Beholding the Glory of the Lord — Rolfe Barnard

I've never looked down on people that weren't born in Alabama. You just couldn't help it. I was. And that's something that I'm proud of. But I don't look down on you people. You just didn't have that privilege.

Neither do I look down on people who were not born in August. August, everybody I know now is a hill of beans. Either was born in Alabama or was born in August. The pastor's wife was born in August, and the pastor suffers from that mule that kicks him on the head when he's three years old.

We have had a delightful time. I tried to hit 2 Corinthians, that's chapter 3. I want to begin reading tonight with the 18th verse, the 3rd chapter, and read down through the 7th verse. The faith is given in these 8 verses.

The last verse of the 3rd chapter reads like this. I've never looked down on people that weren't born in Alabama. You just couldn't help it. I was. And that's something that I'm proud of. But I don't look down on you people.

You just didn't have that privilege. Neither do I look down on people who were not born in August. August, everybody I know now is a hill of beans. Either was born in Alabama or was born in August. The pastor's wife was born in August, and the pastor suffers from that mule that kicks him on the head when he's three years old.

We have had a delightful time. I've tried to help him. He's awful stubborn. He's stubborn as a mule. It's been good to be here. Now let me open God's word to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, that's chapter 3.

I want to begin reading tonight with the 18th verse of the 3rd chapter and read down through the 6th chapter. Tonight I'm not going to try to expound that whole passage of scripture, but I do wish to pick out four things that we learn or that we have to face as given in these eight verses.

Beholding the Glory of the Lord

The last verse of the 3rd chapter reads like this,. But we all, with open faith, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, something happens to us as we spend our time beholding the glory of the Lord.

We are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore we have ministry as a burden laid upon us, not as some rules we have to observe, but as a wonderful, wonderful boon from a God of all mercy.

He has given us a ministry. It is interesting to note that in the book of Ephesians we are told of the fivefold ministry, the gifts of the ascended Lord, and they are for the purpose of making good deacons, for the word translated perfect in the saints, for the work of the ministry.

That word ministry is our commitment. We are all to be good servants, good ministers, good deacons, all the members of God's church. Amen? And seeing we have this ministry, as we've received mercy, what a blessed privilege it has been in my life that the Lord interfered and I was being trained to become a lawyer, and the Lord interfered and made me a Christian and helped me to share by coating my little end of the blanket entering into this ministry.

Wasn't he nice to me? Was he so sweet to me? The shame of being some fool lawyer, probably make a million dollars a year, and graduate me to wear as one of his children and had a part with all of God's children in this blessed ministry.

Of course, the ministry is about the glory of the Lord. It's compared to the glory under the law. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, and we have it, oh, are you glad of it. How are you getting along, folks?

Measuring up to the job the Lord has given us to do. Seeing, therefore, we have this ministry, as we've received mercy, and I like Mr. Moffitt's translation of the next three words, King James, we faint not.

Mr. Moffitt said we never lose hope. Never lose hope. Never lose hope. We never lose hope. I don't think it's pessimism to face facts. I think it's silliness to make out like everything's all right. But there's a difference between trying to face facts and trying to God to show us the way and lead us and give us the key and pour out his spirit upon us and break our hearts.

There's a difference between doing that and just throwing up your hands and quitting. And the child of God, if this ministry of the Lord is given you and me to share together and you're two-two into the blanket and I'm two-nine and together we get paralyzed people into the presence of the son of the living God who alone can fix them up, if that's a challenge to you, it's so wonderful that results are no results.

We never lose hope. We never lose hope. But we have, facing the fact that the ministry we are in is God-given and a gift of his mercy, we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty and not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully.

Isn't that a tremendous statement? Surely none of us as God's people were deliberately going about trying to handle the word of God deceitfully. We'd want to do our dead-level best to handle it rightfully.

But instead of being dishonest and walking in craftiness and trying to handle the word of God deceitfully, on the other hand we are handling it by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

The Gospel of the Glory of Christ

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this age has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, and I'm not quoting that as it is in the King James because you lose the blessing of it.

It's the gospel, the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, should shine, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. For Jesus said, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We've been praying, Lord, if it could please you, do what this verse says, do something in this community that people couldn't brag about and say we did it, couldn't lay it on the pastors, evangelists of the church, that nobody would get the glory if people say God did that, God did that, that'd be a revival, but we shut up to that.

