What It Means to Be Under Discipline of Christ in the Church — Rolfe Barnard

Christ's Authority Exercised Through the Local Church

I go out. I believe that everything that is to be done in carrying out the marching orders of Christ Jesus is to be done on the authority of a local church. Thus I go out. I'm a member of the Salem Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

All people have a perfect right to write that congregation and say, what about this fellow? He's preaching up in our section. And that's how we got those letters that were written in the New Testament.

Somebody inquired and the right facts say he's all right or he's all wrong. I believe in that. This congregation, under the authority of this congregation, I would do anything you ask me to do. If I couldn't, I would resign from the agreement of ministering to you for a week in that.

I believe a man cannot get to heaven unless he's under the Lordship of Christ in a local church. I ought to repeat that. Everybody believes that Jesus is Lord floating around in the sky, but the Lord is exercised first in the church.

Church Discipline, Baptism, and the Lordship of Christ

What else may be said about this generation of church people, you folks included, we're a bunch of spiritual outlaws. We know nothing about salvation because we know nothing about the discipline, the rule, the Lordship of Christ as it's expressed in the local church.

You've never been baptized, whether it's sprinkled or immersed, unless you were baptized into the authority of Christ as it's exercised in a local church. That's what baptism is. Folks never been baptized because you do that which is right in your own sight.

Congregations have written over them, the Lord is the Father. God may be gracious, and I pray to that end and preach to that end, that the Lord might be merciful. Once again, if the Lord started doing that next Sunday morning, they'd have to take half the members of this church out or God would kill them, just like he did Ananias and Sapphira.

I'd love to see that happen, wouldn't you? I wouldn't want to get killed myself, but I'd kind of like about half of you folks. You know what would happen? Folks in this town would get off the fence of religion and they'd be the far against Jesus Christ, and that'd be good, wouldn't it?

We vowed the hope to return to the discipline of the Lord in the local church. I preach on that tomorrow night. I think the task is hopeless, but I think it is, unless from the pulpit and the pew, requesting the Bible.

As we mentioned to the Bible, you just pay attention to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Westminster Confession of Faith, of course you don't believe it, but I can take it. It's a full of holes, there won't be enough to cover making it, because it's not the book.

We did have the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, but we threw it out the window. We just do as we please. That a church is a church, and less of it three are gathered together. We're not neo-Orthodox, and we're not modernists, and we're not this, and we're not members of that.

Total Submission and the Missionary Calling

I simply ask you to see that's the way revival will come. Be under such totalitarian discipline as we never dreamed of. All eyes up in the Lewisburg, I believe it is, area, Williamsport, and around to some place where the New Tribes Mission Board, or something like that, happens.

Do you ever go there? You have to be a missionary. That's an evangelist. That's a Christian. The Commander-in-Chief has told them that his place to represent him is over there in the New Tribes, where they've never had the gospel.

Is that it? The young people say, that's where the Lord's told me to go, and so they come there to that training school for two years and sleep on the naked ground, and they make them forage to get anything to eat.

They have to find it in the woods somewhere. Years there, told them to go. Isn't it nice, our little gospel now, that the Lord only calls some of his people? That's a practice. Isn't that right? King Hart says, we'll watch the world tear itself close enough to it to say, in my reading sometimes since, that challenged me and introduces me to the text of the evening, Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew chapter 4. While you're turning to it, those of you who desire to, sit it down. Privilege in the gospel story. Even God took their election away from them. Gospel to the Gentiles. The man who's been practically a perfect portrait today, would not get offended if I mentioned the word election in a Presbyterian church.

Go to the club and go to fighting, if you use that word, I know. But you just believe in half of it. In the privilege, but not the responsibility. He's one of the only people between the eternities that will ever hear the word of God.

The Privilege and Responsibility of Hearing the Gospel

He is from heaven brings responsibility to the shoulders of any human being, except for the grace of God. Churches now are going out of business and they ought to condemn the same sin of Israel. They talk about, boy, I'm one of God's elect by his grace, hallelujah.

You've never put your arm around your next door neighbor and wept until the tears made a puddle at your feet. Nothing about the demand of young people in our churches and spoken peace to them when God hadn't done anything.

And they're not here tonight and they're not in anybody's house of God most any time. But Papa and Mama and everybody's told them they're Christians and they haven't the slightest conception that privilege, responsibility that's to hear God speak to the spirit, that's salvation.

That his last word is not I say, but his last word is I claim. Talk about being a child of God, unless it can be said of us. You're not your own. Well, there's a therefore in the Bible. You need to pause and find out what it's there for.

