Why We Preach the Gospel — Rolfe Barnard

The Glory of the New Covenant

Will you turn in the Bible to the second book of Corinthians, at chapter 2, at chapter 3. And while you're turning, I thank you for the opportunity of witnessing here. And I wish to try to speak this morning in the first message on the subject, why we preach the gospel.

Why do we preach the gospel? In the second book of Corinthians, at chapter 2, we have a description by the Apostle Paul of the contrast of the glory of the Old Testament and the New. And the word glory just appears in nearly every verse of this chapter.

Beginning at verse 5, we read after this wise, Paul says, Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiencies of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, our covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.

For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, that's the law written and engraven in stones, was full of glory, or glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, if that were glorious, Paul says, How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather full of glory?

For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, see, God's going to get glory either way. Everything that writhes and wriggles was created to echo the glory of the sovereign Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if God's going to get glory out of dealing with men who come to the judgment and have to deal with God's holy law without a mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, he's going to get glory out of that. How much more glory he'll receive to himself as we preach the gospel.

For verse 9 says,. If the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made full of glory had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth.

For if that which was done away was full of glory, much more that which remaineth is full of glory. And then the last verse of that glorious chapter describes the chief occupation of every child of God.

I didn't say every church member, but every child of God spends most of his time while washing dishes or down at the factory or plowing corn, harvesting tobacco, whatever they do. This is a description that fits every child of God.

This is what a Christian is. He's a fellow whose chief occupation, the thing that makes him tick, is this, we all, I thank God for that, Paul includes every child of God, we all with open face beholding as in a glass, we don't see the fullness of it yet, did it kill us, but we all with open face beholding as a glass to reflect it, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, something happens to people like that, they are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Transformation Into Christ’s Image

God's eternal purpose is to have a family of people just exactly like his Son. He is running according to schedule. And we are here just as little messenger boys, not knowing whether we'll get a good hearing or a bad one, but knowing we'll get one or the other.

And knowing that God has some people, and many I do not know anything about that, who do the praying here, keep the doors open, live the holy lives, and reflect the glory of Christ, and each day are being changed into the same image as Christ, until one day when with undimmed view we see him as he really is, and that look shall change us completely, and we shall be finally saved because we'll be just exactly like the Lord.

Would you like to meet some old gray-haired saint of God with the Shekinah glory on that countenance? And you can just see from day to day as they behold the glory of the Lord. They get more like him every day.

And if you know one person like that, then it's proven. To come into vital union with Christ will change you, with a change that'll keep on changing you until you're just like Christ. And then in the first verse of chapter 4,.

The Ministry of Truth and the Glory of Christ

Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, a ministry of not simply preaching a word to condemn all men, we have to preach that, but a ministry that talks about the glory of God in Christ, and that's so full of glory.

It glorifies God. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, and it's the gift of God's grace because we got it through mercy, we faint not. But we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. We're going to be honest with men, whatever happens, if we know how.

Not walking in craftiness, not trying to slip up on blindside to somebody and wish the Lord Jesus off on them, nor handling the word of God deceitfully. This is humble. This will humble anybody that's a Christian for your business is handling the word of God, and you wouldn't want to do it deceitfully.

But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God, we actually believe that God's alive and he knows what's going on and he watches us. We're not going to be spiritual crooks, says Paul.

And we're not going to use craft. We're not going to speak as soothsayers. And put salve on open sores. And we're not going to handle the word deceitfully. God help us there. We're going to commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Satan’s Blinding of Unbelievers

And now follows a tremendous passage of Scripture. In the next three verses we find the difference between a lost man on his road to hell and a saved man on his road to glory. Verse 3 says the reason we're going to be honest is we know how.

And the reason we're going to use no craftiness if we can get away from it. And the reason we're going to handle the word rightly if we can and commend ourselves to the consciences, the gift that God gave every man.

It tells you don't go that way, go that way. Which gift can be so sinned against that after a while it'll become serious as with a red hot iron and give you the wrong direction instead of accuse you. It'll excuse you in your sin.

But we're going to commend ourselves to the consciences of every man in the sight of God. For here is the desperateness of the situation if our gospel be hid, this gospel of the glory of God in Christ.

If it's hid, it is hid to them that are lost. And the reason it's hid to them that are lost is something's happened to them in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not.

