Bondage — Lester Roloff

Speakers who have challenged you for years come to you now on the series, The Chapel Platform, which originates from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. These servants of God, presented on The Chapel Platform, have delivered biblical truth to help prepare Christians to serve the Lord.

Our speaker preached on Monday morning, May 7th, 1973, at a university chapel service. The late Dr. Gilbert Stenholm introduced our speaker, followed by a hymn led by the late Dr. James Conley. Our speaker is the late evangelist, Dr. Lester Roloff, who is now with the Lord he so vibrantly served.

Dr. Roloff is remembered for the children's homes he founded by God's leading in the Corpus Christi, Texas area. His text is from Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 through 3. Dr. Roloff gives an insightful message on knowing God's will and trusting God to live it through times of both blessing and troubles.

Dr. Roloff's sermon is titled, Bondage.

I'd like to introduce the speaker at this time before we have a song. I'm sure that most of you have heard the one who's going to speak today on the radio, Brother Lester Roloff, the one who has reached hundreds and hundreds of unfortunate young people who are in difficulties and led them to Christ.

We're grateful for his work in Corpus Christi, for the many lives that he's touched, for his consistency as a sole winner, a friend of this university, and so we're honored and glad that he can be with us for our chapel service today.

So following the song, we'll have a message that God has laid upon his heart. Number 107, please. Oh, Master, let me walk with thee. 107. And let's stand to sing. Well it's surely a wonderful privilege to be with this many sweet and wonderful fundamental Christians, and to visit the campus, and I know that most of the things are some of the things that I say probably you've heard before.

But it's unusual in this world that has lost a generation of young people. We have six homes, they're all full today, 300 little girls in one home, on dope and in trouble, 150 babies have been born. But to get to come to Bob Jones, I suppose, is one of my secret desires for many years, though it doesn't make me any difference where I go anymore, except I want God to send me.

And I feel today that this is a real privilege to get to come and be with you and fellowship with you, and I'm glad that some of our girls could come. One of them is at the room for the first time in all of our tours, for thousands and hundreds of thousands of miles, and we'll wind up in the islands on this tour.

From island to island, one of our girls has a sore throat, and she was not able to come. But she'll be, I think, in the service time. She gets the Roloff cure today, and she'll be back, I think, tonight.

But it's good to be here. I greatly enjoyed being with the Preacher Boys, the greatest, probably ministerial group of preachers that I've ever been with in my life. And I praise the Lord for this sweet and wonderful privilege, and I know the girls also.

And we're going to share with you some scripture, a few songs, and then I'll bring the message. I'd like to challenge you to the mission field of the home base. The ditches are full. The Good Samaritans are few.

We need more rescue work, and we have millions of dollars' worth of buildings that God has given us, and ours is a work of faith. And I think I'll speak in a moment on living by faith. I worked in the field, doctors, in and home for 75 cents a day, $4 .25 a week.

The Lord called me to preach 40 years ago, ignorant, unlearned, sick, and without any money. And the Lord let me go to college at Baylor University and took my milk cow, met my way through school. And now then, today, when I wake up in the morning, there must be $6 ,000 to come in that day to take care of all of the wayward strugglers that God has sent our way.

And yet he's faithful. He's faithful. And so it's just such a delight. Would you let me tell you something? I think our girls would probably feel the same way. Many years ago, I'm told that a farmer, the kind I guess I was brought up among, had saved and worked and looked forward to the day when he'd take his 16 children to the zoo.

And he and his lovely wife and all the children loaded up and got into the city, and they lined up for the tickets. And the man said, whose are all the children? He said, they're ours, such fine children.

We're so glad and thankful for every one of them. We couldn't do without one of them. I tell you, it looked like the more there are, the happier we get. And he said, well, we want a ticket for each one.

That's 18, counting my wife and I. And the man at the ticket office said, no, sir. No, sir. He said, y 'all just go right on through. No, he said, we'll pay. We're used to paying our way. We've got the money.

