The Lordship of Jesus Christ — Rolfe Barnard

The Preacher’s Deliverance from Infidelity

Would you open the Bible to the book of John's gospel at chapter 18. And while you're turning, the pastor made a request, just a request, that I bring the message tonight, or today sometimes, on how the Lord saved me from infidelity.

Organized an infidel club in the Southern Baptist College. Had over 300 young Baptists join my club. I was the president of it. I found out it's a lot easier to lead men to hell than it is to Christ. And God showed mercy to this infidel.

Infidelity as Rebellion Against God’s Rule

I'd like for us to think a little while tonight about what infidelity is. Somebody said there are no atheists in foxholes. There are no atheists anywhere. Everybody believes as a supreme being, you're a human being.

But there are infidels, and they're in our pulpits, teaching our Sunday school classes, gracing our pews. Infidels, the fellow that says, I know there's a God, but he's not going to run my life. No God for me.

And to be honest with you, that's what churches are manufacturing now, people who with their lips claim Jesus as Savior, but have built a fence about their life, and told God to stay out. Hell's going to be so full of Baptist preachers and Baptist deacons and Baptist Sunday school teachers, it'll be running over.

For they profess with their mouths, but where their hearts do not know the living Lord and the Lord of life. Now I hope the Lord will not hurt in the service system. Now let me hurt you. It's a little difficult to listen to me, because I am a hitchhiker.

I go from place to place, and usually it takes people a week to know what I'm talking about. And you can't get much out of a message unless you've heard me a few times. Because whether I'm right or wrong, I've been crossing the grain of our Baptist so-called doctrine.

I'm inside now, not on the outside. I am a Baptist. But we Baptists have been filling hell full of church members, and I've been screaming against it. Now I hope that you can hear me this morning. There are three questions that deserve an answer.

First they ought to be asked, and then they ought to be answered. I'm aware of the fact that nobody's asking these questions now, but I pose them for you anyhow. The most important question you'll ever ask, if you ever get around to it, is who is Jesus?

The First Question: Who Is Jesus?

Who is Jesus? Now everybody in the world today got some opinion about who Jesus is. Unless you come up by revelation with God's answer, you'll split hell wide open. Richard Naber, one of the prophetic voices of this hour, quotes from one of the Russian, the Stavkis, I can't pronounce that word, D-O-E-S-T-O-V-S-K-Y, the Stavkis, one of his novels, in which this Russian tells the table, of course, of a man who walked for a thousand years to get one look at Jesus.

And then he walked a thousand years back home. And when he got back home after the two thousand year interval of walking, somebody said, was it worth it? And he said, yes, it was worth it. That almost breaks your heart.

When you remember that he is Baptist, made salvation by man's decision instead of God revealing of Christ some forty years ago. And that this generation is a total stranger to the Christ of the Bible.

And if you have any of the milk of human kindness, much less a little drop of the grace of God within you, you wish you could put your arms around this generation of church people and get them to take time to get just one look at the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I don't guess you've got time, while the preachers will get you to make a decision and they'll bury you and they'll send you to hell, because you're so busy you'll never have Christ. All of his glory made real to you.

That's salvation. The second most important question you ever face, you ever find out who Jesus is, wouldn't do any good to trust him, unless he's the Jesus of the Bible, would it? And the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of our church circles, not the saints.

The Second Question: What Did Jesus Do on the Cross?

The second most important question you'll ever face, and I hope you'll ask it someday, I don't expect you've got time, most folks are too busy to go to heaven, is what did Jesus do on that cross? And what's he doing now on that throne that'll do you any good anyhow?

Did he do anything that you need to be done in your behalf, while he hung on that tree outside the city of Jerusalem, that'll help you? You need anybody to do anything for you? On a tree shed his blood?

Most folks don't. They say I'm as good as the church people, that ain't nothing to brag about. But they're not interested in whether Jesus did anything on the cross or not. They just don't care. You think I'm wrong, you go out on the streets of Bennett, I looked for 15 minutes for it this morning, I haven't found it yet.

It's reading out a little late. I don't know where Bennett is, the preacher said this outfit here was invented, but I don't know about that. I'm going to investigate as to say. And I wonder what Jesus is doing now, seated at the right hand of the majesty on high.

