Awakening Is From the Lord — Rolfe Barnard

Hope for a Future Awakening

Will you open your Bibles tonight, first of all, to the book of Revelation, the revelation of the Lord, Jesus Christ, chapter 20. I'm going to spend the time tonight, my wife and I are trying to find something to preach about, and she said preach about 15 minutes.

That would be something, if I ever got to where I could do that. But that's her goal. She asked me today and asked me many times a question I cannot answer, do we have any right to hope, or to expect an awakening, a turning unto the Lord in our lifetime?

I'm interested in a question like that, or as far as this earth is concerned, I've just got one lifetime, and this is it. Do we have any right to hope that there shall be a turning to the Lord, an awakening from the Lord, and a mighty seeking after the Lord in our lifetime?

The answer to that question is that no one can answer it. I believe that I'm living on the very threshold of such an awakening. I can't prove it, I don't know whether it's so or not. It may be that the wish is farther to the thought.

I talk along the line of how awakening would proceed when it does take place in the middle of the awakening that the Bible talks about, or the Bible does promise there shall be a great turning to the Lord.

Students on this, men, are sharply divided on many of the details about how it's going to come to pass, when. But there's no shadow of a doubt with what the Bible teaches, that the day of glory is yet future, that in the parlance of the streets we've not seen anything yet, that the bright day is out yonder.

It's not back yonder, it's out yonder. That the time of the glory of the gospel and the glory of the Church and the glory of the Lord is yet future. Most of the time when the knowledge of the Lord, and in the Old Testament the word knowledge really means obedience.

Men knew God in proportion as their being, and the Old Testament thinks that's still so. The knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. That's yet future. The Bible speaks of a time when men shall come and catch hold of the coattail of the child of God, and that's the way.

We do know that the days of glory are in the future and not simply in the past. And while I cannot unravel the details about it, I can proceed upon a principle that I think is true, that God in spiritual things always uses the same recipe.

And I want to talk about the revival that is promised, the glory that is promised, and that you make your own application for a little while tonight. If I didn't believe these things, I think I couldn't go on.

I think that if you ever lose hope, you're dead. And this is a very pessimistic age. A live-wire pastor said to me the other day, he said, I guess we'll never try to have another of what's called evangelistic campaigns that can't come out.

Nothing takes place. He said, they're just going to quit. This is a very pessimistic age. The Bible speaks of a time, as your pastor said in the opening remarks, we're divided about some of the things connected with the return of the Lord.

I cannot speak with any authority about them. I'll let you be your own interpreter. But however it comes to pass, some of the time, according to the 20th chapter of Revelation, when a wonderful thing is going to take place, it's going to be the order of the day for a period of time called in the Bible, a thousand years.

Whether it's a literal thousand years or not, I'm not smart enough at this time to enter into that. But in chapter 20, verse 1, it says, I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

And he laid over on the dragon that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. There are some Bible students who say that thousand years is figurative, it's a period of time.

There are others who are equally insistent that it is a thousand years. It's all right with me, and I'm sure it is with you, which is right. Either way, it would be wonderful, this earth being pretty good shape, if this earth, with the people in it, were going to live for a thousand years, actual, literal thousand years on the earth, with the big troublemaker, the one who blinds men to the glory of the gospel, with him bound, with him bound.

Or it's just an indefinite period of time, maybe lasting a few million, a billion years, that would be all right, that would still be fine. Either way, it's a wonderful prospect. I want tonight to suggest to you from the book of Zechariah, how the devil is going to be bound.

You would lack, I insisted on what some people say, that you've got to have a literal interpretation of the scripture, whatever it says, that's what it means. You would not insist that the Lord is going to take a trace chain, a tire chain, tell them how long it is and how wide, and that actually Satan, who is spirit, not flesh, is going to be actually his wrists and his feet handcuffed with chains.

You would lack that, of course. So if that is not true, we would think that God is going to go about the business of binding Satan for this glorious period of time in which wonderful things are going to take place right here on this earth for a period of time.

He's going to go about binding Satan in the same way, observing his laws, his spiritual laws, that he gives us many places in the scripture and he never violates this principle. In the 12th and 13th chapters of the book of Zechariah, we have a very detailed description of how Satan is going to be bound.

I say, how do you get that? Well, I just get it because we'd have what you call revival if we could get Satan bound. Is that right? Well, there is no way to have a spiritual awakening without binding Satan, for the one who keeps spiritual awakening promise is Satan.

It's the God who has blinded the minds of men lest they see the glory of God in the gospel. If we can bind Satan, if God will bind Satan and stop him for a period of time, being the great tempter, being the great devourer, being the great deceiver, being the great accuser, being the great opposer, we wrestle not with flesh and bones.

