4 Proofs of the Utter Severity — Rolfe Barnard

The Lord Reigns Despite National Collapse

Psalms chapter 11, the psalmist here has been advised since conditions are so terrible under the reign of King Saul who had no moral principles therefore the glory of the nation sunk mighty low. The psalmist was advised to flee to the mountains since the foundations had been destroyed and he answers that advice by saying in the Lord, put I my trust.

He said why is it, how say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain for lo the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privately shoot at the upright in heart.

If, and the word if there means sense in view of the fact the foundations have been destroyed, what can the righteous do? The answer is that the Lord is in his holy temple, that the Lord's throne is in heaven, that he hadn't gone off on a hunting expedition, that his eyes behold and his eyelids try the children of men.

He knows what's going on. He testeth the righteous, but the wicked in him that loveth violence his soul hateth. And upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible, this shall be the portion of their cup.

The Proper Order of Law and Gospel

For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, his countenance doth uphold the upright. The old time preachers had a way of saying that we are commanded to preach the gospel to all nations, but we're not commanded to preach the gospel first.

That the gospel cannot be preached properly except it be preached in its purity, but that it cannot be preached in its purity save as it's preached in its proper order. The old time Lutheran preachers of this country many generations ago used to have this expression which was right, that the gospel is for the insecure and the law is for the secure.

We invented us some bible teachers in your day and mine who've done away with a great foundational truth that we must stand on if we expect anybody to be interested in the gospel. It is a fact that the first time any individual hears the gospel as gospel, he'll be saved.

The very first time a person hears the gospel as gospel, he'll be saved. Many people hear the facts of the gospel, but to them it is not good news. It is bad news. It is uncomfortable news, and they shrink from it.

But if in the goodness of God it ever be your privilege to hear what God says is good news, and it's good news to you, you'll close with it just like that. Men will not ever hear the gospel as gospel.

It'll never be sweet music to anybody's ears until men have found out what kind of folks they are. And there's just one book between the eternities that a man can look inside of with a prayer in his heart for the spirit of God to show him himself.

Human Depravity and Conviction of Sin

Every mother brags about her children. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they were as nice as she thinks they are? And every father the like. The newspaper won't tell us the truth. The radio won't tell us the truth.

The schoolteachers forbidden to tell us the truth. And this generation is going to wake up in hell, and the first time it will ever face the truth about itself will be when it's too late. The old-time preachers called this the depravity of the sinner.

This generation denies that much happened in the fall. Now we inform that nothing actually did, and of course most of our schools have long since discovered there was never anybody by the name of Adam, much less a woman by the name of Eve.

And our Baptist schools have got us out of the embarrassing position that we're in the mess we're in, because being in the loins of our parents, we sinned when they did. Nice to find out that that's all just a nice little story, that it never actually happened, so we are told.

So we are told. But men will never pursue to find out if they have the right to claim an interest in the merits of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus until they are thoroughly convicted. Instead of being the nice little people we are told we are, that in reality we're people who've been totally ruined by sin.

I wish you'd follow me as I be a little bit mechanical. Just to be a butcher of souls, to try to wish the Lord Jesus off on people who do not have some sense of the likeness of God's holy law. Now if people were nice people, they'd be a white horse for different colors.

But if people are people totally estranged from everything that's holy, and are said to be of the character as to drink iniquity like water, if that kind of folks we are, if that kind of folks we are, they'll make out like we're awful pious and awful nice, but no, our religious flesh still smells as bad as it did before we were saved.

So the kind of folks the Bible pictures, and if God says it is, men need more than sympathy or help. They need somebody to rescue them, and to redeem them, and to rule them, and to guide them. The likeness of God is nothing that this generation needs to be constantly faced with.

The Strictness of God's Holy Law

...than what I'm talking about now. Isn't the kind of God we got today the nicest little fella you ever saw? He wouldn't hurt a flea, and he's got long whiskers, and he just says, Well, I know that you raised old Billy Hale, but down deep in your heart you didn't mean it, and we'll forget about it.

Oh no, the strictness of God's holy law. He not only hasn't gone on a fishing trip, men do, and he requires, and that'll slay everybody. If it was a matter of a little outward conformity to some of our rules, especially if they do not fit too tightly, it'd be different, but he demands not only outward circumspect living, but inward, the motives of men are under the strictness of the thrice holy God.

