Three Results of Paul's Commission — Rolfe Barnard

Meeting the Living Lord

We cannot go down the road to Damascus, like Saul of Tarsus, but we must not dare to rest, we must not find peace until we've had an actual meeting with the living Lord, until those three things are eternally and vividly true in our experience.

Paul's One Gospel and the Authority of Revelation

There was one thing that the Apostle Paul would not compromise about. He was dead certain there was only one gospel, and he had a holy hatred of anything that there to claim to be the gospel, if it wasn't a gospel.

He was not as charitable as us. He said, if any man come and preach another gospel which is not a gospel, and then he made the shoe fit a little tight. He said, anybody come preach anything I haven't preached, boy, that's something, isn't it?

He said, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed. I gave up on radio preaching years ago, as far as I'm concerned, because people who usually listen to messages on the radio believe everything they hear, and thus believe nothing.

You can get 14 different preachers, they parade on Sunday morning, and they're all saying something else. And everybody that listens to them believes everything they say, and that's not it. That's not it.

We must remember that we're not to settle upon our leaves until with Paul we can say according to my gospel, to my gospel. He's very dogmatic about this one thing. In verse 11 of chapter 1 of Galatians, he says, But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

All spiritual truth comes by revelation. It did to Paul. He said, You've heard of my manner of living in time past, the way I pass my days, and the Jews' religion. Not in Judaism, that is, God's had the stamp of God on it, but the Jews' religion was the perversion of Judaism, and the Jews' religion, the prosecutors of it, nailed the Lord to the cross.

He said, I was in it, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, lest I should have been in this thing. I was serious, I had something to live for, I'm going to stamp out. He said, This stuff going around here talking about that despised fellow who got his comeuppance and got exactly what he should have done according to the Old Testament on a tree, now these fools going around here claiming that they walk with him and talk with him and that he's not a doctrine, but he's a companion and to have communion with him.

He said, I'm going to put that heresy out of business if it's the last thing I ever do. He said, I got somewhere into it also. I profited in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers, but when it pleased God, but when it pleased God to reveal who separated me from my mother's womb and call me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.

Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and then returned unto Damascus. In that three years I went up to have a little talk with Peter up in the city of Jerusalem, stayed with him 15 days, but I didn't talk to any of the other apostles save James the Lord's brother.

Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. He was separated in his mother's womb. He was called by the God of all grace. The Son of God was revealed to him and in him on the road to Damascus.

The Resurrection and Saul's Conversion

There are two great miracles of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Christ and the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Those two single things, one, the act of God raising his son from the dead, and the other the act of the living Son, and confronting this man, revealing himself to him, those two things wrapped around them of the heart of Christianity.

Of course, deep experiences followed by chewing one's cud like the old cow upon them. I thought so many times about Paul, who was not in as big a hurry to give a testimony of the thing that happened 30 minutes ago as we do.

One time he said he was caught up in the third heavens and things were revealed to him, things went on that he couldn't tell anybody about. And 14 years later was the first time he dared, he still didn't tell what happened between him and God, for the concourse that goes on between the child of God and his father are intimate and are not to be brought out of the family closet.

Oh, I wish we believed that. But he chewed on that for about 14 years. I find the best way to pray is to chew on the Word. I don't know whether that's good for anybody else, just to chew on the Word, just like the old cow, just get full of the Word and try to digest a little of it.

And that's how people get full of the Spirit. And here's Paul, not conferring with flesh and blood after his Damascene experience, but thinking about it. And we must remember that his doctrine grew out of his experience, oh, yes.

And ours must, too. That way it will be fresh and have life in it, the other way it will be dead and it will bruise and hurt everything else. And so you have these epistles, and all of them find their genesis, all the theology of Paul about some things that immediately took place in his experience there on the road to Damascus, through his years, 30-odd of them, his doctrine, his epistles, his teaching goes out of his experience.

Three Immediate Results of Paul's Commission

But I want this morning to suggest three things that took place immediately. They didn't take place five minutes later, took place just like this, like a flash. They were given. They were direct. They were glories of certainty.