He's not seen fit to answer that. I'm going to keep on praying the next place I go. I hope you'll keep on praying. Oh, let's never quit until he does, until he does, until he does. Let me briefly just pick out of this glorious passage of scripture four blessed truths that I seem to have laid on my heart since coming to the building.

I came with one message and the Lord took it away. I hope the devil didn't shoot me a curve. It's difficult to know what to preach. I've got hundreds and hundreds of sermons. I've got some that are crackerjacks, you know, and they're worth a dime unless they're the message for the hour, you know.

But tonight I just want to talk with you a little while on four high spots in these eight verses. First, the 18th verse of the last chapter, the 18th verse of the third chapter introduces us to one aspect of what a Christian is.

The Christian Life as Continual Beholding

It says in that verse of scripture that a Christian is a sort of a fellow that spends his time, at least in his subconscious, which is so much more real than our conscious. He spends his time, whether he's washing dishes or drawing plans for the government or preaching the sermon or buying groceries or this and the neighbor or doing personal work, down deep in his heart, he's looking.

He's looking at somebody. He's looking as in a glass. He's looking at the globe. And as he spends his time, for this is the of a child of God, people are not always conscious of it. It goes awfully deep.

What is a Christian? He's a man or woman who spends his time in this wilderness, journeying on the way to the celestial land with his eyes on the glory of the Lord. And as he does it, something's happening to him.

He's changed to the same image as that one. He spends his time looking. A Christian is somebody who has to always, for the first time, gain a sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not with these eyes, but with eyes that see so much better than these.

We're told, for instance, in the gospel of John, he that seeth were one that seeth the Son. It's a kind of a sight. After all, salvation begins not by what you do, but by what you look at. Look in rails.

It's still the testimony of the word of God. As Moses lifted up the serpent on the rail, and told the people, look, I'm lifting up my son on a cross. You look! There's life in the Lord! And it goes deeper than anything these eyes can see.

When we're confronted face to face with the person of Christ and the truth of him, we see his glory. He continues by continuing to look at him. To look at him, he changed his image in Christian. And then salvation comes in the process.

We're going through it now. We're being saved. How? By being daily changed to look more like him. And one day, it'll come to a fulfillment in Christ. He said, Behold what manner of love the Father bestowed upon us, which is the call of the Son of God.

It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, watch it, we shall be like him. Why shall we be like him when he appears? For we shall see him. Right now, with open faith, we're looking, but we have to have a magnifying glass.

Our eyes don't see so good. But one day, with undimmed vision, we shall see him. Not through a glass, but see him as. And since we got saved to start with by seeing him, and since we stay saved to continue by looking to him, and since we're going to be plumb-saved by seeing him as he is.

We're going to be plumb-saved when we see him with undimmed view. We shall be like him. Every man that has this hope of one day being made like the Lord Jesus Christ in all its completeness. For that man sits on his hands and rolls up his sleeves and purifies himself.

And this architect's plan, the master plan that he uses for instruction and the goal he's working towards, he purifies himself even through the Christian. How does it start? To see the sun. How does it continue?

To behold his glory. How does it plumb it? To see him with undimmed view. And that look, we shall be like him in seeing him. No wonder the Lord said, My yoke sees in my burden's light. I don't see nothing but terrible about it.

Getting a glimpse by faith of the Lord's glory, that's salvation. Walking the days of our pilgrimage journey, that's all of everything else with our eyes on the glory of the Lord. Bless God that don't flicker out and burn out some hell of high water.

Walking towards the time when with undimmed view we shall see him. That transforming look, we'll be like him. And that's salvation. That's salvation. It's the second truth that I wanted to wound our hearts afresh as we face the facts again.

Satan's Blinding of the Lost

Verse 3 and verse 4. That a terrible tragedy has happened to mankind. What's the biggest thing wrong with men and women? What is the biggest obstacle in the way of trying to get men to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I've always loved history. It was my pleasure last summer. Some friends took me 30 miles from where I was preaching and we went for the third time in my experience to the battlefield at Gettysburg. I've always been interested in the Civil War, the most bloody war in human history, most destructive.

And I looked at the battlefield map. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. And I spent a couple of hours, and I'm just in hog heaven when I'm in something like that. And I fought the Battle of Gettysburg again.

And I went to that hill where Pickett made his charge and where they died like fleas. And where the Southern Army was almost wrecked and the war was won, where the general, he directed that a certain hill, the center, be taken.