What is he doing anything now that'll do you any good? You could get an interest in it. And the third most important question that anybody will ever ask, I doubt if you'll ever ask it, and come up with the right answer, is what does it mean to be vitally united to this Jesus who did something on a tree outside the city of Jerusalem?

The Third Question: What Does It Mean to Be United to Christ?

And the Bible says he's doing something now at the right hand of God's majesty on high. You need any of that. Mother Hubbard of the English language now is S-A-V-E-D saved. It doesn't mean a thing on God's earth to the average person.

This morning will you let me go into where you let me not, but will you try to hear me as I speak to you on the second of these three questions? I do it because I hope that you're not a Sunday morning outfit and that you'll do what your beloved young pastor has urged.

Try to get a hearing for the message. The Lord has saved many thousands of people as I brought the message to bring tonight. He may not save anybody. He's running it, you know. But I wish you could get them to hear me.

And I hope this message will help you hear me tonight. Why did Jesus die raising from the dead? Now, the only Jesus we have any record at all of is a Jesus who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on a tree, was buried in another man's tomb, but didn't stay there.

God raised him from the dead and exalted him, made him prime minister, totalitarian dictator, absolute despot of everything that thrives and reigns. Now, that's the only Jesus we got any record of at all.

Of course, I know that seminary professors, and I'm a graduate of one of them. By the way, I'm going to get to be on a conference in Arkansas with Dr. Pinnock. He's the fellow that's been stirring us Baptists up, so I'm looking forward to that.

And Dr. Vaughn of Southwestern, and Dr. Havlick of the Home Mission Board, and Dr. Millikan of the Southern Baptist College in Arkansas. And you won't believe it, Curtis, it's the Sovereign Grace Conference.

And one half of the Southern Baptist Preachers of Arkansas to be the invited guest. I'm looking forward to that. I tried straightening out seminary professors 35, 6, 40 years ago, but they wouldn't listen to me.

But I'm going to have time with them. Well, I won't charge anything extra for that. I know that people have invented a Jesus other than the one of the Bible. But the only record we've got of them is in the minds of those unsaved men.

The only Jesus we've got any kind of evidence that ever existed is the Jesus this book talks about. What did he do? And why did he do it on the cross? And what's he doing now? And what good would it do anyhow?

Jesus Before Pilate: Born to Be King

In the 18th chapter of the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus, just before his crucifixion, is before the Roman governor of the Jews, a fellow by the name of Pilate. And I just ask you to look at verse 37 of this 18th chapter of John.

This is not my text, but it will prepare you for the text. Pilate, that's the Roman governor, therefore, said unto him, That's the Lord Jesus. Are you a king then? Remember, Pilate didn't know who he's talking to.

Pilate said, Are you a king? They claim you claim to be. And Jesus answered, Thou seest that I am a king. Now watch it carefully. To this end, for this purpose was I born. And for this cause came I into the world.

I was born to be a king. And that's the reason I came into the world. My language couldn't be any plainer than that. I should bear witness unto the truth. The Lord, when he was here, was God's prophet, and his death demonstrated his kingship.

He'd speak to the way, he'd still, and they'd be still. He'd command to the demons to depart, and they'd skedaddle to the house. He demonstrated, this is the era of the time of television. And the advertisers have learned that one ounce of showing demonstration was a pound of talking.

I try my dead level best to get my wife to buy some of the things. They advertise on television, she buys them, and they don't do quite what they say. Now, they've got some wax polish you can put on that kitchen linoleum that you can see yourself in.

But it won't work when it gets over to my house. But the Lord demonstrated his kingship. I'm a king, yes sir! That's the reason I was born. And that's the reason I came into the world, to bear witness unto the truth, the truth of why I was born and why I came into the world.

The Gospel Is Not a Mere Religious Decision

And here's a verse that'll top you down off your religious high horse if you're on one. And if you've been listening to what's called the popular gospel of this hour, somewhere on the radio or somewhere, and put it down if you heard it on the radio, it ain't so.

