Go in His Authority — Rolfe Barnard

It is a great privilege to be at the 13th Street Baptist Church and such an honor to be at this 13th or 9th or 15th or some kind of conference. How many have we had? 13. 13. Apologize for not being in the services this morning.

We didn't get in this afternoon. It's not nice to film some of it, but we couldn't help it. Somebody told me the two young brethren made good talk. It makes me awfully mad when I preach a great big sermon and somebody says that's a good talk.

The Great Commission in Matthew 28

Tonight would you read with me or follow me as I read the last chapter of the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 28. Tonight the commander-in-chief of how we've been minding him, great commission, 13th, I think maybe I know, conference of its kind was started here.

This congregation, I don't know of any other, and tonight I'm not going to preach. I've preached so much these folks that what I'm going to say tonight is above my own thinking. I found in many years of preaching that I preached something about 13 years later I find out what I was talking about.

I didn't know and that's preaching above the understanding. That's preaching in the spirit. We very seldom ever do it. Congregation assembled here and preachers from here and there and people of this dear flock.

Our own severest critics tonight on how we've been measuring up to the great commission. Never been revised, just been ignored. I want us to read it afresh tonight in its context. You follow me if you will.

In the end of the Sabbath as it began, Magdalene and the other Mary, great earthquake descended from heaven and came and rolled back to stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance, this angel of the Lord, was like lightning and his raiment white as snow.

The keepers did shake and became as dead men. Angel answered and said unto the women, fear not ye for I know that ye seek Jesus. He's not here for he has risen as he said. The place where the Lord lay, there shall you see him.

This is the angel talking now. And so they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy and did run to bring his disciples. Jesus met them saying all hail and they came and held him by the feet and worshiped him.

Then said Jesus unto them, be not afraid. Go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee and there shall they see me. Oh, some of the watch came into the city and showed unto the chief priest all the things that were done.

And when they were assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers saying that his disciples came by and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's heirs, we'll persuade him and secure you.

Money and did as they were saying is commonly reported among the Jews until the soldiers said. Then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him.

Some doubted and speak unto them where it is excess time. I read this pastor, brother muse, your nation baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son of the Holy ghost, teaching them all things whatsoever.

I have commanded you and low. I'm with you all way under the end of the age. So, but I'm older than the more serious, biggest problem of the gospel. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could believe him? Leonard Ravenhill said someday, some humble believers going to pick up the Bible and read it and make the rest.

Believing the Resurrection and the Living Christ

I'm not being the grouse tonight. Don't you wish you could believe haunted? I have been ever since I've professed to be a Christian, putting in my own experience of believing the book. That's certain.

If I could believe the testimony of this angel, he's not here. As he said, wouldn't that be wonderful. That's so nothing else mounts the hill of beans, answers every question, nothing to anything. Your opinion is good as mine.

I'm familiar with the fact to believe in Jesus Christ. E .W. Johnson would say, would I think we're desperately trying to, as I go up and down the land in a vacuum, who didn't have any doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, but you're the resurrected Christ on our daily life.

I am more aware tonight than I have been any other time as a glory. It's not so out the Bible, which we try to pray to doctrine, then decide to believe that Christ was alive. They were touched by the living Lord.

And then the doctrine came. We had to do the best we can, but that's a problem that I face. As he said, he said, he drives from the dead and he has died. So said the angel, but he is risen. As he said, then I'm prepared to listen to him when he tells me that all has been given him in heaven and in earth.

And I'm further prepared to listen to him standing on that as a foundation has been given in heaven and in earth to listen to his command, but command enough said has been given unto me. I don't know about you, but I think that every generation, every six months of the time for every generation of preachers and mind and the law.

And I was in the army. You went to the bulletin board, got orders for the day. Every day brought its own art. You could be transferred or moved anything, but you better find out what the orders for the day were.

Well, the orders of King Jesus for the day, what they were, they've never been changed. And I want us to look at these, this order again tonight, see that no power in earth or heaven, human or satanic can throw at the purpose of a holy God in Christ.