You see, the whole outfit today is based on the fact that God got ashamed of his holy, and he repealed his thrice holy law, and he abolished hell and judgment, and now we're trying to get people to accept Christ and the two things about him, they don't know a thing about him, and care less from getting men and women to come face to face with the terrible severity of God's holy law.

Nobody will be interested in whether his blood did any good or not. You've been trying to get people interested in Christ, how could they have any interest? They don't need a savior. Everybody's already done got religious.

One church's as good as another. One faith's as good as another. A man ought to do a few things, he ought not kill anybody by the mouth of anything much, or rob a bank, less is the small. But I tell you right now, nobody needs a savior.

I don't know why I haven't got sense enough or heart warmth enough to say it. If the law of God is a matter of God making this terrible fire and brimstone the portion of their cup, then under God men desperately need not a religious exercise, but a savior.

A savior. I offer tonight four proofs of the utter severity of the holy law. If the penalty is not enforced, then social life cannot stand. In the time of the writing and expressing of this psalm, Israel had a king, no good, had no moral standards.

The Social Necessity of Enforced Justice

The glory of a nation is in the glory of its leadership. The glory of a home is in the law and order and the constituted authority of the home. The glory of a local church is in exactly the same place.

And in Saul's days they had a man who was king, who had no moral principles, who wasn't safe for God's people. They advised a man like David to ski-dazzle to the mountains because they were already wetting their bow and getting ready to shoot at the upright.

Sounds like a picture of once-professing Christian America, where the standards from top to bottom have been shot through and through with nothingness. And as surely as it continues that way much longer, America as a nation will join the other nations who've already lined up in the junk heap of the bygone days.

David was advised to flee because he lived in a land that was not honored and the penalty was not enforced. But thank God there is a king. Charlton King Saul, or the President of the United States. And we read about him a moment ago.

The Lord is in his holy temple. That isn't fatalism, bless God, that's hope. That's where he is. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could spit on you. My only hope is in him. I've been in this long enough I know no man after the flesh.

I've not fixed lay hands on any man suddenly. Half of you will be out here robbing banks tomorrow if the grace of God don't restrain you. You know good. You know good. You know good. He's in his holy temple.

That's our hope. That's our hope. The Lord's throne is in heaven. And as I live, cry the death of the universe will collapse. And then the moon and the sun will run together and the earth will burn up.

Can't be that any sin, little sin, big sin, nice sin, if it goes unpunished, then the Lord will be through and we'll have no God. The penalty of breaking God's holy law, that's what sin is, is going to be enforced.

God's Judgment Vindicates His Holy Character

Lord knoweth how we're told in the scripture to preserve the godly from the eye of temptation and to reserve the ungodly under the day of judgment to be punished. Punishment is in the enforcement and vindication and establishment of his holy character.

And that holy character is expressed in his holy law. And thank God it shall stand. And that's the reason he gave it. And all sin is a horror. But any sin, the least sin, against the monarch of the universe.

And when you break God's law, you're slapping at God. And the penalty for that, according to the Bible, is thrice terrible. Who shall not fear thee, the book says, O Lord, and glorify thy name. Men don't fear him, but men don't know a thing about the awful severity and strictness of the law today.

How could there be anybody needing a savior today since our old time preachers who've all gone on to go. We've had a generation of preachers. Brethren, we better come to them. We've preached to people like they were nice people, but they're not nice people.

They're lawbreakers. They're law haters. They're God despisers. They're enemies. Suppress their enmity until some of them shall get a club and try to kill God or shall fall prostrate at his feet. Who shall not fear thee, the word of God says in the last book of the Bible, O Lord, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy for all nations.

It's God's very will to come and worship before thee, for thy judgments are made manifest. They're going to be some of these days. And what men and women do not believe now, and we can't make them but under God, we ought to hear the word of God, like O Lord did when the scriptures say, nor be in warned of God of things not yet.

Noah's Fearful Obedience

Scripture says he moved with fear. He ran scared, and he said, judgment's coming, boys. How you know? God said so. God said so. And he moved with fear, and he prepared an ark, and he did it for two reasons, to condemn the world and to save his own.

