baptist schools. I pastored in our Baptist churches. I held evangelistic campaigns all over the West. Until two years ago, I had never seen anything in the word of God about salvation by grace.

He says, now pick up my Bible, and it's on every page. But until two and a half years ago, I'd read the same verses. I'd study the same chapters. I'd preach out of the same books. And I'd read the verses.

What the verses said just went in one ear and out the other. And he was not able to receive truth, even that preaching, until God had brought this thing and that thing and that thing and the other thing on his life, until he had a prepared heart.

Hearing the Word Until It Takes Root

Now, that's true of an unsaved person. You can attend services until you're blue in the face and do what you call a lesson, but until you take seriously the fact that only by receiving the word sufficiently until it takes root in here is any salvation produced, and that no seed will take root unless the heart's been prepared.

See what I said? That is tragic. My tragedy now as I go up and down the country, I get one person in the service one night. People go out and visit and ring doorbells. And finally they get rid of some importionate church member, that old unsaved fellow.

We'll do him a favor and he'll attend the meeting one night. But the next night he goes to the picture show or bowling or something, you see. And the next night he goes somewhere else. And nothing happens.

It's hearts, not plows. This is fundamental. This is fundamental. Now James says in these verses, verses 19 through 21, he lays down three things that men who are interested in preparing their hearts so that they can receive the engrafted or the word that we'd understand a little better, especially if you're a farmer, the rootage.

In the dirt, it takes root. Is that right? In the sapling, it takes root. If you have a tree, it's got to go down first before it goes up. Isn't that right? And that's true in this business of salvation.

Sinners are not saved accidentally. And fellows say, well, now, the preacher tells me that the sinner can't save himself. That's right. And the preacher tells me the sinner is helpless. That's right. But there are lots of things a lost man could do.

He could look at himself through God's law. There's not a lost man this side of hell that could be prevented, if he wanted to, from buying him a Bible. He can get at least a New Testament for a quarter, I guess, down at Woolworth's.

Don't get scoffed at more than that. You should get one for a nickel or a dime. And nothing could keep what God says about it. A man could do that, couldn't he? And a man could set himself to get him a pick and a shovel and start plowing his own hearth.

Nothing to keep a lost man from doing that, is it? Huh? Now, that wouldn't save him. But unless the sinner's deceit will take, they may make a profession. And they may have some kind of experience. Unless the seed of the gospel takes root.

If you're not bearing fruit, you're not God's child. Is that all right? I'm interested, as I go up and down the country preaching to men and telling them what James says. He says there's three things that an unsaved man ought to do.

If that unsaved man is interested in having a heart, the truth don't bounce off it. Some of it gets down in there. See what I'm talking about? And these three things are first. The sinner must cease from rebellion.

That's the word of truth. Look again at verse 18. Of his own will, beget not but with the word of truth. The word of truth must be changed. You could keep the vile sinner out of hell. Whatever's the best a man can do, that's the best he can do.

But he could do that, couldn't he? And he could make an effort to cease what James says about it. Did you get it here? Of his own will, beget he us with the word of truth, nor that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Wherefore, endure the fact that men are born again of the Holy Spirit by the use of the truth of the gospel. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear. Spit on his hands. Let him be swift.

This is a bucket preach. They're not swift to hear. They don't make an effort to hear. Make an effort to hear. You know, church service is something. Schoolteachers cannot get their scripture. I'm telling you the truth.

Men are not keen to hear now. But endure the fact that of his own will, he begat us with the word of truth. James says, wherefore, swift to hear. Be swift to hear. There's nothing to keep you from hearing, is there?

Except you don't want to. Is there? And this word must be heard, and it must be heard, and not bought and received until it takes root. If it don't, we'll just have another fellow that got converted and went on to hell.

It's got to take root. It's got to take root. People are swift, but they demount nothings against the truth of God. And to do it with a good eel of enmity looks like. A lady rushed up to me the other day down in Texas.

She was shaking, full of tears, abhorred. She said, but I didn't know who she was. It turned out later that a preacher had warned her about what a terrible fellow I am and about my terrible doctrine, and warned her and told her not to come near me, a priest.

But she was a Sun School teacher and a member of the church, and she came on anyhow. But she was set there, not to hear. Not to hear. She wasn't swift to hear. She came to resist whatever was said. The unsaved man wants to be dead.

Sure, he goes to hell. Instead of being swift to listen, let him voice his ignorant mouthings and be in a hush and his repentance against the truth of God. This woman came, and she was torn all to pieces.

Later I learned who she was. I think maybe the Lord helped me deal with her. Otherwise the flesh might have got in. She rushed up to me and said, Brother, preacher, I'm just torn all to pieces. You're tearing everything up.

What you're preaching is against what you're preaching. I said, well, I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't know who she was. I said, what was it about the message tonight that disturbed you so? She said, well, it was this morning and tonight.

I've just walked the floor all day since the morning service. I've never heard anything like that. She said, you're torn all to pieces. My boy, an 18-year-old boy, he asked me to explain it. I came, and she was in desperate condition.

I said, well, tell me what it is. Maybe I'm wrong. I'll listen. God knows I will. She said, well, so and so. I said, well, you didn't quote all the verse. She said, what is it? I said, you're the one that started it.

You quoted from it. She said, I don't know. I don't even know where it's found in the Bible. See, she's awful well-informed to be so torn up and be dead certain that what she's hearing was not so. She came prepared not to believe the things she heard.

