Exhortation to Become Involved — Rolfe Barnard

I have the honor to be the evangelist for this church, have been for many years. It's interesting that much emphasis is being placed these days on what a church is, and one characteristic of a New Testament church is that you have an evangelist, but most of us don't.

The Authority of Scripture and the New Testament Church

Every month I get a check from this church, just like if I was a missionary in Africa or somewhere, and it helps me, and it helps them, and it would help your church if you would just quit picking your texts that you like and begin to pay a little attention to the book.

We've had a Bible with us quite a while, but we don't pay great attention to it. It's always been this book. I sat in the middle chair back in the old days, and I've seen lots of water run under the bridges.

This is the 14th or 15th session of the church, I guess, in America. I have an annual conference, basically to teach this morning. One of the most profound, under God's earth, or under God's sky, is Brother E .W. Johnson.

I don't know what I'd do if he would send me that little paper. I get a lot of that stuff and work it over and fix it up so as to get one of his papers and preach a year from it, and what he preaches in one message.

I don't know. I thank God. What that little one-eyed Jew over in Jerusalem done this last week, made a pre-millionaire out of it. I don't stand guard and hope that that little Jew didn't come over and conquer America before he got through this morning, but we've seen history in the last few days.

When Brother Johnson announced his presence, I said, oh, down in Texas with Brother Jackson, Coots, and these brethren here, last February we had a conference and had a food preacher down there named McDonald.

He preached here last year, and he had three messages in the morning and three at night. I never got so religious in all of my life. I'll tell you what's a fact. Anybody that hasn't got more sense than that ought to be shot, you know.

And I was the last speaker, the last time, and a certain preacher named Mahan got up and announced, message all prepared, they're going to preach on why I cried, of course I had an Orthodox sermon, it's just three points, that's all you can have.

And this fool Mahan got up and vowed not to be so. And I'd sit there while he was popping off, you know, and get me another message, and I'd call him a thief publicly, and I'd fix him. I'd come to the second chapter of the first, and I sat there, had any like it or not, where only one thing is said.

Declaring the Testimony of God

The first speaker would have in the face, and if we could get one thing said and believed in our hearts and translate confession to practical practice, that'd be a conference that God Almighty would be greatly pleased with.

With this tremendous Bible message as a background or a foundation to stand on, and I read verse one through verse two, I came to you, came not with excellences, declaring, not explaining, but declaring, not debating, but declaring unto you the testimony of God being among you.

And I was with you in weakness and in much trouble, and was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but with the spirit of the Holy Spirit. That the most prophetic voice is on the face of the earth today are coming from Catholic people professing the name of Christ, that God's able to get in on a word in Edward.

If you think I'm crazy, it's because you do not read what's being written today. If you think I'm crazy, it's because you do not visit the hospitals in the back alleys of our city. A little more pepper on out, and see the priest and millionaire layman of Catholicism today putting the gospel in a meeting that questions the church on tomorrow.

She sometimes speaks jackass while he might could speak through a Catholic priest. The bishop scene makes a prophetic statement, has made a prophetic statement, that Antichrist is here. He believes that anti-Semitic questions, he can't answer them.

I'm speaking as an evangelist. A showmaker room is going to be able to answer much of what I suggest this morning. Fighting battles we're all interested in. That especially with persuasion. Meeting message.

Together to compare above the other fellows. On Sunday morning, and congratulate ourselves. I've made it my business to try to find out if this statement I'm going to make is not so. Suggested of course by Johnson Edwards, I don't know who he got it from, that the task of every generation of God's people is to determine the direction in which the sovereign redeemer is going in his day.

Not Calvin's day. Not the day of the fury. In his day. And every movement that God has ever used. On those issues and relate those that were crossing the path of the gospel in their day. I think I've made every mistake that can be made doctrinally and methodically in trying to get to this foundation E .W. talked about.

The Call to Become Involved

It hadn't been an easy battle. This office of the gospel in our day said Miami the other day, and I got a little hope. He said if the pastor's heirs and 15 ,000 go home, quit being mama's little lamby boys.

