Three Unscriptual Expectations — Rolfe Barnard

Jesus' Call to Lose One's Life

If you'd like to follow in the word, we'll open the Bible to the twelfth chapter of John, John's Gospel, at chapter twelve. And I begin reading at verse twelve of John's Gospel, chapter twelve. On the next day, much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palms, trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord.

And Jesus, when he found the young ass, sat there on, as it is written, fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh, sitting on an ass's coat. These things understood not his disciples at the first.

But when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they done these things unto him. And then skipping to verse twenty, there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast, the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.

Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus, and Jesus answereth them, saying, Thou hast come, that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, bringeth forth much fruit.

He that loveth his life shall lose it, he that hateth his life in this age of this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me. Where I am, there also shall my servant be.

The Urgency of Hearing God's Voice Today

If any man serve me, him will my father honor. I wish to speak tonight on three unscriptural expectations, and I do not know whether I'm being honest with the congregation or not, as what I wish to talk about comes so close to where I live.

What we've been hearing in this conference causes us to rejoice, thank God, and take courage. Surely no people ever live in an hour that challenges us to find out what it means to serve God in our own generation.

I used to talk about what Calvin did, but he served God in his generation. God gathered him to sleep with his fathers. He's not coming back. I used to talk about the awakening under Jonathan Edwards, and we thank God for these trophies of God's grace that have given us some guidelines to try to walk by in our day.

But I'm haunted by a statement somebody made that fits us today as public preachers and as individual members of the Lord's body. I think I've quoted it to this congregation, and I'll quote it again tonight.

The centuries have made us imitators instead of prophets. The answer is not to quote what some man whom God mightily used some time ago is. God's answer is for us to speak what God's saying to us today, if we can hear his voice.

Today, if you will, if you haven't already arrived and are defending a position that you've already arrived at and thus you're dead, today, if you will, hear my voice. What's God got to say to us today?

We preachers are in a bad way, the preacher no longer disturbs anybody. I do not know of a voice in America, maybe you do, that's disturbing anybody much. I know many voices of conformity join up with us.

We're all haunted by the fact that we're seeking to preach in our day. And however we're tempted, as I know under God I am, to conform, to join up with some group, to have somebody pat me on the back and say, we'll stay with you, we'll open doors for you, we'll swing our influence behind you, provided you won't speak to anybody in any other group, or have any fellowship with them.

I'm haunted by the fact that we're preaching to a generation that in all honesty has been led to look for certain things, and they've found rest in their look. And they are not scriptural. And they can at best leave people with a hollow echo, instead of a rock-like faith.

You know nobody would think of trying to silence any of us preachers tonight, since we're speaking to the wind, and our voices feeder away. No one would think of removing the preacher's sword, for in our hands the sword of the Holy Ghost has become a toy to entertain this generation on its road to hell.

And our preaching does not even frighten children. Someone says that a problem of the ministry of God's Church today is a problem of semantics. Now I use that word, I'll show you, I've been schooled. It means the meaning of words.

Words have lost their meaning. Words have lost their vitality. We're living in a generation that tactics and unfelt proves how guilty we are. Of all the people on the earth, we make much of the sovereign grace of God.

I do not know that we need to put the adjective there. There ain't any other kind of grace in the hands of a sovereign. We make much of that, sir. By what manner of men we were beat, if it ever little of the meaning of it leaked in in our hearts.

What it means to be foolish is the God of all grace. We mouth great swelling words without knowing what to mean. We remind ourselves of the water fountain out in the park. The water is always bubbling out.

Nobody ever gets a taste of it. We're like beggars debating on the merits of a pocketbook when we haven't got a dime to put in it. The mutilation of great words and the mutilation of great truth that we've seen set and vitiated as to their meaning, that's the generation we live in.

I have people tell me, and I preach, I know I'm lost. But if a man ever really believed he had lost, he'd break up foundations of hell screaming for help. Praise God, I'm saved. Oh, if somebody could start a rescue mission for great words until one sometime it could dawn on us the glory of that word.

Bishop Ryle, you read his book on holiness and so forth, if you haven't you must, spoke prophetically many years since when he said, there's nothing that will dampen the ardor of the Christian crusade more than engaging in unscriptural expectations.