God knows if anybody gets saved in spite of these radio preachers, it'll be a miracle. Everyone that is of the truth, my boy, a son when the Lord says, I was born to be a king. That's the reason I came into this world, is you're one of the truth.

The reason you don't listen is you're going to hell. That's why you're going. And the reason you're going to hell is that you're not of the truth. And this 14th chapter of the book of Romans, chapter 9, is our text.

Verse 9 of Romans 14. For this purpose, that this might take place to this end. Christ both died, might be Lord, both of the dead and living. In these two verses of scripture, now here, Brother Barnard, you've got the only two places in the scripture, it tells us exactly why Christ died and was raised from the dead.

Both of them tell you he is born and he preached in John. He is raised in Romans just to do one thing, not to be a savior, but to be Lord. Let me repeat, I have offered $500 award, I'll give it to you this morning, if you'll show me one line of scripture that gave us any reason for accepting Jesus as our personal Savior.

That's blasphemy, it's anti-scripture, and it's filling hell with Baptists. That's the reason we have to have a rich Christ, you know, to get all the unsaved Baptists down there to surrender to the Lord.

When you surrender to the Lord, that's when you get saved. Now, the scripture says he loved us and gave himself for us that he might deliver us from this present age, but that's just saved people. Here's something that ain't just talking about saved people.

Christ’s Lordship Over the Dead and the Living

You want to tell you why Christ died and God raised and put him on the throne? He might be both of the dead and the living. Bible scholars divide on whether this is physical death and physical life or spiritual death and spiritual life, but it comes out the same thing, which I believe is spiritual.

But whatever the interpretation comes out the same, talk of the world. John was born in a couch stable, lived in a body of humiliation, hung between two malefactors on a tree, buried in another man's tomb, swaddled in another man's clothing, perfumed with somebody else's bodily ointment.

God raised him and enthroned him so that he might re-establish the sovereign rule of Almighty God over everything that rises and comes. I stopped at a little brick church house somewhere. I turned off 22, etc. and finally found the sign, Beulah Church, and I came to a little church up there somewhere, and the graveyard right in front of it.

How come there's no graveyards out there? There's no graves. Get in the mess we're in. Chewing tobacco? No. Getting drunk? No. Going to pick a show? No. Committing adultery? No. Rebelling against the rule of Almighty God?

Yes. Adam and Eve and you and I were present to Scripture saying it wasn't just his sin, it was ours. God made one little prohibition to establish that he was God and we were his subjects, and we said we'll not do it and we won't be under your rule.

The Incarnation and Mediation of Christ

That most majestic scripture ever penned, God was in calling the world to himself. You said in a million years you'll never enter into that, you just worship, can't understand it. But in time, God, very God, and very man.

And if this isn't so, just always let it go home. There's nothing to anything if this book isn't stored. It doesn't give us the perfect record of the revelation of God in Christ to do sinners good. Manifest in the flesh, said John, despised him and rejected him and counted him a cross.

Send us some advice, he came down here. Became a million man, very man, just like you and me. So we could understand his language. And since man sinned, man had to be the told the mediator, for there is one mediator between God and man, the what?

The man, Christ Jesus. You know what they did? You listen, you can hear Ralph Barnard's old voice worn out through years, screaming, God, Jesus Christ, and died on the cross. Establish God in this world.

And everything that lies and wriggles from Adolf Hitler to Khrushchev to Stalin to the murder of a president and a senator and a Negro leader in your day and mine to the slum of the earth under the blessed rule of St. Jesus.

And the devil, even we can highlight the direct permission of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Hallelujah, what a savior. Take a pull, I tell you, I brag on him. He's a fine fellow. This Christ died to establish God's rule.

Christ Must Reign Until All Things Are Subject to Him

God turned everything over to Christ, and that means Christ's rule. And for he must reign, 1 Corinthians 15, until everything be subject to him. And when that's done, and old Hitler bows and says, Jesus is Lord.

When the murder of Senator Kennedy bows and says, Jesus is Lord. When the murder of our President Kennedy bows and says, Jesus is Lord. The professors that are saying God is dead. And then the school teachers that are teaching evolution to our kids.