A man began his public ministry of God's prophet to prepare the way for his work as a priest and king with a tremendous privilege and a tremendous demand. Just before reading verses, our Lord had been dealing with the tempter in the wilderness when the devil in verse 11 had ministered unto him.

Now, when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. As he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast and the borders of Zabulon and Nephthilim, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet saying, the land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthilim by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great light.

And to them which sat in the region and shatter of death, light is sprung up. There are some people in darkness now, God's going to turn the light on. There are some people in the shatter of death, God's going to turn the light on.

In fact, Jesus began to preach. Yes, the light turned in the darkness. Wonderful privilege. Yes, the voice that speaketh from heaven. Yes, the gospel pronouncement. From that time, Jesus began to preach.

And what was his message? To say, you rich churches, ask the pastor now to do what the New Testament says takes five men to do. That's reading, he has hard time. No man living can do what is asked of the pastor today.

We don't pay attention to the Bible. There are five gifted men with offices and it takes the minister of all five to make a minister out of you. One man can't do it. One man can't do it. Some apostles and I've talked to twelve, that's apostles, Barnabas, Timothy, and Titus, those fellows.

He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some teachers. And those five men doing what God gave them to do with the gift God gives them, they can make ministers out of you.

They can make ministers out of you. I come back, lay all the blame mostly for the condition of our churches on us, preachers. That's a little hard for us to take, but we just haven't expounded the truth in our day.

We've copied from men and the Puritans who were so gratefully used of God in their day. They're going to ruin all of us because we're still copying them. But they're dead and they were a million miles away from the Bible truth about the ministry.

Evangelists, Missionaries, and the Great Commission

Today, somebody at a certain church, I was hopeful that it would encourage a certain man to be its evangelist. If you do that for your missionaries, well, there's no difference between being a missionary and an evangelist.

And every congregation is an evangelist. You pay the bill, send them forward, teach them. I think we pay attention to that because we've been following man all the way past the poor old pastor and the evangelist and the pastor.

You can do it, Brother Bob. You can't be done. Be an evangelist, an evangelist in the New Testament, planted churches, churches that were already planted. Job now, planting churches, some evangelists, we call them missionaries, have had that blessed privilege over on what we call the foreign field.

That's silly now, foreign field. I want somebody to tell me where we could find a heathen land any worse off than this heathen land of America. Missionaries, that's silly. It's just mission, just obeying the Great Commission.

And the Lord says, well, I'll let you represent me here and I'll send you over there. That's all right, isn't it? And all of them were to go out, sent by our choice. You believe that, don't you? Sent by, that means they are under your authority and that means you support them.

Is that right? Today we don't have many of them. They've helped to get us in the mess we've got. I wouldn't let the average evangelist preach to my chickens, I'll be honest with you. I'm an enemy of what's called evangelism and have been these many, many, many decades.

But I do believe that the Great Commission was given to the Church, don't you? And I think it's about time we start paying a little attention to it, don't you? At least I'm talking to you about it. I've just got one message.

The Evangelist's One Message: Repentance

As soon as the Lord sees me, just like you did, only mine was public and yours was one-by-one. There's no such thing as being a Christian unless you're a preacher. I'm a believer of the gospel. All the days of my Christian experience, if I am a Christian, the years of my 43 years in the ministry, I've been what is called an evangelist.

I've just had one sermon. It has three points. Sometimes I preach on point one, sometimes point two, sometimes point three. Every sermon ought to have three points. We had an old colored fellow down in the South that preached on blind Bartimaeus.

He said, Brother and Sister, there are three things to say about this man Bartimaeus. He said Bartimaeus was blind, number one. He said in the second place, he was blind in both eyes. If he couldn't see, he'd say the same thing.

But the evangelist just says one thing. He doesn't preach on the second coming. He doesn't preach on the Holy Spirit. He doesn't preach on federal counsel, churches of Christ. He's got one thing, and that's repent.

He's everlastingly calling somebody to repentance, a church to repentance. That's in the Bible, the book of Revelation. The Lord says if you don't repent, you're going to take the candlestick away for walking under the traditions of man and not the teaching of the Word of God.

Amen? Now, this is not popular. The last 20 years of my life, I've preached the Quail of the Lot to young preachers. And I just got one message, repent. The gospel you preach is the gospel of a little teeny weeny bit of Jesus that couldn't transform or free if you do good works and preach the Jesus of the Bible.