Foundation of non-involved. We wouldn't have nerve enough to preach in our own churches that truth. I'd like to hear that. Just said that one of his big business men members came to him not long ago and said, Pastor, I'm so tired of being inspired.

Left to get my hand in the name of God. Could we get involved? And that last year on the beans, and if I had it this year, I'm going to start a protest, a picket line. I'm going to get involved in something.

I'm going to protest something. The editor of one of the Southern Baptist, state Southern Baptist papers, in the paper said the other day, preachers and churches of our cooperative program, but you say amen to that and we bow to his guilt.

That we need to shift our stance to face the issues of this hour. In the 16th century, Martin Luther and Calvin and those men in their beginnings, those beginnings were made within a corrupted Christian society.

More than a century, Protestants after Calvin and those men and the Puritans were forced to be on the defensive, preserving the purity of their faith and worship against relentless adversaries. Thus the Puritans and their predecessors focused attention on the word and what they call the sacrament, but you do not get the missionary note in the Puritans of the gospel.

But today, we're in a missionary situation. I don't care where you live. Such thing as Christendom anymore. Culture that can be labeled. Here in the world today, Christians find themselves in the middle of secular and pagan cultures and Christians are called upon to rub elbows in the schools and churches in the United States.

Christianity in a Secular and Pagan Culture

Monarchs. We could do without. The Nobel Prize winner in physics has coined this phrase. Science has created a world in which Christianity is imperative. But that our religious life is largely a matter of gratification, seldom a sacrifice, is an umbrella to protect us from the rain and that the safest place to hide from God now is within the membership of any of our churches.

People turn to religion today as a remedy for sleeplessness, for worry, free from frustrations and tensions, to become resourceful. His end in life is to serve him and wants him to serve us and become very comforting and comfortable.

Relativity describes us. How we think of ourselves because we've learned a little doctrine. This is apparent in our apathy. Then we're not aroused for very long. The meditate on the Psalms on trenches.

Overcharge this generation of Calvinists and anybody else of turning the world upside down. And evil can go on unchecked. Shoulder no cross. Sin causes. Turn to the world. Universities makes this indicative statement.

Neither preachers nor laity matter. What they do and what they say can be readily agreed to and safely ignored. I read a parody that they use out in the First Presbyterian Church in San Rafael, California.

A parody. This afternoon you read the 149th and 150th Psalm. Great Psalms of praise. And this parody of these two Psalms of this church is to be chanted after the solemn reading of the budget. And it speaks of our non-involvement.

Here's how it reads. Oh, sing unto the Lord an old song. One that he hears over and over again. The song of the mighty with power and wealth. And the abundance of possessions whose tents and host of electronic servants.

And who say, behold, we cannot give more. We must feed our overfed children. And buy overpowered cars. And maintain our fantastic standards. Though we don't care to reason why. Oh, give praise unto a God who lets us get away with it.

Who fixes our cries of empty self-pity. Not with thunderings and lightnings of a God of wrath. Judging his own. Who thinks they can live in a world of suffering and loneliness and lostness. And not care enough to love and give ourselves.

Who gives thanks unto him whose only rebuke. Oh, give thanks unto him. Whose only rebuke is the silence. And our own conscience. Great and mighty is our God. And greatly to be praised. For he watches us decrease our giving.

Crawl into our beautiful stone shell. Through the eyes of a hundred thousand hungry children. Through the narrow of international conspiracies. Through the nodding sarcasm of disillusioned using. He says, our God says nothing.

Praise him upon the high sounding instruments. For even as we lust after the enchantments of much goods of possessions. And pledge no excellence to our faith. Even so does he permit us. But though he be silent.

The Cross and the Cost of Discipleship

And an old scene is repeated. There is the sound of nails and a sigh. Reaffirmation in the city of Corrie. And he says three things. That I mentioned very quickly. I determine not to know any preacher here.

