Why God Kills Christians — Rolfe Barnard

The Sin Unto Death in First John

Tonight I want to speak on the subject, why God kills his own people, what we call Christian people. I invite your attention to the 5th chapter of the 1st epistle of John, and I want you to keep your Bibles open, those of you who have them with you, returning to other passages as we progress in the message.

Does God kill Christians? If he does, how does he go about it and why does he kill people who are members of his family who faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? In the 5th chapter of the 1st epistle of John, beginning at verse 14, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desire of him. If any man see his brother sin of sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.

There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. Before looking into the message, I want to make three statements. If you wish to know how hard it is to come by truth now, when we've never known much about the fulness of the Spirit, he alone who can teach people the truth, then just look at that verse, verse 16, and face the fact that perhaps none of us, I know this poor preacher, would know how to go about doing what this verse says to do and not to do.

It tells me that if I see a brother sin of sin which is not unto death, to pray for him, and the thing will be remedied. But it further says that there is a sin unto death, and we are forbidden to pray for anybody who has gone that far.

The problem is that I wouldn't know, I'm too far from the fulness of the Holy Ghost and the real understanding of the word of God, to know when a man has so sinned that there's just one thing left for God to do.

I mean, a Christian, that's killing. Take, for instance, the usual pastor, he won't get mad at me, I watch you, and it's forbidden to confess our faults to one another, and so forth. And I go to a brother and they begin recovering the scriptures, or something like that.

And I go to Brother Kirkman and I say, Brother Kirkman, so-and-so, so-and-so, and he doesn't get mad and we have prayer. But that would be the understanding that the sin he presently caught in is not a sin, the sin of which is death.

How would I go about knowing whether Brother Kirkman has sinned the sin and God is just going to take him on to glory, he's going to have a premature funeral and die before his time. I confess to you that I come with some sense of humility to my message this morning, because I don't know how to handle that problem.

But whether I know how to handle it or not, the Bible here says there's a sin unto death, and he's talking about physical death, and he's talking about physical death bested on a child of God by his Heavenly Father.

There is a sin unto death. And if Ralph Barnard commits it, then there's nothing left for him but a premature grave to go on to glory. The second statement I want to make is this, and Brother Kirkman says, I'm not preaching now, I'm telling the truth.

For the last 20 years, I have had a terrible fear on this. I've been afraid God would kill me. I don't know why he hadn't, I don't know why he hadn't. But the matter, as we approach this message from the Word of God, when I find out from people who did sin unto death, and then I look at my chagrin, love and service and response to the love of God in Christ for me, it makes me wonder if I'm a Christian, if I am, why hadn't God killed me?

Self-Examination and the Evidence of Christian Life

The third statement before we get into the Word of God, and I want you to listen carefully to what I say now. It could be that the fact that you are alive this morning is the best evidence that you are not a Christian.

Let me repeat. It could be that the fact that you are alive this morning is the best possible evidence that you are not God's servant. Those thoughts are solemn to me in this day when Baptists are known all over the world for a carnal doctrine of what they call the security of the leader.

We aren't what most Baptists are, that have produced a brand of something they call Christianity that is still in hell full of people whose souls they say are saved, but their lives are lost, and that cannot be.

The very best evidence that you have missed the Lord could possibly be, and I include myself, and that's the reason I wondered why God hadn't killed me, if you're still alive. There are just three things that God could possibly do for one of his children who willfully sins.

We'll learn later that God's people sometimes sin out of ignorance and the weakness of the flesh and temptation, but God's people also, with their eyes wide open, willfully sin. What is God going to do with one of his children who is in a state of willful sinning against him?

He could do either one of three things. First, he could send him to hell, whether he like it or not, he can do what he wills with his own. And he could send a sinning child of God to hell. It wouldn't hurt to be faced with that just a little while now, when everybody is a Christian and banking on a perverted doctrine or a furious confession of some kind of an experience instead of a relationship to the Holy Son of God.

God could send one of his children to hell. But in the word of God, he has promised that he won't do so, thank God. My sheep hear my voice, it doesn't say they ought to, it says they do. And they follow me.

They may make crooked steps, but they're going in the right direction. It doesn't say a Christian ought to follow Christ, it says he does. And I shall give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, thank God.

He has promised not to send one of his children to hell. In the second place, God could, in dealing with his child, the sin in that child's life, he could ignore it and apparently let them go on in sin.

I kind of wish that this was the teaching of the word of God, for if it isn't, millions of Church members who are sitting listening to somebody preach this morning, going to split hell wide open, because apparently for about 99 out of every 100 professing Christians in America now, they are the Lord of their own lives, they decide what's right and wrong.

