Doctrine of Election & Man's Free Will — Rolfe Barnard

And this has been a pleasant experience, and I've just tackled a few things about which there is so much misunderstanding. Where we were guests tonight, we were pounded with questions about the Wednesday night message, and I told them that it was on tape for them to listen to it again.

Election, Predestination, and the Resurgence of Historic Doctrine

I no longer know if I'm between God's act of election and God's act of predestination. I said, well, certainly the Bible does. The Bible doesn't say they're the same thing. Election has to do with one thing, predestination another.

Now, the reason I tackle some of these subjects, and I pay this church a great honor in that I could use those terms, and that I could even talk about them without having to testify. And that I tackle some of those things where I have an opportunity, where the pastor was resentful, and the dear people, the cause of all this resurgence in the last few years of the old doctrines of the word of God.

I think that's good. I think that's good. And I believe it's just getting started. I believe it's going to get better and better. I'm of the opinion that while Satan manifests and brings the Antichrist to blow his breath upon us in the last days, that there will be a counter-movement, and there will be a great movement of God bringing his dear ones together.

And when Baptist messages can pray together, they can't do as much together now that they will if they know the Lord. And I'm so glad for the resurgence. What about them? Misunderstanding. And in the handling of any truth, any public teacher or preacher, the monarch, he would not cause a little weak faith in Christ to stumble if he could help it.

People fight. They fight what the Bible actually says, what the Bible actually teaches, not so much as what we learn about it should we not be ashamed of in our day. Not for a moment would I want to apologize for any of the great truths of the word of God.

I'd want to expound on them as much as I have sense enough to do it. Wouldn't want to apologize for them. We do live in a day now when because of the publishing of good books and works, you couldn't get them a few years ago, and now the publishers can't print them to demand.

And they've even invaded the scripture. And if I can, it might be that it would be of some help to somebody here. I want to take the passage of scripture in John chapter 5, verses 39 and 40, and then the passage of scripture in John chapter 6, which is several verses leading up down through verse 40.

The first passage of scripture in the fifth chapter of John's gospel at verses 39 and 40, I'm going to read this, and I want to read the passage in chapter 6. They mislead on these two passages of scripture.

And yet where they're opened up, they are very simply explained. And what I'm doing is saying that if God saves a proclaimer, a gospel, a witness of the Lord, and I still say that this world is going to keep on going to hell unless we have a renaissance, a resurgence, a revival, a witness on the fire.

It's just not going to stop the headlong worship of this generation going to hell, preaching to people who come to church on Sunday morning, because very few of them do. But they're out there, and they're the only people on earth that can reach them.

They've been closed to give an effect. I believe that you as Christians are under this obligation to have this tremendous privilege. I won't spend a little while tonight opening up these passages of scripture.

Human Will and the Bondage of Sin

Now, the first passage of scripture I call the most pessimistic scripture in the entire New Testament. I use that term because this is the whipping boy. This is the verse of scripture that the people who talk so much about the free will of men and that whosoever, that they're popular because it makes you big and God little and it sounds good.

This is their favorite passage of scripture, and I want to show you. The door of salvation. This verse of scripture, utterly closed for the salvation of anybody on earth. In these two verses, to effectively fix it so everybody will just have to go to hell, if there is a hell, as the Bible says so.

Now, do not misunderstand me. We are foolish if we deny that men have will. Men do. God gave you a mind, he gave you an emotion, heart we call it, and he gave you will. And men do. If this is the right use of it, the only person between the eternities that has a free will is almighty God.

Now, God can do anything he wants to, but I can't. I have to go down to my pocket and raise $200. to buy it out of my own pocket. I'm going to do it. And preach to a whole lot of preachers next week just to get them infected with this gospel.

I wish I could just change the world. There are some things you'd like to do you can't do. You're not come free, are you? So you have a will. That's the lot of being free. Now, God's will is perfectly free.

Is that right? But ours, something happened to it. It's been greatly bad. And it's been pretty bad too. Free will. We decide when we die. We'll go down and we'd be able to decide. If we had free will, we'd just decide we wouldn't die.

In terms of loving you, it's pretty silly. If I had free will, I'd be a millionaire. Wouldn't you? Like all these fellas out there at that camp, you know. One of them tonight, John told me he wasn't a millionaire.