Oh, nobody believed it. Noah's dead in his own generation. I like to hear these preachers talking about, if you get filled with the Spirit, what not? How many bears you killed, you know? And they say, if you don't win so many people to Christ, you ain't filled with the Spirit.

And I ask them about old Noah. Noah was a pretty fat preacher. He did what God told him to do. He served God in his generation. He screamed for 120 years, said, boys, judgment's coming. He did what God told him to do.

Nobody believed him. He wasn't filled with the Spirit. He was taken out the seventh year. No, no. To be filled with the Spirit means to be equipped to do what God tells you to do. Oh, hear me? Fill with fear.

I wish some of the holy fear and some of the holy awe that must have rattled old Noah's bones. He's the only one that believed judgment was coming. He stuck to his last and kept on nailing that old ark.

And every time the hammer went down, he said, judgment's coming. And that he'll not spare the guilty. He's the God who is faithfully warned that the soul that sent him, it shall die. And he couldn't be persuaded.

He served God. He moved with fear. He moved with fear. Fear thee? Well, a whole generation doesn't fear the Lord today because it does not believe, and it does not believe largely because it's never heard of the severity of the holy law of God.

The Principle of Continued Holiness or Sin

There's a second proof that I offer tonight for the severity of God's holy law, and that's just a common everyday principle of life, and it's this. John Owen, whom Mr. Strong said was the greatest of the old Puritans, and surely he was.

I guess he is the first to see this truth, that is to put it in print. He said that no man, listen to this, no man ought to expect anything in the life to come that hadn't been begun in this life. A lot of folks seem to think that all of a sudden they're going to die and death is just going to bring some terrible changes.

But the scriptures rather teach that men and women will do in eternity like the dead here. Men and women will be in eternity like they are here. That if the principle of holiness is begun here, it'll continue there.

And if the principle of repentance against holiness is begun and continued in this life, it'll continue in the life to come. The scriptures would say, there is a lot of heaven, and there's a lot of heaven on the road to heaven.

The scriptures would say that the Christian now can continue to do so in the life to come. But the man who runs after sin in the life to come, that principle that's in you right now, unless it's changed, will continue in the life to come.

As long as God lives through the reaches of eternity. There is a statement in the word of God that is one of the most shocking things I've ever faced. In the book of Thessalonians we have scripture on something like this, to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his angels of might and flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who depend upon it.

Destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. That word destruction is an awful word. You had a highway wreck out here and two cars utterly destroyed, but you go down to the junkyard, they're there, they're just totally ruined.

And this word destruction doesn't mean to be annihilated, but it does mean this, that if sin is continued, any human being who nestles it to his breast, the first individual, almighty God, because of sin, first one does that will put God out of business, is going to be exacted.

And the penalty of God's holy wrath against sin is simply this, that sin, at least three men I think that the Holy Spirit in gracious mercy gives a picture of in the Old Testament to help us to see a little bit of the horrors and the severity of God's holy law.

Sin's Destructive Power in Cain, Saul, and Judas

Ask, if you will, Cain, running away, screaming out, my punishment is greater than I can bear. He's in the anteroom of hell. He's entered hell already. Ask poor old Saul, the son of Kish, there in the cave of the witch of Indah, in utter despair, ask him what sin will do.

He's in the anteroom of hell. Ask poor old Judas as he runs out to get him a rope and hang himself, commit suicide, ask him as he's there in the anteroom of hell while he's still on this earth, if it isn't true that sin, unchecked, sin, unchecked, totally destroys every man.

Touch that sign, get somebody to make a decision for Christ in God's name. Why don't we begin to face people with a reason they need a Savior. I'll tell you why you need a Savior. The least little sin, just let go on.

It's going to ruin you. If the ruin don't show up in this life, it'll show up in eternal hell. I'll tell you if sin is not checked, it'll destroy. There's just two reasons anybody on God's earth, listen to me now, there's just two reasons anybody on God's earth is still not saved.

One is they've never heard, never heard anything that smells like the gospel. The other is there's a rotten spot. There's some place in your life where you signed a treaty of peace with sin. And when you sign a treaty of peace with sin, you commit souls to it.

