Looking Unto Jesus — Rolfe Barnard

Condemnation, Mercy, and the Lord Who Unlocks the Prison

Every human being in Adam and Eve is locked up in God's cell of condemnation. The door is locked and no man has the key. The key was turned over according to the book of Acts chapter 5 to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he alone can unlock the prison door and set the prisoner free. In God's name, for your soul's sake, reach out as it's destined. Say, O thou son of David, have mercy on me. I can't get out of this damnable stuff they call the gospel.

But if you do your part, God will save you. What can a sinner locked up in a cell with the door locked and he hasn't got a key? How can he get out? He can't do it but the Son of God's passing by and every time he comes to a cell, his old sinner's saying, I'm guilty, I'm guilty, I'm guilty.

Have mercy on me. I'm going to unlock the door. Amen. Thank you, Mrs. Godwin. Tonight from the 2nd book of Corinthians, chapter 3, I want to begin reading with the last verse of the 3rd chapter of the book of 2nd Corinthians.

The Ministry of Death and the Ministry of Life

The first three chapters of 2nd Corinthians have dealt with the difference between the ministry of the letter and the ministry of the Spirit. Or in other language, in those chapters, the content of those chapters is the difference in the ministration of death and the ministration of life.

Oh, for life, for life, for life. I do not care about all the good things you say you do, for your best righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the sight of God. And I'm not particularly interested in all the bad things you do.

I'm interested in whether you've got life or you're in a state of death. Death. I was a whale of a preacher when I was five years old. Down on the farm, when any of the chickens or the dogs or cats died, we always had a funeral and I got to be the preacher.

The cats or the dogs or the chickens belonged to Mama and Papa. I got back first, and I always got to preach the funeral sermons. I had a little old cat I loved, and he died, and we had a whale of a funeral.

And I preached the whale of a sermon. And I was so attached to the cat when we buried it, I left just the tip end of his tail outside of the ground. And every few days I'd go down and touch that tail and nudge it just a little bit to see if the cat was still there.

And strangely enough, the more the tail that showed, the worse the smell was. Now, the cat wasn't any deader after a few days, but his smell was. In this world, in a state of death, you and I happen to be living in a day when the smell is getting awful bad.

Do you have the life of God in you, or are you living in a spiritual graveyard? And the close of this study of the difference between life and death that ministers unto life and that that ministers unto death, the Apostle Paul closes that line of thinking with the last verse of this chapter.

But we all, and he includes himself and every child of God in this expression. This is true, ladies and gentlemen, of everybody who's ever been joined to the Lord, everybody who's joined to him now, of every child of God by faith in Christ.

We all. This is our vocation. This is how we spend our time, while we're washing the dishes, selling incense, working down steel mills, preaching, singing. This is what God's people spend their time doing.

But we all, with open faith, beholding as in a glass. We do not see yet perfectly, it's a reflection. But we see him. But we all, with open faith, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord. Something happens to people who spend their time subconsciously.

You're a Christian, you're not always conscious of this, but this is the most real thing between the two eternities. If you're a child of God, this is how you spend your days. Something happens to a person like that.

What happens? They are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. I'd love to preach on that tonight, but that's not the message. Let me say three things. Being a Christian means three things.

Seeing the Lord by Faith

First, it means that you've seen the Lord. In John 6, he that seeth the Lord believeth on him. No man is saved who has not with eyes of faith seen the Lord. The Holy Spirit, taking the word of truth, has revealed Christ unto you.

Not so you can see him with physical eyes, but with eyes that don't need glasses like this. By the way, I have to have bifocals, and when I look that way, I can't see you so good, and some of you look a lot better, the less I can see you.

But a Christian starts out, that's how you get what's called saved. Not by accepting Jesus, no, no. Not by making a decision, oh, no. But by Christ being revealed to you. It may be a dim look, but if it's a look at the right one, okay.

Then being a Christian means that you spend your life looking unto Jesus. Is that scripture? The author and finisher of our faith. In heaven, we'll just do two things. There's the Bible, we'll serve the Lord, and we'll look on his faith.

And strangely enough, that's all you do now if you're saved, is serve the Lord and look unto him. And thank God, the more you look, the more you become like him. Anybody who isn't becoming more like Christ every day has missed Christ.

You better listen to me now. You can't look at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 12 hours a day, as you would if you were a Christian, without becoming like that one who is the supreme object of your affection.

There's a man and a woman who have been living as man and wife 50 years, and they get to where they look alike. You can't walk with the Lord and not become like him. What is it? Christianity is a matter of Christ being reproduced in you.

