What Is Saving Faith - Part 2 — Rolfe Barnard

Now may I say two things, I'm going to say them anyhow, I'm just being polite asking your permission, but I want to say two things before we get to the study for tonight. Your pastor and I talk a good bit during the day, what to do.

I come here and I, one thing I never have done in 40 odd years, I never have come and bragged on people. I always try to find out what's wrong with them, everybody else brags on you, but that's my job.

Desperate Disturbance and the First Work of Grace

But a brother said to me last night, he said, I'm disturbed and that's about as far as I can go. I'd love for us to get desperately disturbed. Because we're in such a terrible shape, I don't know what to say about how to get out of it.

I can't talk to anybody that's got more sense than I have got. But I believe the first work of God's grace is to bring a deed. I think God has to thrust us out of our nests. We're just like homing pigeons, we just go from one resting place to another.

You drive us out of one, we'll head for another. I do, you do too if you'll be honest. Somebody said the best way to hide from God now is to be a member of a church. Write a small truth in that. Do what they call join a church now, you'll be perfectly safe having any dealings with God.

But tomorrow night it may be, I'm not certain about this, appreciate you. These messages have been rather dull this week, I didn't know what to say. I've just been sort of talking about what's the matter with us.

Tomorrow night I think perhaps we're going to make some suggestions that I believe God's people need to face as to how to get out of the ditch. Churches as such find themselves in now. I do not know of a congregation on the face of the earth that's in perfect order, nor do I expect to find one this side of the coming of the Lord.

Some are more in order than others. Now can you take that or not? If you can't, you're in bad shape because you think you can be a Pharisee, rejoicing that you're not as other men. You have tremendous, tremendous significant conception through your pastor of divine order.

But none of us believe that we'll ever be brought back fully to the divine order of God's church. They can spiritually speaking are as lean as they are now. This will come in the fullness of the spirit.

And thus every church that has any right to call itself a church ought to be on its feet, looking to God for an outpouring of his spirit. Isn't that right? I was a boy on the farm in Texas. I had a fellow from Texas, I had a good man from Alabama.

Best Texas wouldn't rain about every five years, you know. The wheat or the cotton, pray for rain. If it didn't rain, the seed wouldn't come up. Pardon me, Crockford, don't rain. That's nearly impossible.

There's not raining much, brethren, in these days. And truth is hard to come by. Atmosphere of the Holy Ghost of the Bible just flashes you. When the heavens are brash, it's like the Bible's a closed book.

Reestablishing Contact With the World

How to get out of the complacency and the ghettoism of church life today. Reestablish contact with this world. People who want to exercise their ministry as priests under God, that be made more effective a hundredfold than it is today.

Those are questions we need to face. Maybe tomorrow night, a last indulgence, I'll bring you some suggestions. I was on the farm. We had an old brantle cow. You know what a brantle cow is in you country people?

They're pretty hard to do anything with. One year, a bunch of nubbins. How many of you know what a nubbin is? You city folks don't know. You know what a nubbin is? You're no preacher, you city folks. You folks born in the city and so young, you ain't got sense nothing but tell you anything.

Bad. A nubbin, you know, they're all Baptists. Ain't a Methodist nubbin in the crop. A nubbin, it's sort of akin to an air corn. But it's a lot of shuck and a lot of cob and a little corn. And that's a nubbin.

And in order to save food and yet keep the old cow from dying, we'd try to feed her nubbins. Just take a pitchfork, throw over some nubbins. We thought we'd get the old cow to eat the shuck and the cob with the corn.

But she had more sense than the average Baptist. She'd shuck that nubbin and nibble that corn and leave the cob. How is you had that much sense? Any suggestion brought to you, just shuck it, you know.

The Responsibility of the Local Church

What you can't take of it, leave it and take what you can. Now, I'm not perfectly libertarian, but I think I want to say this. If it tears up the whole outfit, you've got lots of money, you can build it down in here.

I was led to believe down in West Virginia the other day by your pastor that I might be sinning against you. I'm not certain about it. And out of that corresponded some, and I didn't expect to be here this week, but through his goodness and yours, I'm here and I've had a good time.