What did he do that for? Lest the light of the gospel of the glory which is the image of God should shine upon them. Men are blind. Men are blind. Now skip the first, the fifth verse. Here's the description in verses three and four of the condition of men outside of a vital union with Christ.

They're the victims of the work of the devil. They're blind. They see no beauty in my Lord. They see no glory in my Lord. They esteem him not. He's still despised and rejected by people who are still in the clutches of Satan.

The New Birth and the Knowledge of God’s Glory

But verse six describes a Christian. A Christian isn't somebody who's made a decision although a decision in its right place is necessary. A Christian isn't somebody who's made a profession although a profession in its rightful place is good.

A Christian's not somebody that's done something although a Christian will do something. A Christian's not somebody who's trying to get to heaven. A Christian is a product of the redeeming, reigning, sanctifying, conquering grace of Almighty God.

A Christian's not somebody who's done something. A Christian's somebody who's received somebody. He's a product of the grace of God. And here's the most beautiful description I've found in the word of God how people get saved.

Verse six says, For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness and many people won't be able to say thank God if we read the rest of the verse. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts.

Is there an amen? Is that true of anybody? That's the difference. That's what causes the difference. Not something you did, but something he did. Has shined in our hearts. Can't brag on anybody except God.

He's the difference, isn't it? God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness glory, glory, hallelujah has shined in my heart. What did he turn on the light in my heart for? Learn it by heart. Learn it till you wake up at midnight and walk down three stairway steps, steps of stairways, flights of stairways on your hands.

Come hail the high water. You shine in our hearts again. Salvation's something God gives you. The knowledge. You'll not be an ignoramus anymore. The knowledge of the what? Of the glory of God. Where you find it?

Eh? In the face of Jesus Christ. And verse 5 points God's people. Listen to me. Verse 5 points God's people to the one thing God proposes to you to change the condition of men who see no glory in Christ to where they receive a first-hand experience of and knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Preaching Christ Rather Than Ourselves

What's the weapon? Bring that wondrous miracle to pass. Verse 5 says For we preach what? Not ourselves. You're not interested in me? You are, you're crazy. For we preach not ourselves. But whom do we preach?

For we preach Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves. Your bond plays. For Jesus' sake. Why do we preach the gospel? Well, first of all, what is the gospel? Our generation is well nigh asleep to the gospel.

The Christ of the Bible is unknown today. You know it. What is the gospel? Hear me right. It's the proclamation everywhere, one by one, before audiences, by public preachers, by humble children of God.

It's the proclamation of the One who's now on the throne. And He got there by way of a bloody cross. It's the proclaiming of Him who He is and where He is now and what that means. And how He got there and why Almighty God has turned you over to Him, brother, and why He's not in your hands, you're in His.

It's the proclaiming. If you don't hear anything I say while I'm here, hear this, I repeat it. It's the proclaiming far and wide of Him where He is. He's on the throne. One time, hear me, He came and offered Himself as the King of the Jewish people through whom He'd reach the world.

He offered Himself for the acceptance or the rejection of sin for men. And they sent this man to reign over us and to nail Him to a tree. Listen to Ralph Barney. God Almighty made an answer and He raised Him from the dead.

And that isn't all He did. He exalted Him and put Him on the throne. And if this stumbles you, don't talk to anybody else for God's sake. Talk to God about it. He's not subject to your acceptance or your rejection now.

God Almighty settled that. He's put Him on the throne. The gospel is simply this. Jesus Christ is God's Lord. Bow down to Him, son. Don't talk to me about taking Him as your Savior. Bow down to Him as your Lord.

The gospel is the good news of God about His Son, His virgin birth, His sinless life, His glorious death, His enthronement, His present rule, and His return, everything about Him. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you hadn't heard it so much that it's no longer good news to you?

Believing the Gospel and Beholding Christ

Oh, as I go from place to place, my whole heart leaps within me. I wish, like little children, I believe our church people, I believe you have never saw it before. I doubt whether many of you know the Lord, but you'd like to.

I doubt whether many of you believe the Bible, but try and do. I'm not pushing that to you. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could just believe what God said about His Son? Oh, it'd be such wonderful news.

Somebody said in my reading, I read it, some of these days some simple child of God is going to pick up the old book, the Bible, and read it and believe it. Wouldn't it be wonderful, young people, if you could believe?