I tell you, he's getting awful posh, you know. He said that two years ago. Now, be honest. If you had free will, why wouldn't you be a millionaire? Huh? As far as free is, we've been told already. But we do have will.

A little picture of the kind we've got. Now, here in the 39th verse is a very pessimistic scripture. He's dealing here, is our Lord Jesus Christ, where the leaders of the Jewish nation were so powerful that they were able to incite their followers into becoming a mob to demand the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the Lord, in the gospel of John, is in great conflict with them. And here he makes a remark to them. And if you have your pencil, I have marked my Bible. I hope you do. Yeah, the King James, the authorized version that I use, the book that works, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't maybe the best one yet.

I don't know about that, the best of its translation. But yeah, they make a bad mistake, if you'll not accuse me of being a modernist. And I wish you changed it. If you have an authorized version before you, it says, search the scriptures.

That's the very thing they spent their lives doing, Bible students. And what he actually says is, you are constantly searching the scriptures. That trouble was not that they needed somebody to jack them up instead of the Bible.

They were Bible students. And he reminds them. This makes the problem a little thicker and the condition of them a little worse. He says you are constantly searching the scriptures. And the reason you are constantly searching the scriptures is that he and William, he thinks he had a key time of life, which satisfied William.

...interpretation of the Old Testament. That perfectly satisfied him. And they were good students. ...down the road to where the scribes would spin three books about the particles of atoms could spin of a needle.

Yet constantly searching the scriptures, they found, they found that which gave them peace. They found that in which they could rest in their knowledge, such as it was, of the scriptures. ...searched that in them, in them now, knowing them, believing them, you have eternal life.

What he says to me is that you are constantly searching which gives you peace and satisfaction. ...testify of me and you missed it. Here I am. ...constantly searching. How blind people are. ...students of the scripture.

Searching. Not just reading it to be able to say you read your daily Bible reading. But they were searchers of it. They were constantly searching the scriptures. ...never saw the light. Constantly searching.

...on every page. These are they which testify. Bible searching has been brought to know worse than that. It's got you in the shape you're in of being satisfied with that which ought not and does not really satisfy.

And it left you in this awful position to look at the next verse. Constant searches of scripture. Missed. Didn't get a word they read about. Blind. Blind. Blind that they didn't see. What the scriptures were talking about.

“Ye Will Not Come to Me”: Active Resistance to Christ

And because of that, you can see verse 40. Dearest sense, I was reading this verse in the Greek New Testament. I'm not a Greek scholar, but it is good enough that I can rattle it out for taking a lot of time.

And I found out, and this is, this next verse is this. If you read it in the King James, you will not. You found peace otherwise. You're alright. You've got what satisfies you. You're the Bible student.

You're Orthodox. You've got your customs and traditions. And you're religious. And you're alright. And ye will not come to me. But the actual reading of it is this. Ye to will. It's not a pact. It's an action.

It would be so hard to win men to Christ. If they're just nice little people that just hadn't decided yet to come to Christ. But that isn't the condition of men and women. The condition of these people is the condition of people today.

They were active in this willing not to come. They will. They summoned up all the powers of their will. And an unsaved man has a will. And it's powerful. Isn't that right? By the things a man can do. Just because he wills to do it.

Isn't that right? Some things you can't. He is able to do what he wills to do. Isn't that right? But there's many things he can't do. But he summons up, they summoned up all the powers of their will that God gave them.

Creates them in his own image. And he gave men a will. I can do something. I will to do this. There's so many things we can will to do. And we do it. And they summon up all the powers of their will. And they use it to will.

Now, folks in that shape and color, we're all entrenched, brother. It's going to take more than a nice little persuasive argument to judge a man that has a purpose around the church so strong that he wills not to will to come to Jesus Christ.

That's the kind of folks we have to preach to. Left alone with God, enabled of the Holy Spirit, men and women are acted in their will not to will to Jesus. In the days, these same people, our granddaddies, and Jeremiah, for instance, to forget the verse, Jeremiah will say of these same people's ancestors that have the same attitude, my people, the Old Testament, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're saved people.

They're God's covenant people. They had access to the blood, most often never by faith. Took advantage of it. But my people, members of that elect nation that God picked out of all the other nations, all the nations, my people, have committed two evils.

