God's Call — Rolfe Barnard

The Bible tonight carried the following message in the word of God at the first chapter of Proverbs. His wife's mother thought whether I should tell the congregation that the pastor stayed in bed an hour more than usual this morning.

She said I better not tell you, but he did, and I think he ought to be spanked. And another thing, he don't have any preaching engagements in the morning until 9 .30. He's getting lazy on us. Last Lord's Day he had four before he got to this service, and he's completely backslidden, and he's not going to do one form thing in the morning until 9 .30.

He's slipping. I'm the guy that said you needed a minister of music about like I needed something. But you don't need a minister of music, you just need a group of men and women who love the Lord, who know how to pray, stick with a book, weep over souls, warn sinners.

Amen. You've got all the music you need. When I was a student down in school years ago in Fort Worth, Texas, our old professor of homiletics tried to teach us how to outline sermons. He didn't do much good with me, but he sort of failed.

But he was up in his seventies, and he lived in the home of Dr. B. H. Carroll, one of the great servants of the Lord, founder of the seminary, and you know him. He got up one night and did this meeting in the church that served the campus people, the faculty and their wives and some of the students and their families, in what was called Seminary Hill.

They had a pastor that paid him, and they had an assistant pastor that paid him, and they had a director of the young people that paid him, and they had a director of the training union that paid him, and they had a minister of music that paid him.

And he got up and said, I make a motion the church hire me to do your praying for you, if I can get a second. If you just get some luck to do it. I'm again all this foolishness, but I won't charge anything extra for that.

The Minister’s Calling and the Call to Repentance

Privileged to be around the dear pastor and his wife, Ms. Robinson. Examine yourself, whether you be in the faith. Not that Christ is in you, except you be reprobate. In the morning services at 930, I've had the privilege of doing what I was invited to do.

I call mourners, that's all I do. I wouldn't be pastor of this church or any other church if you paid me a million dollars a day. I am not called to that. I don't propose to try to spend my life doing something the Lord didn't set me apart to do.

God gives men who have the patience, the yield, and so forth, men like Beecher. But I'd get me a shotgun and I'd shoot everybody about the second day, if I had to put up with churches as they are today.

So I can speak with great liberty. God has to fix men in their hearts so they could bear the heartbreak of what every godly pastor must have to bear in these days. My ministry is calling to repentance.

That is evangelism. In the morning hour, I've been calling the church as a church to repentance. Largely at night, I've been seeking to get those who attend to face the day in which we live and as individuals to examine yourselves, since if you do not, nobody else can.

God’s Call in Proverbs

Tonight I want that to be the theme afresh. And again, as I speak to you tonight on God's call, will you follow me as I begin reading in verse 23 of the first chapter of Proverbs? Turn you at my reproof.

Behold, I will pour out my Spirit upon you. I will make known my words unto you, because I have called and ye have refused. I have stretched out my hand, and no man regard it. But ye have said it not all my counsel, and would none of my reproof.

Because you've done that, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me.

When their fear is on them as desolation and when destruction is coming on them with all the force of a whirlwind and when distress and anguish are upon them, then shall they call upon me. But I will not answer.

They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. And the reason they shall not find me, and the reason when they call upon me I will not answer, is that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.

They would none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. I would like if you please, if you like to follow, that you keep your finger on that page and then you might turn, if you please, to the 14th chapter of Luke.

The Great Supper and the Rejected Invitation

I'm speaking tonight on God's call. And I want us to read afresh from the 14th chapter of Luke. It's a scriptural basis, this one and the one we've just read, for the message. In verse 16 of Luke chapter 14, we'll read these words.

Then said he, the he being the Lord, then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper in bad many and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready.

And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said, I have bought a piece of ground and I must need to go and see it. I pray thee, have me excused. Keep your finger. I pray thee, have me excused.

There's a man that makes a prayer, makes a request of the Lord to be excused. And the Lord answered him. For verse 24 says, For I say unto you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

The man or woman eternally bound needs to remember that God hears the prayers many times of the unsaved. Did you know that? That's so. And here's a man, he said, I don't want to come to the big supper.

