When the Saved Shout Hallelujah as God Sends People to Hell — Rolfe Barnard

But if you go all the way through, if you hear what Jesus said to me, they're all taken away, away. Your sins are pardoned, and you are free. They're all taken away. I repeat that three times. And my sins are taken away.

So I praise the Lord for sins forgiven. They're all taken away, away, while onward pressing my way to heaven. They're all taken away. I repeat it three times in the last line. Repeat it twice more. Let's stand and say it.

Are you wonderful to learn it so quickly? Let's try it. Everybody. This is the gospel. This is what Christ says to people. Let's sing it. Sing it now. Did you hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken away.

It's so good to have them here tonight. They'll be over with us through Lord's Day morning, I think. She has never been here before. She's here tonight. And if you haven't met her, you'll have that privilege after this service.

The Hallelujah of Divine Salvation and Judgment

Would you turn to the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ at chapter 19? This is one and two of the last book of the Bible, chapter 19. After these things, salvation is to him what they tried their best way to believe in this life.

Salvation was of God. Share it with no other than God Almighty. And if anybody has any salvation, it's a gift. It has any share in the glory of God. It's a gift. If he has any honor, it's a gift. If he has any power, it comes from God.

These folks shouting hallelujah. But the main thing they're shouting hallelujah about after these things, when the wind-up has come to pass, when the war is over, when the last battle has been fought, shouting hallelujah, something that is the most difficult thing between the eternities for any human being to shout about now, to live in this giddy day, has been divorce from discipleship, depending on something they say happened to them 30 years ago.

Perseverance, Discipleship, and the Means of Grace

Instead of depending on a living Christ and a daily walk with him. We weren't plumb saved yet. The old timers never dreamed the man could get to heaven if he absented himself from what they called the means of grace.

Wonderful now that we've improved on the old timers so much. People do not need to attend divine services. Whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, certainly was behind time, but he thought it was terrible.

He said, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, the manner of some is, but rather encouraging, exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching. Strangely enough, that verse of scripture that the Bible teaches has so much trouble with, follows it, for if we send willfully, after we receive the knowledge of the truth, our fathers could tell us what that meant.

But these folks that have got saved and they do not need to sit under the preaching of the word, they are going to split hell wide open. They are sending willfully. They are making of salvation what the scriptures know nothing about.

They are the folks who crucify Christ afresh and put him to open shame. And they do it by neglecting the means of grace. That's a tremendous thing. That certainly is a reflection on this Sunday morning iris we're suffering with all over America.

These Sunday morning Christians are going to go to hell fast. They'll kick up dust in the devil's face. Folks that honor God with their presence one hour a day, they know nothing about the salvation that comes from God.

To have a touch of the succinus glory, the gift of God, to be empowered from him. The old timers knew we weren't from Satan. They thought that there was something for us to do day by day. They had read in the Bible about, Work out your salvation, your own salvation.

They didn't know anything about this generation of church members that got converted 30 years ago and said goodbye to Jesus and said, We'll see you in heaven if you make it. And the only salvation they can talk about is one they said occurred some time when they had a dream or a vision or shed a tear or said a prayer and had a feeling.

Call that salvation. Old man A .D. Mews, whom I loved as no preacher in his day, used to say immediately, somebody starts telling me about his experience of salvation. And I know I'm listening to an unfaithful church member.

Christ Himself Is the Gospel

But tomorrow night we're going to speak on what is the gospel, and that's the bad subject. It's who is the gospel. The gospel is Christ. And a man saved if he has Christ. Not an experience, but Christ.

But Christ is alive. And if he has Christ, he's got a living Christ. And if he's alive, so are you in the daily communication. But back to my subject, the old-timers knew that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

But they knew nothing of what to call salvation today. So they could enter into a little bit of the subject tonight, and they could understand how difficult it would be for a mother to shout hallelujah when she watches God send her own boy to heaven.

It would be awful tough, wouldn't it? A man walked up to me in Texas the other day and he said, Brother Barnes, do you reckon it's so that this generation of Christians have not seen the last of this generation of lost people?