Three False Expectations in Christianity

I wish to use that as a springboard to bring before you three expectations upon which Christendom, Christianity as we know it, has been built in our day. Each of them without scriptural warrant, the three of them combined to have him to serve to the awful deadness of the hour.

The three of them taken together, I think, ought to challenge us as the people of God to spit on our hands, roll up our sleeves, cry to God day and night with a broken heart that we might speak the truth in love and do what has to be done.

If we speak from God today, rip in two with broken hearts, with a sense of urgency, and tear down so-called Christianity, religion if you please. For as we heard this morning, we are trying to preach a gospel to sinners, and there ain't none.

That French evangelist who said, came over here from Paris to Chicago, and he stood up to speak the first night, and he said, oh, if in all the city of Chicago I could find a sinner, I've got such good news for a sinner.

This whole religious situation, as I'm able to see it, and this would make it so, is built on three false expectations. And we got there by listening to what we've heard. My heart unto God, sometimes I'd weep in my heart for this generation, how it's been sinned again.

I pass church buildings now, and I ought to rejoice, yet I almost shudder as I picture the pastor standing guard on the outside, seeing to it that the truth of God shall not be brought there. And I don't want to become an old fogey or bitter.

I'm a hard shell, therefore I'm hoping tomorrow God's love will split the skies with hellfire and damnation, and the Holy Ghost revival will break out. I remember dear old Brother Mews used to say to me, Brother Barnaby, where are you going getting a fight?

And he'd say, sometimes I think I'll just throw truth out the window and get me an outline and tell three stories and call morning and go home. That way I wouldn't get in any trouble. And I want to speak about some expectations.

People have, and they're pretty well satisfied in them. They've been taught, knowingly or not, deliberately or not, to build all their hope in them. And I know a little about what I'm talking about. For thirty of my thirty-seven years of the ministry, I've been trying to be what they call a hitchhiker evangelist, subject to the call of pastors and the goodwill of men.

Hundreds of times in my ministry wondering whether I'll ever get to preach again or not. Walking the floor at night, my mistakes crawling over one another's backs, making up my mind that I'm going to conform, maybe do a little good without having so much hail and so much controversy.

I'm preaching to a generation, and you are too, and witnessing to a generation that's already been preached to and already been witnessed to. Somebody got that first, and they have peace. Why not? Some sin, bound up their wounds too quickly, spoke peace where there was no peace.

Until now, people have not only forsaken God, but they've dug their own wells. They're drinking and saying it tastes mighty good. Somebody says, you know the Philistines came and put poison in the wells of these relighted people, and there's just two things you can do when you've got a poisoned well.

You can clean it out, or you can dig another one. Be the job for the spirit. Which direction the Sovereign Spirit's going to lead in your day and mine, I'm not smart enough to know. God's going to have to raise up people and preachers standing up, still having with the preacher.

There are teeth for another kind of ministry. He's put upon us, quit apologizing, and start cleaning out the wells from which people are drinking now. If that don't work, then God's going to have to dig some new ones.

Peace Without Victory

What are these expectations? I suggest this evening that the whole so-called Christian church, the whole so-called Christian movement, has been prostrated because we've been taught to expect peace without victory.

And victory, the only place there's ever been victory, war, that's on Golgotha's hill, from the blood of the cross. Peace without having yesterday. Jesus accomplished. It is General MacArthur who's going to phrase in war, there's no substitute for victory.

And in the realm of spiritual warfare, there's no substitute for victory. And any man whose peace is not based on that which was wrought out in the agony of God's Son's life laid down, is under the condemnation of God, and is certain to experience the time when a man's peace will leave him naked up Salt Creek without a paddle.

Too late, too late. About all is the so-called Christianity today is efforts to affect the peace, apart from the victory of the cross. We seek the way of least resistance. God's professing people are working their foolish selves to death, supporting nice programs, everlasting in one of them, trying to bow past the fact that apart from the blood of Christ, there can be no peace.

Abraham's children, who were alive on the earth when the Lord was here in the day of his flesh, fell into the trap of not reading history rightly. They come crying, Hosanna to the King. King, cometh. Blessed.

Hosanna. They come, dressed in their crowns. They come, but when the word we would say, Jesus, is expressed, and the Lord seems to abruptly turn to another subject, but he speaks to the subject. Now is the Son of God glorified, except the grain of corn died.