We've saved it up. We're ready. He said, no, sir. He said, just walk right on through. He said, really, it'll be worth more to my animals to see you and your family than for y 'all to see my animals. Now, regardless of what blessing the Lord might make me to you and the girls to you today, you certainly would be worth more to get to come where folks wear clothes and where boys look like gentlemen.

And that's our standard also. Girls, you come along now and we'll share some scripture. And we have one book, people say, and the people coming across the nation all the time from 50 to 250 visitors a week.

And this question, the probation officers, the judges, the sheriffs, and they're bringing little girls in, in handcuffs. Thirteen, I went and picked one up the other day, put the handcuffs on her, brought her home with us.

Her mother and daddy were literally scared to death of her. She's just at the ripe old age of 14. We're living in a time of no discipline. When the parents are afraid of the children, and that's the way the children want it.

But our girls are taught to obey, and I appreciate the discipline of Bob Jones University. And though I've not been around you, I've prayed for you, and I'm far the standards of this great school. You're one of a vanishing tribe.

There are not many schools left in America that I could recommend that a girl or boy. And while I'm saying this, let me bring greetings to all the people that told me to tell their child hello. Now, that's over with, isn't it?

I did. I met them on this last seven-state tour. We just finished Friday night. And they said, Brother Olaf, you're going to see my daughter and my son, and I'm sure glad to see you this morning. And it's just a delight to be here.

Before or while we're rolling down every runway in the 411 airplane, we quote one chapter. I don't have to tell them. This is our traveler's psalm. The girls can quote 15 or 20 chapters of the Word of God.

They've memorized a hundred psalms. Their minds have been cleared, sanctified and blessed and happy they are in the work of the Lord. Psalm 121.

Scripture Memorization and Confidence in God's Keeping Power

Psalm 121. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whom cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which may have not earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. Hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil.

He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and even for evermore. Amen. Great is the Lord in the city, in the mountain, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole.

Psalm 67. God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause this day to shine upon us. Selah. That thy way may be known upon earth, and thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.

O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us.

God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. Amen.

Testimony of Grace, New Birth, and Transformation

He found me. He found me. Now then, I'd like to lay a burden on your heart this morning. I couldn't come before this many Christians and faculty members without asking you to pray for those that come to us.

This is the most dangerous work anybody could ever face. Last week, twenty-five of our girls were triggered into flashbacks, and some of these girls bear marks in their bodies from holding and trying to protect them, and just like epileptic seizures.

It would not be necessary, would it, for me to warn you about cigarettes or dope or rock and roll, and rock and roll is the worst poison there is. Did you know that young people always take dope with rock and roll?

Those two go together. Let me give you the four characteristics of this generation that go together. Long hair on boys. That's rebellion. Number two, girls in men's clothes. That's rebellion. Rock and roll, and that's the devil's music.

Number four, immorality. Those four, that's your quartet right there. It's hard to find one without finding all of them together. If I were to let these girls, and Diane, I think I will, let you give just one testimony, and we'll have to save the others for maybe the Church.

This is Diane Burton, a little girl I found in her home with a probation officer sitting there wondering just what to do with her, whether to send her to prison, and she's been with us some time. Made an elegant lady who teaches charm in the Rebecca Academy and loves the girls, loves the girls and helps them and takes care of them.

All right, Diane.

Well, I praise God for the grace of God, and in Ephesians 2 .8 and 9 it says, For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

And when I came to the Rebecca Home for girls, I was really discouraged and defeated. I'd had a round with dope and I was in trouble with the law, and I didn't know where to turn. I didn't know where to go.

But I'm thankful for the Rebecca Home, and I'm thankful for a man that's not afraid to preach the word and truth because it says being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.

And when I heard the word of God preached, I realized my lost condition. And one night I asked Jesus to come into my heart and to save me. And he did. And he's changed my life. And he's given me something real inside.