You're trying to. If you could believe the good news about God giving you a knowledge firsthand, where some personal worker don't have to convince you you're saved, of the glory of God, and you found that knowledge of God's glory by beholding the Lord Jesus Christ.

This one who entered Heaven with his own blood having obtained eternal redemption for us, if God's might judge this morning, I want to get in on that us, for us. He obtained eternal redemption for somebody, I'd love to be one of them, whom men put on a cursed tree and God raised up and sent him in.

The gospel is the preaching of Him who while he's down here searching for somebody and who's now and reigning on the hearts, outside the hearts door of big sinners hoping to get in. I love to read some of the scriptures about him.

Christ’s Exaltation and Present Reign

I just nearly get that religion every time I read the third verse of the first chapter of Hebrews, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when by he, by himself.

I want to get in on that crowd, the folks that he purged their sins. What happened to him? He sat down on the right. Where's my Lord now? He's sitting at the right hand of God. Not that little Jesus, it's a little.

He's got the way. Make a, find out what you're going to do about him. No! He's reigning from the throne. Do you believe that? That's the same one that in the eighth verse of that chapter quote from the Old Testament, under the sun, God said, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.

How long? It's forever and ever. I like to turn. You can't turn as fast as I do. I'm fudging on you. I got a march here. Into the second chapter, verse of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, looking under Jesus the altar and finish of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame what's happened to him.

And he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Oh, the gospel is the preaching of him whom the apostle Peter says in the book of Acts at chapter two on the day of Pentecost. He reminds the people there of the actions of sinful men and then of the action of almighty God.

He says, therefore let all the house of Israel know, surely verse 36, that God has made that same Jesus, that same Jesus, the one whom you've crucified. Men can brag about that. Men can take the credit for nailing the son of God to a cursed tree.

That ain't all of the story. I want you to know, as a matter of fact, it's so, said Peter, that this same Jesus whom you crucified, God, what God do about it? God has made that, this virgin born, sinless living, crucified eternal son of God, almighty God, the God of the universe has done something about that.

He's made that same Jesus, not the Jesus of a man's imagination, but the Jesus whose story is told in the word. He's made him Lord. He's made him Lord. The violent heresy going up and down this country is, won't you pretty please make Jesus your Lord.

God beat you to it. God's already made him your Lord. God's already sat him down. He's the Lord of all men. Then I'll have to read about that Jesus who's able to save and ever let all who come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth for far, to make intercession for us.

Then I'll have to read of that glorious time. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. After, look what my Lord's going to do before he quits. After he hath put down A .W .L. rule and all authority and power, for he must reign, and he's reigning now, how long?

Till he hath put him in it, all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet when he died on the cross, but when he saith all things are not under him, it's manifested he himself not yet subject.

And then verse 28. Shout about this if you had any Christianity. Think about it. Oh, if you could believe this. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, how many things? All things. Shall be subdued, brought under, in subjection to Jesus Christ.

He'll do it by grace or he'll do it by power, but he'll do it. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things unto him. That God may be all in all.

I love to preach about this, Jesus. I tell you, well then, God believes it and now it's wonderful. Ah, no wonder the gospel's good news. But I'll warn you, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know you, but everywhere else I've ever been in, this generation of church people don't know nothing about the Jesus of the Bible.

The Biblical Christ Versus the Modern Jesus

The only Jesus we hear about is a little hipless sort of a fellow. But the Jesus of the Bible, he was in a manger, but he's not there now. He was on a cross and in the heart of God, being a lamb slain before the foundation of the world, there's always a cross in the heart of God.

And in that sense, Christ is still on the cross. But in the body, he's not in a manger in a cow stable now. He's not on an old tree being spat upon. Now, God bless your heart, he's on the throne. This is not the day when God's making folks.

Brother Parks, a lot of times I get in the flesh. I want to pick people up and make them. But that's not God's way now. Will be. Not now. Not now. Not now. We preach him, what he's done, what he's now doing.

We preach him where he is now. The popular Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. He's well nigh a stranger to us. The modern Jesus has no majesty and no cutting edge, no look of judgment. He's been so sentimentalized and cut up into a nice little kind lit teacher whose love has no holiness and whose sympathy blinds him to sin.