One morning, the father got up for breakfast and took a fresh look at his eternally begotten son of God. And he said, I'm going to have a great company of sons that no man can number, and I'll make every one of them just exactly like my son.

Just exactly like my son. That's being saved. And then in 1 John 3, it tells us that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. What shall make us like him? Well, the rest of the verse tells us. With an undimmed view there, brother, we shall see him as he is.

Him who with a dimmed view way back yonder somewhere we saw for the first time. And who through all our pilgrim journeys we've been looking at him. Feasting on the blood of his justified, just Savior.

Immersed in the cross and the blood. Coming to the Lord's table and eating of his body and drinking. Walking this wilderness journey. Looking, looking. Now with an undimmed view. With no sight in our eyes.

When he shall appear, we shall be like him. That's what it means. Amen. That's what it means. Amen. Oh, my soul. At last. No wonder the apostle Paul says in the fourth chapter, Seeing we have this minister.

Mercy, Hope, and the Reproduction of Christ

The minister of life. A minister, not a word about a producing himself in men and women. That's salvation. Amen. Seeing therefore we have this minister. How did we get it? As we've received mercy. Moffat's translation says we never lose hope.

My soul. Oh, no. Every once in a while I see somebody. The job gets started on him. Then you watch it. You watch the character of Christ being reproduced. Isn't that wonderful? Amen. Never lose hope. Well, maybe tomorrow God Almighty will start this wonderful work of reproducing Christ Jesus in some other sense.

Yes. Ah, what a treasure it would be to be a pastor, shepherd of the flock of men and women. Who day by day, he sees Christ in them. The hope of glory. The very perfect character of Christ being reproduced day by day.

That's Christianity. Yes. And so having that kind of minister, we never lose hope. And of course, that fixes. So we've renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. We no longer can try to wish our Lord off on anybody.

Or to try to trick you into believing God brought the work of grace in you when he hadn't. We've renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. Not walking in craftiness, an old man in Missouri. One time I was preaching to soldiers.

He came up to me after service. He said, Brother Preacher, I'm an old man. You're a young fellow. You wouldn't get mad at me. I want to give you just a little hint. I said, I'll listen, Brother. He said, you can catch more flies with sugar than you can with vinegar.

I said, that's right, Brother. But I'm not in the business of catching flies. I'm in the business of killing sinners. So God will heal them. Not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully.

But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And then there follows something we must always keep before us. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.

Spiritual Blindness and the Glory of Christ

And why are they lost? Something's happened to them. They've been the subjects of a terrible, terrible operation. Somebody's operated on men and women. Your husband, your brother, your wife, your children.

In whom the God of this age hath blinded their minds. And the word minds, that means the whole outfit. Heart and everything. In whom the God of this age hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.

What good all the trouble of making men blind for Satan. Well, just one thing. Didn't care what else they saw. Just so they didn't see one thing. Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. And you're King James, it's the glorious gospel.

But it ought to be the good news of the glory of Christ. I wish I knew how to preach that. I try to. Just the glory of Christ. He don't want you to see that, friends. He don't care how nice you are. How many organizations to improve society you join.

Just so you never see the glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Who is the image of God, lest that light should shine under them. Your eyes would be opened and you'd see the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

He don't want you to do that. I skip verse 5, for that's my text. I want to skip on down now to verse 6. For God, here's the difference between the lost man and the saved man. The lost man is described in verse 4.

He's a blind man. He may give a million dollars to charity. He may be a good church member. He may try to live a good moral life. But there's one thing he don't see. He don't see any glory in my Lord.

He don't see the glory of Christ in the gospel. It hasn't shined in his heart. But both it has in mine. Bless God. Verse 6 says, For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, yonder and eternity morning, has shined in our hearts.

That's what it means to be born of the Spirit. Light shines in the darkness. And it does one thing. It shines to give the light of the knowledge of the glory in the face of Jesus Christ. That yonder and creation's darkness.

God forbear the light. Bless God some more. That's the only remedy for darkness, for the light to be turned on. That's what salvation is. And bless God we have that in earth, this treasure in earth and vessel.

In earth and vessel. Now how does all that come to pass? How does God take men and women whose eyes have been blinded so they cannot see the glory of Christ in the gospel? As he turned on the light that drives away the darkness, gives men a knowledge, not a hope so, but a knowledge of the glory of God.

It's of Jesus Christ as he looks on here. Well Paul says, here's the remedy. This is it brother. There ain't nothing more you can't have from it, can't take from it. This is it! Verse 5. But we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ, Jesus the Lord.