Now, the first comes back north in Old Testament time. First, they've done what? They've forsaken God at that north. But to make it twice as bad, having forsaken God, they've used our, for themselves, sister.

They have no water, but people think they have. And they drink of the system so as they go, see? And they're perfectly satisfied. After reading the Prophets, they come along and say, Seek the Lord! They didn't pay much attention to them.

They were all liars. They're drinking out of the well of the Spirit of God. They've forsaken God. They've been drinking of that living water. But that died north of one of them. They've consumed the drink that satisfied them.

He's put in bad shape, isn't he? And so most of the appeal to that writer of the Old Testament was like water off a duck's back. Isn't that so? Seek ye the Lord. Nobody much was interested. They didn't need to.

And when the Lord came along, their great-grandchildren were entrenched in the same situation. They found their satisfaction, these people the text is talking about in Bible study, and in believing their interpretation of the Bible.

And they found it satisfies them so well that they actively decided not to desire. The actual best streak on it is, ye desire not to desire. To come unto me. To come unto me, that ye might have life. Now, ladies and gentlemen, next time somebody talks to you about, Oh, we believe in whosoever will and may come, fine.

Next time somebody talks to you about, Oh, we preach this great whosoever will gospel, Jesus died and whosoever will, come on, come on, whosoever will. Just remember, that's fine. But nobody will. That's just like whistling in the dark.

Nobody will. In all the world, from Adam's day till now, if that's all it is, nobody will. I believe the Lord's sure talking some bad things about folks when he looks us in the eye. If there were one of you entrenched in something just like these Jews were, you have no desire to come to Christ.

You have no sense of your need, no reason to motivate you. Try to find out what it means to come to Christ. Nobody. Nobody. I'm glad I don't have to preach that. I like John 6 .4. Here's an optimistic.

The Father’s Drawing and the Hope of John 6

I want you to look at it. And I say this is an optimistic verse. This has got hope in it. Oh, I'm not a novice in trying to preach the grace of God. Don't know how to preach it very well, but I've been making steps at it for quite a while.

I'm not exactly a novice. And I have run across several things. And the thing I've run across everywhere I've gone is, oh, that's terrible enough. That'll discourage people. That'll discourage people.

But it's the most encouraging verse. Oh, when it shuts every door, let it show shutting every false door, so we can drive you to see the only door that's worth entering. He's your friend. And this verse certainly closes every door except the one door.

But it opens that door as wide as the heart of God. Young fella, used to go to school with me. Told me the other day. He's a brother of mine. He said, I wish I could have you hold a meeting in my chair.

Said, that means you're so mad. But he said, the first time you got up in the pulpit, and said to the congregation that unless God undertakes to work a miracle, change you from a God-resister into a Christ-seeker, you're going to go to hell.

Said, scare my folks to death. And he's telling the truth. Because he's been told that this world is just full of folks dying to get to Christ. And all we've got to do is to say, come on and give it a try.

Now, that ain't the kind of folks people want. Now, if you weren't there, and you cut out the same kind of cloth the folks you're trying to witness, and it is true, if it does scare people to death, although the preacher doesn't have sense enough and hard passion enough to explain it, or know it so, that a miracle does have to take place in a man to cause him to begin to seek the Lord.

Isn't that right? He said, that would discourage people from deciding from Christ. And I said, well, that's what I'm trying to get people to quit doing, decide for Christ. Well, dear Lord, God in America done done it 20 times, and nothing's happened yet.

So that word, decision, has got a bad ring in it now. It used to be a good word, now it seems to be a bad word. Look at the hope in this verse of scripture. You're familiar with this verse of scripture, this passage of scripture.

Let me begin reading, if you will, at verse 38. For I came down, 6th chapter of John, For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life. Now, that's wide enough, isn't it? But that's narrowed by believing and seeing.

Everybody believes? Amen. Everybody sees? Amen. This is the Father's will, that I raise him up at the last day. And you know what happens? The Jews. And in the gospel of John, the term, the Jews, means the leaders of the Jews.

Not the mass people that didn't know what they believed until they found out what their leader said, you know. That's largely the way it is now. People say, well, what do you do? What's your church? Well, I don't know.