He's a companion, almost a pal. But he's not Lord. The modern Jesus is not one before whom men would fall on their faces and he wouldn't frighten anybody away, not even the devils. The modern Jesus is one whom nobody would crucify and for whom few, if any, would die.

The modern Jesus couldn't have brought the church into being and couldn't have sustained it. And the modern Jesus can't transform your life, but the Christ of the Bible can. Why do we preach him? Three reasons.

Preaching Christ Because He Commands Us

First, we're commanded to. In Matthew 28, 18 and 20, the Lord Jesus said, All authority, A-double-L, all of it, every last bit of it. All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me. The Father gave it to him.

I haven't got any. You haven't got any. He has. All authority has been given unto me. Isn't that some claim? He's the biggest fool out of hell that he's God Almighty when he says, All authority is given unto me.

Preaching Christ as a Privilege

Go ye therefore, go ye therefore, we preach him because he commanded us to. He's got a right to give orders. We preach him because it's a great privilege to do so. Oh my, I hope you're not one of these professing Christians.

Somebody has to get the wind to twist your arm to get you to talk about the Lord. You know nothing about the Lord, do you? It's not a duty. It's a privilege. Having received this ministry by the mercy of God, we don't think.

God bless your heart, Paul said, according to the gospel of the glory of God, which was committed to my trust. He says, I thank my Lord Jesus Christ who counted me faithful and put me into the ministry.

The Gospel as God’s Weapon Against Spiritual Blindness

Oh, what a privilege. Why we preach the gospel? They're blind men, blinded by Satan. Because they get drunk, they do this and that, they'll order into the glory of God. Intercessory prayer, they're the only weapons we've got.

And so we get people to make decisions and go on to hell. But what needs to happen now is for the power of the Spirit of God using the truth of the gospel to take the scales that devils put on men's eyes so they can see.

They can see the glory of Christ. Any man that tries to do personal work or preaches or sermons, I'm trying to preach and the primary motive is not for the cry in his heart to be revealed. That's it. That's it.

That's it. The grand design of the blessed gospel of God concerning His Son is the glory of that Son. What's the difference? The lost man doesn't see any glory in Christ. Amen to that. Something's happened to him.

He can see right now. He can see right. Used to. Couldn't. Huh? Couldn't do it. Mr. Burns, the evangelist God used to start the Revival in the Chains Parish in Scotland. When he got famous, he went down to take ship to go to China to be a missionary.

And the reporters asked him and said, Mr. Burns, I presume you're going to China to convert the Chinese. He said, Oh, no. I'm going to China to glorify God. If you don't understand that, you better do a little praying, dear one.

Beholding the Glory of Christ

Ah, my soul. Jesus Christ is the light and the glory. He's the light that lighted every man. Came and tabernacled among us in the flesh. And John says, Glory be. We beheld his glory. Are you one of the people who beheld the glory of Christ?

Don't get mad at me. I didn't ask you if you've made a decision. If you've done what they've made popular these days, accept it, Jesus. Used to be a good word. Now it isn't anymore. Have you beheld his glory?

Get you to make a decision? No, your decision hasn't been settled. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. We're not trying to get you to make any decision. That's all settled. It's not a question of whether you're going to receive Christ or not.

It's just a question of when. Do it now. As God persuades you. Well, then he'll put his foot on your neck and make you. No, we're not trying to get you to make a decision. That's already been settled.

Do you understand that? Huh? The grace of God. That's what it is, brother. Sends the messengers out with an offer of pardon. You don't have to make your move now. Just wait a little while. But you're going to make it.

So we're not trying to get you to make a decision. That's already been settled. Is that clear? Because of what he did. Because that God by displaying and manifesting the glory of his son. This too deep for me, brother.

There's one thing I know. That the God who makes evil rise up to praise him. That everything's going to be to the praise of the glory of God's grace some of these days. This generation has never seen the glory of Christ.

You wouldn't misunderstand me. I don't know how you'll treat me. I've been received well and run out and everything else many places. That's up to you. It's all in the book. I'm not here to entertain you.

I'm here at your invitation. I want to help you if I can. But if we just quit trying to get people to make decisions. And if our Sunday school classes and our pulpits and our radios and our homes and our whole testimony of doing what God told us to do, preach the gospel.