But I want to say to you on this Wednesday night, the responsibility is all yours. And I want to say thank you, a deep thank you, that for now, oh, a period of two years or such a matter, you have honored me and thereby keep nibbling a little bit as to whether you have any responsibility in my ministry.

I know only two, only one church in my experience has ever asked me to be its evangelist. That's the church of which I'm now a member. Your pastor tells me you believe that a local church ought to have an evangelist.

Now, he's scriptural there, and I've had pastors all over America tell me they believe, but they can't get their churches to do it. See what I mean? So this church ought to have that. You folks do show a willingness here, as far as I'm able to understand, with three visits to you.

You show a very decided willingness, and I praise God for that. If you thought it was in the book, you might miss it, but you try to do what it says. I like that. Now, whether that has any reference to me or not, I don't know.

But I want to say thank you for even the nibbling, and I'm hopeful that the nibbling can be settled into a bite or something. I don't know a thing about it because I can't, because it don't come in to hit my business.

I don't know how I can assume the responsibility of this church. That comes under your shoulders, don't it? But I'm here, and I'll be here Saturday if I can. What does the Lord have me to do? To be honest with you people.

That's what I want to do. And then it's up to you. Is that clear as mud? I could not accept the offer of the congregation, of which I hold membership, to go out as their evangelist, by that I meant to be sent forth, as Paul and Barnabas were from Antioch and so forth, because there would be too much conflict between my ministry and what they would want it to be.

You folks say that everything ought to be church-sponsored, but it isn't. I don't know of a Baptist church anywhere that sponsors an evangelist. There may be some, but I've been around a little bit, and I never heard tell of it.

They'll all tell you they ought to, but they don't. And I'm not fixin' to agree to something that I don't believe, or to say I'm going to do something that I'm not going to try to do. I'm too old for that.

And I'm dead sure, not looking for anybody to sponsor me, that if I got out here in a fight over some great truth of the Bible, that you'd be ashamed that I had any connection with you. The average Baptist church, you sure have to pick your truth, or you'll get in a fight, and I've been in a few.

Responding to God's Revelation in Christ

I'm sorry. One of the deepest thinkers, I think, living today, says that religion, and by that he means religion, man's response to God. Not Christianity, but religion. This man says that religion has a meaning for men only in history a certain point.

It can absolutely surrender. Christianity, then, can surreptitiously surrender himself. I won't repeat it. Talking about I'm saved is no good. We can come and die on the do anything. We'll send you to hell.

Keep your attention. In America, some more than others, and every preacher, and every individual Christian needs desperate attention in answering God, which is respond to the revelation of God in Christ and His call through the Spirit in the gospel.

What's God calling men to, and how can Ralph Barnett or anybody else properly and savingly respond to God's elective call? I don't know of anything more important than that. And under God, if God Almighty could be pleased to use somebody in this congregation to come up with some good answers as to how we can start all over again nearly.

The word get meaningful again. We could stop this traffic in the souls of men going through the motion of profession and church membership and so forth. Without any dynamic change that keeps on changing in the lives of men and women.

We reexamine our message and our message to the air. We could do a better men and women. Trying to get people converted. Hiding the truth from them. Not what we've called evangelism of the last 60 years.

That is built on the proposition that the less truth, the more results. This is a serious proposition. I do not know about you. My father and mother are both gone. Last Lord's Day, my mother's birthday, the 92 she is living.

Yesterday was my father's birthday, the 95 that he's living. I'm one of six remaining children. Brothers and sisters. My older brother is gone. Brothers and sisters. One of them in California. One's in Montana.

Two are in Alabama. One's in Georgia. What's called Christianity today. Full hard working church people. It's the tiniest little bit of evidence. We can't judge what it is. Oh, we look for just a little bit of evidence.

If they're your loved ones. Full of being butchered today. For the last hundred years we've been whittling down on what saving faith is. There is false in Jesus Christ. As honest as you are. As sincere as you are.

As kind hearted. Humane. Good neighbors. All of that you are. But there's a product of what passes for salvation. The gospel and Christianity in cross section of America. My soul. I wish something could take place.

