Saving Faith — Rolfe Barnard

The Question of Saving Faith

Last evening I spoke to you on the call of God in elective grace, and tonight I want to lay a foundation. It will be a rather dull teaching message tonight. I want to lay a foundation tonight so that tomorrow night we may address ourselves to the subject, what is saving faith?

The Difference Between Saving Faith and Mere Belief

It's a question that every individual member of the Church of Christ singly, and will his brothers and sisters collectively, desperately need to re-examine in this day when everybody believes. Everybody believes.

You can't find anybody now who's not a great admirer of Jesus Christ. The liberals say he's the highest product, the best product of God's inventive grace. If his ideals were followed, what a different world it would be.

Even Orthodox Jews now who were taught to hate Jesus have become very friendly. Most of them now read the New Testament, perhaps more than most of us professing Christians do. That's right. Everybody has faith now.

You go to the hospital and find anybody that won't tell you about he's depending on the good Lord. Especially if he's real sick. Everybody has faith now. What is involved in saving faith? I want to introduce that subject to this congregation, Bible study message, to challenge you, hope to re-challenge my own heart.

The Church's Failing Witness in the World

I don't know exactly how you feel, but I expect you cut out the same cloth I am. And as any of the milk of human kindness, much less the grace of God in your makeup, it must be a constant burden upon you that what is called the Church of the Living God now is making such a small impact, if it's making any, on the generation in which we are called to stand as ambassadors and envoys of the Lord Jesus Christ and with uplifted hand plead with men and women to be reconciled to God.

I take it to heart when a man, one of the few commentators that sometimes tells the truth, David Lawrence, calls our attention to the fact that the fastest growing religion in the world, Communism, doesn't think that it need worry at all because of the opposition of what's called the Church of the Lord in the world.

That we are so corrupt in the mirror of our day, instead of the reflection of the Catholic Church, that Communism does not organize Christianity. I've never been able to believe that it pleased God for people to claim to be the people of God in church assemblage to be ignored by its generation.

I think God's calling every last one of us to dig deeper, come to the old-fashioned mourner's bench if you please, repent, and do good works. Certainly, it's a matter of faith, it's a good place to do some digging.

Peter's Teaching on an Abundant Entrance

From this passage of scripture in 2 Peter 1, and I want to begin with verse 11, and then go back and read the verses preceding it as they illustrate this old soul. Verse 11 is the climax of the argument thus far, to tell us that after the manner that I've been describing in verses 1 through 10, which we'll read to refresh our memories with, in this manner, for so an entrance be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom and Savior Jesus Christ.

How is this to be ministered unto us into the everlasting kingdom of Christ to take place? Well, verses 1 and 10 tell us, and so let's read it with that in mind. Simon Peter, verse 1, says, a bond-slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained precious with us the preciousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

That's all there is to it, that yet to be settled, not according to Peter. Peace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. As his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, knowledge of him, glory and virtue, given unto us exceeding great and precious promises of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world, and besides this diligence, this entrance to the everlasting Christ is going to be ministered unto us.

Adding Virtue, Knowledge, and Godliness to Faith

Beside all this, we've obtained life, precious faith, grace is multiplied, we're given the knowledge of God, we're called unto glory and virtue, we're giving exceeding great and precious promises that we may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and that in all, besides this giving all diligence, you add to your faith, then you add to your virtue, knowledge, you do this, and to knowledge, you add temperance, and to temperance you add patience, and to patience you add godliness, and to godliness you add brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness you add love, for if these things be in you, one thing won't take place.

If these things be in you and bubble over and abound, they make that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, our faith, we are to give diligence to our salvation.

Well, it doesn't do that, he's blind. He cannot see afar off. He's forgotten that he was purified from his old sins. Instead of falling into that predicament, brethren, give diligence, give diligence, abundant entrance is going to be ministered to us, an addendum, something that's optional, this is to be faced and obeyed, besides to make your calling and election sure, if you do these things, he shall never fall, for in the doing of these things, so I'll be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Saving Faith as a Call to Warfare and Obedience

Isn't it a matter of heartbreak that what we call salvation now seems to be an escape from responsibility, from warfare, we're in danger of being cultists, eating together, congratulating ourselves that we're not as other men?

