Examining Your Motives — Rolfe Barnard

Examining Motives by the Heart

They both commit the same act. One of them goes in to get drunk. The other goes in the same place to talk to somebody about Christ. The Lord doesn't look on the outward appearance but the heart. The Lord isn't interested so much in what we do as why we do it.

The Glory of God as the Test of Motives

I want to try to talk to you tonight on examining your motive in the light of one basic Bible truth. The glory of God. In the light of the glory of God that everything has for its final purpose the promotion of the glory of God.

I have thought that that's the best way that a preacher or a person who is a child of God can test his motive. Since motive is so important in the sight of God more so than what you do, why you do it.

I've asked myself why have I been a public preacher all these years. Did you do what you did? Why do you purpose to do what you hope to do? I think when you test your motive or when you examine your motive that you will see that they need to be repented over time after time.

I don't know whether it would be possible for us to have an unselfish motive. A motive absolutely disconnected from any hope of gain or blessing for ourselves. I don't know. But at best our motives need to be repented of often.

I'm dead certain that the best test of your character and of mine is not what you do, but why you do it. Why do you act like you do? I've gone down the country for a number of years now. Sometimes experienced great blessing.

Apparently sometimes it's like the heavens are almost silent. Evidently if success is what motivates us, most of us should have had to take you out a long time ago. Why do you do? The best text that I've found for this line of thought is in the 4th chapter of the gospel of John, verse 34.

It may not be the best in the Bible, but it suits my way of thinking and I want to use it tonight. The Lord has been dealing with a woman called the woman of Samaria at the well. His disciples left him to go into town to get a hamburger.

The disciples came back and in verse 31 they prayed and said, Lord, eat, ask to eat, get the hamburger. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. I've got something that fills the need that's deeper than physical food.

Therefore said the disciples one to another, has any man brought him off to eat? They didn't understand what he was talking about, so he told them in the next verse, I have written on my Bible, I've rubbed out the word meat in verse 34, for the better rendering of it is pleasure.

Jesus said unto them, the thing that gives me pleasure, that satisfies me, the thing that keeps me going, in the language of the beatniks of the day, the thing that sends me, I believe they call it, people get a kick out of.

The Lord said, the thing that keeps me going, the thing that satisfies the longing of my heart, the thing that gives me pleasure, get my thrills out of it, is to do the will of him that sent me, to finish his work.

Burns and the Glory of God in Revival

The classic illustration, perhaps, of examining a man's motives as to why he does what he does, in the light of God's word, is perhaps given by Mr. Burns, who was a human instrument in the outbreak of an in-gathering in Holy Maxine's parish in Scotland.

Mr. Maxine, who prayed and preached himself to death when he was 29, perhaps one of the two or three holiest men that ever lived, went to a mission to the Jews, and while he was gone he brought in a young man by the name of Burns.

And while Mr. Burns was there, the wind blew and revival came. And later Mr. Burns went to China. And some reporters tackled him before he got on the boat to take him to China. And one of the reporters said, Mr. Burns, we presume that you're going to China to convert the heathen.

And Mr. Burns, you've heard it, haven't you? I said, no, I'm going to China to glorify God. That's a little deep water, isn't it? But when we remember that the one thing that makes the Bible a little bit understandable, the one thing that brings all of the truths of the Bible together, is simply this, that the chief purpose God Almighty has in what he has done and what he is doing and what he proposes to do, the chief purpose is the thing behind everything else that the Bible says God does or will do or is doing or has done.

The chief purpose, the one big thing that motivates Almighty God, crystal clear, is simply the promotion of the glory of the man Christ Jesus, the sent one. The promotion of the glory of the man Christ Jesus, the one who was born in a chalice table, the one who was crucified on a tree, the one who, although none of us can understand it, was sent here and was subordinate to God the Father and took upon himself the form of a servant, a born slave of God, and was buried in another man's tomb.

That's the last of him as far as the world knows by experience. The chief purpose God has in everything he does, whether it be the salvation of a soul, the damnation of a sinner, whatever he does, the chief purpose of God is the promotion and the displaying of the glory of the man Christ Jesus.