There wasn't an answer they was looking for. Abraham's children, who cried Hosanna and so forth, they read the eternal purposes of God wrong. Let me see if I can illustrate what I'm talking about. Take the case of Saul, the case of David, all the Old Testament times, opponents of the God of all purpose.

They're to stand in God's path. Destroy God's people. They're to stop the program of the God of all purpose. Saul would have been a wonderful preacher and church member today, for Saul was dedicated to the proposition that human nature can be improved.

That's what's at the heart of democracy. Not knowing that in days when the splendor of God's self is not recognized, democracy becomes terribly dangerous. All the movements of this hour have for their purpose the achieving of peace, but they're by subscribing to the doctrine of the improvability of human nature.

Instead of facing the fact that on the cross, God spoke the doom of human nature and brought it all under judgment. Anybody that's investing in the securities on the market of the goodness of the improvability of human nature, they get out of the market.

It's going down. In your day and mine, go to all hell popping from these nice people who'd be nicer if we just could improve them a little bit. And so Saul, instead of killing all of the flock, all of the sheep and all of the cattle and so forth, he said, now God's program is a little too drastic, and he saved them.

And the Malachites stood for the flesh, the flesh, your flesh, your nice little dignified flesh, your little so-called sanctified flesh. It still stinks. There's still no hope for it. Not a bit on God's earth.

It must be brought to the face of judgment. God never has yet. It's doomed. That's the message of the cross. One day a fellow by the name of Goliath, bless God, he's over nine feet tall, and he had a suit of fighting armor that wouldn't quit.

And he dared to stand astride the purpose of a holy God. And Saul was the king of Israel, Jonathan his son, and they were in the tent, scared half out of their wits. And a little old boy by the name of David, Saul was the people's choice and David was God's anointing.

David and Goliath: Fighting for God's Cause

He told his sheep goodbye one day and came up and his big brothers bawled him out and said, What do you leave the sheep for? What are you doing here? And David said, What have I done now? Is there not a cause?

Is there not a cause? Isn't there something to lose oneself in? Isn't there something now to make life worth living? There's the enemy. We've got to build a fire under us so-called believers in God's grace and give us a cause that's bigger than ourselves that we can't rest until we have a hearing and speak with authority.

And the battlements of hell begin to tremble. And I'm so tired of our little truth being off in a little peckerwood corner where nobody knows about it. Is there not a cause? I think the day will come when us grace people will feel the need of hanging together or we're going to all hang separately.

Oh, my soul, is there not a cause? There's this big Goliath just raising old Billy Hale and Jonathan and Saul sitting over on the tent. They're about scared out of their boots. We get out there, we'll either get shot.

Either we get shot. Yeah, little old Abel comes up and says, Is there not a cause? I said, I'll tackle him. I'll tackle him. Bless God. And you know the story. He did tackle him. He said, What's all this about?

What's involved in it? I don't know what's involved in it. It's somebody. You better listen to me. It's somebody living in that day. Don't quit quoting from John Calvin and getting him to swim. Sign of God, it'll stop, brother.

It's somebody in our day.

Don't say, Bless God, I'm sick and tired of that big old Goliath out there making fun of my God. I'm going to do something about it. Do something about it. You know the story. He marches up the big old Goliath.

He's all sweating and everybody's scared to death. He's that little old slingshot. Glory to taking about 500 years to do chemistry or whatever it is to fix some pebbles there just exactly right. And he picked them.

And there was only one place to shoot. The whole saw was perfectly protected except for one little place. Right dead center. Little David went up in that old Goliath and said, Am I a dog? What you doing around here, boy?

Am I a dog? But old David, you know, he remembered when the Philistines had taken the ark. But in that dome of Shiloh, the great dog Dagon had fallen and broken his arms and his neck. And old David said, I know about your little God.

Said, I could in the name. Those Hebrew words I can't pronounce them. They mean in the Greek. I could in the name of the anointed, the adequate God. He's bigger than you are any day. And he aimed and he got him dead center.

Bless God. Old David said, I ain't scared of you. I don't represent myself. I'm in a cult. And I'm speaking for the adequate God. He said, I've had a little experience. Bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Said, you know, out tending up all the sheep. I've had a few battles with the bears in the lounge. Sometimes the devil persecutes you. He hasn't been doing much of that lately. And then again, like a bear, the devil will hug you today.