Salvation as Total Surrender to Christ

Where churches all over the country are making Christians. Men and women. Who are faced up to the fact that the last word that God almighty says to a man is not I save. The last word he says to an individual is I claim.

You're mine. You belong to me. For the chief sign of salvation is not a sense of freedom. But it's an experience of being mastered by somebody. And I look you in the face and tell you now. That you're not fixing to become a Christian.

Unless you are willing to be utterly Christian. And nobody's trying to wish anything off on anybody. Nobody's trying to get you to accept anybody. And if you're determined to split hell wide open in spite of everything.

Nobody can keep you from it. But I'm telling you if you want to be saved. You're going to have to be willing to be utterly mastered. Utterly conquered. Utterly possessed. By the Lord Jesus Christ. I wish we'd quit trying to talk people into accepting Jesus.

I don't know what good that would do anyhow. For men don't need to accept him. For that's exactly what he demands. Savingly respond. Who in Christ Jesus. Scripture's divided up by thinking we can say three things quickly first.

Saving faith. Savingly to respond to God's claim upon you in Jesus Christ. Dying on a cross in your behalf. Saving faith. That faith that'll do to ride the river where since ever got faith. That faith that is man's act.

And God is the method through which God works. Salvation in a human being requires very simple response of Ross Barnard. Not of my soul. But of me. Of me. He didn't come down here to save your soul honey.

He came down here to possess you. You. And if we'll cut out that silly stuff that all of us talk about. Every last one of us has to mend and wend upon him in his call from across. Is to do exactly toward him that he did toward us.

He didn't give us some advice. Bless God. He gave us himself. You're going to have to give yourself to him. One nice little salvation you can put up and refer to it now and then. Talking about you saved my soul.

Praise the Lord. But no if you want him to have you lock, stock and barrel. You. Part of you but you. Not some of your time but you. Not this damnable stuff about you ought to give your talents to the Lord.

You ain't got nothing to start with. The fellow, my goodness. Isn't that silly? But he wants you. And he's not going to trade for anything beside you. He's not going to accept anything short of you. You're not going to give yourself to him.

That is a part of saving faith. Away with this foolishness. About accepting something. Or believing something. Or trusting something. Salvation isn't in reference to a something. Salvation is in reference to a somewhat.

Saving faith is the response of me. That's reading. Bless God. Scripture don't know nothing about one act of faith saving anybody. Hell going to be full of that. Just talking about what God did 30 years ago.

Every reference to faith. Belief. Saving belief in the New Testament. This is the God's truth. Is in the present tense. He that believeth. Just keeps on. Will my faith ever go to heaven? No sir. That's a silly question.

But the only way God keeps you is how? Through faith. My soul anybody on earth. To trust yesterday. Is silly. Got to be today. If salvation were a transaction. That I could settle brother Paul. And lock it up in a safe.

And refer to it now. And then be a white horse of a different color. But salvation. Is to first. You. Your daily. If you talk about what happened yesterday. In your relationship with Jesus Christ. I understand why Ralph Barnes has to repent every day.

I have to put my faith again in Jesus Christ every day. Bless God I need him today. Just as badly. And much. And terribly. And absolutely. As ever I will or ever I dare. In the blood and the body of the Lord Jesus Christ today.

Appropriating all the living Christ. That stops us. The devil can't get us one way. He'll do it another you know. We're never safe from his attacks. If we are headed in the right direction. Only this kind of response.

The Daily Claims of a Sovereign God

That the New Testament talks about. Authentic or saving faith. Is that response. That's required. Which one surrenders himself. Utterly to the sovereignty of God in Christ. You can put it down. Unless God's claim.

Sovereign claims about to. You'll never know peace. You'll never know. Put it down. That you can't keep your shotgun. Pointed in the direction of the heart of God. And have his peace. Telling you the truth.

Of saving faith. Is a crisis and then a daily. Dealing. With the claims of an all sovereign God. That means he's simply God. Very God. Saying to you. That saving faith. Has one thing. That it's got to face.

