We Will Not Have This Man Rule Over Us — Rolfe Barnard

I want to say something good about Brother Driswold, but I don't see him. He gone to... Well, bless your heart. I thought you'd gone to the picture show. You didn't hear him this morning. He's announced he's moving down this way.

He's going to get on relief. I was going to move to Tennessee. But the Garner, they built him big two, three, four hundred thousand dollar parsonage. And I was going to move in the old one and go on relief.

But the last time I was down there, they were tearing it down to get rid of the catastrophe that's been announced. So I don't know what I'm going to do. Brother Mayhan's a gracious man. And some of you younger preachers, up until today, he was a good example of how to have a long pastures, which is the only kind that's in account.

Made it a policy all these years. Never let anybody preach for him. Preach as good as he could. He says if you let a fella pinch it before he knocks a home run, you'll get pinched yourself. But after the messages this morning, he may be looking for a church.

He's already made a mistake there. Praise God for the messages. Asked me the other day, a young preacher, if I saw any hope. And I said the only hope I see is that everybody that gives any evidence of being involved in the mission of God in Christ is asking that same question.

Is there any hope? Do you see any hopeful signs? And the only hopeful sign we see is that there is more people today making up God's professing people satisfied with the weathered condition of God's church and are looking about for a cloud the size of a man's hand that precedes the rain that's sure to fall.

I want to speak tonight so that I can ask two questions of a subject about the one issue. And having laid some groundwork for it, simple and yet solemn questions, those who are gathered here, hungry for fellowship, in great need, great need.

What is the issue? There are two passages of scripture. The first is found in the book of Genesis, at chapter 3, where the issue was stated. And from that hour to this, every other issue has grown out of this one.

And this, that was the issue in the Garden of Eden, remains the issue to date. I was up in Binghamton, New York, many years since. And God was giving us great black harvest that particular time. Somebody invited somebody to come to the meetings to hear me preach.

And he says, no use to go. He says the same thing every time he preaches. I met a young Methodist preacher, gotten well acquainted with him, and swapped in teeth. He's less than 40 years old. He's taught at the Duke University, and yet he's one of the powerful preachers of this hour.

Started a church under the Methodists with nine families, and is making that city sit up and take notice as he is seeking to create a fellowship of men and women who live in the power of the resurrection life of the risen Lord.

I asked him how on earth he had come to the clearness and the oneness of his message. Well, he said, Brother Barnard, there isn't but one message to be preached. That's God's eternal purpose in Jesus Christ, that on the basis of his life laid down, he proposes to set up his totalitarian rule in hearts, in institutions, and in this world, before the wind-up time comes.

But that's quite a purpose, isn't it? That's quite a message. The issue is stated in chapter 3 of Genesis, the Lord God, in chapter 2, I beg your pardon, chapter 2 of Genesis, at verse 15, chapter 2, verse 15.

And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it.

For in the day that thou eatest thereof shalt surely eat. In the ninth chapter of the gospel of the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah, this is verses 6 and 7 of Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

And of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. And upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever, the zeal of the Lord shall perform this.

Complacent Christianity and the Tame Geese

A hundred years ago, a controversial voice of his age, a man who was not an ordained public preacher, a man who wasn't perfect like we are, but he was crying aloud against exactly what we are facing today.

We live in America, unanimously the people have agreed that we ought to go to church on Sunday morning and then go home. But we must not get involved in what's going on. This world is being torn to pieces by every bat out of hell.

But we, like the people in New York City, are watching women ravish, husbands beaten up for trying to protect their wives because this generation of people wants to go to church on Sunday morning, listen to the preacher preach a fire, and go home.

And he cried out against the same thing that John Wesley cried out in his day and that our brother Griswold talked about this morning. This man, a hundred years ago, about the conventional faith characteristic of his fellow church members in Denmark.

And I wanted to begin the message tonight, so some of you will be familiar, you'll bear with me. The subject of this parable, the tame geese. And Mr. Kierkegaard, I never can pronounce that name, it's a Danish name, writes on the tame geese, and here's what he says.

Suppose it was so that the geese could talk, and they'd so arranged it that they also could have their religious worship, their divine service. Every Sunday they came together and one of the ganders preached.