He said, I bought a piece of ground and instead of coming and taking part in the feast, I want to go and have my ground surveyed. I said, I beg you, I pray you, excuse me. The Lord said, okay. You will not get in the supper.

Verse 19 and another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to prove them. I pray thee, have me excused. And verse 24 said to the Lord, okay, for I say unto you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

Verse 20 said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. And the Lord said, for I say unto you that none of those which were bidden shall taste of my supper. You see, the tragic thing about it is that the Lord some of these days will say, all right, all right, I'll be glad to grant your request, I'll excuse you, you can just go on to hell.

That's what it's all about. So that servant came and showed his Lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the head of the poor and the maimed and the hawked and the blind.

That's not going out and trying to get somebody to come to Sunday school or fill up a pew in a church building. You know that, of course. This is the work of the Lord. And the servant said, Lord, it's done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.

The Lord said unto the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house," not this building, but that nook there, may be filled. One of the paradoxes of the Bible, and the Bible is full of paradoxes for the youngsters here tonight.

A paradox is something that looks like it contradicts. One thing says one thing and the other says that's not so. But in the Bible, about everything in the Bible must be looked at from two different directions.

One of the paradoxes of the teaching of the Word of God is that every room in the Lord's house will be full, and yet there is room for more. There will be no empty seats in glory, and yet there is room for more.

Well, you have to explain that, Brother Barnet. No, I can't explain it. Nobody, no empty seats in glory. The Lord said, I'm going to go and prepare a place for you, and he will, and there will not be any vacant rooms in glory, and yet there is room for more.

No empty seats, and yet room for more. Solemnly does the Lord make his comment on this parable, for I say unto you, none of these people who were bidden and with one consent made excuses, none of them.

The Necessity of Teaching God’s Call

So peace. I invite you to consider three thoughts tonight about God's call. And the first introduces us to something that we must constantly hammer on, constantly face, men and women, well. We must teach it in our homes, we must teach it in the Sunday school, we must teach it from the pulpit, we must teach it wherever, Christian witness to those who do not know the Lord.

We must teach it because it's not believed today. We must teach it because the evangelism of the last sixty years has denied it and made fun of it and sneered at it. But we must teach it because the old books fill the book to live by and to die by.

And it is not a sign of brilliance that this generation has decided it's so much smarter than Almighty God. I tell you, we need desperately to face the truth in what I'm going to say now. That sinners, eternity bound, judgment bound, have to be called of God.

Now I know that that rubs against the grain of forty or fifty years of preaching and teaching. I know that it is now preached that salvation is in the hands of men and that men decide to be saved. And that any time on earth a man decides to, he can do what I believe they say, accept Jesus as his Savior and he'll be saved.

I know because I've been battling it for thirty-two years as an evangelist, and I'm still battling it. I know that this generation of professing Christians think the reason they are saved is because of something they did.

They'll tell you, I accepted Jesus, or I prayed, or I did this, or I did that. And I face you afresh tonight with the Bible truth that men and women, boys and girls, are such people that they have to be called by Almighty God.

Men ought to seek the Lord, but the scriptures say there's none that seek it after God. Men are commanded to repent, but nobody will, if that's the whole story. Men are commanded to believe the gospel, but none do, if that's all it says.

No, men ought to do right, but men don't do right. Men are commanded to love God with all of their hearts and their minds and their strength, but they don't. Men are commanded to love the neighbor as themselves, but they don't.

Men strike out when the base is loaded. Men do not, if they had as much sense as a mule. The scriptures say the ass knows his master's crib, but then he goes ahead and says, my covenant people are dead.

They haven't got that much sense. The unsaved man, if he were right in his thinking, but that's the trouble, he isn't. He's beside himself. The scriptures say that. Men have to declare their religion in the West, and we Baptists have just about joined the religions and abolished Christianity.