Their outlaws are against God's enthroned Son and against his headship in the Church. Every man does that which is right in his own sight. And apparently they get by with it, but a child of God can't get by with it.

God will not allow one of his children to live like and talk like and act like professing Christians do today. He won't let them do it and get by with it. This is a scarce proposition. I don't know where it fits anybody but scarce me.

It is amazing the lengths that this generation of professing Christians will go to, to keep their mind in God. They'll get an alibi, and if you tear that down, they'll get another one. There's one thing, apparently, professing Christians are not going to do now, they're not going to mind God.

And God, I suppose, could let his children conduct themselves like most of the professing Christians, I'm afraid, do now, and let them get by with it. But the Word of God won't let us believe that. And for that reason, anybody here this morning who has any marks on him of the chastening rod of God Almighty, or to first be mighty thankful, that's a little evidence you're one of his children, and you ought to have something in your heart that makes you long to be of help to this generation of deceived Church members who are living just about as they please and calling themselves God's children, not suffering the chastening rod of a heavenly Father whom the scriptures plainly say chastens everyone that he loves.

Death, Judgment, and the Need for Chastening

On Tuesday, January 31, I was in Texas, and that night my wife finally reached me, loved ones had reached her, and she reached me, and my baby sister's husband out in Montana dropped over dead with a sudden heart attack that afternoon.

I talked with my baby sister, she's 47 years old, I haven't seen her much in many years now. I hadn't wrote her, I couldn't go to the funeral. Last Tuesday, this past week, the phone rang, and the husband of my oldest sister went to I've had the matter of the fact that people die brought again fresh to me.

I couldn't go, I didn't leave this meeting to go to my sister's side. She said, I don't want you to leave the meeting, but you must come to see me as soon as you can. Now, what's this all about, brother Barney?

Don't misunderstand me. In this present, mixed-up stuff they call Christianity, I know that we cannot judge the relationship of people to Christ, we're forbidden to do that. But both of my sister's husbands, all they know is what passes for Christianity today.

You might think you get a little puffed up around here, if you do, I hope God will kill you, that you've been exposed to truth a good deal of it. But the multitude of people who are as sincere as you are in this world, haven't.

My two brother-in-laws have died within the space of a month, and if they knew the Lord they had to know Him, in spite of what they'd been told, and in spite of what they'd heard preached. Good men, church men, oh yes, I don't know whether they say they're not, God does, but they showed none of the marks of the chastening Lord God.

God would visit this generation and confer it with Christ in the truth. I don't want to see my loved ones go to hell, and I don't want to see anybody go to hell. That brings me to the third thing that God could possibly do for one of his children in sin.

He could send them to hell, he promised he won't, he could ignore their sin, he's sworn he won't! He could bring his chastening rod upon his child, and that's what he does. A shepherd who loves a sheep will break a sheep's leg, rather than see the sheep jump over the precipice.

And the Heavenly Father and Lord of the Lord Jesus Christ and God's people, the Heavenly Father will chasten everyone who may love him. The two kinds of sin are saved people under temptation, they are penitent, they confess, and they are forgiven!

But it doesn't do them any good to confess willful sin. It will not get the job done to say about willful sin the word of God crystal clear! God Almighty takes his child out behind the woodhouse and chastens his child when he sins willfully.

The remedy is not confession, that's for sins of the weakness of the flesh and temptation. The remedy is not prayer! The remedy is the chastening rod of God. And let's read that tremendous chapter again, the 12th of Hebrews, and look at what God says again about his dealings with his people, he dealeth with them as was concerned, the Hebrews 12.

Perseverance, Sin, and the Lord’s Chastening

I'll have to read this chapter, which scares the daylights out of me. It's beginning in verse 1, wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and of course that unbelief, willful refusal to walk in life, that thing that dogs the steps of every child of God, that your besetting sin, unbelief, unbelief in ignorance, it willful refusal to walk the way God says it ought to be, and that your besetting sin, that camps on your tail, and you let that deal with it every day of your life, one way or the other.

Let us lay aside this sin which doth easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, the race set before a child of God. And as we do it, we do it looking into Jesus, the author and finish of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be weary, and think in your minds, here's a tremendous verse, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against him.

People sometimes come to me and say, Brother Barnard, you preach Christian perfection. Certainly the Bible does. Yes, sir. One day God's child is going to be perfect. That's what the Bible says. Anybody satisfied until that happens, he has evidence he's not a child of God.

Then they say, Brother Barnard, can a Christian live above sin? I say, you've come to the wrong person. I'm not an authority, how would I know? I have never yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Have you? I wouldn't be so quick to say, Well, I know a Christian can't live above sin. You don't know, you've never tried. Neither have I, to the point where it costs you blood. If I could stand here and say, My body is hemorrhaged like the body of my Lord, as he strove, resisting, striving against sin, resisting at the cost of blood vessels breaking, then I might have some authority to talk about whether a Christian can live above sin or not.