If that be true, my motive must be linked up in that connection. And I want to say three things the best I can tonight. I'm laboring a little bit and pretty busy. Boy, I don't know who to choose, my wife or which one of you.

Boy! If the promotion of the glory of the man Christ Jesus is what makes this world tick, if it explains every activity of God, and I know that's the teaching of the Bible, then as I seek to test my motive by that, I want to test them under three such plans.

Anticipating the Joy Set Before Christ

First, I believe that it is the scriptural and pleasing to God if a man by the name of Ross Barnard looked forward to the time when he meets God, looked forward to the hope that the Lord God would say, you've done a good job, you've been faithful, well done.

I know that's somewhat selfish, but it is no more selfish than the Bible teaches the Lord Jesus was. For if you'll remember in the book of Hebrews, in chapter 7, we are told to look, spend our time running the race with patience, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, there was a joy set before him, so he could look at it and anticipate it.

And because of the drawing attractiveness and enticement of that joy that was set before him, he as a man was able to endure the cross and treat lightly the shame and be set down at the right hand of the majesty on high forever.

If the Lord as a man, and he was a man, and if not the preexistent God the Son, but it is the one who became a man that God seeks to glorify, and if as a man God would be pleased to give him the drawing power of an anticipation of joy to come, enabling him to endure the cross and treat lightly the shame, then surely it wouldn't be too selfish of a man like me or you to test the faith and anticipate that this would not detract from the glory of Christ.

When my sojourn here is done and I meet God, I might have some of the pleasure of the Lord look forward to. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 1, we are told in verse 3, that after he had purged us from our sins, he did what?

He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Boy, I'm interested in that verse of scripture. We are told in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, that he entered heaven not without his own blood, not with the blood of bull and goat, but with his own blood.

Having done what? He obtained eternal redemption for us. Now he has been down here as the man sent from God, the man with a mission. God sent him to do something. He said, you know what? The thing that gives me pleasure is to do what he sent me to do and to finish his work.

Now he has gone back to glory, and I'm vitally interested. He goes back there, and you know what happens? The father says, sit down, son. You have done a good job. I'm satisfied with the job you've done.

That's right. I met an old missionary down in Puerto Rico a year and a half ago. He spent the night in his home. He had been a missionary for 50 years. His father and mother before him were missionaries.

He was a missionary before the missionaries had it as easy as they have now. He was a missionary back when we lived on peanut butter and corn bread. And he came out of there living now, driving an old battered-out car because of his condition.

And I remember this preacher was with me. He says, brother, you haven't been paid much down here, have you? He said, well, that ain't what I'm looking forward to. I said, I'm expecting to get my pay later on.

That's all right, isn't it? That's all right. Well done. You've done a good job. Sit down. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh, boy, I suppose he's gone back up in the prison to the father with his own blood. And the father says, I'm not satisfied.

Redemption and the Glory of Christ

No hope for offerings. The father said, you did what I sent you to do, son. Sit down now. Let him sit down. Test your motive. Who are you working for? When do you expect to get paid? Ha. And then I think that I'd have to test my motive, remembering that it must be tacked on to the key purpose of God to glorify and promote the glory and display the glory of the Lord.

And I think that the man with a mission who is under God, subordinate to him, can't do something. I think that my motive will need checking and testing now and then in the light of the fact that in the dream of redemption, that's what the Bible is all about, God's a redeeming God.

That's the purpose of sending his son to accomplish the redemption of the world. And bless God, this world is going to be redeemed. That's right. This is going to be a redeemed world one of these days.

That doesn't mean everybody's going to be saved. But the day is coming when the lion and the lamb will lie down together. This world is going to be a redeemed world. The day is coming. I like to almost make shouting sound, nevertheless, Peter will say, nevertheless, God bless your heart, some hell or high water according to his promise, for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

He promises it. It's coming. And in the dream of redemption, he is given to this man, Christ Jesus, to none other and nowhere else. The spotlight is always on him. The Church is under Christ. The Church is not to be glorified.