They were sudden facts that gripped the man's mind and soul. I want you to hear them as you have been accustomed to, remembering the difficulty you have in getting to Christ. Here is a man who was completely changed.

He was no more like Saul of Tarsus one second after this experience. He was a plum. So he's the man who could say that, for if any man be in Christ. He's a new creation. That wasn't something he thunk up, that was something that happened to him, so he could write it out for him.

I'm telling you, if you get to Christ, you're going to have to agonize, because we have to start with doctrine and try to get back to the experience, and that's hard sledding. We have to face the fact that most people who claim to get saved now pass from a state of no faith to a state of faith and nothing whatever ever happens.

We desperately need to be so confronted with Christ that we are three simple things that are the marks of a salvation experience with the living Christ. It happened just like this, Tarsus, not by reading the Bible, not by mastering truth, not by studying.

He found out by actual experience what this world gives lip service to, what deep down in our hearts all of us long to be able to say. I think most of us want to believe, whether any of us have been able to or not, but I believe we want to believe.

He found out that that person who was crucified between two thieves went by the name of Jesus. He was identified because there were many Jesuses that was a common name. He was the one that was from Nazareth, and he was the one that for a while had quite a following, and they left him, that they finally had to deal with.

He's the one that they actually hung on that tree. Those are facts. Don't need a Bible to tell you those things. That happened. There was a man by the name of Jesus. He was born in the city of Bethlehem.

Don't need a Bible to tell you that. That's so. In any history book, that just happened. That's so. He found out that that man was put in the grave, and that he was raised. He found that out. He was not by resisting the teachings of the Church, but by absolutely meeting him and experiencing him.

Oh, that's our great difficulty. Hell is going to be full of folks arguing about, I believe, the virgin birth of Christ, but they've never been born of the same spirit Christ was born of. I wouldn't be surprised about fighting fundamentalists contending for the resurrection of Christ.

They're not going to split hell wide open, because they've got a doctrine, but they do not have communion with Christ. You see, Paul never worked out a doctrine and then experienced the power of the resurrection, experienced the power, and then wrote out the explanation of it.

That's a difficulty. Do you know what that fellow found out? Mama didn't. He didn't have to go on what she said about it or anybody else. He found out that this Jesus was alive. I say to you that nothing's sure of that, if I'm the only person on earth that knows by experience that Christendom is not based on tradition or some visions that somebody said he had or anything like that, but based on something that occurred.

Once upon a time, this earth was visited by a man by the name of Jesus. Once upon a time, that man hung on a tree. Once upon a time, God raised him. Once upon a time, bless God, he was seen of me. No heavenly vision, no heavenly being blocked.

He moved to Damascus. Get this point now. Saul was going down the road to kill off some more Christians, and suddenly, years of preparation, he's kicking against the gold. Suddenly! That's the way it always comes.

It comes like that. You've read a scripture a thousand times. One time you read it, and there it is, been there all the time, and you never saw it. Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly, suddenly. Way back in my early ministry, when I had a little power, or times were different or something, I'd be preaching along, and a fellow would break out, and I'd say, I see, I see!

Well, bless God, he did. Revelation, Christ was made real to me. I say, break up the meeting. And somebody knew who that somebody was, a heavenly Messiah, still in majestic glory, who confronted Saul of Tarsus on the road.

He was the one who had been crucified on that train. If that hadn't happened, old Paul would have rolled up his sleeves, switched his chewing gum from one jaw to the other, and gone and killed fifteen Christians for every one he had.

He said, I knew it. I knew all the time that fellow Jesus was a blasphemer. I knew all the time these folks around here are lying about that fellow Jesus, the one that is crucified, about him being the Messiah.

I'm still looking for the Messiah, I'll have you understand. I believe in him as much as anybody, and I'm going to kill off all this heresy. Identify that fellow Jesus with that one that's the hope of the ages and the Messiah of God's people.

Now, poor old Saul had to eat crow, and he was confronted by Jesus, whom thou persecuted. My, he said it so. Oh, this one might seem he's a lie, but you know who he is. He's the same one that is the scandal of religion.

