The Gospel by Rolfe Barnard — E.A. Johnston

When I was researching the life and ministry of Evangelist Rolf Mornard, I came across some startling stories of incidents which occurred under his powerful ministry. I included several of these accounts in my biography on his life entitled God's Hitchhiker Evangelist.

I want to share one of those stories with you this evening, for it is worthy of study as it relates how God can move in a church if that church enters a right relationship with God. The story you will hear this evening is a clear picture of how the gospel has power to save.

It is a sensational account of how God altered the entire spiritual makeup of a church under the preaching of Rolf Mornard. This occurred back in the 1950s when Rolf Mornard was preaching up in Boston at a large Baptist church that had asked him to come preach for them.

I want you to listen to this story very closely, friends, because if we do the same, perhaps God will move once again, even in our midst, and change lives for eternity in our community. For if we ever got serious with God and prayed like we should, with desperation and perspiration, there is no telling what God can do on our behalf.

This story you are about to hear is taken from a Mornard sermon entitled A Burden for Souls. Here now is that remarkable story related by Rolf Mornard. I will read this sermon to you. Please listen to it very carefully.

The Gospel’s Power and the Need for Genuine Christian Living

God is not going to put up with this stuff we have been calling Christianity forever. We are headed for judgment like we have never dreamed of, and our only way of escape is for Christians to start acting like Christ.

Jesus came down here because God so loved the world. He did not come down here to condemn the world, but He came down here that the world through Him might be saved. God helped us to be a little like the Lord.

A Stagnant Baptist Church in Boston

I was up in Massachusetts the first time I held a meeting in New England. Being from the South, they found it a little difficult to understand me. I found it very difficult to understand them. They were very nice people and very cultured, very dignified, very quiet and reserved.

As I remember, I started the meeting on Sunday morning. My wife was with me. I preached Sunday morning and Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night. After the service Wednesday night, I said to the dear pastor, Brother Pastor, I believe we ought to close the meeting tomorrow night.

He said, Oh no, no, we couldn't do that. I said, I was just making a suggestion. My judgment is that we ought to just close out and I will go back home. Well, he said, what on earth is the matter, Brother Barnard?

I said, well, we are not getting anywhere. I don't seem to be able to get over to you and the people, and so far you have not done one thing that I have asked you to do. He said, well, Brother Barnard, you are a little strange to us.

I said, well, I am going this way and you folks are going that way. We sure won't have the blessings of God that way. Somebody is wrong around here and I am a visitor at your invitation and my message is what I ask you to do, you don't do a thing about.

I think I ought to just close my part of the meeting and if you folks want to go on with it, you can. And he was greatly disturbed. Oh, he said, it would just ruin everything if you did that. What on earth is the matter with you, Brother Barnard?

I said, well, you just won't do a thing I ask and I either ought not to ask you some things or I ought and if I ought to ask you to do some things and if it is right that I do, then you ought to do it and if I am asking you to do things against the Scriptures, then you ought to run me off.

He said, well, what are you talking about? I said, you want me to pray. I haven't seen your church on its face, weeping its heart to God. I have been asking you to do it and God is not going to bless people if they are not that kind of people.

You might have some more people join the church, but God is not going to save people in an atmosphere of dry eyes and prayerlessness. I have been asking you to go out here and talk to people and witness to them and bring them in your cars and invite them to the services.

He said, Brother Barnard, we have never done anything like that in our lives. I said, I am beginning to believe it. He said, well, my wife and I are going on to our room and if it is all right, I will preach tomorrow night, then we will close the meeting.

Revival Beyond Church Reputation

We went on to our little apartment they had for us and after a while somebody knocked on the door and the pastor and the deacons came in. They were greatly disturbed. They said, Brother Barnard, we just can't afford to close the meeting.

It would just hurt everything. People would wonder why. I said, well, I don't know what to do. And they said, Brother Barnard, if you will stay. They weren't thinking about me. It was the reputation of their church.

If you will not close the meeting, we will do anything you ask us to do. I don't want you to do anything just because I asked you. I wanted you to do it because it's in the Bible and God wants it. Well, tell us one more time what it is.

I said, I don't want you to do it just to save the reputation of the church. But if I have asked you to do what God's people ought to do and you don't, you insult God by not doing what you said you would do in a revival effort.

It's a shame and disgrace to say we're going to try to have a revival and not have it because that's a slam on God. He's supposed to be a God that hears prayer and a God who works miracles, isn't he? He used to.

The Church’s Obligation to Pray and Evangelize

Church is under obligation to get its prayers answered. So we turn to Acts chapter five and verse 42 and read and daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

They said, we've never done anything like this, but it's in there, isn't it? I said, yes. And they went out and Thursday night, the church was full because they had went out and invited them to come and they began to do what the Bible says.

A Young Girl Encounters the Gospel

And I preached that night and before I got through preaching, a little girl began to sob. And when we stood up to sing, she came running down to the front and just fell down on all her fours there. And after a while, I went down and talked to her.

And after a while, she stood up and said that Jesus is here. But we found out that she was a little 16 year old Italian girl and that this was the first gospel sermon she'd ever heard. Some of the girls went and brought her.

She didn't know a from zero. But you see, a sovereign God, he can do things as he pleases. Sometimes it takes him 40 years to save a man. And sometimes he saves him the first time he hears the gospel.