That's not very popular. And sometimes I hit with Christ. I just got one message, repent. That's the grandest thing I ever heard. Come down here at the kingdom of God, which is the rule of God. That's a tremendous announcement.

Anybody ever heard that? That's privilege, brother. Facing a demand. But the kingdom of God is never going to keep working at the top until every one of his enemies have made his footstool. And everything is brought under subjection to his authority.

The Gospel as the Rule of God and Its Demand

Hallelujah. That's wonderful. I'll get somebody to listen to me. The first time you ever hear the gospel as gospel, you'll be saved. Establish the rule of God. I sure need somebody to rule over somebody that's got the strength of God in his right hand.

Long in my heart. Life of the spins in the night. Heavens, that has become good news to you. You'll close with it just like that. I used to have the expression that the south was the Bible belt. It may have been once.

That's before I was born. But I've heard you say, but gospel, harden now. Most people have never heard the gospel. There's the gospel. There's one gospel. One good news. If I ever got to the place they told me about somebody that hung on a bloody cross under the stroke of the anger of Almighty God's wrath against them, and that he has the penalty, the awful curse of God laid upon him.

If that ever strikes me as being bloody good news, I'll close with it just like that. Thompson tells me that if that's ever good news to me, I'll close with it like that. First thing Jesus did when he began his ministry is good news of the gospel.

What is it? The kingdom of God. Speak of the rule of God in Christ. That's the gospel. Translation means to be translated into the rule of God, and that can happen everywhere. One wonders what a day you'll bring for our government, our society under the rule of the power of the blessed rule of Jesus Christ.

Amen. That's the gospel. With this story and this announcement and this proclamation, my Lord, brought a demand. Rule of God, dear. The demand of the gospel. That's it. Believe the life and obtain the righteousness.

Confess with thy mouth, thou shalt be saved. To the Philippian jailer, and thou shalt be saved. He said, John, what is the son of? Take his name and say Jesus is Lord. And this is the demand. Do what God demands.

That man does not feel obey this demand. He just has some kind of a choice as to when. Like it or not, to the black. They made a member of the family of God, hallelujah. To the rule of Christ now. Let me briefly, and I've copied down so it can finish in a moment or two, a few minutes, four things about this surrender.

Radical Surrender to the Call of Christ

Brother, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto Jesus, Lord, I'll follow thee with us whoever thou goest. And the Lord said unto him, foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not wherewith to lay his head.

You got mean business now and you say you're going to follow me. I got nowhere to go except to a cross. But the man said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bring my father. The Lord said unto him, let the dead bury the dead.

Kingdom of God. Which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Ralph Barnard becomes a new man, receiving a new master.

The true line of action is a positive authority. It must be a radical surrender. I read in the word of God, and from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violence taketh by force.

God's law and prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of God, that's the gospel, that's Christ. It's preached and every man presseth presseth into it. You'll never get in any other way.

I read in the gospel, West T .R .E .I .C .E. Straight Gate. For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able. This thing's so serious that if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.

Better to go to hell with one eye. To heaven with one eye. If you stumble, cut it out. This thing's radical, brother. This thing's radical. Think not that I'm come to send peace on earth. I came to send, not to send peace, but a sword.

Costly Grace and Discipleship

Patrick Bonhoeffer. People, our churches today, full of folks that know nothing of commitment to the redemptive program of Christ and love for his glorious person. And he compares the cheap grace that's enabled us to say we're Christians, but not disciples.

We're Christians, but not missionaries. We're Christians, but not involved in that silly. And then he has this to say about true grace. He says it's costly. True grace is the treasure hidden in the field that will make a man sell everything he's got and buy the field so he can get the treasure.

Grace is the pearl of great price that a merchant will go sell everything he's got and go purchase the pearl of great price. It's the kingly rule of Christ for whose sake a man will pluck out his eye, which causes him to stumble.

True grace is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple will leave his mess and follow him. There's one thing you can put down. It's mighty hot now. See the day when you're going to have to get off the fence.

Popular, much longer in this country to be a Christian. And I'm glad to see it's coming. Except this fence straddling, but not committed, but not under his discipline. Surrender, the surrender of some of your home, your business.

That's why it would cost the rich young ruler everything he had and give it to the poor, go to hell. Maybe that'll be what you have to do. It's your controversy with God. It may cost you your loved ones.

The Cost of Allegiance to Christ

I think not that I'm come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at their ends against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a man's foe shall be there of his own house. Father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loved his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And it will your very life that take it not his cross and follow it after me is not worthy of me.