The essential content of the sermon was, I think this was a conference on the grace of God I'm not certain, the great destiny the geese had. The creator, and every time this word was mentioned, the geese curtsied, and the ganders bowed their heads.

The creator had set before the geese. They were told the distant regions, blessed climes, properly they were at home. And so it was every Sunday. And as soon as the assembly broke up, each came to his own affair.

Sunday again to divine worship and then again home. And that was the end of that. They flew and were well-liked, became plump and delicate, and then were eaten on Martin Mass Eve. And that was the end of that.

That was the end of that. Although the discourse sounded so lofty on Sunday, the geese on Monday were ready to recount to one another, to tell a certain goose that took seriously the preaching, and who wanted to make serious use of the wings the creator had given him.

The wings that were designed for the high goal that was proposed. And the geese were wont to tell about what a terrible tragedy and what a terrible death this one encountered. Also among the geese there were some individuals which seemed suffering and grew thin.

About them it was currently said among the geese, there you see what it leads to when you take this flying seriously. Occupied with the thought of wanting to fly, therefore they become thin. Do not fly.

Do not have the grace of God if we who, therefore, we have, who therefore become plump and delicate. And then Mr. Kierkegaard says, and then when someone reads this, he says, it's very pretty. And that's the end of that.

And then he waddles home to his affairs. Or at least endeavors with all his might to become plump and delicate and fat. But on Sunday morning the parson preaches by and he listens just like the geese.

I'm going to go to hell. His son on the cross. Divine worship on Sunday morning. To get involved. The end of that. There are two testimonies that speak to my heart. One of them was by this same gentleman.

I wish you'd listen to this testimony. Nonsense uttered in these miserable times. Perhaps the most nonsensical is the sentence written with a pretense of wisdom often enough met up with in the course of my reading.

And whose excellence I've heard some people praise. The nonsensical sentence is this. Nowadays no man can be a martyr anymore. There's an age incapable of making a martyr of anyone. And then Mr. Kierkegaard says, what a misconception.

We are not to think it is the age which has the power to put a man to death. Make him a martyr. He is the martyr. The genuine martyr. Built to the age the passion to kill him. Works in two ways. Uses the force.

Disturber of consciences is to be put to death. It is not the age which does it in its own streams into the gallows. But it is he himself who by dealing his salutary blows gives to the age the passionate desire to kill him.

And if the age is sought in the worst kind of laxity such a brave man has only to appear to disturb such an age too. I've got much sun but so help me God I'm getting so sick and tired of being nice. I'm about to explode.

I wish on the God build a fight this generation so aware of it they'd stay away with him, kill him, get rid of him. We're the nicest little bunch of in orthodox grace and for help. Pray people this world ever had to put up with.

We couldn't disturb a convention of fleas the whole. A great French preacher makes another statement that I preface my remarks with. Matthew M-A-T-H-I-O-T. He says after 25 years of preaching this for us preachers he said I'm still appalled by all the fine words I've uttered from the pulpit Sunday by Sunday for 25 years.

Anyone of which to the heel would have been enough to send me to prison and is not persecuted in the West security to its unfaithfulness withdrawn and cannot be experienced in the midst of our verbal sonorities we're the best snorers you ever saw.

Blessing seeks a truly adventuring life. God gives to us only by hands. Trust him by hands. That preface. One more time in yours. Two questions. When a queen or a king, a sovereign is crowned in Great Britain that one part of the traditional service is as follows.

They take a golden orb and mount it on a cross and this golden orb is presented to the sovereign and then the words are spoken. Leave the orb under the cross. Remember that the whole world is subject to the power and to the empire.

This will serve to focus our attention tonight. The one issue of this hour, of every hour, past, present, and future in whom is authority to recognize. Garden of Eden is just one issue. Office Hill is just one issue.

In the Garden of Eden, just as God have a right to be God. Exercise that right. Have just one issue at Calvary. As he does. Exercise that right. Bible says he does. He was first joined with the only son.

Human Rebellion Against God's Rule

In the Second World War and he kept getting letters from his wife. He was in bed. Curious sort of a husband. She was nagging him to death. Worrying him to death about problems. He finally sat down and wrote her a letter and said, For God's sake, quit worrying me with your troubles.