Every religion in the world is men doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, and thus getting sick, counting thieves and something, fasting, flagellating themselves, crossing themselves, going through the motions, the Buddhists to get nothingness, and so forth and so on.

But Christianity is not man seeking God, it's God seeking man. We know that. Our daddies believed it, and our daddies pastors preached it. But we have to face the fact that for 50 years we've abandoned the Bible, and now we preach that men in the West make up their minds, they summon up their strong wills, and they decide they'll accept Jesus.

Not so. The Bible says men have to be called of God. They have to be called of God, fine, quickly, their nature is corrupted. Jesus said in John 3 and 6, that which is flesh is flesh. Nothing on earth can be done about it, it's flesh, it's going to stay flesh, it's carnal, it's corrupt, it's depraved, it's sinful, it has no discernment or perception of spiritual things.

Human Depravity and Spiritual Inability

Flesh is opposed to the Spirit. In Galatians we are told that flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, and so they are contrary one to another. In the book of Romans, at chapter 8, in that classic passage, we read these tremendously important words,.

"...for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity," not ademity, but is enmity, "...against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be so.

Then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Men according to their nature have corrupt natures," their nature is so corrupt they will not call on God, so they'll just have to go to hell unless God calls on them.

Look at the mind of men and women, us, Ephesians 4 and 18 says of our mind, "...having the understanding darkened.". Look at the knowledge of unsaved men and women, 1 Corinthians 2 and 14 says,. "...the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.".

His knowledge. Look at the heart of unsaved men and women, Ecclesiastes 9 and 3,. "...the heart of the sons of men is full of sin within them to do evil.". Look at the love, or the lack of love to God in the hearts of men and women.

The book of Romans I've just read just says, "...instead of loving God, men's minds are at enmity.". Men are enemies, the natural mind is itself enmity, hostility. So Almighty God, an enemy, may be sort of placated, but enmity must be crushed.

Look at the ability of men to believe the gospel. I've understood for 40 years now, as I've gone up and down the land, that men can believe the gospel just any time they want to. We've got to say, please, sinner, believe the gospel, believe the gospel!

But the scriptures say, John 12, verse 39, "...they could not believe.". That describes every human being from Adam down to you and me, left alone of God. No man can believe the gospel. Look at a man's power to acknowledge Christ, 1 Corinthians 12 and 3, says, "...no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.".

Men with natures corrupt, men with minds darkened, men with knowledge perverted, men with hearts set to do evil, men whose minds are enmity, men who cannot believe, men who cannot acknowledge Christ in their strength, those kind of men, God has to go after them, God has to seek them, God has to call them, or they'll all plunge into hell if there is a hell.

God’s Effectual Call by Grace

Men have to be called. Men have to be called. The glory of the Bible, the glory of the gospel, the glory of Christ, is that that's exactly what God does. God calls. God calls from sin to holiness. God calls from self to himself, and he does it as the Spirit of God uses the truth of God to teach men and draw them to him.

God calls men. Galatians 1 .15, Paul said, "...when it pleased God to separate me, my mother's womb, and call me by his grace, to reveal himself in me, and call me by his grace.". Romans 8 .29, says, "...whom he did predestinate, then he also calls.".

God calls. God calls. First Peter 2 .9 says, "...called out of darkness.". First Peter 2 .10 exhorts men and women who profess to be Christians to give all diligence, to make your calling and election sure.

Of course, I've picked out three or four of the many, many scriptures in the Bible that teach that God calls sinners. It is crystal clear that anybody on God's earth who is raised from his spiritual grave, who is brought out of his darkness, who is born into the kingdom of God, that happens by God calling and quickening and converting and regenerating and justifying and sanctifying and glorifying.

God does it. God does the calling. God does the quickening. Men have to be called. Thank God! God calls. Thank God! God calls. Thank God! God calls. He calls all who are exposed to the gospel in such a powerful way that they are left without excuse.