Do we not need constantly to be reminded that a little knowledge puffs up, makes fools out of us? Is there anything that professing people of God today need to take more seriously than the fact that a so-called faith that doesn't cause you to roll up your sleeves, spit on your hands, and you build this character?

In this passage, isn't this necessary? When terrible danger of the old Baptist credo, be saved, be baptized, and be done. In the New Testament, a call to warfare, a call to remember that the only reason we're in this world, continue to be spectators, watching the war, is the way, and it shall be ministered unto us abundantly into the room, the everlasting room of our Lord and Savior Jesus.

What's involved in saving faith? I believe this is the one single most important question facing churches today. I believe it because I'm under the deepest conviction, as for my own self, that we've come perilously close to being blasphemous in our conception of what it means to be saved.

I believe that this generation has been shot a curve by most of us, and my hands, I'm afraid, are full of their blood. In separating the conception of salvation from warfare and service, counting our own lives not dear, and hazarding our lives for the gospel's sake, being willing to endure all things for the elect's sake, and becoming all things to all men, if by any means we might save.

I believe we have almost made a joke out of what it means to be s-a-v-e-d saved. And I believe that you, about as guilty as I am, calling myself and you to re-challenge us, see if we hadn't better buy a survival, and everything hadn't paid a great deal of attention to the one we've got, and see if we can't come to some sort of proximity to the conception the Bible gives us of what the salvation of God in Jesus Christ really is.

Christian Faith Requires Fellowship and Discipleship

Seven questions tonight that I believe ought to be seriously faced and studied by every child of God, and especially since, if you'll not misunderstand me, you can't be a Christian by yourself. The Scriptures don't know a thing about that.

It's a relationship, it's a fellowship. And I think that as a one member of the many-member body of Christ, as you come together, I think we'd better drop our smugness and do some tremendous searching into the plain teaching of the Scripture, see if we couldn't come up with a message that's true to the gospel of Christ that would tell men that churches might be born all over this country of men and women who are disciples of Jesus.

Use an illustration and make a quotation, make a statement before I ask these seven questions, and they'll prepare at least me for the message tomorrow night. In one of our Baptist Sunday School classes in the South, and not long ago, in the intermediate department, a little boy raised his hand and said, Teacher, may I ask a question?

The teacher said,. And the little boy, intermediate, said, Teacher, was Adolf Hitler a Christian? And the teacher of the Sunday School class in the intermediate department of that Baptist church answered, and don't you laugh, she put her finger on what is generally regarded to be salvation in America.

The Danger of Defining Christianity by Profession Alone

Teacher, was Adolf Hitler a Christian? Passing on what she had imbibed, been exposed to, concluded from what passes as Christianity today, the teacher said, certainly didn't act like one. We can only hope he trusted Jesus.

The little boy, he wasn't far from what passes for salvation today. He wasn't talking from left field too far, brother, for salvation today seems to be something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the promotion of character.

In Kentucky, a dear lady, and sincere and honest as she could possibly be, a disciple of a preacher, your pastor knows very well, a preacher who has influenced hundreds of preachers in America, with his antinomian conception of what the grace of God is.

This woman, having sat under that ministry through the years, we are products of what we are taught. She came up to me one evening after the message and said, Brother Barnett, would you join me in prayer about my husband?

Said, he's breaking my heart. Said, I don't know how much longer I can stand it. Said, he's lost his business, our home's torn all to pieces, he's lost his health. Said, he hadn't drawn a sober breath in thirty years.

Said, now he's a sock just drunk. And then it breaks your heart what the woman said to me. She said, Brother Barnett, I get down on my knees every night by the bedside before I retire to sleep and thank God that he saved my husband before he got in that shape.

The dear woman, was as honest as you are. Because you may think I'm a crank, in America, to be saved now seems to be something utterly separate from the promotion of the character of Christ or the production of the character of Christ in an individual.

It is almost silly now to walk up to a man and ask him that he's a Christian, for that term is like old Mother Hubbard's blanket, it covers nearly everything. Likewise, almost silly to ask a man, would you like to be saved?