And it has to face it every day. For every day. For as thy days. So shall thy strength be. And that. Unless you're willing. Of the one thing. Foremost in every day's experience. The demands of God. On a cross.

Ladies and gentlemen. If you're talking about doing the will of God. Yesterday you're a day late. This thing's got to be faced every day. This is the biggest thing. Between the eternity. There isn't anything else.

Mounts to hill or bay. It's to be done. Right now you can't depend on past experience. This thing is vital. It's concerned with the relation. Everyone that says unto me. Lord, Lord. Surrender the kingdom of heaven.

But who will? Try to get your doctrine to throw this out. It's in the bible too. And it don't contradict anything else. But it just simply says the guy that will. Is the fellow that doeth. Continuous what?

Will of God, brother. That won't fix you. Make you roll up your sleeves. Spit on your hands. And get out of your nice little comfortable religious pew. Brother, this thing's a day by day proposition. Last Lord's day I got up and gave a testimony.

And bragged on the Lord. But that ain't worth the hill of beans. Not everyone that says unto me. Lord, Lord. That's all the doctrine. But he that doeth the will of God. God help us. This ain't serious.

Saving Faith and God's Redemptive Program

As long as we keep preaching. The men and women. Of the salvation. That doesn't break the religion. Believing faith. Involve. The surrender of oneself. Of redemption. To be a part of God's program of redemption.

Here's something. That if Satan had a heart. That was as soft as a bunch of steel. It'd break his heart even. Men and women. Who've been led to believe. Related to God and Jesus Christ. Who are not committed.

Through them. What are you talking about brother Barnum? Mention it before I mention it again. Before I leave you. The tragedy of what we call Christianity in America. That's causing Christianity to die in America.

To rot. Is the fact that we've divorced salvation. From accepting the great commission. Of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be his instrument. In his program of redemption. And many of you believe. That you were included.

When the Lord breathed on them. Said receive ye the Holy Ghost. John chapter 20. And then he said what? As my father has sent me. Even so send I you. You in on that? Who's that talking? That's pretty embarrassing.

Let's adopt this. I've read this. It's pretty popular. That's just for the apostles. Can you take that? No? What is he talking about? You in on it? Help me. I've got no business claiming to be a Christian.

Unless I've gladly received this commission. To represent Jesus Christ. That's what he said. In the spiritual sense. Regular. To set us on fire. Through the burning quality of our creation. At least an ease deep in the thick skin.

Of this God Lord of men on fire. With the immensity and the responsibility. Maybe I'd be some account. If you're not interested for God's sake. Pray for me before I die. I'd love to be able to take seriously.

The fact that we failed. That's it. Graduated from the seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1900. January of 1930. That's a few years ago. President of the seminary. A blessed man. Called me into his office.

The Evangelist as One Sent Forth

And said Brother Barnard. I've been watching you. And the brethren have been reporting on you. And we believe God's called you. To do the work of an evangelist. And said if you would. I wish you would get in the car with me.

And I won't take you over to Dallas. See the secretary of our convention. And see if he wouldn't. Put you on. The evangelistic force of the Texas. Baptists. Well I went with it. Didn't work out. But going over there.

On this experience. And I hope the Lord won't take the eyes off of. A little weak me. But I want to leave this with you. Going on over there. In the blood of God. Out the redemptive program. Of Almighty God.

He knew what he was talking about. Let us stand. I didn't sing in the night. If I may be permitted. I'm going to ask you to go home. Is that alright Brother Pastor? I preach to God's people. Better job than we've been doing.

With what it actually means. To savingly respond to the call of God. In blood stained Jesus name. And we think if we know our hearts. We pray in for his glory. We think we do at least. These desperate hours.

When so little of spiritual power. So little of faith. Oh you of your people. Annoy us. Prison us. Equip us. Teach us too much for us. In our own strength. Oh God. But hopefully we see. As little children we come.

And say oh God. Come to our rescue. That we may. Come to the defense of the gospel. In our day. We beg in Christ name. That you'll speak. As you see fit. To people here tonight. Demand of them nothing short.

Of total surrender. In his name we pray.