Preaching Christ as Lord

The proclamation of the truth about the only begotten Son of God is the only way God Almighty is pleased to take the darkness out of blind men's eyes and hearts and turn the light of truth into light.

The only way is by the proclamation, the gossiping, the preaching, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to talk tonight, this is Wednesday night. Many friends who have been attending are at their own prayer meetings.

We're living in a day now where we're getting down to size. And I wish if I had the strength spiritually tonight, as humbly as I know how, to challenge Greenwood Baptist Church to come back with blood and tears and sweat and dedication and heartfelt love for the souls of this confused generation, men and women, and recover afresh the battle cry of the early church, Jesus is Lord.

Christus ensues as Lord. They went everywhere and not expounded theology. They went everywhere and said, Jesus is Lord. They had no apology. Oh, my soul. A village, a congregation of people could have.

With the stigma. There's a little group of people under the ladder. The walls have been conquered by him. Who go out in the anointing of the Holy. That men and women kiss the sunless to be ungrateful.

Get your doctrine straight and you and everybody else will go to hell. And I do not smear at it. But I wouldn't give you a dime for a doctrine that doesn't magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the center.

This is Lord. King of the truth. It's God's way of giving men. Somebody said during this meeting, if what that man's preaching is true, I've never been saved. I hear that everywhere I go. And it humbles me.

Oh, I hope I'm preaching the truth. One thing I know, if you're a child of God growing more and more into his image every day, I can't unsave you. I've seen people couldn't sleep at night, couldn't eat.

I've seen people get so desperate they have to take to hospitals. I've seen some people have to take to asylum under such deep conviction. People healing their wounds quickly. Oh, I've seen people suffer.

My shoulder's had to suffer for 40 years and spend eternity enjoying God. But that's what it takes. Oh, my soul, my soul tonight. I come to present you one more time with this tremendous person. Under you this day in the city of Babel is born a Savior.

Who is this Savior? What does the scripture say? Who is the Lord? Nobody but the Lord can save him. Right. Oh, you'll never get the knowledge of the glory of God except if you look at Christ. You'll see it in him.

Do you see it? Right. See that he is. He's from glory to glory in his image. When he appears and then made exactly like him, praise God. Look. Eyes that you may see him in all of his glory. He said he'll take the wax out of your ears if you'll hear him speak.

He said from birth that you'll not live in God but out into eternity and never get a glimpse of him. For whom this world was created simply as a stage to echo the glory of the Redeemer. Don't miss out on the biggest thing between the two, detainees.

Jesus is Lord, was the initial confession of the early church. Yet thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord. Thou and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved.

That mean business is when Paul was preaching. Caesar was called Curios, Lord. And everybody understood that if they dared to let it get out on them that Jesus was their Lord, they were a candidate for slaughter.

It's impossible to get saved without dying. You gonna die or go to hell. Still has it Caesar. Jesus is Lord or the spirit of this age. It's either or, never both. Ladies and gentlemen. No one saw his wicked heart.

The King Jesus apart from the work of grace in his heart. That's the reason we're trying to be a pastor. Went to college, went to the seminary, came out and wouldn't known the gospel if he'd met it in the road.

Screaming up and down the country. Come back to what our churches used to be founded on. And tell people the truth. That you can't have both at the same time. God of this present age of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One or the other but you can't have them both. Jesus will not sit on the same shelf with anybody. Speaking in Chicago. Guest of the Christian businessmen. Victor Center and their daily radio program. Lord and maiden of the church in the city.

They had a special luncheon. And I was there. Sitting next to him while we were eating for us to speak. A fellow that was telling me about what was happening over in Japan. And some of the missionaries, way back.

Some of the missionaries, of course the edict went out not too long ago. Of course in Japan the Emperor is Lord. And they gave those missionaries the choice. Of bowing to the Emperor he or he does. Or being put in concentration camps.

And I know men. That spent years of the war in concentration camps so they wouldn't bow. And he said some of the missionaries crossed their fingers. And bowed to the Emperor but they didn't mean it. And he was getting all over them about it.

And he said what did I think about it? And I said tell you one thing Lord. It's a good long way from Chicago to Japan. I don't know what I'd do. But in my eyes the city of the big, the big bunch of Christians you know there in a hotel in Chicago.

And talk about what I'd do over yonder in Japan. Six thousand miles away. When I was given the choice. Of bowing to a man calling Lord. Or going to a concentration camp. But God's even tougher than that.

Brother if bow to Jesus Christ and die. Or else be cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. That's just how tough it is. Nobody dared to call himself a Christian in those days. Who wasn't a potential martyr.