That's him on the throne for us, God. Let's just keep lifting him up! We've been trying to do it both. We ain't getting anywhere. Nearly everybody in this country done made from one to half a dozen decisions still living like the devil.

We don't need some more decisions right now out of place. We need some people into whose lives the light comes to shine. Causes them to see the glory of God way in Jesus Christ. Isn't he wonderful? Praise the Lord.

The Glory of the Eternal Word

I wish this closing moment just call your attention to the glory of the eternal word of God. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. I hope you're not so hard and so nice and so religious that that wouldn't drive you to, oh Lord, help me to get a little of the shine of the glory of him, the eternal God.

His glorious words, when he spoke, his glory shone through the veil of his flesh. Some people saw it. When he said, I am the Messiah, some people believed him. When he said, I am the redeeming Lord, some people were able to believe him.

When he said, I am the resurrection, some people were able to believe him. When he said, I am the assurance, the rock of salvation, some people believed him. When he said, I am the source of all grace, some people were able to believe him.

When he said, I am God, some people believed him. A man can't speak that way about himself. I wish we could recover for this generation the sense of the glory of his deeds. He spoke and the winds obeyed him and the waves were quiet.

He spoke and death had to surrender. He spoke and the hearts of some were open to him. I wish I knew how to preach of the glory of his death. Ladies and gentlemen, that death that's always in the heart of God, there was a glory about it that caused fear to come in the heart of the centurion.

He said, surely this man is the son of God. There was a glory about his death that caused this old earth to shake. There was a glory about his death that caused the veil to be rent in flames. There was a glory about his death that caused the graves to yield up their dead and there's still glory there.

You see it? If you saved, you do. If you saved, you do. But I close by just mentioning what I've been talking about. Oh, that men and women this day, I wish I knew how to preach it. I'm not a novice any longer.

I've been preaching this month 36 years, 28 of them, been a full-time Hitchhiker evangelist. The news sort of worn off. Before I die, I ain't just preaching now, I'm telling the truth. Before I die, I wish I could preach Christ where He is, and all in glory of His enthronement.

I wish men and women could see Him there. They'll have to take God's word for it in the gospel before they'll ever see Him. I wish somebody just could just believe the testimony of God. He's on the throne.

How long is He there for? Forever. To transform the human life and lift it out of just the human, flows from the right hand of Him who sits on the throne, and I say it to you with a breaking heart, just tell the story that this generation has put its faith in a Christ, but not the Christ of the book, but He's on the throne.

And to get in touch with Him means to get in touch with power that'll change you. Ah, John saw Him reign in over the church and then over the ages to come. Stephen saw Him sitting at the right hand of God.

Saul going down the road to Damascus saw Him, and He was changed. That's the glory men need to see today. The glory of the enthroned, regnant Christ. Not in our hands to do with what we will, but we're in His hands.

And the only safe place for a human being is bowing at His throne, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me whole. Someday this glory will be revealed on this earth, and men will cry for the rocks and mountains to fall upon them to hide them from the face of Him that sits on the throne.

I would that men today could believe the gospel. What's the gospel? Christ on the throne. He got there because He went to the cross. Therefore God's highly exalted Him. Here's what God thinks about it.

Giving Him a name, amen, which is above every name. That's what God's done about it. But what? That it's the name of Jesus. And every tongue confess that He's what? What the Bible's been saying all along.

That He's love. Amen. To the glory of the Father. Too late for your salvation. But your salvation never was the big thing. The glory of Christ is the big thing. During the First World War, a Red Cross nurse lay dying, and an attendant nurse was at her side.

Just a little while before she died, the nurse began to try to speak, and she was almost gone, and she said, Bring. And the attendant nurse, that's all she could get out of her, and she brought her a glass of water, but she shook her head, she didn't want water.

After a while, the dying woman made another effort, she said, Bring. Bring. The attendant nurse brought her the Bible, or maybe she wanted the book, but she shook her head, she didn't want the book. After a while, she made another effort, she said, Bring.

Bring. Nonplussed and perplexed, the attendant nurse brought her a pad of paper and a pencil, thought maybe she'd write out what she was trying to say, she shook her head. And after a while, it was the last supreme effort of her strength, she was half-raised to sit in her bed, on the palm of her hand, and get a little more breath.

And the dying woman said, Bring. Bring. Bring.