He's the one that wound up on a tree. He's alive now. You see, it's the problem of identification. The nation of Jews who lived in my Lord's time, every one of them believed in the Messiah who was to come.

But they said, you're not him. We won't have you to reign over us. You're a bottom dollar. It's a problem of identification now. Anybody in Pasadena that doesn't have great faith in Jesus, but they've got faith in some Jesus of the imagination.

Not this risen Lord who was a bloody. As they stoned him, he's telling the truth. He did see who? This crucified one. Now, you see, modernism magnifies the risen Lord. Fundamentalism knows nothing of the crucified Lord.

Fundamentalists magnify the crucified Lord, know nothing of the risen Lord. He's the same one. Fundamentalism is dead because they do not believe that Jesus is alive. They get you to trust wrong. A, B, C, bang!

They stand afar off and say, believe Jesus died for you, but don't lay hold of him. Trust your salvation to your inner father. He even said, I see Jesus. Where is he? He's the same one that was on the cross.

He's not there now. He's telling the truth. What these persecuted men and women go around saying about that leader that they held daily communion with. Let's tell them the truth. Paul found out just like this that the resurrection was God Almighty's act.

That what the followers of Jesus were claiming for Christ was now vindicated and attested by God Almighty himself. Ladies and gentlemen, the resurrection of Christ is nothing more or less than the privilege of watching the Holy God in action.

Seeing God's right arm being made bare. Experiencing God setting his seal on the claims his Son made when he was down here. Once in a while in the New Testament, Paul used active voice in reference to the resurrection.

But usually it's a passive. And time after time after time, God's time forbids me now. The resurrection of Christ is said to be the act of Almighty God. This is God on the scene. This is God saying who Jesus is.

This is God doing what history books cannot do. This is God doing what schools cannot do. This is God putting his seal on the person and the work and the claims and the prerogatives of this bloody offering.

He's alive who raised him. The Book of Romans says Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. Him hath God raised and exalted. This was God's act. That's the reason if you soak your soul in the epistles of this one, who one time went down in this condition of religious zeal and was confronted with the crucified Son of God now risen in such a way he couldn't get away from it!

You read his writings, you'll see everything he says. Points back to that startling truth which broke on that old boy there on the road to Damascus. That this business called Christianity or salvation was not based on vain invention or foolish tradition, but based on the very word and the guarantee and the act of a holy God.

I like to read time and time again that statement of Paul, of what he received from everybody else, the beginning at least of the gospel. How that God, how that he cried, Christ died for our sins according to the scripture and was buried according to the scripture and he rose again.

You students know that term, rose again, is in the perfect tense. And it wasn't just a matter of trying to be smart. But the reason Paul could write that and put the word rose again in the perfect tense, he knew what he was talking about, he said he arose and he's still alive.

I know, I've met him. Something happens and the action continues, that's the perfect. And I know it's not a dead doctrine, he rose from the dead and he's still alive. I know, I met him, I met him. I was confronted by him and I walked with him.

The problem of this age is whether or not there's a living God who has manifested himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. For all intents and purposes, this is the best of all possible worlds just now. And perhaps somebody started it, we're not certain.

But with few exceptions, all things go rock along as from the beginning. And apparently if there is a God, he's busy elsewhere or something's happened to him. That's the biggest problem of the ages. Oh, I get so crowded in my heart sometimes trying to tram-proof down people without the confirming evidence that's so lacking now that there is a living God.

To face that, how dare we claim to be representatives of the living God unless as a reality we know certainty is alive. We met him, he dealt with us, he touched us and set us on fire. Paul found out Christ was alive.

That's the great contribution any child of God could make to this generation that looking all about can find mighty little evidence that there is a living God, that he's alive. I didn't ask you if you fundamentally believe the book from cover to cover.

I didn't ask you if you can write out a good paper on the resurrection. I say we must not settle for anything except such an experience. He can say, I know whom I believe. And then in the second place something happened to Paul just like this.

Conviction of Christ's Sonship

And you follow me as carefully as you can. I'm on a difficult thing now. You see, I'm preaching a generation that calmly accepts the death of Christ. And I don't know whether anybody can get saved these days or not, because I'll tell you, if you look at the Bible, and especially of this patterns conversion, for the conversion of Paul is a pattern.