Going in the Authority of Christ

This commission is a baby. Come and ask a question first of my own heart tonight in this point that I don't know how to know anything mentally in the authority of the living Lord and the great commission.

We're commanded to go in him in whom is invested or is talking about, I think threefold first divine to anybody in any place. Have you studied the third chapter of Acts? I say this so I'd say something else, but I think for, I say it, I want to say there's something else.

You're looking at a preacher. It's September the preaching 40 years knowing by speaking is running me crazy. When I was a young fellow, of course I could talk about what I was going to do when I got older, but I've changed now.

Such an embarrassing book. He's getting us another Bible. And there's a man lame and they, what I've been told, we must never say and go, but we do have something he give unto thee to somebody else. I got the advantage over many of you.

I've been preaching 25 years trying to preach the grace of God before I ever heard a tulip. I wish I never had heard it. I didn't about the doctrines of grace you call them, just preached them. Wish we'd get all out all of this foolishness.

Not to defend somebody that started something 400 years ago and have something happen when we speak and we haven't got it. And I don't know how to get it. I ain't fussed at nobody, but I'm so sick and tired of trying to prove some truth that nobody's interested in.

Into you, bless God. That's what they said. And it happened. It happened. Most embarrassing book in the Bible. And yet I'm just hungry and heart sick and heavy, but believing that the prelude to blessing is in that scripture, I pour water on thirsty.

I had my way about it. I'd turn every sovereign grace preacher and believer in America into a giant time of mourning until we get on that the burning Jerusalem and yet let the smoke burn our eyes and our heart and learn how to weep because speak and answer questions that nobody's asking.

Demonstrating the Gospel in the Spirit's Power

Speaking from its demonstration. Some years since I spent three days, Dr. MacMillan, the authority of the believer, some 20 odd years ago, fell into my hands and I ain't got over it since. Boring me. It kind of makes me mad.

Wasn't against the Lord. Get me a shotgun, do something bad to hear. Oh, hard hearted, what's it called? Making fun of the overalls. I admire being there. What's that big guns and so forth. I hope in the Lord.

I don't know. I take my hat off to anybody, up his sleeve and spits on his hands and says in the book of Acts of Jesus Christ. Somebody says, well, nothing happens now. I think you're about right. Ain't nothing happening now.

And that's the heartbreak of the hour. But you needn't kid me, honey. You can't sit at the feet of old man MacMillan who spent his life in China. And if you haven't read that book, you won't be happy when you get to heaven.

And he talks about the fact that all authority that Ralph Barnes has got has to be delegated to him by him and from him in whom all authority has been placed. And if there's one thing under God's shining sun, that anybody that names the name of Jesus Christ in this whole whole day ought to be crying to God for her.

It's for the Lord Jesus Christ to work a miracle and spill a little of his authority on us so we could speak. We have got one thing Peter and John could get when I heard my one of my classmates in Southwestern Seminary.

He'd spent seven years in China and came back for a sabbatical before Association of Preachers. He told about speaking and seeing demons come out of the bodies of people. I had lunch together. I said, you tell him the demon.

He said, you can't see him, but you can. They're not visible, but you can see them. I know, I've seen them. I've seen demons come out of people, but the tragedy of Ralph Barnes' ministry is so few. And it wasn't me!

If we can't, we ought to shut up. Nothing much happened. Become the cry of our hearts all over the land. I'm haunted by the fact that a man by the name of the apostle, almost as good a preacher as I am, he is handicapped.

Paul’s Pattern of Gospel Ministry

I want to read you something that's haunted me for 30 some odd years. Do not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyria.

Haven't you looked at just a minute? You Bible scholars, deaf women, keep quiet till I get through. I preached in Tulsa, Oklahoma many years ago, and a nice fellow came around and said, I love to hear the gospel preached in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I said, brother, if it isn't preached in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit, it is not the gospel. It's just a cult. It's just a bare doctrine. God's affirming work. You can't either, and I can't either.