She couldn't help it. She'd been warned. Now, if there's a person here tonight that's not a Christian, and you want to be dead sure, you go to hell. You keep on closing your mind to be swift to hear the truth of God.

I don't care if it comes from a donk to God's truth. See what I mean? Well, it turned out with the woman that she began to quote part of the Scripture. And I said, yes, that's found so and so. But she didn't quote all of it.

And we turned to it and read it. She said, well, I never saw that. And then she said some of the things you said. I said, well, do I have Bible? She said, I don't know. And I said, well, let's turn to some of the Scriptures.

And we reread them again that I quoted. And you tell me what you've got to find fault with what the Scripture says. We turned and read some of them. She said, I've never seen them in the Scripture. And I'm using that as an illustration.

Don't be in such a big hurry to go frothing in the mouth if you can't even quote all the Scripture you've heard from somebody. Be swift to hear and a little slower to rebel. Beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear.

In view of what? You have verse 18, that we are forgotten. We are born of the Spirit through the word of truth. I think that if you allow me, I think you will, I want to mention five great teachings of the word of God about which men rebel.

Human Sinfulness and the Need for Conviction

Unsaved men will rebel against all five of these things, or they'll rebel against any of them, unless your heart's been perfected. Some preacher make fun of them. You'll keep on bugging them. You'll make a profession.

You'll go through the motions. And you'll split hell wide open. You can take these five Bible teachings. You cannot but help rebel against what the Bible says about the kind of person you are. I'm telling you, when you pick up the word of God and start trying, just find out what it says about you and me.

It says, stick out your tongue. Let all those snakes come out. Look at your feet. They're swift to shed blood. Just look at you. From your mother's womb, you went about full of lies. From the top of your head to the bottom of your feet.

Isaiah says you're just one mass of putrefying. So dumb says you haven't got as much sense as a donkey. Says the ass knows his master's crib. And you don't even know it. That's what it says. Oh, if the Bible don't say some terrible things about us, you'll rebel against it.

And you're going to keep on rebelling against it until you wind up in hell. Unless you make up your mind, you value your eternity by them. And you get your block and tackle or pick and shovel and start preparing your heart, asking God to enable some of the truth about yourself to sink in here and take root until you get a little alarmed and you get desperate to find out whether there's any hope for a fellow that's as big a sinner as you are.

Take that, brother Elmer, apart from a prepared heart. It says your best righteousness is a filthy race. It says you drink iniquity like water. You just laugh it up. It says that your imagination is evil.

The thoughts of your heart are rotten. And if it could open up you, the Bible talks that way about men. An unprepared heart above that shows you foot high, and yet you'll never be saved. Call home to you what kind of person you are, because being a human being from Adam's fallen race, you'll never be interested in a doctor as long as you've just got a headache.

You're going to have to get plump sick. That's screaming for a doctor. It says about Rothbard, and if I'm preaching to nice people, it's a different thing, but I'm not preaching to nice people. I'm preaching to people who are born in sin, conceived in iniquity, and you're a cesspool in a hotbed of rebellion against God.

You hate everything that's high and holy. If it were not for the restraining power of the Spirit of God and the influences of the gospel, and, Carl, now this would be a man's house tonight, then you know it.

You're not nice people. You're rebellious people. You're stiff-necked people, and you don't like to be told it, and you're going to go to hell fighting it unless your heart perceives God's truth about yourself.

God's Holy Law and the Severity of Judgment

There is another teaching of the Word of God that's wrapped up in this business of the need of a prepared heart, and men do not get saved apart from being confronted with the strictness and the severity of God's holy law.

Where no law is preached, there's no gospel preached, because the gospel can only be preached in the context of the holy law of God. And where men are in utter strictness, the spirits of the shed blood of the Redeemer are dying on the cross.

I know that's so. And yet, I'm not talking to nice people tonight, all on God's earth. All I've got to do to an unsaved man is in the name of God tell him not to do something, and he'll split hell wide open to do it.

It's his nature. All you've got to do with that little child sitting by you is say, you be dead sad. You don't do so-and-so. And they'll do it if it kills them. It's in their nature. The hate restriction.

That's right. Unless the man is confronted with and becomes swift to him, God's holy law is horribly, horribly severe. He'll never be interested. He's a stressed and only prepared heart. See that truth.

That's right. The rest of it will bounce off of you. It bounced off of me, brother, and I've made out the same piece of cloth you are. It'll bounce off of you. And yet, you've got to face it. You better become swift to hear how strict God's law is.

Strict as the Bible says it is, you dead sure need a safe. If it's just as severe as the Bible says it is, no matter how terrible it'll be, to go out and meet God will be the penalty, and he'll bring it.

The Absoluteness of God's Sovereignty

As a third Bible truth, he receives, except by a prepared heart, the absoluteness of the sovereignty of God. I don't mean the sovereignty of God. Everybody believes in the sovereignty of God now, but the absoluteness of it in the day now when everybody accepts the Lord.

You know that? Well, brag on the Lord. What they accept has been stripped. I don't know what the title was, Secretary of the Communist Party, whatever it was. If you take him out of his office, he's a pretty likable sort of a fellow.

He'll take Christ out of his office. People take him as their buddy-buddy. All the Hollywood actors and the Lord, they're buddy-buddy.