I'm telling you there's one thing, Brother C .O. Jackson, Jr., that Saul of Tarsus knew. Now, if there's one thing he knew for certain, well, that Jesus wasn't the Son of God. Now, he knew that. Trouble is, you've been raised.

And when Papa talks to you about him, until that was certain in this town, oh yes, I believe he's the Son of God. I don't know whether there's any chance for them to get saved or not, because they haven't got any conviction.

But if there's one thing that made old Saul of Tarsus take, he had scripture to back it up. There's one thing that is death certain with that man. When you talk to him, he knew that Jesus was not the Son of God.

He knew that Jesus was a blasphemer. He knew that Jesus was lying. He could prove it. I'll tell you how he could prove it. All he had to do was quote scripture. And if any man hath committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree.

Get rid of him. Don't let that old double-barrel sinner that's hung to a tree, don't let him hang on that tree. Take him down. Put him six feet underneath so he won't corrupt the earth anymore. Thou shalt in any wise bury him that very same day.

He that is hanged is a corrupt man. You see what I'm driving at? Oh yes, I believe in Jesus. You've done that all your life. I don't know whether you'll ever get saved or not because there's one thing dead certain.

The Apostle Paul is the man who could write. No man by the Spirit cusses out Jesus, calls him a curse, but by the same token. And that's what I'm pleading for. That's what I wish God Almighty would give me power until some of us would face it.

No man. I don't care how nice and sweet you are. I don't care all about your prayers and your religious duties and how much money you gave. No man can call Jesus that fellow that hung on a tree between two thieves.

And that was a sure sign. You're crazy, brother. Yet identify in his blood. I'm accused of taking all hope away from this generation who claim they've changed from no faith to faith. I'm telling you right now, I don't believe it can happen apart from a miracle in your life just as great as that one in Saul of Tarsus.

That in a flash enables Saul of Tarsus to write not as a doctrine to be accepted, but as an experience of his soul. Holy Law. But how on earth did he do it? For a saint. Let the other brethren handle the theories of the atonement.

This is it. And it comes by revelation. Like a flash, his doctrine of substitution was clear. I'll tell you what happened. You know what happened, brother Jackson? Israel, under the curse of a holy God.

And he hung on that tree under the curse of a holy God for his own sins, but for mine. You see, I read about the 13-year-old Spurgeon wrestling with the problem of how a holy God could show mercy to him.

And then I see this easy getting to Jesus. Oh, yes, I'm saved. God, they've never wrestled for one second. How on earth this miracle could take place? Well, Paul experienced it, brother Jackson, and thus he could write it.

I'll tell you how it happened. God Almighty, some way, somehow, the tongue of men could not describe his own son. Let him be anathema. I tried to preach on it last night. That's what it means to be forsaken of God.

Oh, his doctrine of substitution, the foolishness, the scandal, the curse, he had to pay. That is real to him, brother. Today they argue about the different theories of the atoning work of Christ. Paul experienced it.

And like a flash, the Holy Spirit showed him that that man Jesus, whom he knew was not God because he was hanging on that tree, that he was God manifest in the flesh, and that God bruised his own son and cursed him and laid sin upon him.

And worse than that made him to be sin. I don't claim to understand that. That same man could have blood kinship to a fellow named Peter, who would say, it's of men and women, not the intellectual creeds of us.

Surrender and Life in Christ

But my time is gone. There's one other thing that dead sure happened just like that. He was led into the truth by experience that Christ is alive. He experienced what this dying on a cross is all about.

And brother, he was brought to utter surrender to this revealed God in Jesus Christ. And with all the passion of his soul, he responded. You know what he did? He gave himself, he sold himself out, he surrendered to the revealed God.

And he worshiped Christ. And brother, he's in a different sphere now. 176 times in the New Testament this man was going down the road to Damascus one day and something happened to him, brother. He changed locations.

176 times he'll tell about what it is to be a child of God in the expression or an equivalent to it, in Christ. He lives in Christ now. Christ is there. He breathes in the water. He drinks in the food he eats.