That's the reason. Just as in as bad a shape as the Armenians, you're cursed. You just change your doctrine. Ain't a bit of difference on God's earth. No power in either one. Just change from one cult to another.

Old man, it's not worth a hill of beans. In the fullness of the Spirit, in the confirming work, it's the full gospel of our God. In confirming his word, that must be our cry. That must be our cry. That must be our cry.

Church Discipline Under Christ’s Authority

We need to face the fact in the authority of Jesus Christ to discipline human power. For it need, I know. Don't tell me about the Puritans. They're dead too. This infidel generation, when there can't be any more lawless than we are as church members.

Statement that characterizes Calvinistic Baptist churches is that everybody's a law unto himself. Every man does that which is right in his own sight. One of the very things that make a church of New Testament discipline.

Not being a church of Jesus Christ without it. And while we cussing out everybody else, we need to face the fact that only that congregation that bears as a body in its body the marks of willing, glad subjection to the authority of Jesus Christ.

As is expressed in that local church. Has got anything to say to anybody else. Of this lawless generation. Thus we've come to love the chastening rod of the Savior's discipline. We can't go back and read how the other folks did it.

The old time Baptist used to turn everybody out of the church on Saturday night and take them back on Sunday morning. And they never touched side, top, and the bottom, of course, of New Testament discipline.

But we need to in this hour. The matter of claiming. Claiming. What's not so is taking care of a Baptist preacher by the name of Peter when Ananias and Sapphira. The matter of looseness of morality and immorality.

If you don't do it before I get there, I'll come with a rod and I'll beat the life out of you. In the name of Jesus Christ, when you're met together, take care of that situation. In the matter of looseness and perversion of doctrine.

You talk about the words of Hymenaeus that eat as a canker. How people of conscience have meant shipwreck of their soul, of their faith. Or eating us up all over the country. I'm fond of saying, and I say it again, that we're trying to preach in a barrel that has no bottom.

And I think the greatest need, I just think the need of grace preachers is to remember that Paul had a double ministry. He was a minister of the grace of God. He's a minister of the church of God. One won't work without the other.

We need some disciplined men and women under the strict discipline of the living Lord. For the only way on earth I can exercise authority is to be under authority. And I have just as much authority as I'm under his authority.

And that's the reason I don't have much. He's talking about going in the authority to direct divine power to somebody else. He's talking about going in the authority of Christ to discipline human power.

Confronting Satanic Power and Demonic Forces

They've wrecked our churches. I'm not talking down to you. If we don't bat a hundred the first time, let's figure out what it means to be under the discipline of Christ as a congregation of brethren, as well as individuals.

And then we're to go under the authority of Jesus Christ to discipline satanic power. All hell things are happening every day that cannot be described any other way than see this generation becoming more and more possessed of demons.

Your doctor and your policeman deal with demons. Don't think so as we haven't got enough of the power of Christ to flush them out. I've had demons curse me and call me by name who never saw me. The people they spoke through never had seen me before, but I've had so little of it.

And the reason I've had so little of it, the book of Acts, tremendous holy and tremendous satanic power. They'll always go together. Big forces. They're everywhere. Churches of Jesus Christ through the motion.

It's a hand that not the church people, the demon realm had to be handled by alcoholic anonymous, the demons of communism, and just name them. They're being handled by everybody except the church of Jesus Christ.

Frank Norris, Dr. Frank Norris used to tell me as a young preacher, Ralph, since the past of the gospel, demonic forces are abroad in this world. Who used me to go into it? This world's changed more in the last 20 years than it had in all the rest of time put together.

Five points of Calvinism. Sassafras. Nobody's interested. Nobody cares. They're not the issues of this hour. The issue of this hour is torn apart by the very demons of hell. The great commission is to get involved in every issue that's seeking to wipe off the face of the earth.