With him and his gang. That's what Paul tells us. We ought to go to looking in this direction and praying in this direction. I want to illustrate before I read from this book of Zechariah what I'm trying to say.

The Limits of Human Revival Methods

You'll not think me trying to sit in judgment on my brethren, but all of my life I've read everything I could get my hands on, on anything that smelled like anybody that was interested in the spiritual awakening, for we haven't had any in my day, of course.

I've read magazines and books and talked with men. I'm so anxious to put in my little bit and get us to try to go in the same direction as God's people, as the Bible and as the Holy Spirit. For instance, the whole theme of evangelism and revival has, since I've been a preacher, has used for its proof text 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14.

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will heal their land. Now to me, as long as we keep on looking in that direction for an awakening, we're just going to keep looking.

We're not going to receive. I believe that we ought to look and wait and pray in another direction. For the binding of Satan, and God's going to use means that he pleases to bind Satan. I believe it is a caricature of the gospel of the grace of God to even intimate that saved people need to humble themselves.

I believe it tears down everything for which Christ died to even intimate that God's saved people ought to pray. I may be wrong. I believe it's a slam on the gospel to even suggest that God's people ought to seek his face.

I believe it's a slam and a denial of the gospel to even suggest that God's people ought to turn from their wicked ways, and that if God's people would quit being proud and get humble, and if God's people would quit living prayerless lives and go to be prayers, and if God's people would quit seeking everything else and go to seeking him, and if God's people would get out of the hogs' pen and go to living life, that then we'd have revival.

To me, if that scripture describes the recipe of revival, then it doesn't mean a thing on God's earth to be born again and have Christ formed in you the hope of glory and become a partaker of a divine nature that fixes your soul until the day you die, and you will love righteousness and hate sin.

In the Old Testament, to a covenant elect nation, God obligated himself to bless them physically if they minded. He says to an unsaved nation, who at the same time are an elect nation and are in the covenant and have access to the blood by virtue of being in the covenant, he says to those unsaved people, you say, you know, they are unsaved.

Paul said so. He set the whole outfit except the little remnant. Is that right? And I think that we ought to honor the gospel and the eternal principles of God, and I think that every congregation calling itself a church is a terrible, terrible back number now, unless you put your meat and bristle and muscle and tears and prayers in the direction of seeking the face of God for that which only he can bring to pass.

I think the most criminal thing that we could do now is not to intelligently look to God and earnestly seek that from him, for he is the only one who can bring it to pass now, would come that which we've got to have, something that would cause men and women to start seeking the Lord.

I don't believe that saved people of 13th Street Baptist Church need to humble themselves. I believe you are humble, for salvation means the crucifixion of self and the enthronement of Christ. I believe God's people are prayers, for the mark of spiritual death is prayerlessness.

And I look you in the face and tell you, if you do not breathe the very atmosphere of prayer, you know nothing about salvation. You don't have to encourage a saved person to pray, but the Lord Jesus Christ went to a lot of trouble to try to get us to pray in the right direction.

And I don't believe that you've got to encourage God's people to seek his face, for I think that that's what God's people spend most of their time doing, seeking his face. And I do not believe that God's people are perfect, but I do not believe they're out here rowing with all the power at their command, thumb in the nose at God, and living in the hog pens of sin.

I do not believe it, and if that's Christianity, I don't believe that, do you? I don't believe it. So our old pattern of revivalism is built on a salvation that doesn't save. We include those people. They're saved, but they're not humble.

They're saved, but they don't praise. They're saved, but they don't seek God's face. They're saved, but they live wicked lives. Don't believe it, do you? Don't believe it. That's not the recipe for revival.

Zechariah's Prophetic Pattern for Worldwide Awakening

The book of Zechariah describes a revival that's going to take place among the Jewish nations. We're not Jews, but I think that we'll have in our day, and if we don't have it in our day, we'll have it sometime.

It's going to spread all over the world. This will be the only worldwide turning to God, or what we call revival, the world level experience. And the principles, the things that were brought to pass to bring this great turning to God as prophesied will one day take place among the Jewish nation, I think outlined to us our hope.

We're going to have just as much of an awakening in our time as four things are brought to pass in our time. Let's notice them. I'm not going to preach on them. I want to give you the outline. I'm trying to instruct you.

I'm dead serious. I'm not a pessimist. A pessimist is a fellow who's got one eye closed. Not an optimist. They say an optimist is a fellow who's got both eyes closed. We ought to be realists. I am getting awfully tired of us people saying we've got the message, we've got a little glimmer of truth.

I wish we'd get somebody to listen to us. I'm getting awfully tired of being a hero. You want to reach people, don't you? I believe that the principle upon which God is going to bind Satan is outlined in the book of Zechariah.