He said, Reckon we'll have to witness against them at the judgment? I said, We sure will. And at the judgment, God's people are going to be on God's planet! And they're going to be able to join this hallelujah, what you're shouting about.

Verse 2 says, For true after these things, the patience of God has worn out, the grace of God has been suspended. And God's people are shouting hallelujah! What God does is true, and what God does is right!

They could quote with Abraham, yes, go! Don't believe it now. Happen to be lived in the silliest, most sentimental, mawkish generation God ever had to put up with. It's a pity that man up in Shady Kep or whatever it is, Pennsylvania, we're going up there to pursue my wife.

She's glad that's over. She's afraid they'd catch her. We're going pretty close to where that man abducted the young woman. Shame that fella got killed. They ought to capture this, and then millions of people in America probably would sign the petition to let him off.

The Holiness of God and the Necessity of Punishing Sin

This is a day to desire his authority. This is a day when God's youth and children in this world, like this silly generation, thinks it ought to be run. And against that awful mass trial, people need to be brought face to face again that God Almighty's judgments are true, and that God ought to be against sin, and that God ought to punish, and that God ought to visit men's sins with the terrible pangs of eternal hell, because God is holy, and sin is unholy, and one of those has got to win.

The word of God tells us there are two sovereigns. That word sovereign is a big word. It means whatever you want it to mean. It simply means two absolute rulers. And the word of God personifies S-I in sin, and speaks of sin as if it were a person.

And the book of Romans we'll read where sin is raised, and it is and it does, in the life of unregenerated men and women. Now something happens, and grace reigns, not apart from, but through righteousness.

Grace's rule of God's righteousness in his life, and grace isn't the substitute for holiness and righteousness. It is the great master hand that salvages Christ's rule in a man's life, and that's what salvation is.

And there's a war going on, and the Bible warns us that every man and woman, boy or girl, has been privileged to be a member of that precious body for whom Jesus died and purchased with his blood, to be one of the people of God, or members of the body of Christ of the sexed out, called out men and women who've not been appointed to wrath, but to God's glory.

Christians as Ambassadors in Enemy Territory

The Bible is crystal clear that while that's the greatest privilege that's tied to hell or heaven, it also brings tremendous responsibility, the responsibility of not driving our stakes too deeply in this life, remembering that we're just camping down here, and we're on enemy territory, and we're under orders, and our King is the Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll not give comfort to the enemies of God's grace, and we're not to show the yellow flag and turn our backs and settle down and just take the spirit of this generation with all this criticism of just one attribute of God.

Everybody would fall head over heels in love with God tonight if he weren't holy and if he didn't demand righteousness. The Bible warns anybody that God saved that he didn't save you to say everybody had to say amen.

He saved you to make you an ambassador, to live down here on unfriendly territory, and to be on God's side in the war. There's a war going on. I do love to turn to the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I need to turn to it every once in a while and find out how the war is going to end.

When I was a kid, I started school when I was 4 years old. My dad was a schoolteacher, and I cheated. I graduated from high school when I was 14. I was a smart little fellow, and I was ahead of my time.

I got algebra, and that's tough. I don't remember just how it was, but somehow or another I got a hold of a key. I know none of you folks ever did this, but I got a hold of an algebra key. Those problems are sure easy to work if you've got a key.

Learn the answer, and then you go back and apply it. I like to read the Bible and find out. I've got a key, brother. I don't look in the back of the book. I know how the war is going to come out. We'll one day mirror the day than we were yesterday to the final victory of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

All hell can stop it coming, brother. He must reign till his enemies are made his footstool, and he's going to subdue this world. He's going to win the war. I like to look in the back of the book and find the answer, brother.

Give me a big jar of Star Navy spit in the back of your hand, spit ambidextrous in the devil's face, and tell him to go back to hell. He ain't going to win. He's not going to win. I know how the war is going to end.

Choosing Sides in the Conflict Between Sin and Grace

Which side are you on tonight? Which side are you on tonight? I want to ask you two or three simple questions. Do you believe God ought to punish sin? At the judgment God's people are going to say, Hallelujah, you did right.