This society that's got this because the leaders have sold out to the dollar and gold. And bowed in the subjects of the King Jesus. Then he gonna turn to the Father that God may be all in all, including scripture.

Brother, you can't win. Hallelujah, what a savior. He saves people, establishing his rule in your life. That's what it means to save. The first time you ever hear the gospel as gospel, you'll be saved.

Salvation as Receiving a New Master

Several years that the gospel ain't good news to you. Because in the language of dear old Vance Halfman, he said, I went to the old-fashioned Mona's Beach when I was a boy, and they took me through the motions, and I didn't know what it was all about.

But when I got up off my knees, I understood one thing. I had a new master. That's it, Lord. I had a new master, and he's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's salvation, isn't it? A new master. Praise God, he's precious.

I'm vile, but he's precious. Yes. Lord, by God's decree, absolute rule over my thoughts, my body, my spirit, my word, my worship, things, is not based on our recognition of it, but on God's recognition of his word when he hung on that glory cross.

Men do not meet Jesus, Lord. That's what they do down at Ridgecrest. I've been there, and all over the country. Look like I ain't much of a Baptist. Brother, I'm giving Baptist unchurched hell. I want to get back to the Christ of the Bible.

And then they'd kick me out of church. Listen. Who made Jesus, Lord? Almighty God. I will declare that yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion, Psalms 2. I will declare the decree. I won't ask anybody's advice.

The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I'll give thee the healing for thine inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession. Who made Jesus, Lord?

God Almighty. In John chapter 17, look at it. These words speak Jesus, verse 1, and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, thou hast come. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him excelsior authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life.

He gives eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Acts 2 .36, therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made thee crucified, both man and Messiah. I think one of the most damnable things that is ever invented to suit the popular taste of people who don't want to go to hell but don't want to be under God's rule and have been the heart of what's called the gospel in our circles these many years is that you take Jesus as your savior, but there ain't no such animal, and sometimes it's convenient to surrender to him as Lord.

God Made Jesus Lord

And we say, won't you pretty please make Jesus your Lord? Honey, you can't. God beat you to it. He made Jesus your Lord. And you're his subject, willing or unwilling, and you're glad or mad, but glad or mad, he's been made your Lord.

Now this is the heart of evangelism and missions. I ask much confidence in you, blessed pastor, that I take a little liberty. What we call missions has been a joke. My God, I'm glad God put it out of business.

Maybe we'll buy a survival. Been sending folks over to China to beg those people to take Jesus. The gospel don't beggin' but do and take the heart of China. Jesus, he owns it in the house. And say we are occupied in the name of the Christ alone, about us.

That's it. That's right. That's it. That's it. He's got sense enough to come around rain and go around this country begging anybody to take anybody. He's going around, and if you are saved, you are giving voice to him.

God Almighty's turned the heathen over to him, the nations for his possession. Everything that's loose at one end and kind of rattling at the other, under his control. China and Russia and every place.

Godless America belongs to Jesus Christ. He bought it on the cross. And you belong to him. He bought you on the cross. He's Lord, bow down. That's evangelism. His lordship is deserved. He who sought it not, robbery.

To be equal with God himself. Took upon himself the form of a servant. Was found in the fashion and likeness of men. And became obedient to the Father, up to the point of death. I'm quoting Philippians 2.

Every Knee Will Bow to Jesus Christ

Even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also hath highly exalted him. The only time in the Bible that word exalted appears. And given him a name. Which is above every name, that it's a name given unto Jesus.

Revelation tell you who it is. Lord of Lord, King of King. That it's a name given unto Jesus. Every knee should bow. Every tongue confess. Well, what's been so long, sir? You just didn't find it out till God put his foot on your neck and made you and then sent you to hell.

But you, to the glory of the Father. Not to your salvation, but to God's glory. God's going to get the glory out of you if he sends you to hell. And the way he's going to get it, he's going to make you bow.

Sit down until thine enemy hath made thy foot speak. Just the sound lest he be angered and rise up in his wrath. You can't win. Hallelujah, he deserves to be loved. One of the old Puritans said, he sits on God's throne of majesty on high.

He got there by wading through the pool of his own blood. Our salvation, you better hear this. Our salvation must be grasped, the salvation into that Lordship. And with this life, passion of absolute obedience and reconciled communion.