Come in a time when Satan is going to be bound. He's not going to be able to deceive people. He's not going to be able to blind people. He's not going to be able to oppose. He's going to be bound. He's going to be bound after this verse.

God Almighty is according to chapter, Zechariah chapter 13. He's going to proceed to hold back the power of Satan, to bind him for a season. At that time the knowledge of the Lord is going to cover the earth and the water is covered the sea.

The glory of the scriptures talks so much about the power of the day. And in proportion as God rocks people of their idols, shuts the mouths of false prophets, God is holy spirit and manifests Christ in truth.

He's going to bind Satan. What can I contribute as one who hopes that he's one of God's little children in these days? I cannot. There's nothing God can do. I cannot promote revival. I cannot arrange it.

I can't pray it down. I don't have to do that. I can intelligently pray that as far as I'm concerned, whatever falls my lot to do, to use a word that you may think is heretical, be in a position to be used of God in this days of the day.

In the verse of chapter 13, it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols and the day shall no more. Deadness is the most insidious you'll ever look at.

The apostle Paul commended the people over in Thessalonica, attention to his coming in and wondered that some people over there from their eyes live in God and to wait, obey his of the idols out of the land and into the flesh, damn their thousands and send them to hell.

Sins of religious idols, anything else in this so-called Christian nation, damn their tens of thousands. This religious world, for it is a religious world. From all magic times, which would cause me.

As men have already found them of God. This humming and satisfaction. Got to get us from shotguns and go to killing idols. God says he's going to cause this to come to pass. I think, concerned, I humbly wait on God.

I wish I could go up and down the land and just preach on a few little sins of the flesh. If you got mad at you, you wouldn't stay mad very long. I found out that folks don't get very mad at you for condemning their weaknesses.

Confronting Idols and False Gods

But all my soul, not believing that what we've got in America today is Christianity. Believing it's religion. Believing it's very much in love with God, but the God of our own creations. The God that we've built that satisfies and do not accuse us.

I just have to keep saying I can't get the whole job done. But I believe one way God's going to bind Satan. Believing it I'm going to spend my life doing what little I can. Get me a big old axe and chop the head off of every idol I can find.

Most men worship an idol. That's what men worship. Whatever it is you worship. Isn't that right? There'll be no seeking after the true God. God says he's going to do it. That I'll do it. The scripture says, at least most of the time, it talks about things he's going to do that that don't necessarily make.

That he's not going to use some means at his command to bring it to pass. For the days in America of square men and women, their gods and their idols. Strip them of those idols that bring them satisfaction and security.

Leave them naked with no gods except the unknown gods. They'll start seeking after him. Second thing God says he's going to do, I don't know that he means here that he's not going to use human means. I think the scriptures proclaim that he does those things.

For that I believe that saves from the hearing of the gospel. And that means, that means. And he promises here something. If he'll just let me, I don't want to be silly now, but if the Lord will just grant me a little dispensation.

I hope he'll put a $25 reward on the head of false preachers. And give me a rifle and I'm going to get rich. Killing them. For the Lord promises here in the last part of the 2nd verse of the 13th Zechariah, God says, I will cause, also I will cause, the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.

Now get the picture. He's talking about this, I think, and the worldwide revival is going to break out there and it's going to spread all over the world. And if we have anything like it nowadays. What kind of people are these false prophets?

They're people according to the 4th verse. Little thing wrong with them, they speak lies. Just to live for about 6 weeks in America had gone to such an extreme action of stopping the mouths of false prophets speaking lies in the name of the Lord.

That Paul and Mark, according to verse 3 at that point, were preaching lies in the name of the Lord. Well, let him live. Because he's preaching lies in the name of the Lord. Now you can say, Lord, we sure need revival.

And we're praying for revival. Well, God bless your heart, you better be praying and looking and expecting for God Almighty to do something about the preaching of this hour. We are not going to have any awakening that will spread all over this country quit speaking lies in the name of the Lord.

Brother, if you try to be a public preacher, a public witness, if this won't humble you, nothing will. A fellow wrote me one time, listened to me over the radio, and he said, I don't believe a thing you preach, but I can't keep from listening to you, for you're the only preacher in this city that preaches like he means what he says.

Well, that's something. People usually believe what somebody else tells them. It is a solemn, solemn thing. Somebody ought to believe what we preach. God help us. I can't put the false preachers out of business.

I don't know what to do. Look to God. Lord, you do it. You're just silly. If you think we're going to have a little prayer wheel, we can turn a little rusty like the reading papers. Somehow or another we'll admit it.

The Spirit of Grace and Supplication

Satan's going to be bound. How's he going to be bound? Well, one thing at a time, let's put it tight. It'll be when God Almighty shuts the mouth, pray to that end. That end. The Bible has a lot to say about these preachers.