Leave me alone to enjoy this war in peace. We could have peace and all go to hell together. If God Almighty would have to kill you. Step down off the throne. Bring in his commands. Quit pressing his feet.

Quit meddling. Quit interfering. Two things. If Adam had a war, God would have been out of business. Speak of the natural man to describe the other. The fellow that's crazy. Like he got sense enough to come in out of the rain.

The whole thing's out of kilter. They say you settle. In the back of the algebra book to cheat a little bit and find out the answer. I was going to all trouble working it out. Praise God. I looked in the back of the book.

Read in the 15th chapter, first Corinthians. This ain't going to be settled. Praise God. It must rain until that thing settles. Objection. The mighty guardian was made to be governed. There's never been any government placed on anybody's shoulders but Jesus Christ.

The government should be on his shoulders and turned over to him. Nobody should be on his shoulders. Not sure. I can't quote it. John Calvin dedicated his institute to the reigning monarch of his day.

And in the climate of boldness in his heart to remind that monarch that he'd sit where he was as long as it pleased. The only one that's ever been given any rule or any government. Jesus Christ. The man was made to be governed.

The ungoverned man is not a real man. There's a fish out of water. He was designed for something more than self-centered animal existence. He was man not to stand alone but to be lost in a great park.

That strange expression is still true. You and who is perfect free. Personal slavery instead of obedient freedom. To be free beyond the hymn. Of everything that rise and wriggle from time to eternity has been praised.

What a savior. Salvation then. Got somebody singing God's salvation this morning. Salvation then if it's God's salvation is the restoration of the throne ship of God. Making a man a man one more time.

Therefore the three things are true. The gospel salvation is the proclamation of him. In him through him and in him and for him. Purposes to sum up all things. And in and through him he gains. Shipping all of the books back there.

Get your wife. Let you buy. Mr. Warfield's The Plan of Salvation. When you get the blues. This world's going to be redeemed. Bless your heart. It's going to be brought. The gospel is the story of how God has put all of his eggs in one basket.

Is as broad and as narrow as in Christ. Open it to him there. Salvation. The eggs will be done for kingdoms or nations or systems or worlds or individuals. We can understand Paul's three-fold description of the credentials of gospel preaching.

Mayhem can stay on the radio but I'll warn him right now. If we'll ever find out what the preaching he ain't going to stay on. Imagine what would happen if the Jewish people in America ever got wise to what's happening on the radio.

Why it's an insult to a Jew. If you preach. Preaching that illegitimate son of a fallen woman. Who if they hadn't killed him. He'd have done irreparable damage to the Godhead of God. And the religion of the fathers.

My soul we can understand. That the reason we're pretty comfortable yet in America. And go to church on Sunday morning and wobble home. Is that we don't have the power of this of what we preach. No wonder Paul said.

Preaching of the cross. The word of the cross. Is a scandal. It's a damn high insult. To a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic or a Jew or anybody else. That's got religion. But don't know Christ.

The idea everything God has. Is in a little baby that is born in a cow stable in a little country. You have to get a map traced down to find. And yet. We're preaching the gospel now. That's so simple a little child can understand it.

And everybody go to hell believing it. But if it's the gospel. Foolish then but got right good sense. To the Greek. I said many times only a fool or a Christian. Believes that Jesus is born of God. Is the son of God.

There's not enough brain power in this world to figure that out. If you're an idiot I don't understand how you can believe Jesus is the son of God. As you came apart from the miracle of the new birth.

No wonder the simple gospel. Heard a preacher the other day said just give them the simple plan of salvation. Well if you do. They'll take it. They'll never know when they swore it. Never miss it when they lose it.

Never regret it in hell. It's not simple. It's not simple. We can understand why it's the power of God. And the wisdom of God. To them who are caught. The issue of the hour is the threat to the throne ship of God.

Man's rebellion. The restoration of the total manhood of believers. Then the gospel. Salvation is a proclamation of this one. Who is scandalous to religious people. Downright silly. Educated. Wonderful.

Salvation as Conversion to the Kingdom of Christ

In the second place. What I said is so. To be saved means to be converted to the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is Christ. The new testament identifies them. To be saved. To be converted. Jesus Christ.