And if it had been taken, the South would have whipped the Yankees. But they lost and went back to Caesar. And I studied the battle plan. It's like playing a game of checkers or a game of chess. And there was a center, there was a strategic point.

And whoever won or captured or retained that point won the battle. That's how battles are fought. And I'm interested in the place where Satan has got his guns all centered. And I'm going down the country saying that we must not be like the man, I think I said this before, but be like the man who came rushing out of his house and jumped on his horse and ran off in every direction.

And I keep trying to bring my mind back and my ministry back. I'm a specialist, not a pastor. I can't bring the whole Bible in a week. I don't try to. But I do try to come and I say over and over again from one place or another, O Church of the Living God, let's start a touch in the devil at his strongest point, where he's entrenched and where he's got chips in the hollow of his hand, and where we must sit as long as we exist.

And think that we are working with a matter of getting men and women and to believe some nice little things would not be good. But what we're actually facing is we're trying to preach the gospel that just as guns can be turned to the glory of a person, to a bunch of people who are blind as a bat.

And you can't see the reason they're blind, as a bat to the glory of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's because it's had an operation performed on them. Satan has blinded their minds. And he's done it for one reason.

Not so they can't live fairly good moral lives. Not so a thousand things, but just one thing. So lest he blinded their minds. If our gospel be heard, and it is here, to them that are lost, he said, I won't tell you why it is here.

They are the folks in whom the God of this age has performed an operation on their minds. And that's not simply here. That's the whole man, the thing that makes men tick. And he's performed that kind of operation just to perform one service.

He wants to fix it and keep it so men and women cannot see the lies of the glory of the gospel. To keep people from seeing the glory in the gospel, the glory of Christ Jesus. I do not know how to enter in.

But I know that I'm right now. Never, never, never beginning to measure up to the day we're living now. Until we learn how to make an assault on faith. He's got this world in his hands. And I believe with all of my heart, in order to see a man saved, the power of the devil in his life must be broken.

He's blinded. He can't see. The gospel doesn't mean a thing on God's earth. No, sir. Of course, he's blind. But he's blind. I wait just a minute. He's blinded them, not so they couldn't understand the facts of the gospel.

Two and two makes four. Many lost people can argue what's called a plan of salvation, whatever that is. It's plain religion. And he hadn't blinded folks so they won't believe in the virgin birth of Christ.

Hell, they're full of people believing the virgin birth of Christ. I never could get much interested in that, because if Jesus Christ is sitting on throne now, I'd have to take care of the rest of it, you know.

And so no use to worry much. But, you know, he's just blinded people, not so they wouldn't believe the gospel. Everybody in this town is a great believer in the gospel. Of course, they interpret it. Everybody.

They tell you so. Think I'm a heathen white preacher? I believe the Bible. But he's blinded them so that one thing won't take place. So they cannot experience the light of the glory of Christ. As the gospel comes their way.

If he can just keep it to two and two makes four, and men never see the glory of Christ. Of course, he's got them. They're bound. They're bound. We wrestle not with pleasure. We wrestle with a generation that's blinded.

So they cannot see the glory of the gospel. You're a child of God. That's the most wonderful thing. He punishes the gospel. Usually I can't see behind them, but I'd be so dumb and blind that they wouldn't just say, Hallelujah!

Pardon the hurry. But they're blind. See, a bit of glory. A bit of glory. There's a third truth that I was sworn to mention tonight. That is, according to this passage of Scripture, salvation takes place in a man's experience, but God works in a mirror.

Salvation as a Divine Miracle

I come back to this over and over again. Salvation is the experience of men and women who have been blessed by God working a miracle in them and for them. One day there was a fellow named Saul of Tarsus.

He was 100 devoted. He was all out. Man, he was more zealous than anybody around. He just made a hunched hand. He was more zealous than anybody around. He said, I'll tell you what's that. I'm going to rid the face of the earth of these blasphemers going around here claiming that that fellow Jesus is still alive.

He said, I'm going to fix them. I'm just not going to put up with it. I'll tell you right now, that's blasphemy. And old Paul thought it was. Saul thought it was. And he got some letters empowering him to go.

And you look at the map, it was quite a distance in when they didn't have the jet airplanes. It was a little ways. From Jerusalem down up to Damascus. And he set out to a town called Damascus to lay hold and arrest and bring to death for some of them and prison for others.

Some people brought right over the country with that blasphemous lying thing about that fellow Jesus being raised from the dead. And he's going down the main freeway toward Damascus. And the cars are whizzing by.