Salvation Means Obedience to Christ’s Mastery

We've got so many people running around here, they'll say, but the will of God's not central in their life. The one big thing that makes you tick is not the will of God. If it isn't, you're going to hell.

That's what salvation's all about. We're to be conquered by him, that's salvation. Mastered by him, that's salvation. Obedience hath come for liberty, brother. He deserves and demands not our sympathy, but our worship.

Christ deals with no man as savior until his sovereign rule is established in your life. This whole universe is beautiful this morning. An awful hot, beautiful Zadro. It's a beautiful world. It is created to echo the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what it's all about. And the sovereign Lord receives his subjects. He doesn't plead to anybody he receives. He's not standing on the outside of your heart door, he's sitting on the throne. And the child who can find but one place to glory, and that's the cross.

It's tickled to death. That's the one who deserves it. It's God's prime ministry, God's law. And the child of God is willing to go to hell if the glory of Christ will be served. A hundred years ago, you couldn't get baptized in the Baptist Church in America unless you could say that.

Unless you're willing to go to hell, if that'd give glory to Christ, you know nothing about faith. Religion, says a deep thinker, has a meaning for men only if it finds in history a point to which it can absolutely surrender.

Men can answer the revelation of God in Christ only by choice or resolve or committal. The final meaning of conversion is not deliverance merely, but surrender and service to the uttermost. The God of absolute deliverance is also the holy God of an absolute demand that will not let go.

The chief sign of salvation is not a sense of freedom, but an experience of mastery and obedience. He takes possession of us and that is conversion. If he saves you, it is that he may be our clean. And the last word of my Lord is not I save.

The last word of my Lord is I clean. I clean you. I brought you. You belong to me. You're not your own. You're mine. My time's up, but I take two, three minutes for my last poem. Not only is he God's Lord by God's decree.

Christ’s Joy in Saving and Judging

God made him Lord. Of everybody. Not just saved people. Everybody. Not only is he God's Lord because he deserves to be. He died on the cross and there he brought you. But thank God he's God's Lord because he desires to be.

Now this looks like it's going to contradict the rest of my sermon. But follow me. In Hebrews chapter 12. By foreseeing we all so accomplished about, with so great a crowd of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.

Let us run the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Who for the joy. I've wondered what that was. Who for the joy that was set before him. Some joy was set out before our Lord.

You know, and looking at that joy. In anticipatory rejoicing of that joy. He endured the cross, despising the shame. And now hallelujah, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. I wonder what that joy is.

Christ Bears the Responsibility of Salvation and Judgment

Now listen to Brother Barnes. He has my explanation. On the shoulders of my Lord Jesus Christ has been placed the responsibility of saving his own and banning everybody else. Of disposing of the universe.

Now my shoulder is not big enough to do that. But Isaiah says the government should be on his shoulder. The most solemn thing I've ever faced is that I've gone up and down the land this September for 43 years.

The last 36 of them I've been a hitchhiker evangelist going from place to place. I'll be leaving this Friday and I'm going to get home by nearly Christmas away from Paris. And I've lived these years and I'm not complaining.

I've had the best time you've ever seen. I've got a wonderful Lord to talk about. Now whether everybody loves him or not bless God he's a lovely Lord. Glory to God he's a lovely Lord. Praise God. Only Jesus can do sinners good.

But thank God he can. Well see, I've had to face men and women. My heart's gone out to them because for the last six years there hasn't been enough gospel preached in America to save a free. A hundred years ago our churches believed the gospel.

And now if you've got a pastor that preaches the gospel he's one out of a thousand. I mean among our Baptist preachers. That's a God school. This generation of church members never have heard the gospel.

And the chances are you're going to split your wide open. Because you won't hear the gospel because you've already believed what Paul called another gospel. And the most solemn thing I've ever faced is twofold.

Jesus Christ has got to save you or damage you. I can't save you. I can't damage you. He can save you. And he can damage you. Now here's the other proposition. The most damnable thing I ever heard preached was to try to get people to answer the question What?