To be saved means that one's heart's consent is freely on the throne. We must keep preaching. Since we've never preached. Open, let your knee be bent. Christ and thus made free. Salvation don't take care of that.

The son on a cross to pay for. We must preach that we're most free when we're most tears. That we never stand so straight as when we bow to him. Under his authority and nowhere else is a man free. Preach that the greatest need of a man is to find the right answer to the question.

Where shall supreme loyalty be given? How? May I surrender to someone beyond myself. May I resign. As the general manager of the universe. For that's a symbol of authority and God will have your soul to send you to hell.

How shall I come to be able to swear allegiance willingly to him? The new testament speaks of the Lord under the church daily such as we're being saved. I understand these people that never have to pray and never have to prepare confession.

Never have to repent and never have to apologize. Never have to walk the floor at night and cry on the heaven's scene to the grass. They never have to face for one second the claims of Jesus Christ. My soul, I can compare myself to you and I get along fairly well.

But the claims of Christ Lordship. Slam it! I can say oh God I look for him. Die as I shall. Get a Jesus Christ and then I'll be like him. As we heard this morning and I can understand how a Christian is the most happy person this side of the hill.

And he'll never be satisfied until he awakes in the likeness of Christ. My God we'd have it if D .W. Johnson says prime beaches in our heart. And the eye seeks the wet eyes and the stave men might come back to meeting.

A conversion means a change of masters. Converted to the kingdom. And thus the saved man's found freedom. He's just whistling by the graveyard hoping the ghost won't get him. He found freedom by becoming a slave to one greater than himself.

The self-centered man comes to church on Sunday morning and waddles home. And that's the end of that. Refuses to recognize the claims of God on his life. The only kingdom he'll recognize is one he's built.

And thus he attempts to become the rule of his own life. And his will becomes his God. For his will is just exactly in the place God said he'll not share with another. And thus he's not free but he's a slave.

This is sin. The setting up of our own little kingdom in opposition to God. This is sin. To build a tower of Babel. Reach up to God and bring him down to do our bidding. This is sin. It's attempting to be the creator.

Not willing to be the creature. This is sin. The subject trying to be the sovereign. This is sin. And my God, you'd light a match tonight. This building will explode. Rebellion! It's a good thing Jesus ain't coming back in the flesh.

We wouldn't let him get out inside the city limits. We'd rid them apart. This is sin. It's rebellion. Against the will and the authority and the sovereignty of God and spiritual deafness. And sin's a lot more than an action now.

Now it's a condition. God, help us. We must come where man is. And he must be converted. To the will of almighty God. Hungry for my own heart and people. I'm so tired of preaching to dry eyes. I'm about to shoot somebody.

I'm so tired of preaching to high sickles. And orthodox people. My soul. One against the Lord. Put a $25 bounty on a lot of folks and make me some money. This nice little convenient stuff we call being saved.

There's somebody that makes about 1 ,700 mistakes a day. But bless God, he's headed toward the will of God. Yes sir. Yeah boy. That's right. That's right. Tell me about this fellow. This fellow, yes sir.

This side of him, my hell. Said after he got converted, his face lit up like an old abandoned cathedral. When darkness came, when it lit up with candles. Said his face just lit up with candles. I told him to breathe loud.

He had to sit down here and scotch for me. Oh boy, and he gets happy. He's liable to ruin us around here. We could do with it. He converted. To be converted. To be hungry and then thirsting after righteousness.

Instead of telling about that fellow, he ain't straight on the doctrines of grace. If I ever meet one of these grace fellows again, I'm going to kill him plumb dead. Because I can't see any grace in him.

Well, I won't charge anything extra for that. But it follows that if God's eggs are in one basket in Christ, and that salvation means to be converted to the kingdom, the rule of Christ. It follows, therefore, that revival, if you like the word, I don't, I use it.

It's coming somewhere down the road. What will it simply be? It'll be when men see Christ sitting on the throne. And they say praise the Lord. I'm glad he's there. Amen. Amen. It sure ain't going to be when we get some more church members.

We've got them. It ain't going to be when we get some more people, what's called saved. We've done saved America about three times. And we're fixing to go to hell. I assure you foot and a half high. I'll tell you what it would be.