That's what it means to be a Christian. If the devil had his way and it wasn't for the stinging influence of the Holy Ghost. And the influence of the gospel and God's common grace. There wouldn't be a Christian sitting here tonight.

The devil done killed you honey. That's right honey. That's right. Brother we got to come back honey. You want to be saved? You want to die? Okay. Anybody anxious to die tonight? Well die. God will give you life.

The Lordship of Christ and True Conversion

Jesus is Lord. Was the only authentic confession of faith then that is now. Why honey? Charlie says talk about it. I trusted Jesus as my Savior. I wouldn't keep a flea out of hell. Because anybody could accept Jesus as their Savior.

But I just read one verse of scripture here. That all of you can quote by heart I trust. Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a curse. I'm percussing Jesus.

The Holy Spirit don't help him. But the rest of the verse says that no man can save. No man can save. I ain't talking about your little old will. That ain't worth a dime. But no man will ever be able to save.

That Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Ghost. A fellow asked me today what Calvinism was. I said what kind of animal is that? I don't know about Calvinism. In Kentucky a Calvinist is a fellow that believes you get saved, live like hell and go to heaven when you die.

In Winston-Salem a Calvinist is a fellow that believes you make confession of faith, you're eternally secure and you'll go to heaven. In other places a Calvinist is a fellow that don't believe God's going to save but a few folks and they're so glad about it.

So I ain't particularly interested in that term, neither is your pastor. But here's what I'm interested in. We're trying with all of our hearts, in spite of all the preachers and the seminaries and the schools and the churches, to be true to the souls of men.

I can look you in the face and tell you that unless you get to the place you come in crying to God to do for you what you can't do, you'll never be able to call Jesus Lord and mean it and tell the truth.

It just ain't begun, honey. You ain't going to bow to Jesus. He won't ever love you unless God Almighty operates on your heart. You better start crying to God to perform a miracle inside. No man can call Jesus the Lord.

No man. While the woods are full of... Houston's full of folks that are raised in hell tonight that have accepted Jesus, whatever that means, as their Savior. But that just won't work. Let me tell you something.

In Colossians 2 and 6 it says, "...as ye have therefore received Jesus the Lord, so king Jesus will walk unto his rule.". That's how you get to heaven when you die. That's right. That's right. It's silly to speak of faith in Christ the Savior if you're not committed to the Lordship of Christ in your life.

Amen. Unless you're positively opposing the Lordship of Christ in your own life. Blessed God, it tells us in Romans chapter 8, "...sin shall not lord it over you any more.". That's talking to men and women who gilded themselves to Christ.

It's silly to talk about being a Christian if you're not waging a daily battle against sin in your life. There are but two reasons anybody hears me tonight still unsaved. One is you never heard the truth.

The other is you're not willing to accept the condition of repentance and discipleship whereby the gospel may become for you personally the power of God unto salvation. You can't believe apart from repentance.

The God whose commandment is life everlasting commands all men everywhere to repent. You cannot share life apart from repentance toward him. If you don't quit talking about we will not have this man reign over us, you're going to split hell.

Men want to be free, and everybody I speak to tonight is free. You're free of the Lordship of Christ, you're free of divine restraint, you're free of holy obligation, and you're free of saving grace, and you're free of eternal life, and you're free of all prospect of heaven, or you're free either of the dominion of Christ and the prospect of heaven, or you're free of sin.

It no longer can lord it over you. Every man's free to serve his master, sin, or Christ. Oh, my soul, three times in the book of Luke, gospel chapter 14, my lord says, cannot, ye cannot. I believe I'm going to take time to read it.

I've got Mark here put on you. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, ye in his own life, he cannot be my disciple. You keep fiddling around placing your children and your husband and your mother and your father in the place where Christ ought to be, and you cannot be Christ's disciple.

And whosoever does not bear his cross, that means a death that takes place daily. Cross means death, brother. And come after me, cannot be my disciple. All of this tomfoolery about being saved and yet not serving the Lord and not loving the Lord and not walking in holy obedience is a bunch of tomorrow.

You can't be his disciple unless you know what it is to bear the cross of daily death. And then he says, so likewise whosoever he be of you that forsake not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple. You can't be any kind of a Christian as long as you own a dime, as long as you own a home, as long as you own a car, as long as you own a reputation, as long as you own anything, you're going to forsake it all.

It's his to start with. You're going to recognize it, honey. You're going to hell. The only authentic confession of faith in any age is Jesus his Lord. Amen. Thank God. The ultimate confession of all mankind is Jesus his Lord.