Christ is to be glorified in the Church. The world is not to be glorified. Christ is to be glorified in the Church. The Christian is not to be glorified. Christ is to be glorified in the Christian. The spotlight is always in the language of John the Baptist, he must increase, that means I must decrease.

The spotlight is always on Christ in three directions, in that God has lodged in the Son the exclusive conduct of the world and the human race, all authority is given unto me, he says, that thou hast given him authority over all things, the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand.

He and he alone has been given the job of conducting the affairs of the Godhead throughout the long reaches of time and then into eternity, for the man in glory now is running the show, saving and damning, guarding and guiding, controlling and allowing, this world is under the charge of the man in glory.

He has channeled all his love and favor God has to suffering, sinful, lost mankind in Jesus Christ. There were never more poignant words uttered by God our man than at the time when the Lord Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist, and out of the heavens came a voice, this is the Son of my love, here he is.

Wrath everywhere except in Christ. No place to escape the judgment and condemnation and wrath of God except in Christ. In Christ plus nothing, in Christ minus nothing, all of God's mankind is channeled through Christ.

And he and the Lord, that's the reason we never preach doctrine, we preach the truth of doctrine. Do you get it? Do you get it? The doctrine we hold must adorn Jesus, every conviction we have must adorn and glorify Jesus.

Every limitation we have to abide by, we can't do this, we can't do that, must be a limitation because we think it would not adorn the glory. And then the power to awaken faith in a dead sinner has been given over utterly to the one man, Christ Jesus, who is alive forevermore.

The Living Son of God and the Power to Save

Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that dowereth coming and now is, John 5, when the dead, this is talking about spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall be saved. And the Lord says, he that dowereth coming and now is, John 5, when the dead, this is talking about spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall.

And he who is alive forevermore shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall be saved. He who is alive forevermore shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall be. And the Lord says, he that dowereth coming and now is, John 5, when the dead, this is talking about spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall be saved.

And the Lord says, he that dowereth coming and now is, John 5, when the dead, this is talking about spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God,. He that dowereth coming and now is, John 5, when the dead, this is talking about spiritually dead, shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they shall be saved.

Of the living Son of God. Now, that's the issue. You're not going to trick me. I'm too old to hand in getting a fuss over man-made terms. But I ain't talking about man-made terms now. I'm talking about the heart of the Conference.

Under God's own deceit and conscience, that'll get in their hearts of truth. In fact, the hope of sinful men is simply and only being able to hear the living Lord speak to them through some lips like mine.

They'll say, that's not Ralph Barnes talking, that's God Almighty. When he speaks to a man, something happens to him. That's the issue, dear one. That's all the Calvinism I want, brother. Oh, God, help us not to lose our opportunity of witnessing and preaching.

We're trying to wish some 350-year-old man-made terms off on people. They don't know what they're all about. But there's the heart of the Conference. You don't know how. I have longed, you are dear people, and this is my second visit with you, and I've come to love you dearly.

You don't know how tempted I am to use some fleshly methods and save people myself. Wouldn't you like to go out here in the homes and throw away the truth I'm preaching about now? You can get everybody in the community converted over again before next Wednesday if you just throw away the truth.

If you can't do it, it takes the Spirit of God. The old flesh wants to help God out. This isn't laziness, brother, this is being true to men's souls. And I tell you, I'm going to leave you without revival, it looks like.

But brother, you better keep hanging on to the coattails of God that he'll begin to open up the windows of heaven and come to the rescue of the truth that is so scouted and sneered at all over the country.

Salvation as Christ Reproduced in Believers

God knows our motives must be tested for what I'm talking about now. But then there's a third thing that, as my little mind works, has to do with my testing of my motives. And that is that God's salvation that he sent the man, Christ Jesus, down here to accomplish is nothing more or less than bringing many sons to glory.

And my motives must be examined a good bit in the light of this truth. For here we're at the heart of what salvation is. What is it? It's God using me, amen, using your little witness, St. Worth not much, but he uses it, amen.

He uses my little preaching not much, but sometimes he'll get glory to himself, and some sinner will hear God through my little old lips of yours. And what's God going to do with that old sinner? What's this salvation all about?