He lives in a different sphere. I knew a man in Christ. In Christ. In Christ. In Christ. He is now as unlike the man who set out for Jerusalem as the noonday is to midnight. His life is unlike death. His whole outlook, his whole world, his whole nature, his moral sense, his life purpose, they were changed.

He went down, started down the road to Damascus. A man set on, wiping off the face of the earth every memory of this man, Jesus. Something happened to him. He was a man in Christ. In Christ. In Christ.

I know as a doctrine we say in Adam all die. So in Christ shall all be made alive. It must be more than a doctrine. It must be an experience. In Christ. In Christ. I challenge you. I encourage you. I plead with you.

I entreat you. Since no one knows how it is with you except you and God, in this day of hope so, maybe so, probably, I might accidentally know a few things and I hope maybe I'll get to heaven. Don't settle for less than happened to him until not as a doctrine but as experience.

You can sing up from the grave, he arose. So not as a doctrine to be argued about. My eyes have been chewed and spit up all these centuries of time. That glorious thing that took place under on Golgotha's hill on a tree where a man was made a curse.

Until the glory of that wonderful transaction is real to you. Until that makes you a conqueror. A lady came up last night in a very kind way and said, Brother Preacher, how could one go about making one's calling and election sure?

Well, don't claim to be a Christian unless you've been called. Unless you've had dealings with a living God. And then if you can go that far, wait just a minute. I'm going to talk to you a little while.

Why persecute us, darling? He heard from heaven. Brother, if you can convince me a sinner to get saved any other way now, I'll have to come down here and enter school and learn what the gospel is. But it can't do it.

He called the spies, and that's not a doctrine, that's a voice. Listen to him that still speaketh. God help you. And then take the book of Peter and start with beside all this add to your faith, and so forth and so forth.

That's the way. Roll up your sleeves and give all diligence to make your calling and election sure. Do you know Christ is alive? By your own experience. Are you writing out a paper on what happened on the cross?

By your own experience. Somebody was made a curse instead of you. Amen? Have you been brought? Wilt thou have me to do? With the meekness of a little child, listen to him. Get instruction from him. Ain't that salvation?

Can he? Is it with you? Is it somebody to whom the Lord's dealing, with whom the Lord's dealing right now? And he's enabling you. How merciful that would be. The place right now, you could do what Saul did, fall at his feet.

That settles it. Here I am. I'm on your hands. Isn't that a sweet sight? Old blind Saul. One man on one side, one on another. God said, well, you go on and I'll give you instructions. They lead that old blind boy down to a city called Strait.

He's in the hands of him to whom he's committed himself for time and eternity. Put his safe hands. He's in the keeping, in the care, in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to fall at his feet this morning.

Absolutely crushed and conquered. The truth of the gospel. Nothing more or less than that cursed one. He is cursed for something in somebody. And that risen one, he is raised to justify somebody. I always sing I'll follow after Jesus to that tune.

If you ought to make response this morning, you do it publicly. That's why I always sing.

I had just a minute last night. The meeting broke some, just a little bit. It's been difficult.

It's been awfully tight. You've been faithful. We yet want to seek great victory. But please God, I'm a little bit encouraged. And I want you to do real service to the plea of your pastor if there's any way on earth you could bring somebody tonight to hear yourself.

I'm especially anxious about the message tonight. A dear man came after the service last night and said thank you for preaching that message. He brought some last night. He'd been witnessing to for two years.

But for the first time, I'd been after him two years. He got him in the service and there were some marks of confusion. I watched people as they preached and I noticed a lady and a man. They looked at me with that blank stare as I preached.

Receiving and Keeping the Word

I knew again that the natural man received it, not the things of the Spirit. I said I wonder what that fool preacher's talking about. But that's the first work of the Holy Spirit. I long that the Spirit will first confuse and rob and strip and then please him.

And I beg you for Christ's sake, be in the Spirit about the service tonight. I feel deeply constrained to ask you to sing I Will after Jesus one more time. I believe there's somebody here in the Valley of Decision right now.