But I never have been able to do that, Brother Curtin. So I just have to say, Well, I never have. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son preach not lightly the chastening of the Lord.

Don't just ignore it. Then, on the other hand, don't faint when thou art rebuked of him. Too dangerous to pay no attention to it, as it is to faint. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.

And if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? Well, there just aren't any, Brother. But if ye do without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, all the Father loveth, then ye are bastards and not sons.

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Fathers, spirits, and liars? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness.

Now no chastening for the present seems as to be joy, but grief. Nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised by it. This is what bothers me, so much chastening and no exercise by it.

It does a good thing, it's good for the person who is God's teaching, if that person is exercised by it. He is caught up short, he examines himself, as you'll see a little later. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down the feeble knees, make straight paths for your feet, lest that which delaying be turned out of the way, but let it rather the heel of a fall of peace, with all and holiness apart from which no man shall enjoy or see the law.

Old Testament Examples of Divine Discipline

If God chastens everybody he loves as a son, if there are no exceptions, how does he bring this chastening rod on one of his children? In the Old Testament you'll find case after case, for instance, sometimes he takes loved ones away from his children because of their sins.

In the book of 1 Samuel you'll find where David is confessing that he sinned against God and that he sinned with the wife of Uriah, and God tells him, well, fine, that's good, but you've brought reproaching shame on the name of God.

That's what it hurts so badly. It brings shame to God's holy name on one of his children, and says, because of that the child is going to die. And so David called a meeting and he fasted and prayed, but it didn't do any good.

The child died. When I was first born and was taken at the age of 3 1⁄2 years, I remember how my wife stopped for about 2 days when we got a letter from one of the Church members that was fighting the preachers so hard, and that poor woman, but we had to examine that.

He said that because I wasn't doing this, that, and the other, God took my child, won this, his right, broke our heart. I wasn't exercised much about the causes of venomous nature of that parasaical woman.

But David said, and the child died, and he fasted and prayed, but the child died. In the book of Amos, God over and over again reminds his covenant people, at least, that he had taken their property away from them because of that thing.

Sometimes he does that. It would be wonderful if he takes your fund, your home up, and you are exercised by it. You say, I wonder what's going on around here. Is this God wrought upon me? Is it? For God's sake, don't ignore it.

Don't treat it like that. In the book of 1 Corinthians, the time people lose their health because of sin, the 11th chapter, I do not know your procedure and so forth about the Lord's supplication or whatever I say.

Examining Ourselves at the Lord’s Table

There is nothing personal about it, because I just don't know. But I do know one thing, that coming to the Lord's table is a tremendous event. And I do know that in connection with coming to the table of the Lord, as given here in the 11th to 1 Corinthians, that men and women are warned, for instance, in verse 27, "...Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily," it doesn't mean that they come being worthy, but unworthily, they didn't come right.

They didn't approach this right. We'll learn later that they didn't examine themselves before they came. They were too busy examining somebody else. But when we come to the table of the Lord, we leave everybody else alone.

This is the time to examine ourselves, that we do not come to the Lord's table and be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. For a man is to examine himself and then let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh Christ's, just but to himself, fine, not discerning the Lord's body.

I don't know your interpretation of this, mine is, the Lord's body is his chariot. That's what I believe. I don't know what your position is. You don't agree with me, you're wrong. But this is serious business.

What's the penalty for not discerning the Lord's body, having examined yourself, thus coming to eat of these symbols worthily? Well, it says, for this cause, many are weak, oh, the tragedy of the Lord's supper all over the world.

And the penalty, weak, weak spiritually, weak, little babies, it ought to be done. What's the penalty? Some, clearly among you, just can't care a little about it. Here I am. Up until two years ago, I was nearly six years, I didn't know what it meant to be without torture and pain.

Doctors, people prayed for me late, hands on me, annoyed me with, oh, maybe you don't believe in that, but you're hurting like I did, brother. You could have a doctor and everybody on earth, you'd act like there's a Christian.

But it's the pain you need. I wouldn't quit. Here's one preacher that did just a little bit of examining. Not all sickness is the judgment of God on the pain, but some of it is. And I don't know which is which, but the point I'm making, it is, and I'll bet your brother Kirkland will say, amen to this.

You've examined yourself a lot, for that sick body of yours. I didn't mind. I don't know what I came up with the answer, but at least I was exercised by it. Gave me a little hope, made me a child of God.

Please, when you're screaming with pain, I have to watch myself so closely now. Oh, many are sickly among us. Many are, why? Sin, brother. It's a sin not to discern the Lord's body when you come to the table.