God bless your heart. He's been doing a lot of hugging nowadays. Flatter you today. Somebody wrote a little quip. Algie went a-walking. Algie met a bear. The bear was bulging. The bulge was Algie. And the old bear is bulging today.

And the bulge has got people. Ain't that hopeless today? David said, come in the name. God help us. Is there not a cause? He cut that old boy's head off. Took it down there to the tent where Jonathan and Saul were.

They couldn't fight him. They was too scared. They didn't have God's armor. Brother, they didn't have what it takes. My soul. I know famine isn't raging. I know materialism has shown up the difference between claiming to believe in Christ and being joined to him.

I know the Goliath's on every hill and the Jew in this generation to pieces. One thing we must be concerned with and about is to be the people in God's power speaking in his name. Come hill or high water.

I do not know all the details of the future. That ain't our business, our job. For ourselves, committee of one. Pay whatever price it costs. Stand and spit and bear juice in everything that crosses the path of the gospel and say, Go back to hell, you're blocking the program of God and in his name you get away.

The holy bulls are greater than, you know ever one of those Philistines they packed up and skedaddled? And every one of the children of Israel entered into the victory. Little David. The story is over.

Christ's Victory on the Cross

Here it is. The greater than David. Yeah. Oh, my soul. On Golgotha's hill. On a tree. Lifted up. Because earth couldn't have him and heaven rejected him while he was there. On that tree. The man Christ Jesus, the eternal God.

Gave evil an immortal blow. He hit it right smack dab between the eyes. And it'd be wonderful if we'd enter into that victory. On the cross he dealt evil. Immortal blow. God raised him from the dead. Victory's been won.

You better listen to him, the battle's behind us. Tonight, glory, glory, hallelujah. We stand in victory. Everything that God's purpose to accomplish was settled there. Today we're not in a cave. Get you some tobacco and spit in his face and tell him to go on back to hell.

He's an intruder. Victory's been won. We're not working up to a victory, thank God. We're working down from a victory. Already been achieved. You open the pages of the New Testament and praise God. And they celebrate the victory.

You know, we might could have the Lord suffer in our churches one more time. If we understood that there once again we can celebrate a victory that's done been won. Woo! It's done been won. You open the New Testament and you'll find them singing.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Christianity is a rampant singing thing. Hallelujah. It's done. It's done. But you can't have peace in a world, in a home, in a church, in your life. Apart from entering into the victory.

Christ achieved on the cross. Apart from that there is no peace. Amen. It won't last. The second expectation, conscriptial, forms the war-torn roof of what must be torn down today. These people, my text in John's Gospel, wanted a kingdom without kings.

The Lordship of Christ in the Believer

And just can't have it. I refer now to the fact that you can't be in unless Christ is in. I'm talking about the throne of Christ in you by the Holy Ghost. They'll throw flowers in His path. They'll cry.

But they'll nail the kings of the cross. I'm not talking about the time when He hits the deck of this earth again to wind up things. The fulfillment. I'm talking about the fact that practically all what's called Christianity is built on a false expectation.

We may enjoy the blessing of God, be in the kingdom of God, without the king being in here. Can't do it. Can't do it. We must come again to see the purpose for which Christ came into the world. Here's the proposition.

He died to reconcile us to a holy God so that on that basis He might restore the sovereignty of God in our lives. Let me repeat it. Why did Christ die? That foretells us that He might be Lord over the living and the dead.

He died on the cross that the kingdoms of this world shall one day become the kingdoms of God's dear Son. He died on the cross that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. He died on the cross that one day that blessed, blessed promise never will last in the midst of atomic bombs and hell splitting open.

Nevertheless, we look according to His promise for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. That's on the basis of the laid-down life, the shed blood of the Son of God. He died on the cross to restore the sovereignty of almighty God worldwide and in your heart.

A man without the Lordship of Christ inside of him, and nobody can effect that miracle except the Holy Ghost. No man can call him Lord except in the Spirit. A fellow without the Lordship of Christ enthroned by the Holy Ghost, Christ of the self, is not a man, he's just an imitation, he's just a robot.

Until the Spirit of God, he's the only one who can do it. We heard so much this morning, it's hard saying things at night, but in trying to be true to people, we've had to, in our ignorance I guess, quit using some message.

But you see, what we're trying to preach ain't worth a dime apart from the Holy Ghost. Break our hearts how helpless we are. Until the Spirit of God enthrones the risen Lord, that isn't done by decision or anything else.