I'll have to find out. That's pretty well most of it. You know what the Jews did, these leaders? You know what they did, that kind of teaching? They murmured, they growled. They weren't nice people that were just hungry to be saved.

These old hardships come along telling me, no, no. No, no, they murmured. That's a bad word. They didn't murmur to him, they murmured at him. Not to his face, but at him. They went around in the corner, you know.

Grr, grr, grr. I used to have a lot of that. I got to where I got so nice, I can't get a fight much anymore. But I used to be in some strife. And as soon as it starts to be over, the brethren would be over there.

There's a knoll in that zone, over there. Well, we'd get somewhere in those days. They knew something was going on. Well, things got so nice and quiet now, we can't even have a good church bus. We're off.

You know what the Jews did? They murmured at him. Now, keep that in mind. Because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. Was this bread coming down from heaven look like so particularly nasty to hear about?

Not this crowd. They said, not you, bud. No, sir, we've looked you over. Not you. Not you. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? Is it then that he says, I came down from heaven?

He was in the world and the world didn't even know about him. He came into his own zone, looked him over and said, you'll never do. Well, among us, some people beheld his glory. These folks didn't. They said, we know who he is.

We know his daddy and his mother and his brothers and sisters. They didn't see his glory. How is it he comes here and says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, now all this fussing, that's not getting you anywhere.

Know him and not among yourselves. And then out spits him. In that sort of an atmosphere. No man. No man. No man. Here's a fellow that's refusing to believe the world. He shuts them up. He does it to bring them down off their high horse.

They are sitting in judgment on the son of God instead of being judged by him. They are denying his deity. Murmuring at his praise. They are doing it woefully with all their wits about them. They are Bible students.

They are the same crowd that spent their lives constantly searching the scriptures and found everything in them except the testimony of Jesus. And to that class of people the Lord said, no use to murmur.

No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me forth. My people say to me, well, brother Barnes, if that's so, nothing for a fool of a sinner to do but just fool his arm. Someday, maybe, whatever that means, the Father will draw him.

We ought not to quote that verse of the scriptures. That will discourage men and women. But this verse of scripture is true. No man can get to Jesus Christ unless that's just as so as it can be. And it's never wrong to tell a sinner the truth.

You're saying, don't take that other medicine. This is the medicine. And yet get it into your crowd, that in your own strength, under the pressure of all these appeals, well, you do so and so. You get it.

Face it. Because if God's trust can't get the job done, the fellow of the truth, if known, will set a man free. It'll close all the doors, lead to nowhere, and will shut a man up. The only door that leads to Christ opens that door.

Here's hope, the next verse tells you. One hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, we'll pick this verse first and we'll quote it. To lamb-based truth we are. Then deny truth, and to lie to sinners.

When it's the only hopeful verse, I know one thing, most hopeful verse, I know one thing, it does. Is it so, Brother Barnard, that a lost man can't get to Christ unless the Father draws him? Yes. He won't do it himself.

He'll desire not to desire unto Christ himself. You show him where there's a million dollars, he'll run for that or something else, but he won't run for Christ. Is it true that unless the Father draws a man, he can't get Christ?

God Draws Sinners by Teaching Them Truth

Yes. Is that to discourage people? No. That's to show them the door and introduce them to the drawing work of Almighty God. Look how simple it is. How does he draw people? Well, it's an Old Testament teaching.

It always has done it this way. It's written in the Prophets. Not something new. It's as old as the heart and plan of God. It's written in the Prophets. What's written in the Prophets? Well, it's in Isaiah.

And they shall all be taught of God. How does God draw sinners to his Son? By bringing the truth of his Son to men and women. Just as simple. No use all this fussing, feuding, and spitting the people are doing now about this blessed truth.

God draws sinners. He draws them by bringing truth to them. And they shall be all taught of God. They shall be all taught of God. And what will be the result? Every man, therefore, that has heard I don't know anything to keep an old sinner from listening to the truth, do you?

There's nobody in America that will arrest you if you listen to truth, man. I sure wouldn't be terrible to go to hell from America where, if you wanted to, you could hear the truth. Isn't that right? Every man, therefore, that has heard and learned of the Father What's the Father doing?

He's teaching them. Ask the fellow that listens to God and learns of Him. What will he do? Every last one of them, what will he do? Cometh unto me, this single one. So instead of pressing at God and saying this is pessimistic scripture and that will lead to fatalism and lead people so they won't come to Christ and discourage them, no, no.