Every Knee Will Bow to Jesus Christ

Amen. This is my hope. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, taught it not robbery to be equal with God. I wish you young people would understand this.

You sit way back there. I guess none of you know the Lord. Surely that must be so. And you don't listen to me. He taught it not robbery to be equal with God. But he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto the Father up to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Is that going to go to waste? Is God going to ignore that?

God's answer, wherefore hath highly exalted him and given him a name that hath the name given unto Jesus.

Everything shall be for things in heaven they'll all bow and things in earth.

Things under the earth and that all confess that Jesus Christ is the glory of God. We're all cut out of the pattern of life. Somebody agree with us. Bless God. One day old Adolf Hitler is going to agree with Rothbard.

Adolf is going to say Jesus is Lord. Old Butcher Kruscheff is going to say you're right Roth, we have him. Not to salvation but to the glory of the Father. Isn't it terrible? Somebody asked me if men were born to be saved.

I said no. Men born to be damned? No. But men are born to give glory to God. And you will brother. One day that only yours will last. To him whom the professors say wasn't even born to a virgin. Those professors are going to bow to him and say he's Lord.

Those devils that get inside of churches that were built by the blood and sweat of God's people and make fun of the character of my Lord and of his mother and of his queen. They're going to bow that at the name of him every knee.

You know on the cross the Lord Jesus Christ bought a world. And tonight he's got this world on his hands. And the gospel is a covenant simply that arrangement whereby God determined to save his people and dispose of this world.

Ladies and gentlemen Jesus Christ has got you on his hands. He's got to save you or damn you. He's got to do one or the other. He bought that all for responsibility. I'd hate to have that. I can't save anybody.

I can't damn anybody. Christ is under the under the word and instruction and delegation of the Godhead to save his people and dispose of this world. His shoulders are big enough to do it. He's got the soul that on Jesus this great big Jesus is big enough to dispose of every human being.

He's got in his soul that on him shall leave for ripples he'll never know never desert to dispose of. I wish I knew how to preach this living Christ. I wish your heart tingling burns you don't know him to know him.

To walk with him was altogether lovely. To see God's glory in his face. Bless his heart. Bless his heart. Life. Yes, since during the war we evangelists had trouble getting a ticket to ride on trains and planes.

Evangelizing Through the Living Lord

I remember one time I was going to Oklahoma Valley to Anniston, Alabama to hold a meeting. And they changed trains at Birmingham and they put me on a troop train to go 70 miles down to Anniston. I was the only civilian on the train.

And it turned out just before the World War I beg your pardon when they're calling out the National Guard in this country and Fort McClellan was the town I was going to and the car I was riding in was full of soldiers of the National Guard of the city of New York.

New York City. And it turned out later one of them was a Roman Catholic. It was full and they made way. I had one seat. We sat at the end of the car where one seat faced this way and one that way. You've seen it, you know.

And I found out the atmosphere and I wondered how on God's earth I might get in a word to them. And I didn't know. So I took out my New Testament non-obtrusively. I just began to read it. And a little while the fellow sitting next to me like a bastard he said isn't that New Testament you got?

I said yes. He said I kept on reading back and he said I didn't read what I wrote. I said you didn't? He said no. I kept on reading. He said would you mind letting me look at it? I said no. And two boys facing me like that.

And pretty soon I just preached them at the store. And as fire, as fire somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said preacher, preach this to me. And I looked and all those fellows had crowded down. Every last one of them was standing there.

And they said we can't hear you so good. And when you stand up and you stood up in that seat two of them, two of them held their helmets forward and fell. And I preached this living Lord. You see when I used to preach on the virgin birth they all believed that.

When I used to preach on the death of Christ they all believed that. When I used to preach on regeneration they all believed that. They think they were born again by being baptized. But they believe in it.

You can't find the doctrine in this book. Catholics did not put a sound on it. You know that? But I had something they didn't know anything about. I had a living Lord. They don't know nothing about him.

And I didn't cuss them out for being Catholics. I didn't tell them how wrong they were in that old mass and praying to the Virgin Mary to Mother Mary and all that. I just talked about my wonderful Lord.

And as the train pulled into Anderson, Alabama that Catholic bunch and I were singing a little chorus. I told them I am happy in Him. Just in Him. Happy just in Him. He feels day and night. That's what Catholic Kingdom and citywide means.

I saw 76 of them go down to the waters of baptism. Coming up in the midst of life. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life. The living Lord. And maybe you'll never be able to bow and go on to hell but in God's name if you can bow to King Jesus.

Reach in the devil of rebellion and cast it at his blessed feet. Throw that shotgun down and say my Lord.