I just feel that way. I may be wrong. It wouldn't hurt. God's speaking to you. He's confronting you. In reality as it is in Christ. Down to Damascus. I've been in problems. To hear a message like this and soon forget it.

I encourage you in this revival meeting, shut that radio off unless it's something that'll refresh your soul. If you go home, turn your television set on, start looking at orthography and a bunch of junk like that, you'll lose what you've heard.

If you get with frivolous company, people that have no mind for godly things. That's why Satan steals the seed, steals the Word. That that fell on shallow ground or the birds of the air came snitched it away.

People that hear the Word with joy, but as soon as they leave, they straightway forget what they've heard. And that can be done many ways. You go home with somebody, you get to gossiping and talking about foolish, frivolous things, you'll lose this message.

And if you read something, you'll lose this message. I mean, if you don't read the right things, if you don't feed your soul on what you've heard today, you'll lose what you've heard. Many people are moved and touched and brought face to face with the realities of God and their soul is stirred.

But they don't take into consideration what it takes to keep that fire burning. That's the reason God's given us the Word. This Word fans the flame. Think on holy things. Think about eternity. It's an awful thing to go to hell.

And your close friends, they'll send you to hell if you're not careful. Somebody said, oh, I just got to go see Mama. I'll tell you, well, you better keep your mind on the Lord. If Mama's not spiritual, it won't take but a few hours for you to spend with her and you'll lose everything you ever got in one of these services.

You say, well, I tell you, I've got a dear friend. Well, if that dear friend doesn't love the Lord, snitch the holy seed that's been sown. I just felt impressed to tell you that. It's easy to lose from one service to the next everything you've got.

Far from somebody who can't come maybe but to the morning service, the devil's got 24 hours to steal the seed away. And I tell you, he can do a good job of it. He can do a good job of it. Think this afternoon and in these days, think on Christ.

And I want to say this, you'll never live for Jesus if you've got to be with somebody all the time. I mean, if it kills you to be with yourself, you'll never amount to a hill of beans for God. Never will.

Nobody ever lived for the Lord that didn't get off to themselves and muse and meditate on the things of God. That's one reason Christianity is so different. Of course, it's not in the Bible, but it's looked upon as different today.

A hundred years ago, people spent time alone. Today, telephone, automobiles, communications are tight, live close together. There's just a constant humdrum. These messages that have been brought bringing us face to face with the realities of judgment and eternity.

Prayer for Spiritual Reality and Perseverance

Not easy to lose. Not easy to lose if we don't keep our mind on the things of God. Let's pray. Dear Lord, the truth has been preached today. Father, we're grateful for truth because truth is the only thing that's going to make us free.

As Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. And our Lord, we pray that Thou would give us the grace to become unlearned that we might learn of the things of the Lord. Now, our Father, in this congregation today, there's no doubt about it, there are some people here that make no pretense of knowing the Lord.

And yet, our Father, we pray that they'll consider the seriousness and the solemnity and the awful person without Christ. Lord, may they go home. May they meditate. May they think on what they've heard.

And dear Lord, we pray that they'll spend some time with God. And then, our Father, our church members, all of us, help us to think on the things of the Lord. Help us to meditate. Help us to muse. Oh, may this be a time of soul searching and heart searching like we've never done before.

Our Father, we know it's easy to get waterlogged. On doctrine and these great things of God's Word. Lord, it's easy to get waterlogged just on the Bible and yet be dead as a doornail. We pray, Lord, that God's Word will become a living Word.

A living reality in our own hearts. And Lord, help us to experience what Paul experienced. Lord, may there be a complete change. May there be complete, total, unconditional surrender. And our Father, constantly every day, help us to make our calling and election sure.

Help us to examine ourselves to see if we really be in the faith. Stir our souls by Thy Holy Spirit. We thank Thee today for every visitor. Lord, may their hearts say within them and be a witness within them as they leave that the Lord was present in that service.

And Father, stir their hearts to return to the House of the Lord to hear the message of God as it's preached. Anoint our preacher with unusual power. Our Father, we realize that if a supernatural thing happens in our midst, it'll have to be of God.

And so, Lord, stir our hearts with Thy Holy Spirit and give us a good service tonight. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.