The Horrors of Hell

When you get to the place that you can sleep well in known sin, you're in for hell. Oh, that sin, unchecked, will destroy. There's a third proof of the all severity of God's holy law. And that's the horrors of hell.

Horrors of hell. I was in Boston, Massachusetts years ago, and I noticed a young couple that made themselves acquainted with me. And they were from Springfield, Massachusetts, as I recall, 176 miles, I think it was, away.

And then I happened to notice that they were in the services only every other night. And one night I asked them, I said, why is it you're here only, I didn't know how far it was to Springfield, why is it you're here just every other night, young man, this way?

Well, they said, Brother Preacher, we work, both of us work, public works, and 176 miles down here in the same distance back. Said we get off from work, and we don't eat meat in the supper, and yeah, we skeet out as fast as we can, the cocks won't catch us, and then we got to drive like mad to get back, and about time to get in bed, time to go up to get to work, and said we're just exhausted, we can't come but every other night.

And I said, well, how on earth do you come then? I wouldn't go that far to hear any, Preacher. And they said, we come to hear you say hell in the pulpit, we never had heard it. That's New England. They've got to wear New England and Ohio, they're trying to get married now.

Skip the awe of what the penalty of the law really is, it's eternal hell. I was preaching in a church that D .L. Moody attended when he was a young fellow. I took a poll in the congregation, had ever heard a mention of hell until they heard me.

It's a people that don't see any reason for a way of escape. And we just, well, roll up our sleeves, spit on our hands, and be called crazy if we want to, and just come back and burn this Bible up, quit apologizing for it, I can't understand it, but under God, if a man continues in sin, he's going to experience the torments of hell, according to the Word of God.

And if that's so, you need a Savior. That's just bread and butter business, brother. That ain't no nothing nice about that. It's just sowbelly and beans and cornbread, like we have down south. Yeah! Look what he said!

Blasting fire. Blasting destruction. For he told the truth. There's no way that men are hated. Son, you need a Savior. Rescue perishing sinners. You don't need a boost. You need a substitute. But ten million times to be brought to hand to prove the awful severity of God's law, and the fact the social order can't stand without it, the fact that it's the principle of life that sin unchecked will damn you and destroy you, the fact of the horrors of hell, worse than all that, the one inescapable everlasting proof that God's holy law is utterly severe in its penalty, is the cross of Christ.

The Cross as the Supreme Proof of Sin's Penalty

Cross outside the city of Jerusalem, there hanged a man one time, the man Christ Jesus. And out of the agony of some terrible, terrible thing that was laid upon him, and I cannot even quote it without being ashamed of myself, out of agony, it wasn't put on, brother, he cries, my God, my God.

You ought to try to quote that. My God, why? Why should they love me so? I don't know how to answer that. Listen to this one, why? Hast thou forsaken me, O man, your orphan Christ? That's hell, brother.

And the answer comes back, S-I-N, sin. For this book said he who knew no sin was made sin, and the eternal God turned it back on his son. Utterly forsaken of God. That's hell. How severe God's law is.

It means to be utterly almighty God. There isn't any gospel unless that cry came from the lips of somebody taking somebody else's place. I have no hope of eternal heaven except in being united by faith to that one whom this book says, come there in my place.

Oh, men and women, you need to get desperate. You need a savior. Do you need to be united to that one who hung on that cross? In the merits of his life laid down in the stead of sin. Nothing, nothing short of an interest in the merits of his shed blood.

That's what you need. And you need a power. And that power flows from him as he sits on a throne. By faith, which in its last analysis simply means total commitment and surrender. You need to bow at his throne and claim his blood in your stead.

Daniel Rowland and Revival Through the Holy Spirit

Daniel Rowland, who died in 1790 and preached for 50 years in Wales. He's the only man of whom I've ever read who experienced seven what we call revivals in his lifetime. Seven different periods of his ministry.

It was an uncommon and extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit and visitation of God to his people. He believed the great truths of the word of God, the helplessness of the sinner and the utter sufficiency of God.

And I want to close the message tonight with a typical invitation. This man of the 18th century used of God or he was around seven. I've never been in one time of extraordinary revival and he saw seven of them.