That'll do this. It'll do this. As my speaking then, God don't know the Lord. He never will. Unless you become a listener to Him and bring you the truth, that blessed Son is full of the power that men and women can be said of you that you have obeyed that form of doctrine that was brought to you from the heart.

The only way on earth anybody can get to Jesus Christ is in the truth of Him. And this is a thing that has encouraged me and made me be a pretty much of a critic of myself. I've done a very good job of it, but I've done the best that you have.

Ladies and gentlemen, you listen to me. It's really God who does the teaching. It's really God who does the preaching. I understand that preach the gospel. In time God uses my little old voice and brain.

He's the one that commands people to repent. He uses my little old voice. The voice of one crying in the wilderness that's who John the Baptist was. And the two people there, the voice of John the Baptist, the one crying in the wilderness is Almighty God.

It's really God's Spirit that brings these truths out and applies them. Not the poor preacher or the personal worker. This is the way God draws men and women. And it works, brother. You've got your time to listen and to learn.

He'll come to touch. You can't get to Him except in the truth of it. And God's the one who brings that truth to men. That's the reason it's said, my sheep, I suppose, I'm not doing violence to it. See, my sheep, whether they're yet found or not, there's one thing that will characterize them.

They listen. They listen to my voice. You keep on listening about, you're going to get crushed. It's not going to come in a whirlwind. God don't teach that way. It's not going to come in a version. How does God draw men?

By teaching them. Teaching them what? Teaching them truth. The truth about what? The truth about Christ. And there's just two truths about Christ. His cross and His stone. Peter said the gospel is the sufferings of Christ and the glory that shall follow.

And he's in it now. He was on a cross now. He's on a throne. On which the prince of glory dies. That's either fairest or it's God's. You won't get crushed listening to God's truth. How does God draw men to Christ?

By becoming their teacher. Every man shall be taught. He that hears and learns of Him. Glory hallelujah. Comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether that gets the job done. This other man was leading it up to holy little brother Barnard's will.

I don't do so good. I don't do so good. But the list. Optimistic. I'd look every human being on earth. In the face. And say you want me to tell you how you're going to get to Christ? You're going to get to Him in the truth of Him.

How are you going to find it out? Listening to His Son. By bringing them face to face with truth. As it is about His Son. And there isn't a sinner alive that's got an excuse. If he has opportunity to be a listener.

That's the door. Open. Let's get 6 ,000 in the spirit. So we can't get God in a straight jacket. Or in our little particular bucket. Three different people are brought to God in Acts 16. All of them. As God brings them.

Lydia Hears and Attends to the Word of God

As that teacher. As he draws them. Apparently in a different way. There's Lydia. She owned the biggest women's clothing store in the city. She was a seller of purple. And you know what happened? How did God teach her?

He opened her. What did He do? Huh? What did she do what? She sought their attention. Huh? He opened her heart that she attended on the Word. She became a listener. She listened to God. It dawned on her that truth she was reading.

The Fortune-Telling Slave Girl and the Way of Salvation

Then there was a little woman. Made a lot of money for her Masters. Telling fortunes. It took her about a month to get to Christ. She followed a couple of fellows. You know what they were doing? In her own testimony.

He said these be the servants of the Most High God that do what? Do show unto us. And one demon went out today and you could hear the grind in her soul. And another went out the next day. And another went out the next day.

She followed Paul and Cyrus. Listened to them. As God used them to do what? Show people the way of salvation. How does God show? He says. He brings truth. And after many days she followed Paul. Paul found the third.

The Jailer’s Conviction and God’s Different Ways of Drawing

And then there was the man who was beating Paul and Cyrus with stripes. And the others that put their feet in stocks and put them down in the cell and left them. And going upstairs and going down the street.

God who draws men to himself into all the trouble of performing an earthquake. While the man was awakened by that earthquake and being scared half out of his wits he came before them. And apparently there he did what?

Knocks into pocket all of our recipes. Although we're not sure. We do know this is an awful quick thing. That man got under conviction. Was seized with fear. Found relief. Father in God draws men. He may do it like he did Lydia.

Just opened her heart. She just sat down to see him now. Just reading the word.