Let me repeat it. He calls all who are exposed to the gospel, not all who hear the gospel even with the outward ear when it is preached, but all who could hear it. That's serious. All who could hear it.

They have opportunity, but they don't avail themselves of it. But I have to answer to God for the light I've got from God and the light I had opportunity to have. That's serious. That's serious. That's serious.

Going down the highway, the patrolman picked you up and said, You broke the law. Well, I didn't know that was against the law. Well, you can't get a license in our state without passing an examination.

You can't pass an examination, I know, because I plunked it down. I don't want to let you study that little book. Ignorance is no excuse in the sight of God. It sometimes makes my spiritual hair stand on my head when I think of the fact that men and women will have to answer to God at the judgment for the light they had and for the light they could have had.

They could have had. They could have had. I was down here in Union, South Carolina. I don't think that's too far from here, I'm not sure where I am, many years ago, several years ago. After preaching a week, the pastor came to me and said, Brother Barnum, he said, Would you meet with the congregation Sunday afternoon and let them ask you some questions, that you've torn up all of our playhouse and you just got us in awful shape we ever were in our lives?

Well, I tried to do that. If I have revival, I'll do it. But sometimes God just says, Son, you can have it yourself like he had you, and we don't have any. God has to do it. But when you have revival, all our little playhouses will be torn up, all our little favorite beliefs, we'll have to throw them away and we'll just have to come to the world and start walking again.

Is that right? I said, That's true. All our little doctrines, we don't know whether the Bible teaches them or not, but we heard somebody say them, you see. And he said, Now the people love you. And they did.

I'd won their love, and with the word. But he said, You've got us so balled up we don't know which ends up. And he said, If you'd ask me. I said, Why certainly. If the people don't want to argue, I'll argue with nobody.

I'll argue with nobody. But I'll talk with anybody who wants to talk. Be gentlemen, whether they be Christians or not. And if I can, I'll answer any question. I want to help and not to hurt. I don't stay away from my family five or six at a time for the last thirty-two years just to play my part.

No, no, not to go around and try to hurt anybody. I want to help. And so they called it, and the whole outfit was there. And they never did get to but one question. And the pastor asked it, and it was the seed in the heart of their whole difficulty.

Salvation by Grace, Not by Chance

He got up and he meant business. And he was speaking for his whole congregation. He said, Brother Barnum, don't God give everybody a chance to be saved? And I said, No, young man, God don't save people by chance.

He don't save people by chance. He saves people by grace. And I said, Tell me, what chance has God given a heathen who lives in the deepest jungle of Africa and lives all the days of his life and never heard tell of Jesus Christ?

I don't know the answer to you, to you. But bless God, I know one thing, Brother, the seed and the heart of the difficulties of your church and nearly every other church is right here. This generation has been taught to believe that God owes salvation to people, and that God has got to come across and give everybody a square day.

And if God owes salvation to any human being, then he owes that human being the death of the Son of God. And if he owes the death of the Son of God, he is a monster. No, you see, at the heart of all of these thousands and millions now of church members that are brewing the smoke of their rebelliousness in the face of God, is that they believe the gospel of a God who had to treat folks, give them a good chance, and be no respective persons, which he isn't.

No, no, God don't go in there and give anybody salvation. He don't owe salvation to anybody. He does not owe salvation to anybody. He didn't hang his son on a cross because he is in debt to this old godless world.

He hung his son on a cross because he so loved by giving him a chance. He saved men by cross. He is not by chance. Salvation by the grace of God was saved by grace. And if God owes grace, then it isn't grace, that's debt.

If God is just trying to pay off a debt, that's who the final rent is worth paying. And a man ought to pay his debts. Even God ought to pay his debts if he owes anybody anything. And if he deals with every human being in terms of debt, he can send everybody to hell, thank God.

God don't save people by chance, he saves people by grace. By grace, by grace. I don't know about the heathen. I've studied the Bible a little bit and I still don't know I guess I'm seductively, I know he can't be saved apart from hearing the gospel.