The Church's Need for Genuine Conversion

Out of this I wish to ask right quickly two questions. I cannot answer the questions, but I live in the hope that be God's will, that before he says it's enough for me, I'll experience something of them.

I want to ask you two questions first. Can a given assembly, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in a given assembly, represented several ways here tonight, can it be brought to rejoice that Christ? How much longer is God going to stand the rebellion inside of the church?

I say to you not as a plea for pity. I've been preaching 37 years. Most of us are hitchhiker evangelists. Getting smaller every year. Most of the preachers have already thrown up the white flag. They're through trying to win in about Christ.

Some of you pastors have gone about as far as you can go. You know, and I know. But as my judge, we just about shut up there. The way Christ may manifest himself on the day of Pentecost, we've seen it.

It must take place again. We haven't got any message. We can hoot and holler about. We're not saved by words. We're saved by grace. And we're elected and all that till we're blue in the face. And they're precious, but they're not the issues of this hour.

The issue of this hour is whose fault. I say to you, my pastor friend, we swept the dirt under the rug about as long as we can. Nobody has the answer. We see in our day sitting on the throne of that church on the day of Pentecost.

The head of this situation without clade out on all. About the only hope I see now is the revelation of Christ sitting right in the center of this church's wind. Speaking through lips of the message of God.

I asked another question. I haven't the answer. I just have a hope. Brought me my hope. Can we again see in our day men utterly conquered by and taken captive to the Lord? I said, I guess it's old mean Ralph Barnard.

If somebody got converted in our church, boy, wouldn't he make a change. I mean convert. We've had them. We get them to profess faith. We're doing the best we know how. I'm a member of the church. They ask them about John every Sunday.

Ain't no more people in pram eating the next night. The budget ain't no bigger. Nothing bigger. I don't know what happens to them. They get converted and say goodbye Jesus. See you in heaven if you make it.

Oh, I'd love to see somebody converted. Somebody that ain't perfect yet, but bless God he's turned up a trail in that direction. He's changed. Reformation of Luther and Calvin. We mustn't camp on first base.

God-Centered Faith and Justification

We must speak for our day men. But they accused the church of Rome of having a man-centered faith. They said that the church of their time, sending people out, was centered in their own efforts to meet their own needs.

And they said if we'd honestly answer two questions, we'd come to the heart of it. What do you do for you? From God what you need. Now out of those two things was born the doctrine of justification we would know if we met it in the road.

It suffered at the hands of its friends and enemies. But it meant then that the gift, that salvation, was the heeding, not doing. As you know the two types of faith within professing Christianity today.

There's the faith that centers on me, what I can do and what I can get. Then there's the faith that centers on God and His glory. Whatever faith is, it's basically a relationship between God and man. It's either God-centered or man-centered.

I'm going to ask you this question and I'm going to ask us preachers. Dear one, do you seek God because you think a right relationship with Him would benefit you? Then the real important person in that outfit is you.

Do you believe your own efforts will bring you those benefits? Man's need and man's efforts to have his need met. You know Luther battled there. He sleezed and spat on his hand and said, I'm going to get right with God.

That's good. He quit this and he did this. Then finally he came to see that he was worshiping himself in his own efforts. He saw that true faith was not a matter of his needs or the desire to have peace, but that true faith was a bowing to God even if nothing resulted to Him.

Thus he came to define salvation as, I quote him, the realization of God's will and purpose, whatever that might be, rather than the satisfaction of human need. He even went so far as to say that those who truly love God freely offer themselves to all the will of God, even to hell and death eternally should God so will, in order that His will may be fully done.

Calvin Keeman echoed. He said the Christian should be willing to be damned for the glory of God. He said we must affirm God without demanding that He affirm us. He said that true faith means having confidence in God regardless of profit or loss.

He said only those go to heaven. I done got down so deep I don't know how to handle it. But we're back to our subject, which comes first? On His throne. The will of get out of it. I pray for myself and for every public preacher and for every child of God in this hour for a baptism of the voice of authority that dares to say that this age has got no use for God except as a milk cow to get something out of Him.

Who on Sunday morning gives a little lip service to a far off God who to this bedeviled and bedazzled and religiously cocaineed the generation of people in for hell. There's just one issue. That's mighty God.

Whether we spend eternity in heaven or hell, to God be the glory must come back to our pulpits.