None to God I don't know. So many voices today. When you get a little older. I'm not old yet but I'm older than I used to be. Time flies so especially like myself. You'll wonder under God. There's ever been the least bit of fruit.

I'm not being pious. I've seen so much of what I looked like was of God. And the devil tore it up in 15 minutes. So I'm just today. Every young preacher that's had to listen to young preachers. And make ten million mistakes.

But God bless your heart if they're heading in the right direction. Amen. With the apostle Paul. Or wherever it is. Born by a power greater than themselves. That can do in them. I want to throw up our hands and say.

Let this old world go on to hell. Feels no need. First of all in the word no. Just no. To his state. Carmel Morgan. Never got over. And he showed how even the emphasis. In the days of Puritanism. Could have been improved.

The Living Lord Rather Than Mere Doctrine

Every young preacher listen to me now. Better listen to me. Take a man like Paul. And a guy. But the apostle Paul. The fundamentalism I want to vomit. He's arguing about the verse. The apostle Paul. Never paid any attention to it.

He didn't have to believe. Of David Bourne. When he got that condition in Corinth. And the condition today. Samuel Rutherford. And he said Jesus Christ came into my cell last night. And every stone flashed like a ruby.

To come the quest of my soul. I have got to know a living Lord. We're present. To set our hearts on fire. The doctrine of the rhetoric. Maybe the fires and zeal will come back. We can't do it by fussing at each other.

We already know so much about the book. We could team in a man's. Thy creatures on thy sway. In the doctrine of the risen Lord. Of the doctrine. Oh this is I only hope now I guess. When I was a young preacher.

Like every young preacher. I thought I could make folks do things. I found out I can't. One that is crucial. Think. That there never was a time. And experience. And a man hanging on it. That that man.

The Need for Spiritual Revitalization

We need much. We don't need some improvement now. We need revitalization. But I'm not going to know anything. That this. And then that word determined. I just mentioned it in the past. The uniqueness.

He said this is a matter of settled conviction. Ain't no use fooling anything else. If we don't get. Start here and camp here. If we begin anywhere else. No hope. Nothing. Addition and subtraction. Turn around yeah I said.

On AT. We'll know as a matter of fact. The profoundest statement of the Bible. Fifteen minutes and a half. Ten minutes. Just to wander. Now under God. This profound truth. As I get older. Yes ma 'am. We've already heard this.

I mentioned. The word demonstration. This is not piousity. This is not fatal. This is not lazy. This is the desperate need of my heart and yours. We shall become desperate about the Holy Ghost. Jesus shall please him or not.

This is the claims. Under the name of John Calvin. At these conferences. Into pieces as you can any man. The one contribution he made. To this whole business. The realm of the Holy Spirit. He added no doctrine.

Him himself wasn't half as clear on the atonement as was Luther. But he did emphasize over and over again. And in that sense was used of God to recover. What was all things are. That the natural man receiveth not the things.

That no one say Jesus is Lord. This was the ministry. Of the work. Person of the Holy Ghost. So hungry for this latter day glory. That I'm biting at everything that smells like it might be of the Holy Ghost.

In torn pieces. Came cramming down the mouth of nations or churches or individuals. Turned this world into a study class. Finding out. Learning of me. Taking my yoke upon you. How. Totalitarian claims.

That Christ being Lord. For the glory of the Holy Spirit. I can't get a corporate guard. You needn't cuss me out. You can't either. Oh God we've lost this generation. The sermon is not going to do it.

Desperation for the Holy Ghost

I can't command the Holy Ghost. But you're looking at one priest. I'm about to die. Oh God. For this situation. We can't even deal with the deadness of our own hearts. And the hearts of the people we're preaching.

Only through your. See things. Not because we were smart. Use enticing words. Listen to us. Heeding ears. The one thing. He's a life giving spirit. They'll have to use the morning. Unless we have the Holy Ghost.

Theologically don't rob. The one thing I've got left. And that is. That I can get up every morning. And say maybe this is the day. Come to the rescue of this church. And shall see once again. The finger on their knee.