And he's got noontime and a lifetime. He said it was above the brightness of the noonday sun. Visible eyes were strict and blind, but some other eyes were open. It wasn't long before he started out on that road believing that Jesus Christ was the illegitimate son of a bad woman.

It wasn't long before by the hearing of the air and the seeing of the spiritual eye, he found out that Jesus was the Lord, Lord, Savior, sinner. And he fell at his feet a broken man. From then on out, just one thing made him sick.

Lord, what have done? He tells us, Lord God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, will thy children create them more. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. The faith, people get faith.

Women are given grace in the gospel of the Lord. I was down in Texas in August. I had the privilege of preaching five days. A couple hundred young pastors had just met. I preached the gospel of God's grace till the morning.

And after the service had come to close, the dean of one of the big Baptist schools in Texas came up to me and said, brother preacher, would it be possible somehow or another in the old Southlands to set up a conference and then maybe let me set up into lots of them and have maybe just preachers come together and sit there and get a Bible vocabulary.

If you followed me up and down America and Mexico and Canada, only I've never been out of the country. My trip this next week will be the first time I've preached anywhere except Mexico and Canada and this country.

And hear us people talk. You'd never dream that it took a miracle to save a man. You'd never dream the salvation of the Lord. You'd never dream that God's always the giver. Man always the receiver. It's a side order.

It magnifies us. There's much about the Lord. But I'll tell you one thing, brother. Salvation comes to man. And God Almighty turns the light on. For there's just one thing that'll drive darkness away and that's light.

And all the past that a man bears when his eyes are blind to the glory of the gospel. Oh, one turn that situation into victory is almighty. The Lord said something happened to me. Said the light, said God be the glory.

The Saved and Lost See Christ Differently

As the last thing that I dwell on a minute implied in this passage of scripture the only difference or the fundamental difference the difference that brings all the other differences the one thing that separates the same from a lot of them chances are believe the same thing.

Both of them. Except in America we used to have a lot of gospel and where the influence of the gospel still reaches far and wide. We have no trouble finding lost people that believe all the doctrines you believe in.

They believe in the virgin birth of Christ. They believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. They believe the Bible's word of God. They believe Jesus died on the cross. They believe he was raised from the dead.

They believe he ascended on the right hand of God. But they see no glory. They see no glory there. The one thing that separates the saved person from a lost person is the saved person looks on just that one hanging on the cross.

He sees glory there. He sees his soul in that precious blood. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Christ. He can look yonder with eyes the same that him exalted on the throne. And he sees glory there.

He's glad he's there. When the Lord Jesus was here in the days of his flesh the Bible tells us that some people who were able to experience and write down their experience one of them wrote these words and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we as of the only begotten of the Father he was in the world and the world didn't know him.

The world knew him not he came unto his own and his own his own household received him not as received for them gave he the right to become children of God who were born not of some thing. John says he was in the world.

The world didn't know him came to his own Jewish nation came to his own. We did a come we beheld him. They said we know who Jesus is. We know where he is born. Nothing good can come out of Nazareth. That's what they said.

But John said we beheld that's what I said in the long run. That's it ladies and gentlemen it's just a matter of believing some truth. I don't know but it's a matter of seeing glory in the Son of God ain't nothing can do away with that.

And that'll do to ride the river with. I've seen hundreds and thousands of people made wonderful perfections and played out and mighty decisions and played out and awful orthodoxies and played out. But a man who can say my name is Luke in the hail and the sleet and the sun in the hail and wipe out that that makes its impact on your soul.

It's seen between a saved person and a lost person not so much in what they believe than what they see for God who commanded the light to shine out of stars. This is the sweetest verse in John's. I think in all the world was he shined there for to give the knowledge.

Firsthand information of the glory in the sage. All sing together down that Damascus road. God bless you heart. That's the way God saves people. He turns the light on. Amen. God does that to him. Be the glory glory to his name in the world.

Continual Vision of Glory and Final Transformation

I've been trying to walk with the Lord nearly 40 years. The new way. There's just one thing that's there in the world. Sunshine glory. Thank you God. Amen for our benediction. With head bowed. Let's sing and I hear God's Saviour.

I tell you what is the fact. I curse God. I swore. I did not believe there was a God. I dared him to do something about it. And I'm telling you I'm sort of glad that God turned the light on. I'm fixing the get over.

Good night.