And I can stand here now, a new person, a new creature in Christ, a transformed life. I know it's all because of his grace. And I love him and I want to serve him. And I know that's the only way that I can really be happy.

And I'm thankful for what Jesus has done for me. And I want you all to really pray for us and for the girls there. So many of them come in so defeated and so hard. But yet I know that Christ is the answer.

And I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.

There's something mighty sweet about the Lord. There's something mighty sweet about the Lord. Would you do me a big favor and learn the song? You know it. You learn real quick here. Would you sing that and let the girls hear you sing?

We'll sing along with you maybe once. We were down in the islands, you remember, that night. Six thousand people were standing for three hours while the Gospels preached. And they taught us that song that night.

There's something mighty sweet about the Lord. I remember one of the first messages, one of the first songs I ever got was a theme song. I got it in Baylor University when I was there, lonely and sick and so dumb I could hardly pass my grades.

It was such a hard time. And the devil tried to stop me the first year and then all the other thirty-nine also. But oh, the blessings of the Lord and how good he's been. But I remember a song that came to me during that time.

Would you be a victor over every foe? Conquer every trial in this old world below? Overcome temptation that each day you meet? Just keep in touch with Jesus. He will keep you sweet. Keep in touch with Jesus.

Though your path be dim, let no cloud nor shadow sever you from him. Joy or sorrow greet you. Friend or foe you meet. Just keep in touch with Jesus. He will keep you sweet. Now that's not the one I want you to learn.

I want you to learn There's Something Mighty Sweet. We'll sing it together, all of us now. There's something mighty sweet about the Lord. There's something mighty sweet about the Lord. It really doesn't matter what the people say, what the people say.

There's something mighty,.

Something mighty sweet about the Lord. There's something mighty sweet about the Lord. I'm ready for you. Girls, be quiet. Sing.

The Word of God as the Believer's Anthem

Let's whisper there's something mighty. Ran into a lady that wanted to take them out to the zoo and they went. And when they came back they had learned a little song in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 17 and I call it our anthem.

We're kind of untrained and we haven't had the opportunity that you've had, but the Lord has given us a song and we got to sing it. And so that's the reason we sing. Singing is a great part of our 300 girls.

We have 150 in the choir. And you'll notice there's something, there's pathos in their singing. There's assurance. God has given them great conviction after He saved them. We teach them not only how to be saved, but we teach them how to find the will of God.

So how about singing 1 Timothy 1 .17 and then 1 .17 right and then we'll preach.

Now unto the King eternal.

Moses, the Burning Bush, and Reverence for God

Turn your Bible please to Exodus chapter 3. We'll visit the land of bondage. God called a man by the name of Moses who his mother said was a proper child. And she hid him by faith for a number of months because she wasn't afraid of the King's commandments.

In the closing days of this grace era, we're going to face opposition and misunderstanding from the state. You've already faced it in Bob Jones. You're going to continue to get worse. We're going to face opposition from religion and we're going to face, of course, opposition from a wicked world.

I said to the dear brother that led me over here, only God could build Bob Jones. It's too big for any man to build. Even though I appreciate the leadership and the way God's used them, but there were millions of Israelites in Egyptian bondage because they went off into idolatry.

And anybody goes into idolatry, they go into slavery and bondage. Young people may I remind you that one of the things we face today, and we're having a real revival of witchcraft. Our girls come in hooked on witchcraft.

And Satan worshippers come in with the words, I love Satan. Last week when they were going through the awful time of flashbacks and delirious and looked like epileptic seizures, you know what they were saying?

Help me, Satan. Help me, Satan. Satan, help me. Well, he's the one that got them into it. Anything can happen to you if you get away from the Word of God. There's only one book that's got all the answers.

It's the Word of God. We've seen thousands and thousands of people. We have a boy teaching in the Rebecca Academy on dope for 14 years. I worked with him for a long time. Finally, the Lord saved him, and he graduated with honors from Tennessee Temple Bible School.