Engaging a Troubled Generation With the Gospel

I'm going to read you what a Moravian preacher said the other day in Winston-Salem as he delivered the commencement sermon for their school there. The goal of the Christian life is not in peaceful coexistence with the problems of our age.

The Christian ought to be profoundly disquieted by the problems of life. He should be maladjusted to the status quo. This is not to adjust to the world. We're commissioned to change it, for it's out of joint.

It's not out of joint. It's upside down, and it needs to be demonic forces with flesh and blood in spiritual places for the need to face up and are not corn. We need to get out and roll up our sleeves as congregations.

I'm so sick and tired of counting how many we had in Sunday school, how much money we raised, and how many additions we had. I wish we could get into this generation and tackle the deck in us, and they're not disturbing our peaceful, comfortable Sunday morning services.

Demonic forces are abroad. The spirit is given unto me. Go out there and face them. Go out there and face them. The young Pentecostal preacher who gave up his church and went to the sidewalks of Harlem.

It's amazing how God uses people that don't agree with me on it. I heard him on tape, and he talked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He said to graduate the young Pentecostal from their schools and to come there now to Harlem.

They're going to help Brother David deal with the sodomites and the narcotics and the this, that, and the other. They got them. And they do like us. They go down, you know, and they've got the power, like Brother Barnard Aydin.

They command the demons to come out, and the demons laugh at them, not paying attention to them. And David Wilkerson, from his theological background, this is something. He said, I believe the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

He loved people like Jesus loved them. He said the only people that can do anything with the sodomites and narcotics in Harlem are the folks that somehow or another, those folks think are comfortable.

Stuff we call Christianity today. The baptism of the Spirit. That we could get our little theological straitjackets dirty. Putting our arms around this demoniacal generation. Given unto me in heaven and earth, go ye with my program.

Teach all nations, and teach them to observe my programs tonight. You're thinking, I was getting along, voting, and what he told us to ask some questions that I've just written down here. I'm not going to try to answer them.

What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?

We need to face them. Now, who is Christian? Now, we got nice people in our churches. Some of them quit chewing tobacco, and others quit getting drunk. But who is Christian? Quite as bad as they used to be.

And some of them have changed their doctrine. But who is a Christian? There's so much difference between being a Christian and being a good moral man. That's something we need to face now. Bless your heart, the indictment of the whole shooting match office is that we're doing everything except produce Christians.

Men sold out to Jesus Christ. I like to hear the fundamentalists make fun of fellows that don't agree with them. But I like to quote from this young Bonhoeffer that was executed by Hitler. I want to read you one thing Mr. Bonhoeffer said, the only man to say that he's justified by grace alone is the man who's left off of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace.

Try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ. How do you become a Christian? Believe in some things. We need to face this. How do men become Christians? Do they do it apart from actually hearing from a living God?

They do it out of themselves as a result of a gift from above. Do men become Christians apart from the sovereignty of Christ in their daily lives? It can't be done. Do men become Christians, listen to me, do men become Christians apart from receiving the mission of Christ for their lives?

I want to ask you this question. The thing that's haunted this preacher for 40 years, and I'm about ready to make up my mind, a man ain't saved as long as he just comes to church and believes in things.

A man ain't saved unless he's living to save others. Then in a word, as empty as the word saved now. It's a good Bible word, but it's as smooth as it can be. God help us, the time has come for us to start being honest with dear eternity bound people and insist that no man has been vitally joined to a living while it's an option as to whether or not he'll accept his commission to get in, to hold his end of the blanket.

Cheap Grace and Costly Discipleship

If we need to begin answering this question again, I think I told it up in Yankee land the other day, two, three of you preachers were, pardon me, in a Baptist Sunday school. In our day, the teacher was Hitler Christian, and the teacher said, we do not know.

He certainly didn't act like it. We can only hope he trusted Jesus. Christianity is now. That's about it. That's about it is the nature of Christian life. I'm just thinking about these things, how we get along with his program, making the grace of God a cheap thing instead of a costless.