Hallelujah, your judgments are true. This isn't just if I fill up a little time. Listen to me. God knows, listen to me, if there is any group this side of eternity that needs to run from the lawless, needs to run from the temptation to turn the grace of God into an excuse for unholy living, it is the people who have been privileged to learn that salvation is by the grace of God.

Listen to me. God only knows what a fool a Christian is to get too much interested in this world. If spirit is of the devil, Satan crucified the Son of God and would do it tonight if it could lay its hands on him in the face.

Oh, my soul. When's Mr. Widdow and Mr. Amen going to start coming back to God's house? When are we going to begin to face up to the fact that we're representatives of a Christ-holy God who sent his Son, Jesus Christ, and my Stephen Asherman said, we haven't changed a thing since the reign over us.

So let's decide about this sin question and about the fact that sin's going to put God out of business or God's going to put sin out of business and God's people are to be crystal clear and there be no doubt about it which side we're on.

Which side we're on. You think God ought to send people to hell? You think so? You think sin ought to be punished? You want God to win? You want anarchy to sit on the throne instead of the Lord Jesus Christ?

You want to get rid of God and let every man do that which is right in his own sight? America's in the midst of that tonight. And if there's any institution this side of the hill that's just a bunch of lawless rebels, it's the average church.

I speak the truth. We know nothing of authority and respect for it. God helps. This is the time to take sides about whether sin is against God for it is against men and whether God can save God and not win the war against sin personified reigning in homes, in nations, in churches, in civilization and in human hearts.

The Civil War Story and Taking a Stand

You've heard the story of the Civil War days when in the state of Kentucky, not very far from here, Kentucky, some of the Kentucks were Yanks and some were Johnny Rebels. And one time they were having a little skirmish out in the cornfield.

Some of the Johnny Rebs and the Yankees were shooting at each other in an old brand ball. The Yankees had killed her husband and four sons and had come raging and taken everything off the farm that was loose at one end except the poker that she used to start up the fire.

And she looked out the window and saw the little battle going on and she pulled her specs down off her fart and put them on her eyes and fastened her bonnet, put her skirts up with one leg, one hand, and so she could walk and got that poker with the other out the front door, down the front yard and opened the little latchy gate running down the road and the neighbor came walking along, said, you're playing poo, don't you feel the war going on, that, that.

Said, what's your motive? Said, I'm going to get in on it. He said, why, you can't put out a war with a poker. She said, by the grace of God, I can let them know which side I'm on. Oh, which side you on.

Listen to me now, making more money than you ever made in your life, living like hogs the whole outfit of it. Listen to me. Listen to me. Where in God's name did we forget there's a war on? And it's all for wonderful, not to have to worry about going to hell because Jesus said, my sins are taken away, but it's all so tremendously challenging that he left us down here to hear the representatives.

The Judgment of God and the Vindication of His Justice

God knows I wish God could turn our hearts and our churches into sackcloth and ashes. Where in the name of high heaven is real measuring up to what it means to be ambassador of Jesus to a man, to be reconciled.

In God's people one day are going to be present at the judgment when two things are going to happen. First, every unsaved man or woman, boy or girl that brought to the judgment bar of God is going to have to say amen to his own condemnation.

God Almighty will have a few million years if it takes that, for eternity will all there be rolling. It can take a few million years to examine each case. No man will spend a long eternity in hell on the judgment of God.

And another thing that's going to happen, no God's going to have to be witnesses. And they're not going to argue with God. They're going to praise him. Say hallelujah for true and righteous is our judgment.

The Bible tells us the time of judgment is coming. The Bible tells us it's an appointed day. The Bible uses language something like this, to me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them may change.

The Bible, quote, will have words like this, because he hath appointed a day in which he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised them from the dead. The time of that judgment is said to be a day when sinners shall be punished.

We're told in the word of God the Lord, knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. This time of judgment is described as a day when God shows his power and none can successfully resist.

The prophet is mutual in language, make your hair stand on your head, and it will say, can thine heart endure or can thy hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee. The Bible speaks of the character of this time of judgment.

Biblical Witnesses to the Coming Judgment

Last night I pointed out that you live in a generation that doesn't believe that God's so good seeing us. And tonight I come back and say what a tremendous responsibility it is to know their sorry tip-top words that turn the dust around the corn.