And he's teaching. I cannot imagine that dope head sitting there in the class and me trusting him with 300 girls all about him. And yet, he's a real Christian gentleman. Home back together. Danny Kindle be graduating on dope for 12 years, five times in Lexington Hospital to get him cured, and nothing ever helped him except Jesus Christ.

Preaching the Word as the Only Message of Deliverance

We have one message to deliver. We have one book to preach, and that's the Word of God. Moses. Forty years in Egypt's land. Forty years in the seminary of loneliness. And then he walks up in the third chapters recorded in the book of Exodus to the burning bush.

He said, I better turn aside and see this sight. The bush is burning, but it won't burn up. And God said, you better pull off your sandals. And that's one of the revivals we need in this country, a revival of real reverence for God.

Irreverence grins like a monster in the face of God today. Let me tell you something. When we do not respect God, we do not respect anybody else that needs respect. Nearly every child that comes to our home, every girl said, I hate my mother.

I hate my daddy. And they go so far as to say, I hate God. I hate your Jesus. I hate that Bible. I've already gone through all of that. And yet, just hammering down with the Word of God, finally they surrender, get saved, and they're made new creatures in Christ Jesus.

I'm to take a boy now that shot his dad four times in the head, best friend he ever had. And he says that. He was a college boy. His daddy drove him to the campus. When the daddy came back to sit in the car, the boy pulled his pistol out, shot his dad four times in the head, told the judge, said, daddy just wouldn't die, so I got in the car to him and beat him to the ground.

He still didn't die. And the daddy's alive today. And the daddy said, and he loves that boy to pieces. He said, Brother Olaf, please take him. Oh, listen, he might have shot one of my eardrums out, but I can still hear out of one ear.

And I love him. That's sort of like a father's love, isn't it? And the attorney wrote me and told me about the boy and said, now do you want him? You know what was wrong with the boy? When they went to his room, they found witchcraft and sorcery books knee-high.

And the boy said, I read so much of that stuff, my mind snapped on me. And I shot and tried to kill my best friend. Got a boy in there a few, a good many months ago, just killed his daddy in Arkansas.

And the judge said, Brother Olaf, if you'll take him, he doesn't need to go to the penitentiary. Dad's a very mean man. And said, would you take him? I said, yes, sir. We took old Leroy and made him one of the finest gentlemen we've ever had.

One of the most courteous young men I've ever known in my life. He just needed to be saved. Mother called me the other day and said, Brother Olaf, my two boys just shot my husband and killed him. Thirteen and fourteen.

The thirteen-year-old killed the daddy. Laying up in the bed, the daddy was a wicked man, refused to let the boys even go to Sunday school and church, and was mean. And finally one of the boys just came in and shot him while he was asleep and killed him.

Bondage, Cultural Rebellion, and the Power of Christ

We're living in violent times. We're living in slavery, in bondage. And Moses was raised up. He came up to the bush. You know, man reverses everything. You take this hippie crowd, they call it rock music.

Well, that's mud music. No rock about it. But you see, they're trying to get something sacred to tie up with their filth. Jesus is the rock. You and I stand on all of the ground, just shifting and sinking sand.

But you see, they try to take the rock. I'll tell you something else. And I think I'd like to preach, and I've just got a few minutes, preach on the bush man. We need some bush men. But people have turned that around.

Somebody comes walking in about half-fall and he says, I'm bushed. You ever heard that? Well, Brother Moses wasn't worth killing until he got bushed. Isn't that right? What did his education do for him?

What did his loneliness do for him? All of it had a part, but he had to come up to the bush where he could meet the great I Am and get his orders and go down to headquarters and say, turn them loose. I'm getting them out of here.