I'll not go into that. God says I don't send them. They're not for me. They exclude things. Christ teaches when there is no peace, and so forth. Preach a broad road, send it in through with a fair wide gate.

They're not mine. They're not mine. We're going to have any awakening in our day? I must look into God. ...about prayer. I just know it's a child reaching out to, looking up to, standing up on his Heavenly Father.

...college I used to teach in, from the table the other night, with Brother Barnum. ...an awful hard time now, become 30 years now. Popular evangelists have had a message, these are his words, and use methods that it gets results whether God was in it or not.

He is right. He is right. So if it's God, I can't do what God's got to do, but I can do my little bit, so can you. It's your shotgun going to muzzle the nails, praise the Lord. ...in Ashland, Kentucky.

Nothing but the truth as it is, and God's hope ring out from every pulpit for about a month. I tell you, sinners that have to find a place to hide are kept in churches. There'll be some seeking after him.

Well, I'm lying already. The third thing God's going to do to bind Satan, and this will take place, we'll have just as much awakening in our day as God is pleased to do this. He's going to pour a spirit of grace and supplication.

In chapter 12, verse 10, it says, And I'll pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication. God says, I'll do it. ...supplication. I get the impression sometimes some of us kind of think it might violate our doctrine.

...help and supplication. Begging God to do what only God can do. He says, I'm going to pour that spirit out. Before that, I'd like to be a member of a congregation that has that spirit. I'd better be as near heaven as any of us could ever be.

God would bring things to pass. The fourth way that Satan's going to bound Old Brother Caldwell, before we get to it. You heard him say, I expect from this book, that the only spirit that can deal with the spirit of this age is the Holy Spirit.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if God and he's going to do it sometime, pour it out. The last thing, how is Satan going to be bound? He's going to be destroyed. How is Satan going to be bound? Teaching lies in the name of the Lord.

He's going to be muzzled. How is Satan going to be bound? By the manifestation of the spirit. Only the one who's got power to deal with the evil spirit is able to do it. How is Satan going to be bound?

Looking Upon the One Whom They Pierced

He's going to open their eyes and they're going to look upon him whom they have pierced. Verse 10, I'll pour out the spirit of grace and supplication and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.

Those people who are labeled as pre-millenarian, they believe in the return bodily of our Lord Jesus Christ before what they call the Millennium Tribulation. I'm not clear about that. I'm not clear myself.

I just don't know. Either way, he's all right with me. But I know that right now he's not here. You can't see him in the body. I know that we'll have just as much of a wakening and a turning to the Lord in my days as men in the gospel.

This really is. They didn't recognize him when he's here the first time. They said, this isn't he. The spirit says they're going to look on him. They pierced back young at Calvary. The word mourn there has the meaning of seeking him.

That means they'll be sorry for him. It means they'll be going all out. Blessed God, the scripture says the reason our gospel's hid. What does it say? If our gospel be hid. It is hid. What kind of folks?

I've forgotten. It's hid the people who've been what? God or this world. We don't wrestle. We don't wrestle with Henry May and somebody else. Full of faith. That truth. This son of Jesus Christ. I think then it'll be too late for salvation but I may be wrong.

That anybody ever has or ever will discover the truth about Christ. Off his eyes. And in the simple story of the gospel. The glory of God. I can't bring that to pass. But there's one thing I can do. So help me God.

You can. Whatever else anybody else did while I wait and pray and long and expect for God to do mighty things in my day. If nobody else will, I'd nominate myself a committee of one, couldn't I? If I can.

You ain't interested? Please God pray for me. God to so preach. And to so wit that men and women would be presented. The Apostle Paul so many times would say remember. Brother May and remember. Don't you get all cocky around here.

Don't you say well I'm saved. Glory hallelujah. Let everybody else go to hell. So remove the fallow ground in your heart and humble yourself and mourn and be afflicted and get to where you weep. The claims of Christ are ignored by blinded men.

Remember. Remember spent in vanity and pride. And it was for you he died. Remember. That blind is a bastard. In the language of the scripture. You saw him. Talk with your dear young pastor. The day I loved him.

He's been so good to me. I love him. He's a great preacher. The other preachers have multiplied thousands. We talked about the hunger in our hearts. Get out of the straight jacket. Break down some walls we've built around ourselves.

Mourning, Reconciliation, and the Claims of Christ

Between a blinded generation. Father the beggar please be reconciled to God. Paul said we beg you. We beg you. Just reading the scripture. The last part of the 10th verse. They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for it.

That one mourneth for his only son shall be in bitterness for it. One that is in bitterness for his firstborn. Verse 12. The land shall mourn every family apart. House of David apart. Their wives apart.

A mourner's bench in their heart. Perhaps to the Lord. Now they are not. But I sure hope so.