They don't exactly believe that they're headed straight into the hands of a angry God. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. The Bible speaks of the character of this judgment to which all men will devote and will one day mirror it today than we were yesterday.

In the book of Isaiah, God will say according to their deeds. Accordingly he will retain fury to his adversaries' enemies or he'll say before the whole, the Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire.

Or the Bible will say, therefore, will I also deal in fury? Mine I shall not. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear in that awful angst. Awful angst. The Bible speaks of witnesses at this judgment.

The men of Nineveh will be there. They'll rise up and condemn the men of Christ's own day. The folks in Sodom and Gomorrah haven't seen the last of them. They'll be at the judgment, says our Lord. They'll rise up and condemn the cities that heard the Lord Jesus preach and did not present.

The Queen of Sheba will be there at the judgment. She crossed the world's span to set the feet of a man by the name of Solomon. Behold, a greater than Solomon has come. Men put him on a cross. Now, we haven't seen the last of the folks in Solomon and Gomorrah.

They'll be at the judgment. We haven't seen the last of the cities that Christ pronounced his woes upon, wherein he done his mighty works one year in the days of his flesh. They'll be at the judgment.

The sons and followers of Korah. You remember, God opened the earth and sent them to hell without time to pack a suitcase. They'll be at the judgment. Zionists tell us perhaps three billion people were destroyed and sent to hell in the flood.

And they'll be at the judgment. Oh, people don't believe this. But after these things, I heard a million voices, so much people hitting, saying hallelujah. Why? For true and righteous survival. God's going to do right.

God's going to catch up with everybody. Nobody's going to escape. I saw a great fight thrown at him that sat upon the whole room all year. Heaven and earth tried to run away, but there wasn't a place for them to go.

Rejoicing in the Righteousness of God's Verdict

All men stand before God. God's people are going to be there. Then we shall see that sin should be punished in rebellion for that. Then we shall share God's infinite hatred of sin. The scriptures speak of God as this language, thou art of pure eyes and thou canst look on sin or behold iniquity.

And we'll look at it like he does at the judgment. Then we shall see and believe that God's right when he declares that men that commit sin are worthy of death. Then shall we be called upon to rejoice.

The book of Deuteronomy says, Rejoice, holy nation, with his people, for he'll avenge the blood of his servants and will render vengeance to his adversaries. You know, I believe what I'm preaching tonight.

I expect my hair to stand on my head and yours would, too. Ladies and gentlemen, being a Christian ain't all the joy, right? We've got to wit people to sin. Stand up and be counted and say amen to God's judgment.

A Praying Wife and the Conversion of Jock Smith

I remember when I was a student in the seminary. I went out to a little town called Dundee, Texas, a little cow town that holds the meetings. There's a man there that owned about a half a county. His name was Jock, J-O-C, Jock Smith.

He's a hard cussing, hard drinking, rough, wealthy townie. He hadn't darkened the door of any place where the gospel was preached in Texas some odd year. Strange as it may seem, for all intents and purposes he had a godly wife.

And I remember that during that meeting, the poor woman got to where she couldn't go any longer. She had been worrying everybody in that country and everywhere else for years, asking them to join in prayer for her husband.

I don't know what it looked like, but all on God's earth, weapons with guts lay out for a child as God is praying. And she just wore herself out praying to God to save that old devil of a husband. And during that meeting, the poor woman got to where she couldn't eat.

She didn't decide to fast. She just got to where she couldn't eat. We had day services and night services. She'd show up and when they'd have their request for prayer, pray for my husband. And she got in such desperate shape, she had to be brought to the services.

She never missed it. Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. Wasn't put off. Finally, they had to bring her in a cart. She came. Her husband didn't show up. The last night of the meeting, he came. They brought Miss Smith down.

I'd see her there on the couch now. She was almost dead, looked to me like. I had begged her to try to eat something, something. Or she could do sob about her husband. God knows I wish we could have a little of that s'more.

You better listen to me. Listen, old brother Barnes. You can't get the job done by just trying to pound proof in people. It just don't work that way. Isn't that right? Something else, something else. God knows our truth must be saturated in prayer.