There's one thing I know, you can't be saved without dying. You're going to have to up your cross. Means exactly what it said, D-I-E, die. Surrender. I say unto you, whosoever shall confess me before man, him shall the son of man also confess.

And confess and testify a difference, you know. I confess before the angels of God. Confessions always true. Testimony may not be. But he that denies me before man shall be denied before the angels of God.

He said, whosoever there show forth shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation. Of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angel.

Mercy, Judgment, and the Call to Repentance

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a human being, born a rebel against the law of God and the rule of God. So are you. I'm headed right smack toward the judgment. See a way they find no place to hide. As you're in my destiny, Jesus Christ in this life.

Between two on a hill called Golgotha, nearly 2 ,000 years ago. Son of man, to bring final full salvation to the sons of the kingdom and to bring a just condemnation to the sons of damnation. Today the throne is not a throne of judgment.

It's a throne of mercy. Proclamation of a pardon, shotgun, willingly bow to his rule. Rebellion against the rule of God and judgment is held back in the good news. Subjects rebelled against him, put the rebellion down, crushed it.

Most all of the rebels threw their weapons down, bowed to the sovereign rule of the king. But some fled to the swamps and others fled to the mountains, kept their weapons and stayed in rebellion against the rule of their king.

And the king calls the giant candle to be placed upon the tallest castle. Then he has them lighted. And then he sent messengers for his kingdom to the rule that would be granted a pardon. That's the grace, that's the glorious provision of the gospel.

Shotgun down and rebellion. Brother king, pass me not, oh gentle savior. Here my humble Christ, number 707. Brothers, thou art. Testament, I think I know what it means. It says, my people shall be willing in the day of thy power.

Breaks my heart. This is not the day of God's power. This is the day when God seems to have hidden from us. This is the day mothers and fathers tell us about way back yonder, the spirit king. We don't see much of it now.

It seems like God's angry with us. My heart goes out to anybody still under the rule of sin. You'll never be willing for Christ to rule you or to have so little of the manifest power of the Holy Spirit.

Isn't that heartbreaking? I'm under God's glad. I'm as old as I am, 21 years old and infidel like I was living in this outfit today. I expect I'd go right slap dab to hell. Hope to men more than they does now, brother Mack.

That's the God's truth. I can't explain that. But if you're here tonight locked in God's cell down in condemnation row, condemned already under the righteous judgment of a thrash hole, shut up in that cell, the doors locked.

You don't have the key. You can't get out. That's the grace of God comes to you out the bow to my Lord. I am to nothing but the conquering grace of God ever make a rebel like me or you bow to the Lord.

Repentance, Confession, and Daily Dependence on Grace

Jesus fears of God one more time. Don't you split me and conquer their rebellion, pierce their wicked, crush their stubborn will. Make them cry out. Oh God, have mercy on me. Don't have much of that today.

But if you're down in that cell, you could try Lord while you're passing by unlocking the door to somebody else's cell. Don't pass me by. Have mercy on me. Stop it. My cell door. You got the key. God raised and put you on throne.

Sovereign and a savior to grant repentance and forgiveness of sin. Lord, you could sing it as a prayer. Let us sing it, brother King. God bless. Word of life honest with faith. Another repentance, the exercise of surrender of Jesus, complacency and familiarity.

Christianity, they'll go out the window. Demand with his great demand. John Wesley says, my tears need to be wept over. Repentance needs to be repented of. My prayers need to be prayed for. That's the reason you've been born from above is repentance and faith.

And it's a daily repentance and faith. We can't have prayer meetings anymore. We don't have confession meetings anymore. That's the reason we do not confess our faults one to another that you may be healed.

We don't confess our fault. We haven't got any. You have, but how we talk about them. Wonder what happened in our congregations. If we'd buy us a Bible and start paying a little tenue, it tells us to confess your fault.

What a healing ministry. Healing of wounded, broken spirits. Instead of gossiping about your faults, we confess them one to another. If you couldn't get next to your children, if they found out you as a sinner that needed to repent every day, good and pious and religious, that you can't even get your kids to Jesus, they don't even think you're a human being.

I wonder if it wouldn't be good if we'd come down off our religious high horse and admit that we're wretched people around us, found out that we're what we are instead of what we claim to be. We claim to be the nicest sort of folks that ever were.

If we just admit we're sinners ruined by the fall. Amen. We need the Lord, don't we? I need him today as much as I ever needed. When your neighbors to Christ cause you're sublimate religious, I wish you'd lose your religion.

Isn't it? There's like me thrown the mercy. Can you go a day without this? Sing it and we'll go home. God bless you.