They said that Germany, 6 million Jews, Christian nation, and Bonhoeffer said Germany was made Christian by de-hearting Christians. That's America. Victory won the last hundred years. We won it by cutting more out of the heart of truth.

Somebody said if the 17th, 17th, 16th century was known for the reformation, the 18th century of missions, the 19th century for the spread, the 18th century for the evangelical awakening, the 19th century for the spread of missions.

Then they said something about this century, but God bless your heart, we spread the program, had the great revival we've all read about, and we did it by making the grace of God so cheap, it wouldn't offend to flee or save one either.

Called me not long ago and said, Ralph, I wish you had some sense. He says, you just preach the simple gospel. And I said, doctor, I wish my name were Ralph Barney. I wish I did have some sense. And I've tried a thousand times to do what you say, but then I forget.

I can't think about it. I can't sleep at night. This whole outfit has become Christian by taking salvation out of God's hands and putting it in man. And I just have to lift my voice against it, come hell or high water.

Listen to me. The grace of God's not cheap. Martin Luther, by bringing back out of the dust can the doctrine of justification by faith. He didn't believe in God's cheap grace. Someone writes of him that he discovered that the grace of God had cost him his very life and must continue to cost the same price every day.

God's grace isn't cheap, but we've made it cheap. We need earnestly to know what baptism means. We could do with at least investigating the tremendous place of the Lord's supper and the congregation of the saints.

The fact that we're bold enough to stand alone and be individualist and breast the tide and contend for the foundational doctrines of truth and I would fight you for them. I wish that God would give us a Bible that had some mouse in it and find out there's more to it than hanging on the leaf.

The great things that God has in even those two ordinances that we've accepted through the Satan being. We need to investigate how much we ought to know about what's involved in salvation in the Christian life before he makes us what we call a decision.

How much for that? What's the least that a man must understand before a decision given the evidence of being of the Holy Spirit? Hands on people so suddenly. I want to read you a comical thing. Take just a second.

Conversion, Church Membership, and Evidence of Faith

At the age of 18 D .L. Moody desired to join the church and presented himself for membership. It is no easy matter to join a church in those days because a real examination was given to all that were concerning the meeting reads much like a modern social worker's case history.

Here's how it reads. Case number 1079 named D .L. Moody. Board number 43 Court Street. D .L. Moody has been baptized. He was first awakened on the 16th of May. Became anxious about himself. Saw himself a sinner and sin now seems hateful and holiness desirable.

Thinks he has repented. Has purpose to give up sin. Feels dependent upon Christ for forgiveness. Desires to be useful. Religiously educated. Been in the city a year. Comes from Northfield. This state is not ashamed to be known as a Christian.

Is 18 years old. He was refused. Christians. Making Christians. Teaching them to observe. Talked about two hours here. I just mentioned it. With my presence God help us. With my program my presence. With my presence.

End of the age. God help us. Help me. I've seen some of you act fool. Reason I know cause I did the same thing. You know I'd almost lay down my life for young preacher who in the last few years is in our bumbling way.

Living Under Christ’s Presence and Program

Relationship. Friendship between person. Relationship. No need to cuss each other out. Stand for something. Won't whine when presence. I've never been satisfied with pointing out what's wrong with what the other fellas doing.

God help us. Do we more than others. Going up and down American sins. Is anybody on God's earth? Intercessory church. So ashamed of us there. I ain't anybody's here. Do you? You know we can't. Presence of Christ means his confirmation.

And his would not only mean additions. But what was here. It wasn't gray as black or white brother. They believed them or they took up stones to stone. God help us. Prison living Lord. It'd be wonderful if we could.

With me as many mistakes you've made. I believe so. With you dumb as you are. Puerto Rico. Brother McDonald and I stayed all night. One night with a dear old brother. Father and mother were missionaries all their life.

He'd been on the mission field 50 years. Didn't know anything else. Got to kidding about his big salary. And he said he wasn't working for that salary. He's working for the one he's going to get. Seemed like he meant it too.

With my presence.