I'd remember the time when that seemed to be a legitimate question. Who wouldn't like to have forgiveness instead of condemnation? Who wouldn't like to have life instead of death? This is all that salvation is.

Rather today, I think we're going to have to be honest enough to face men and women and ask them this question. Do you believe that you're willing to give your life to making His way become a reality?

That's a legitimate question to face the question of salvation. I believe the man who will answer that question with his life, not his profession, not his little testimony, but with his life, I believe he has saving faith.

Bonhoeffer on Costly Grace and Following Christ

The young man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that Hitler had hanged in Osbrocken, one of the concentration camps, who without doubt is causing more disturbance in the ranks of theology than any body of our day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I want to quote from him, the only man who has the right to say that he's justified by grace alone is the man who's left all to follow Christ.

Let me repeat it. I think the man's telling the New Testament truth. The man's got a right to claim that he's a product of God's saving grace, not the fellow that tells you about some little experience he had that you might could have repeated with some sort of soothing syrup or the devil could have given you.

But the only man who has the right to say that he stands upright, justified by the grace of God alone, is the man who has left A-double-L all to follow Christ. Such a man! Then he says those who try to use God's grace as a dispensation from falsely deceiving themselves.

How would you feel if you were as old as I am? I'm not as old as I'm hoped to be, but I'm a little older than most of you who spent 42 years this September trying to make out like I was a preacher. God knows it's getting serious for me now.

All the days of my ministry to be saved is a nice little thing. But it involves no cross, no enduring hardness, no walking in enemy territory, no invasion of the strongholds of Satan. When our churches have become comfortable cults, utterly out of contact with the issues that are devouring men and women all about us, and we don't even know how to get involved.

And I want to ask, without too much comment, seven questions that I believe this church, every institution that calls itself a local body of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, needs to face. I believe we need to ask again the question, and let it drive us to our Bibles.

What Kind of Person Is a Christian?

Ask churches, folks. Ask church people. What kind of a person is a Christian? What kind of a person is a Christian? I believe we need to face again the fact that a Christian is not a fellow that's got a set of beliefs.

I believe it would be hard to find anybody more orthodox in his doctrine than Satan. Do you know anybody? I believe we need to face the fact that being a Christian isn't a matter of a transaction. It's that experience that you're trusting.

And it's going to lead you into trouble. Most folks long since have needed to depend on Christ. They depend on their experience. But an experience didn't die on the cross. There isn't any life in an experience.

There's life in Christ. I believe it's time we face the fact that being a Christian is entering into a new relationship with Almighty God. And that this comes by way of what we call the new birth. But the new birth is a birth into a new way of life.

And in this new life by virtue of the new relationship with God, one surrenders himself to be an instrument of God. I believe that with all of my heart. Mr. Finney used to say, and I think he knew what he was talking about, if you do not live to save others, you are not to save yourself.

I hope he's wrong. God have pity on us if he's right. I hope this generation of church people, for the most part, couldn't care less about anybody else. God bless me and my wife, son John and his wife.

Us four no more. Most of us are like the fellow that told me about the message that's had a revival. I said, thank God they didn't get in the way either. To claim to be a Christian and not be in the war, exercising the ministry God's given you, as a priest of God, in the strength of the gift that he gives severally to every man according to his will, is to deny that you are Christian.

What Are Churches Engaged In?

A second question that I think we desperately need to face as God's people professing people about churches producing Christians. What are we engaged in? What aren't? I just raise one question there and pass on.

Hear me carefully. Only God knows how much damage we're doing by laziness of speech. We say God saves our souls. But the scripture says God's in the business of saving us. In the book of Genesis, God breathed life into Adam and he became a man with a soul.

No sir. What did he become? He became a living soul. I'm familiar with the teaching of the epistles about the body, spirit, and soul. But they do not conflict. And out of that false teaching had risen the conception, my soul was saved.

My life lost, brother, my soul was saved. But the scripture doesn't know anything about that. God didn't hang his son on a cross to save something you call a soul. He hung his son on a cross to possess you.