And I just wanted to close. Listen, Senator, while this man who saw God work, he knew the terrible helplessness of sinners and their need for God to do for them what they couldn't do for themselves. He preached and then he'd give an invitation.

A Sinner's Plea for Mercy

One of them reads like this. I've written it down. Mr. Rowland, rise, sinner. Lord, here I am at thy word of grace. If I cannot call thee, I can say that I'm fatherless, for I forsake all others. And if fatherless it is with thee that I may find mercy.

If I'm not a son, make me a son. Is there blessing left for me? Bless me, even me, O Lord, me. Where can I go with thee are the words of eternal life. I dare not say, be just to me a saint. And yet I do say.

I must say, be merciful to me a saint. And I say to you, you need to get desperate. You need to come into saving relationship with him. You need to save him. And thank God there is one. There is one. There is one.

Fear as a Motive to Seek the Savior

Colonel, I was a chaplain in the Second World War. He's an old, hard-drinking, hard-cussing Episcopalian. I used to try to witness to him. He believed everything I said. Didn't do a very good on it.

He said preachers too late. He said when I was a baby, they sprinkled me. And when I was 12, they confirmed it, but it didn't take. But he took a liking to me. And I was under pressure. And he'd fudge for me sometimes.

He called me one time and said, Captain, hurry up over to the office. I want to talk to you. And I went over. And he told the adjutant and sergeant to excuse themselves. And he said, Captain, I'm fudging.

I'm not supposed to do this, but I've got a company. You know, they'd been out on bivouac, and the alert just came in. They got six hours to get ready and skedaddle. They're going over where the bullets are flying.

He said there's a car out there if you want it. He said don't tell anybody, but I kind of thought maybe go out, like go out and preach to them over the leaves. He said a lot of them are going to get killed, Captain.

And so I skedaddled out there and told the captain that the colonel said I could have a service and form a congregation. I had 300 and some odd. I would have had more, but that's all there were. Those boys were scared.

You mean to tell me you weren't scared when you knew you were going out there on where the bullets were flying? You're human, you were. And I don't think there's anything to appeal to in an old, raw-boned Jew from center but fear.

You can talk to him about loving the Lord. He don't give a hoot whether he's a God or not. He don't love nobody but himself. And God's just got one motive he can appeal to. Keep anybody out of hell, and that's the motive of fear.

Preaching Christ to Soldiers Facing Death

And so we got a colored boy to play the organ and a colored boy to heist the tunes, and everybody sat on the grass, and they weren't in a hurry, they weren't in a big hurry, and they listened. And we sang, What Can Wash Away My Sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus, but bless God it can. The cross where my Savior died, cleansing from sin I cry. Back to my heart! We sang those old, I didn't know nothing, wasn't no use to sing about be nice to them folks, they'd fixin' to get killed.

And all I knew was to talk about one person, a fellow that's on the throne, got there by way of a bloody cross. I never will know till I get to the judgment, I saw many, many, many, many, many, many, many hundreds of soldiers make profession of faith.

And I never did preach to them but one thing, I had nothing else to preach. And I hope some of them got saved and laid to death, but I know they're scared. And I told them this, that they're going to shed their blood, and a lot of them did, to fight for America.

And I wish for them to go out and shed their blood, dying for America. They could get an interest in the one who shed his blood, the cross for sinners, and I hope some of them did. Those boys going out, they weren't going out to picnic, they were going out to die.

I wish for a fellow died, he could get an interest in what my Lord did when he died. If I had my way about it, I'd put my arm around everybody, and if I could, I'd hold them until they sued for mercy.

You can't do it, but you need a Savior. And I told those boys, there's a hell for every sinner out of Christ, and there is. But thank God, there is a Christ for every sinner out of here. Praise the Lord.

Final Call to Trust in Christ's Mercy

Praise the Lord. Do you have an interest in my Savior's death on the cross? Have you been married to him, where he is now, sitting on the throne? Don't leave the building tonight without suing for his mercy.

Please don't. Please don't. My Lord delighteth in mercy. He'd rather save you than damn you. He don't take any pleasure in the death of the wicked. Please, become a caller on the name of the Lord.