Well, he gets him in the gutter and stays with him until he brings him the glory. What does that mean? Well, it simply means that salvation is God reproducing Christ in men and women. It means that that word, predestination, it doesn't mean what a lot of people say it does.

Yes, what it does mean, it means that one morning God got up for breakfast and took another look at his only begotten Son and marked out and determined to have a whole family of sons just exactly like Jesus Christ.

That's glory. So it means that salvation starts with a crisis when a man sees the Lord, glory a little bit, continues as he beholds that glory and is changed into God's Son's image. It means that one day, when he sees Christ in all his glory, that look will make him like Christ.

In the next verse, 1 John says, Every man that hath this hope in him, this isn't the second coming of Christ, this is having the hope of seeing him with undimmed ears till the day of his return. But the hope is not in the return, the hope is in seeing him with undimmed ears.

When you do that, brother, you'll be plumb and say, Every man that hath this hope, that one day I'm going to be like Christ. Oh, Lord, if I'm going to be just like Christ, what's that? Ah, he's predestinated me to be conformed to the image of his Son.

That's salvation. That's what salvation is. That's what the church who makes them Christian, produced people, who make a start and God stay with them. It makes them just like Christ. That's reason. That's reason.

See that will have to be unpopular in this religious generation. Don't let it puff you up, Let it break your heart, long that God would restore to America where a hundred years ago every major denomination in America had a good, sound gospel base, and where today none of them have, where the very heart of salvation has almost been lost from American Christianity.

What is it? It's the reproduction of Christ in men and women, so all you do is preach it to people. There's some things you can't do. The deadness of the church is to produce people like Christ. Amen?

Testing Motives Through Faithful Preaching

Ha! And that'll test your motive. I was in Huntingdon, West Virginia some years ago in a week's Bible conference. The pastor asked me to come Monday through Friday, and I could. He asked me to open up some of the foundational doctrines of the Bible.

He felt his people needed some instruction, and I did the best I could. I remember one afternoon my phone rang the hotel, and the pastor down the road some 15, 20, 30 miles, said, Brother Barnes, it's so-and-so, but you're speaking on tonight.

And I said, Well, it's been asked, and I'm going to teach what I think the Bible teaches about predestination tonight. Oh, he said, Oh, my. I said, Oh, my what? He said, There's a man down here in my community, and I've been preaching to him, praying for him, witnessing to him, and I believe God is beginning to deal with him.

He said, I was going to bring him over to hear you talk tonight. He said, I'm afraid if you talked on that subject it would scare him off. He didn't understand why he would. I said, Well, I understand it, and I don't know, maybe the Lord will let me change.

I'm not certain, I can't promise. But he brought the unsaved man with him, and I stuck to the subject. I had no liberty to change it, and I just taught what I understand the Bible teaches about that truth.

And when the service was over, the preacher brought the unsaved man up and introduced him to them. They did this for a little while, and directly they left. They got in the man's car and headed out down the highway out of the city limits of Huntington, West Virginia, down toward the town where they lived.

After a while, they got outside the city limits. The man pulled over with a wide face and stopped the car and turned the key off. And he was weeping pretty copiously. He said, Pastor, I can't go on, I can't see.

And the preacher said, What's the matter? And the man said, Brother, did that preacher tell the truth tonight? And Pastor said, Yes, I believe he did. He said, If a man wanted to be holy, I reckon God would save him.

Pastor said, I believe he would. He said, I wish I could be made holy. He said, I'm so sick and tired of the way I am. He said, That preacher said if a man wanted to be made holy, that's what God was doing with people.

That's what salvation is. Have a start and a walk and a finish. And when the job is done, the purpose of God in choosing men for salvation, that they should be holy before him. And I think the old boy got to the Lord that night.

So that's what salvation is. Brother Brown, will you pronounce the benediction? God bless you. Tomorrow night we'll meet, God willing. Then rest Saturday night. Pray for you, dear Pastor. Oh, my praise.

Battle the demons, guard them with your prayer. You're here tonight, you want to be made like Christ. That's what salvation is. Start out, you're just a little old baby. But the Lord stays with his people.

Amen? One day the job's done. Brother Brown.