Amen. It's a sin to come there unworthily, and yet we are commanded. This isn't an option. God's people are commanded this, too. All discipline is in this connection. But if I'm talking strange language to you, you attend to 99 of the Baptists in America.

They wouldn't know what I'm talking about either. They don't know nothing about examining themselves. And they have the Lord suffer as quickly as they can to get it over with. And they usually have it when nobody much will show up.

And then, as seldom as possible, it's a necessary evil. But oh, no, it's the heart of the Christian world, and the lifeblood of the Church of Jesus Christ, and weak, sickly men and women, some of it because of this awful, awful outrage against the plain teaching of the Word of God, about coming to remember his death till he comes.

What's the penalty? And some sleep at death. They're having premature funerals in Corinth, brother. People who died for the supposed to live, then unto death. Nothing to do, come over! Look again in the 11th chapter, and hold on to your seat.

Not Condemned With the World

Verse 31. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. One or the other now. Take your choice. If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. Watch it. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord in order that we should not be condemned with the Word.

That word condemned is crisis, is damnation, is judgment. There's no way on earth you can get around it. Dear, this Baptist preacher, this is true. Before God will let one of his children so sin that he'll have to send him to hell, he'll kill him and take him on to glory.

He's not going to let his child be condemned with the Word. And the reason he kills some of his people is he's got to do that or allow them to fall into the crisis, K-R-I-S-I-S, damnation, judgment that falls on unfaithful people.

Oh, that may not square that little nice doctrine, but it's the God's truth. I'm reading out of God's Word. God's got a right to do what he will with his own. He's promised not to send one of his children to hell.

He'll kill you if his chastening doesn't bring the peaceable fruits of all innocent righteousness, and you're not exercised by it. And you keep on before he'll send you to hell, he'll take you. Premature death, there is a sin under death.

Examples of Uzziah, Moses, and Paul

Let me give you two or three examples of men who committed the sin under death. Uzziah, perhaps the finest king that Israel ever had, but the people gave him so much glory, and he took it! Isaiah couldn't see the Lord, and God killed Uzziah so Isaiah could see the Lord.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. Moses, the best man that ever lived, the greatest man that ever lived, according to the Bible. The tithe price. Killed and nobody found out his burial place.

Michael, the devil, had a fierce fight over the body of Moses. Moses, the man that God used to bring through him the law, died, killed, and he never crossed over Jordan. Joshua got the joy of leading the people to the promised land.

Moses lost that fight. He sinned a sin under death, and God killed him. The Apostle Paul. Read carefully again the 21st chapter of Acts when you get home. Greatest evangelist and missionary, maybe the greatest Christian that ever lived.

Read it. Moses sinned a sin under death. Moses died. Paul died before he should have. Paul died a premature death. He would not listen to the counsel of Israel. God brought a prophecy through a man named Agabus, and the brethren met with Paul and said, Don't you go?

Old Paul, like Rothbard, said, Boy, I'm a-going, I'm a-going, I'm a-going. And he whacked! They said, If you do, you'll go. What they said is so. Listen to me! It's a terrible thing to act against the counsel of your brethren.

Now, if you say loudly what you're preaching now, don't get mad at me. I believe it, but we'll not argue about it. But the thing is dead certain that the Apostle Paul knew he was going to die, go down.

And he called for the elders of the church, he'd ask them, Come over and meet me, I'll not see you anymore. Here's a man who knew he was headed for death. He disobeyed, he'd gone against the counsel of God through a prophet and the brethren through their advice.

And in his zeal, God brought him home to glory. There is a sin under death. If Paul could commit it as he did, we'd better not laugh at it. If Moses committed it, and I know he did, we'd better not be so cocky.

Willful Sin and the Final Judgment

Oh, why does God kill his people, even for this closing work? He's not going to let one of his children crucify the Son of God afresh and bring him to open sin. He's not going to do it. He'll kill them first.

For if we sin willfully, Hebrews 10, after we receive the knowledge of the truth, which is the child of God, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, nothing but judgment now, brother John. But what does remain?

A certain fearful-looking hall of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary. The old Calvinist and Puritans, they say, this is for a fellow that almost got saved. But no, no, this is plain talk to a child of God.

There is a sin under death. Willful sin brings a chastening rod of God, and if you're not exercised by it, it'll bring death. What does remain? A certain fearful-looking hall of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary.

He that defies Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Listen. Well, how much more of punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under the foot of the Son of God?

You can put it down. God's not going to let one of his children do that. He'll kill you before you do. And hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was set apart an unholy thing and hath gone despised under the Spirit of death.

For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth to me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.