I don't know what about his punishment. I have my own ideas, but I can't prove with scripture and my little idea is no good, of course. But there's one thing I do know, and one thing I do know, anybody that's ever had an opportunity to hear the call of God in the gospel, I know what he's up against, brother.

He refuses to heed. If he goes on in his willful way, I know what's going to happen to him. He's going to be cast into hell. How much responsibility does a dark heathen in Africa have? A whole lot more than I guess, I think.

But if a man has had an opportunity one time to hear the story of the love and grace of God in Christ Jesus, he's left without excuse and he faces the terrible wrath of Almighty God. I know that. The scriptures speak of God calling in two different directions.

General and Effectual Calling

Hear me right quickly. The old-time Baptist preachers, some of you white-haired people would remember hearing your old pastor talk about the general and the effectual call of God to the truth of Christ.

He called. For instance, Matthew 22 and 14. Many are called, but few are chosen. In our text tonight, I have called and ye are chosen. The call of God is mine. Men can refuse it, and men do. They refuse it every day.

If you doubt it, you go out and ring doorbells. They'll come back with their excuses. With their excuses, I beg to be excused. I beg to be excused. I beg to be excused. I didn't say you go out and invite them to go somewhere, but you go out and pay some of the truths of God in Christ.

They'll beg to be excused. They'll refuse. They'll refuse to hear it. You go out in the streets and scream the love of God, or in winsome tones, pray the gospel of Christ. Men refuse. Men are called, but few are chosen.

The general call that God gives to all men, I didn't say that. I don't know about that. I don't know what kind of a call he gives that fellow who never hears the gospel. Do you? I just don't know. I don't know how to handle him.

God will have to handle that. He will. I just don't know. But we are not in that shape in America! There isn't a human being in America that has the opportunity to be exposed to the truth of God. God draws men but truth in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and he calls men but truth in the hands of the Holy Spirit.

That's how he calls. That's how he calls. I say to you that men turn that down. They turn that down. They are responsible. They are responsible. You know, one of the most terrible things about being a lost sinner is he's in the ditch, and he got in there because of his sin, and he can't get out.

He's got both his legs broken, his ribs caved in. There ain't no use to come save him, Brother David. You get up and go to the hospital down there two miles, and you get down there to take care of him.

The Helpless Sinner and God’s Saving Initiative

That's been the gospel for 50 years. If you'll do so-and-so, I guarantee God will do so-and-so. You ever hear that stuff? But the poor fellow got both his legs broken, he can't get out of that ditch.

He's either going to have to stay there, or somebody has got to come and pick him up and get him out. That's the story of God Almighty saving sin. He saves them where they are. He saves them where they are.

He don't say, now you get up further and heal your leg and get your new suit of clothes, and fix the scrub behind you, and wash your teeth, and learn some nice practice to do well, and then I'll come talk to you.

No, sir. The glory of the saving God is with those whom he saves. He comes to them where they are, and picks them up where they are, does for them what they cannot do for themselves. He saves them, he saves them, he saves them.

This general call, men turn it down. They turn it down. The old-time preachers talked about an effectual call. There are so many scriptures in the Bible that talk about this, but I'll just save time and quote one.

John 5, verse 25. The gospel of John 5, verse 25. My Lord said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, glory, hallelujah, when the deaf shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.

Did you notice that? The hour is coming, and now is, when the deaf shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. They that hear shall live. Mother says to Benny, Benny, dinner's ready.

Benny goes about his playing, and directly she says, Benny, dinner's ready. He goes about his playing, and finally she goes out with a hit and a stick and says, Benny, I didn't hear you, Mama. And they don't hear.

They don't hear. It goes in one and out the other. They don't pay any attention to it. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the deaf shall hear the voice of the Son of God. It's the only way a fellow can get saved.

And they that hear shall live. That'll get the job done, brother. That'll get the job done. God Almighty's will is divided according to the scripture in three directions. The scriptures teach he has a will of command, thou shalt not, but he suffers men who rebel against it and refuse to heed.