I think that little girl got saved. Of course, I won't know until I get to the judgment. None of us will. But it scared them that they'd never seen anything like that. So I had them to do like we do down south, I had them to come around and shake hands with her.

Well, Friday night, that little girl wasn't at the service and Saturday night she wasn't at the service. So I got a little worried and I went to the pastor and said, I'm troubled about that little girl.

Do you know where she lives? He said, no, preacher, I'm sorry. We got so excited about what happened. We never saw anything like that. And nobody asked her where she lived. We don't even know her name.

I feel awful bad about it. I'll tell you right now, if she's not here in the morning, we're going to organize and we're going to search the city and find that little girl. I'm troubled about her. Well, Sunday morning came and she was sitting in the congregation and it so happened my wife was sitting close to her.

A Persecuted Convert Bears a Burden for Her Family

And that morning I preached on hell, the sinner's long home. And after I'd been preaching about 25 minutes, they said that little Roman Catholic Italian girl, which Thursday night had stood and said, Jesus is in here.

She began to cry. Then she began to sob. And pretty soon her body was just rocking with sobs. And my wife put her arm on her shoulder. And pretty soon my wife rose and the little girl and they broke up my sermon as they came down that church aisle.

My wife brought her up on the platform with me, rolled up her sleeves, had her turn around and rolled her dress down as far as modesty allowed. And let me look at her face. Her back was just terrible whelps and they were festered and fevered.

Her arms were cut and her face was cut and she stood up after a while and I saw church born. She told what had happened to her, to that nice Sunday morning crowd of Baptists. She said Thursday night, I ran home.

I was so happy. Mom and Daddy, my brother and my two sisters were in the front room. I went in and told them that Jesus Christ had come in here, pointing to her heart. And he is mine and I am his. She told them what had happened.

And the daddy asked, where have you been? She said, I went down to the Baptist church. They're having meetings down there. I was never in anything like it, Daddy. All I know is that Jesus is in here. And her daddy got up and went and got out an old black snake whip.

He commanded his girl to stand and she did. And he whipped her with that black snake whip until she lost consciousness. She said, I don't know how long I lay there, but I was awakened by pain and I opened my eyes just in time for my two sisters standing on either side of me, kicking me in the ribs.

Then my brother came and spit in my face. My mother came and cursed me and my daddy told me to get up. I don't know how I did, but I did. He looked me in the face and said, if I ever hear you talk like that again, I'll kill you.

Go to your room. She said, I went to my room and he turned the key in the door. I didn't have any medical attention. Thursday night, Friday morning, my daddy came, unlocked the door and handed me a piece of bread and a glass of water.

I stayed in the room all Friday and Friday night. During that time, those whips were feverish and festered and I was in mortal agony. She continued Saturday morning, he came and I was waiting for him.

I was desperate as he turned the key in the lock and as he put his hand on the door, he turned it. I just let him turn it just enough. I knew it was open, but then I jerked it right quickly and he fell in the room.

I darted out. I had so much fever, I guess I had superhuman strength. I ran out of the house, wandered around the city and found an old empty freight car and I stayed in it all day. When the sun went down, I went to a pharmacy.

The pharmacist knew me and he treated my wound some and I slept that night in the empty freight car. Sunday morning, I was hungry. I was sick and I was hurting. And I said, what shall I do? And then I remembered the Jesus people and I said, I will go up where the Jesus people are.

They will help me. Then she came to the church and took her seat. She was in pain and feeling sorry for herself and afraid to go back home. She said, I felt so sorry for myself. Then I began to listen to the preacher and he talked about hell, that awful place.

And after a while, she said, I forgot myself and all I could think of was the daddy that went with me, the mother that cursed me, the sisters that kicked me and the brother that spit in my face. And I thought they are going to that awful place the preacher is talking about.

And then, so help me, that little Italian girl lifted up her hands and began to weep and she broke the heart of that crowd. I saw them fall on their knees and I was in a prayer meeting. She said, oh, Jesus people, won't you help me keep my people from being sent to hell?

That little Italian girl didn't know much. She knew Jesus was in here and her loved ones were going to be sent to hell and she didn't want them to go. She thought she could say, oh, Jesus people, will you help me?

Won't you? Well, we closed the meeting on Sunday night and I was to get back in New York on Monday. The pastor said, let me get on the telephone and call them and say, you won't be there until Tuesday.

You just have to stay over Monday night. We are going to have a baptizing and I want you to have the great pleasure. I said, all right, I will. We made the arrangements and they took a vote that everybody come Monday night that was going to be baptized.

Baptism and the Fruit of Earnest Prayer

The deacon got up and made a motion to authorize the evangelist to bury in baptism. Monday night came and I went down into that pool and five people came there and I got them all down in the pool together.

I baptized them. I baptized that little 16 year old girl. Then I baptized her mama. I baptized her daddy. I baptized her two sisters and then I baptized her brother. Listen, friends, that story of Rolf Barnard is a demonstration of what God can do when people get serious with God and seek him earnestly in desperate prayer and in obedience to the gospel.

And that is the only kind of prayer God answers, friend, desperate prayer. Are we desperate enough to see God move in your day and mine? Do we have the burden for lost souls that we should have in light of eternity?

Or are we self-absorbed and indifferent to those perishing around us like that little Italian girl's family? God is a God of miracles. Do we believe he's capable of doing miracles today? I do. I believe he's the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Let us go to him now in prayer.