Salvation Is a Gift, Not a Human Offer

Have you heard that song? Jesus is standing in your door. What will you do? Now that or damn anybody that listened to it. One time my Lord came and offered himself as the Messiah of the Jews. That's the only offer he's ever made.

They rejected him. Now he's rejected them. Salvation's not an offer. Salvation's a gift. And Christ is the gift. Watch out. You don't give things to somebody unless you know they're going to be happy to get it.

Christ ain't going around here trying to get nobody to accept him unless your heart's long in time. He got more sense than we got. He knows you can lead a mule to water but you can't make him drink. If you don't want the fellowship of the saints and the joy of the Spirit and your feet on a rock and heaven on the way to heaven and life worth living, go to hell.

They'll find plenty of people that preceded you there. God bless your whole family. It's not a question of what you'll do with Jesus. That's done and settled. You're going to bow to him. You're going to get out on your knees and confess him as you bow to him.

And you're going to open your lips to him and confess him as Lord. You see, it's not a question of whether you're going to do something with Jesus. It's just a question of when. You can reject him now.

Most folks do. But you will receive him then. And since you're going to have to bow to him, that makes grace so wonderful. Isn't it wonderful that in mercy and grace, God Almighty, who wouldn't have to lift a finger, he didn't let you go on and as many people acknowledge the Lordship of Christ to the glory of the Father, if you've never had a gospel sung, but in mercy.

A Final Call to Bow to Christ

He says if you could bow to him now, I didn't say if you will, I said if you can. I expect most of you to fix yourself up the way you can. I know you won't. Because you haven't anything to do about it, you're going to hell.

If God don't invade your will and have to take it back, you're going to hell. Sure as I'm preaching that. That's right. But if you could, if you could bow to him now, it would be so much better. He wouldn't have to put his foot on your whole neck naked.

But you cut out this tough guy that you're going to do with Jesus, you're going to bow to him. You're going to receive him. Now, I've been known as a grace preacher in this country. I guess I'm the most cursed preacher in this section of Mississippi River.

Every Baptist will let me preach to his corn cob. They say that fellow bleeds in grace. I do. Oh, God Almighty don't owe me a thing. He's made Jesus my Lord. He hasn't left it up to me as to whether I'll receive him as Lord.

He's the one that picks that up. But in my opinion, how about it, little boy? If you could bow now, I'll give you a pardon for the song that you've heard. I'll give you the life of a spirit. Make you one of my family.

If God's got anything to help me in a battle, he's got down here. If somebody knows Christ, he's going to have to get up early and fix it up. Songs in the night. I want to see his face when all hell's popping.

I walked the floor. Hundreds of nights from the heavens were brash. Doors were closed. Every preacher in America was cursing me. Oh, I said, Oh, God, am I wrong? Am I wrong? I don't know where I'm at.

But I've been happy because in loving kindness Jesus came. My only hope, my only dream. Christ Jesus died. And he died for me. It's to preach who Jesus is and what he did. And to command men to repent and bow to him.

Agree with God. He's Lord. I bow to him. He's a lovely Lord. Have you embraced him? Do you know the living Lord who's the Lord of life? During the First World War, a Red Cross nurse lay at the point of death.

The Dying Nurse’s Final Request

And attending her was a sister Red Cross nurse. And just a little while before the nurse died, she began to wiggle her lips and finally had very sweet lips. She said, breathe. And the nurse didn't know what on earth she wanted.

She brought a glass of water and she didn't want that. She shook her head. And she said, breathe. Breathe. And the nurse told me she wanted the Bible. And she brought the Bible, but she didn't want the Bible.

That's why she said, breathe. And she told me that once she brought her a pad of paper and a pencil so she could write out her request, but she shook her head. And then summoning up the rest of her strength, she lifted herself up in the palm of her hand, lying on her back, brought herself up into a half-sitting position, and she said, breathe.

Bring forth the life if you can and of the made to the just. You bow your heads, our Father in bloodstained Jesus' name. Have your way in these closing moments. Speak to hearts that be pleased with you.

Shut men up to this glorious Savior of hell. Get glory to this one whom we've tried to talk about. And do good for eternity, thou men for whom Christ died. Will you stand to your feet?