God’s Will of Command, Desire, and Decree

That's the will of law. God's will is expressed in the Bible as the will of desire. That's the gospel. The gospel pictures a God who wants everybody in the world to be saved. He sincerely desires the salvation of all mankind.

He knows it's not going to happen. But he would get joy. He delighteth in mercy. And then there's his will of decree. He's determined that he's going to have a people just like his Son. Men can defeat his will of command.

Men can defeat his will of desire. It's expressed in the gospel. It's off to go in this and out the other. They pay no attention to it. It doesn't lodge. They fight it. They resist it. They drown it out.

I have seen men in my little old poor meetings have to be carried out of the services on stretchers. I've done it many hundreds of times as I've preached to you. I tell you the truth. I've seen them so under the seizure and conviction of the power of God, they have to have stretchers.

I've been in meetings where they had to have doctors and nurses there to take care of the people who would be so stricken that they couldn't sit or watch. Men can do it, and men do good. But this call of God, and I thank God for it, hadn't been for it I'd never been saved.

And if it doesn't come to you, you'll never be saved. And I hope it already has. And God calls some men in such a way they hear, they hear, they say, God, that's God talking to me. That's God talking to me.

That's how people get saved. That's how people get saved. The masters come, call for me. I'm coming. I'm coming. Oh, my soul. That kind of call. Men respond. Men are able to say, I will arise and go to Jesus.

And they don't only say it, they die. They get to Christ, and they get there and drink. Thank God for his call. Thank God for his call. How does he call? How does he call? He calls through providences.

I'm not going to go into that. I meant to tonight, but I'm going to skip it. He calls through providences. This thing, that thing, that thing, God calls. He calls through his word, what I've been preaching on.

God Calls Through the Word and the Holy Spirit

He calls through the proclamation of judgment. He calls through the proclamation of mercy. He calls through holy men of God. He calls men. Many thank God, many thousands of people have heard God calling through this voice of mine.

I hope I'm speaking to people tonight that God calls sinners through your voice. They heard your voice, but what they really heard was God. That's how men get saved. It's wonderful to be a Christian. God uses you.

And as you call, bring the truth to sinners. Sometimes some of them will hear from God. They'll say, that's God's truth. That's not what that preacher thinks. That's God's truth. That's God. That's how men are saved.

The Thurber Revival and the Call to Repentance

I was in Thurber, Texas, many years ago, while I was a student in Southwestern Seminary, way back about 1928 or 1930, I forget which one of those years, a long time ago. There's a little mining town, coal mining town called Thurber.

I went out one summer while I was in school. I remember I began my meetings there on Sunday night. Everybody there made their living in the coal mine. I got up that night and I preached. Directly we stood and I said to myself, I remember I preached on hell that night.

My own conviction was I was wrong, but I'm telling you what it was. I'll dismiss the congregation and pray the Holy Spirit will speak to hearts, disturb people, and so forth. We stood and I said, we'll now have the benediction.

Something touched my shoulder and I looked around and there was a white-haired pastor. I was just a young buck, the old white-haired pastor stood there and his face was just drenched with tears. He said, brother preacher, might I say a word?

Of course he might. He said, folks, let's don't go home for just a minute. He said, I just can't let you go right now. Somebody, I don't know how they did it, but somebody happened to look at their watch.

33 minutes later, exactly 33 minutes later, by that man's watch, something had happened. That pastor stood there with his face drenched with tears and he pointed men out and called them by their given names.

I'd never seen him anything like it. He'd been pastor there 30 some odd years. He knew them by their given name. And he said, Bill, I just can't let you go tonight. And he preached to Bill and here came Bill.

Jim, he did that to 33 men, one by one, nobody moved. He just called them by name, talked to them, and here they came. 33 minutes later, 33 men were lined up. I don't know whether they got saved or not.

I'll find out at the judgment. I simply know this, they claimed to. There was power there that night. There was something, somebody there beside us, God used that preacher, talked to those men through him.