We're clear on that, only the Holy Ghost does that. Until the Spirit of God enthrones the risen Lord, right in the citadel of a man's personality, man is as bad as Brother Johnson said he was this morning.

Outside the fellowship of God in Christ, he's not dependable and he can't be trusted. And the whole church world today is about to explode right here. We've got people in the pulpit and the pew now that have to decide on Sunday morning if they'll attend divine service.

Surely Christians have that settled for them already. We've got people now that have to decide whether they'll baptize the pocketbooks. Surely we're trying to have a kingdom without a king. Oh my soul, man is made to derule.

A man isn't a man apart from capitulating to the kingdom of God Jesus. That he may order our lives. We become owned people. That he may order our lives. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it means to be saved.

To be translated from the rule of the kingdom of darkness into the rule of the kingdom of God. Years ago in the park, I can still hear pastors in this town screaming on Sunday morning, Ralph Barnard's a liar, you can't have Jesus as Savior without having him as Lord.

That's one time I was right. Oh my soul, the whole religious outfit. We've got to be bold with broken hearts under God. This ain't no time to be defending positions. This is the time to be turning the ground under this false stuff.

That people have been taught, they're swallowed hook, line, and sinker and they're going to wake up in hell. Without ever being warned. That they're built on a foundation of sinking sand. A man can't be in the kingdom of God apart from the king being in hell.

Only the Holy Spirit can do that. I've been reading Johnson Edwards, reading E .W. Johnson's tape letters. As long as he sends me tape, I'll have something to preach. I'm glad to sit at his feet. I've been trying to preach, get somebody to become a seeker after the Lord.

My God, if only the Holy Spirit can invade my personality and put Jesus Christ in there in the very heart of Ralph Barnard. Well, if we could ever get that over, maybe somebody would say, I ain't going to trust no act of mine.

I'm just going to bow down here and stay. So help me God, till God almighty prints a chunk of dynamite in my soul. And starts the glory ways to pouring. Until he's in here. He's in here. What does it mean to be a Christian?

To be inhabited, shall I say it. I hope to speak on it tomorrow night. To be inhabited by God. Isn't that wonderful? It means to have a mind that's God-taught. Emotions that are God-saturated. Wills that are God-directed.

It means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's not a substance. He's not a liquid. What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? I believe with all my heart it means that we've entered into a loving dependency.

A vital relationship with Jesus Christ. Whereby our lives are filled with him. Boy, I long to be saved. Come save. We heard about this morning. I was preaching time down in Virginia not long ago. Came home one night and young pastor said, Well, Barney, we never heard about the Lordship of Christ.

Is he your Lord? What kind of answer can I give? Yes, he's my Lord. My response to him, I must brag about. Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole. I don't perform marriage ceremonies often now, but you pastors very seldom.

A young man or woman comes, you tie the knot, she goes out one door and gets in the car and goes down that way, and he gets in the car and goes down that way. God help us. That's what we call Christian today.

Come and take Jesus. We go that way. He goes that way. No, no. Got to be a marriage before. Reality. There can be no manifestation of the kingdom of God without the king inside. God speed the day when he'll put on the armor and crush rebellion in his church.

Serving God Through Sacrifice

But I speak briefly now of the third expectation upon which so-called Christianity has been built. Peace without the blood of the cross being applied. Peace without entering into the victory. Peace for standing afar off and believing some facts about it.

Kingdom being in the kingdom of God without the king inside. No conscience about the claims of Christ's lordship. Praising about being saved by grace and bringing his grace unto disgrace. I speak in the last place about this generation's been led to expect they can serve God without learning the meaning of sacrifice.

I do not know, but I'll have to quit preaching and get on the mourner's bench. How in the name of God can we learn that in our day? We live like kings, the poorest of us. My lord said, except the grain of corn die.

That's the last day. Ain't no way for Ralph Garner to live in his day? To live one day outside the service of the most high king would be terrible. Is there no way in God's eyes I can get in on this? Not apart from this.

Christ could have been our great example without dying. But he couldn't have reproduced himself without dying. Neither can you, God help us. I'm under conviction here. Can you support a family on present day scales now?