You. And you are a living soul. You. Because God breathed life into you. You. A flesh temperament, a spiritual temperament, the bodily. But you are. It is the response of a part of you, but all of you to the call of Christianity.

Election, Responsibility, and the Failure of Israel

So I'm just going to run through these right quickly. I think it's time that God's professing people examine afresh and see if we can come up with some challenging responses and answers. Examine afresh why Israel as a nation lost her election.

She did, you know. She was God's elect nation. She's not now. I don't know what your theology is about the future, but I know what's true right now. Instead of being God's elect nation, Israel is God's rejected nation.

Isn't that right? A nation that was the elect nation of God now is God's rejected nation. May God reject her. I think it's time to ask the question I asked again last night. Does election, God's elective grace for both what we call salvation and service, if it calls us to both, they are different but they must never be separated, then our whole conception of what salvation is for the most part needs to be revamped.

Election's Warning and the Call to Fruitfulness

I'll ask a fifth question right quickly. Is the elective grace of God in action with warning? And since I have taken too much time, I simply remind you of the fact that the sin of Israel is being repeated by church people today that we want the privilege, not the responsibility, of being people of God.

You read again the fifteenth chapter of John, not to have a life of fruit bearing is a denial of God's election in you. And then I ask a sixth question right quickly. Can and do churches lose their election?

The Warning to the Churches of Asia

I consented to the churches of Asia. God warned you, remove the candle stick. And he did. The bats in hell took over. And I ask a seventh question, and thank you for your patience in the somewhat dull discussion, as necessary as far as I'm concerned.

You can pass it up if you want to. You say, brother, we're getting along fine. Well, I'm not. I've got the one life to live and I've got to stand before the judge. My soul to have lived in a generation hell-bent for hell.

God knows I'd love to do anything this little old preacher could do to block their road, wouldn't you? Have we preached God's grace and made it a cheap thing? And hadn't we better come back to the costliness of God's grace?

The Costliness of Grace in the German Church

I believe we made America Christian, and you know how much it cost us to do it, Christianity. We made the grace of God a cheap thing. When the World War broke out, John II, World War and Hitler, the organized churches of Germany submitted to Hitler, with the exception of a few men like Karl Barth, young Bonhoeffer that paid with his life, and they organized a confessional church and gave up their properties and everything else.

They said the church must not make a God out of a man like Hitler demanded. It cost them. Out of that, some of them began to write and investigate the fact that the grace of God can't be a cheap thing.

It's a cost. They cost God the lifeblood of his son of his love, and it'll cost you your lifeblood, too. The clearest thinker, perhaps, who's ever lived since New Testament days on the atoning work of Jesus Christ was Martin Luther.

And Luther discovered that the grace of God cost him his very life and would continue to cost him that daily death so long as he lived. So it was Luther who would say that only those who are willing to go to hell will be saved.

And out of that was born the Reformation, which we soon killed, and the heart of it was, listen to me, that salvation cost the blood of the Son of God, and discipleship, which is salvation, cost your blood, too.

Faith as Total Surrender to Christ

Grace isn't cheap, brother. All it costs is Christ's life and yours. All it costs is signing your life away. Get your pencil and paper, sign your life away. Way back under a hundred years ago, in any major denomination in America, this is true.

You walk down the aisle of some little church house and say, I want to be a member of this church. One good, bad time. And the old preacher or some deacon or somebody would say, well, brother, let's hear your experience of grace.

And if they'd accepted they didn't, they'd say, well, let's deal with you more, brother. And then the old preacher would say to the candidate for membership in the church which was purchased, say, my brother or sister, you willing to be damned?

Let that be the will. And if the fellow couldn't say yes, he didn't get baptized. Those old-timers, and I'm on the message tomorrow night, and I'll say this and they'll shut up sure enough, they had come to the only place you can have real faith when you're not making any kind of bargain with God.

Huh? You're just saying, I'm turning myself over to you. Now that's faith, brother. Huh? And that ain't cheap, brother. And so help me, God, that's the only kind that's going to ride the storms of this anti-Christian day.

Not this stuff, Lord, I'll trust you if you'll save me, but here I find myself awake. You hear me? We don't know much about that. I don't. Do you? But that's faith. Let's stand and sing.