And I preached that night. I stood up and preached. I saw a booted spur on the front step and I kept looking and God Smith had showed up the first time in 30-odd years. And he got there and he couldn't get in and he stood there stayed there one booted spurred boot on that step and listened to me preach.

And I preached the best I could that night. And directly we stood for an invitation. And somebody whispered to that woman that jock and she got two women to help her up and while we were singing they kind of had drug her to the length of that little building and old jock didn't run.

And that poor little woman went back there and faced her husband. She got up strength enough to put her hands on his shoulder. I don't know what she said to him she's too weak to say anything out loud.

She just sort of stood there and wept. Directly old jock took his hand took her wrist put them off of himself turned her back over to the two women turned around with a curse went to his California rode off into the night guess he went home got his jug two days later they found him one foot in the stirrup with his brains all dashed out as his pony wandered around on the plain.

And that little woman will be at the judgment and she'll take sides with God and her tears will be gone she won't be praying for her husband she'll be saying hallelujah God ought to be sent to hell. It's either send Jock to hell or God's ass to keep hallelujah hallelujah true and righteous are thy good.

Prayer, Tears, and the Power of Intercession

So far as I know I can't save anybody neither can you. This September I've been preaching 40 years. I'm closing my eyes now hear the sobs of wives for lost cousins little children who didn't understand much of what they're talking about yet they break your heart crying for their love.

Between now and the time when we're going to say hallelujah over the judgment of God we have two weapons left. In the Old Testament the Bible talks about God taking a bottle and catching the tears of his people.

In the New Testament God talks about taking little vials and putting the prayers of his people in those vials. I believe that. I believe that. I was in Rocky Mountain North Carolina in the fall of 1947 in what's called Citywide Meet I was preaching five times a day the first three weeks I was awfully busy answering criticism people coming and coming trying to straighten out and all that and then the meeting broke and I was awfully busy dealing with soul and I kept getting a letter about every other day from some dear woman saying I'm listening to all the radio and I'm sick at bed I can't come out.

I sure would love to see you and I kept promising tomorrow I'll go see her but I didn't go. I had fairly good excuse and I didn't go. The last night of the meeting came and I was sitting watching the crowd gather and a young woman about 35 came down to me had a five dollar bill in her hand and she said my mother wanted you to have this little gift said you remember getting letters from a woman saying she's sick and she's hearing you over the radio and hoped you'd have time to come see her and I said yes and I'm sorry I didn't go said she went to be with the Lord this morning at 11 o 'clock and said before she died she had me get her pocketbook to take this five dollar bill and said now daughter tonight my body will be in the undertaking and I'll be in glory and said you haven't been to the meeting and I want you to go and listen to the preacher and I want you to take this five dollars and give him and tell him who it's from tell him the worshipper could have seen him but I'll be listening to him preach tonight.

I kind of believe that I told that story sort of to close with my message and we stood and started to sing and the crowd had overflown the tent that last night way out country somebody began to sob and directly he came splitting down the middle aisle through the sawdust big old 240 pound boy about 40 years old and here he came and just fell sprawled face first and I thought that nobody just reckoned with Todd directly I went down and knelt by him dealt with him the best I could.

I don't know what happened to him but that's why I stood up and confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord looked like the glory of God settled on this temple. Guess who's boy that was. It was that woman. Many a night she'd shed tears for him.

She thought they were wasted. They weren't wasted. God caught them in his bottle. Many a time she'd pray for a miracle to happen God to arrest that wayward boy on his Damascus road to hell. The flights of prayers were in vain.

He hadn't been in glory but a little while till the Lord stood around in his pantry all the tears that woman he'd stored up and the praise she'd make for that boy. I think he just said I'll make her first day in glory especially good.

He just uncapped that bottle of tears and took one out and let it drop. It split that boy wide open and he dropped the bombshell of her prayers. And that did the work guaranteed. I kind of believe that folks I kind of believe I kind of believe it with all of my heart.

Oh if I were weak for that time when we're gonna be on God's side we're gonna say that judgments are true and right weapons of concern. That's tears prayers.