Keep them out of the poorhouse. And spend your time trying to tear down this stuff in all of our lives that's turned us into Sunday morning worshipers. Instead of men and women who've learned that the only way to serve God is to declare and be so.

I'm a dead man. I'm a dead man. I know nothing about my subject now. As God don't bring something to explode, this nice little going to church business, leaving us concerned with ourselves. God bless me and my wife, son John and his wife, us four and no more.

I say, where has all the milk of human concern? My God, when did your heart and mine get as hard as it is now? Who gave us the right to think we can serve in order to serve God? Yes, I'll say. You know, my Lord, when he was here, was absolutely, totally, unrelentingly dependent on the Father.

He couldn't speak any word unless the Father gave him something. Couldn't do a thing, went down and prayed. The emphasis in the New Testament is that God raised him. When Christ, I say it humbly, hit bottom, the power of God was released.

I'm a dead man. My total dependence is upon God. If I want to save my life, I must find some way to lose it. If I don't want to get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat supper, look at television, go to bed and go to hell.

I must lose my life. Is there not a cause to take any action apart from the positive, absolute attitude of total dependence on Almighty God? Is this I in sin? Never shall there or can there be any true service unless God works in us.

Here is where this generation has rejected the gospel. I wonder if we have stories told of how Saul deeply resented the victory David achieved and thus what he had a right to expect. In the 18th chapter, 1 Samuel, it's told that the soul of Jonathan was meant to David.

One man says, nobody on earth is going to get inside of my personality and rule. I don't want anybody to be king in my kingdom. I'll chart my own course. I'll live my own life. But the story that's told about Jonathan, he came down and stripped himself, laid everything at the feet of David.

He is a prince, but he took off his robe, laid it at David's feet, took off his garments. He took off his sword, his only means of defense, laid it at the feet of David. He took his bow, his endurance, laid it at the feet of Jesus.

He took his death pocketbook where he carried his valuables, laid them at the feet of David. He took himself, prostrated himself there. There can be no service without the giving of self. The rules of the kingdom are, strip your plans, come under authority of Christ, and then and then only will we have authority.

You have just as much authority in your witness as I have in my preaching, and that ought to bring us to the mourner's bench as we are under the authority of Jesus Christ. Does anything God knows, preachers and people ought to be praying for now, is to tell the Apostle Paul to move over.

And every time you see a Christian say, you've got a little time, will you pray for me, that God would grant unto me utterance, that I might with boldness declare the mystery of the gospel. Utterance, oh God, give us utterance, for that may mean authority.

Oh God, wrestle us down, till we can't sleep so good at night, lest we have utterance. It is said that one of the great contributions John Knox made to the Reformation in Scotland, he came to what is St. Giles, I think it is, Cathedral, five thousand people packed in, waited for an hour, the preacher never came out to the pulpit, Stan finally did.

When he came he stood and said, well Stan received the benediction, I have no utterance. He didn't have anything from God, there wasn't any use for him to talk. Oh God, nobody but God can cut the head off of the communist conspiracy.

But ladies and gentlemen, in every generation up to now, God found somebody that spoke for him with authority. They usually crucify him and build a monument to him a hundred years later. He said, God give us to know before we die, all of us put together, the joy of sacrifice that we know nothing about.

Losing Selfish Possessions to Serve Others

Stories told in our clothes of a man who died and went to hell, and in hell he was very uncomfortable, and he cried out, somebody get me out, I want out. And as the story goes, God said to him, while you were on earth, what good thing did you do to somebody else?

And the man racked his memory and he said, oh yes, one time I gave a carrot to a donkey. And after that evidence of the nobility of human nature, God is said to have said, alright, because you gave a carrot to a donkey, I'm going to lower a carrot on a rope, carrot on a rope, down where you are, and we're going to lift it up.

And so the carrot was lifted down into hell, and the man took hold of it, but a lot of other people, as many as could, they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable too. And when they saw this way of escape, they tried to hang on to the carrot too.

And as it started to be dragged up, the man who first made the request began to shout, get off, this is my carrot! And in the struggle to hold on to his carrot, his grip was loosened, and he fell back into hell where he belonged.

A Call to Lose Ourselves and Serve Our Generation

Ladies and gentlemen, there ain't no time to hold on to your carrot, this is the time. This is the time to lose ourselves, that we may find ourselves. To take the five pebbles of little David and serve our generation in our time.

Trust God. I can hear them singing.