And he did it the same way I've done what little I've done, and that is in the name of the great I Am. And that's Jesus. I Am the way. I Am the truth. I Am the life. I Am the alpha. I Am the omega. I Am the resurrection.

I Am the water. I Am the light. I Am, Brother, He's everything that's decent and good and right and that you need right now. Don't let your salvation become a theory. Let it go to work. And practice. The lawyer said, I practice law.

The doctor said, I practice medicine. The Christian says, I practice Christ. And that's the way it ought to be. Oh, today. He met him at the burning bush, went down into Pharaoh's office. He led millions.

The Blood of Christ and Full Salvation

You know how he led them out? Not through the first nine plagues. They didn't make a lick of progress during those nine plagues. And if you forget everything I say, you just remember this. The blood of Jesus Christ still cleanses people from sin.

I had no chance with Sandy or Diane or any of these other girls until they were covered by the blood, by faith in Jesus Christ. And that's what this school has been built on, the power that's in the blood.

You don't need influence. We're trying to influence people, you know, how to win friends and influence people. Brother, Paul didn't have enough influence to keep him out of jail, but he had enough of the power of God to pray down an earthquake and get him out.

The church over there had Peter for their pastor and they didn't have enough influence to keep their pastor out of jail, but they had enough power with God to pray him out and he came a knocking on the gate.

Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, didn't have enough influence to keep him off of an old rugged cross, but thank God he had enough power to come walking out on the third morning under the power of the blood of the everlasting covenant.

And that's what you and I need this morning, more than we need anything else. Education without regeneration and sanctification is an abomination. But count it all joy to be lined up in a Christian school that knows the truth, that have a faculty that walk in the truth and live the truth.

The Blood Reaches Deeper Than Sin

An old song popped into my mind, but I've revived it. It's over a hundred years old. It's an old fashioned song. We'll have to close with this. Dark the sin that soiled man's nature, Long the distance that he fell, Far removed from hope and heaven, Near to deep despair and hell.

But there was a fountain opened, And the blood of God's own Son Purifies the soul and reaches Deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation, God to live upon the throne, And I know the blood still reaches Deeper than the stain.

Conscious of that deep pollution, Sinners wander on in the night. Even though the shepherd's calling, Still they fear to face the light. This the tender consolation That should melt that old heart of stone.

This sweet balm of Gilead reaches Deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation, God to live upon the throne, And I know the blood still reaches Deeper than the stain. All unworthy we who've won, As we think of the love that sought us Through those old, dreary, wasted years.

Yet we'll walk the holy highway For the pure, the blood washed alone, Knowing Calvary's fountain reaches Deeper than the stain has gone. When with holy throngs we're standing In the presence of the great King, And our souls are lost in wonder As the white-robed choirs shall sing, Then we'll praise the sweet name of Jesus, We'll praise Him for the blood that reached us Deeper than the stain has gone.

Prayer for the School and Deliverance from Bondage

Will you sing it now? Praise the Lord for full salvation, God to live upon the throne, And I know the blood still reaches Deeper than the stain. Our Father, finish the message today. Bless the student body and the faithful faculty, and provide all the needs for this more than an institution, a great Christian school.

Lord, I pray that the students seem like, as I looked across this sea of faces from the balcony downstairs, if there could be any hope left for a nation that's so wicked, it'd have to be in a crowd like this.

And so, Lord, bless them today. Bless the leaders, the president, the chancellor, and all the rest of them. I pray that Thy Spirit may hover close. Oh, may they never forget the great I Am that liberates the captives from Egypt's land of sin.

And so, Lord, bless this service and the other services in the church. Bless every student and their loved ones. In Jesus' sweet and precious name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for The Chapel Platform. Copies of today's message are available. So please write us and send us a check for $7 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC 29614. South Carolina residents, please send $7 .20.

Just mention the speaker, Dr. Lester Roloff, the message titled, Bondage, and also mention today's date. Please join us again for The Chapel Platform, sponsored by Bob Jones University.