Anathema Maranatha — Rolfe Barnard

Tomorrow night, the Lord willing, I want to speak on how to savingly come to Jesus Christ. It's been my privilege to see quite a number of Jews come to the Lord under my poor preaching. And I want to tell you some of my experiences with the Jews tomorrow night.

Just what it does cost. Well, it doesn't cost a Jew any more than it does a Gentile to get to the Lord Jesus Christ. Saturday night ought to be our best night, we trust it will. You're so precious. Will you turn in the Bible?

Are you hearing me all right now as I speak like I am now? Brother Jordan, are you hearing me all right? Thank you, sir. In the first epistle of the Church of Corinth, in the 16th chapter, and the 22nd verse, a tremendous word from above.

Anathema Maranatha: The Solemn Warning Against Lovelessness

And I wish to try to speak from it tonight. There are no ifs and ands and buts about the text. A little child interpreted. If, in the event, if any man make not a public profession of faith in Christ, let him be accursed when the Lord comes.

Didn't read it right, did it? If any man, if any man, love not the Lord Jesus Christ, anathema, let him be damned, maranatha, he cometh. If any man, Theo Jackson, Jr., Theo Jackson, Sr., Roth Barnard, Jim Smith, Sun School teacher, evangelist, pastor, deacon,.

If any man love not a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the great tragedies of trying to indoctrinate men and women in the word of God, they fall in love with the doctrine and go to hell. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, when Christ comes, he'll be damned.

Isn't that plain teaching? I want the best I can, as humbly as I know how, and yet with a voice of authority if I can, to bring to you 39 years of Bible study in one message. I'm going to try, having studied 39 years, and I've studied like a dog.

I don't know whether I'll miss it or not, but if I miss it, the verse is still so. I'm going to try to tell you what kind of love this is. That if you do not have toward the Lord Jesus Christ, when he comes, he'll judge you and damn you and send you to hell.

My soul, I hope I'm right. But if I'm wrong, the verse is still so. And if you miss out on this love for the glorious person of the adorable Son of God, when Christ comes, he's going to damn you. And before I seek to answer that question, I want to dwell just a moment on the importance of coming to the right solution about it.

For not to love the Lord Jesus Christ means rebellion against the highest throne in the universe. God has spoken in these last days in his Son. He'll not bring in more message. We're to honor the Lord.

We cannot set aside this word from heaven. The very essence of all sin is arrogance. It's the setting up of a little puppet God of self on the throne of one's life and heart instead of the right Peru of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Nobody has bought the crown rights to your life except Jesus. You were born to be governed, and you will be governed by sin or by King Jesus. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no New Testament salvation.

And when I use the term New Testament, that's silly. There's just any such thing as being Christian apart from submission to Jesus Christ as Lord. The very essence of salvation, what does it mean to be a Christian, become a Christian?

The very heart of it, the meat and bone of it, the essence of it, is the collapse of the regime of self and the enthronement of Jesus Christ as King. Today, we've been reared in an atmosphere of belief that is little more than acceptance of truth.

And we accept the truth, but it doesn't control our lives, and it leaves us uncommitted when applied to our daily life. I'm not talking about a peculiar, deeper life. I believe in my own heart I would not be cruel.

I do not believe that's scriptural. I'm not talking about a deeper walk with God. I'm talking about any kind of walk with God. This is not a peculiar, deeper life. It's the very gateway to life. For at the cross, where one's self is crucified, and Jesus is enthroned, that's salvation.

And there is no salvation apart from that. There is no salvation apart from that. The road to hell may thus be more than skid row. It may be the path that brings a man into church membership without the puppet of self having been dethroned.

Humbly do I remind you that it was by our entire submission to his Father's will that the Lord Jesus Christ won the right for sinners to be brought out of slavery to sin into the glorious freedom of Christ.

Christ's Total Submission and the Believer's Surrender

How much did it cost the Lord Jesus Christ to buy your redemption? It cost him total submission. From his birth and from the throne of glory to the cross, total submission. Today it's believe and decide for Christ, and that's all.

But the Bible says submit. The Bible says surrender. The Bible says throw down your shotgun. Capitulate. You cannot go into God's glory unless you are brought sweetly and willingly under his rule. It cost the Lord Jesus absolute submission to buy you on the cross.

It's going to cost you absolute submission to get to Christ. ABCs of being a Christian are. A, acceptance of the Lord's sovereign rule. B, enjoying the blessings of that rule. C, being formed, having formed in you the very character of the Son of God.

That's what being a Christian is. Not to love him is rebellion against the high throne of heaven. That's so. What manner of love is the Holy Spirit talking about here? If you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ when he comes, he's going to damn you at that point.

Loving Christ in His Saving Office

I believe the answer to the question tonight, and I wish to devote all my time to it, is this. A man or woman or boy or girl in this life must come to find Jesus in his office work, that is, on the job, doing what the Father sent him to do.

You must come to find him as the supreme complacency and satisfaction and rest of your life. And you must find that supreme satisfaction in his person as he works on his job. Now, I labor that because everybody's head over to love Jesus now.

You can't find anybody that hasn't got a nice word for him. But the rub comes when we mention receiving Christ where he is, working at his job. Sometimes people are attracted by his person, but to draw back from his work.

But we must find that which gives us our deepest rest and our deepest joy and our deepest satisfaction and our deepest complacency in just meditating upon him on the job. We must come to agree with the Father, this is the son of my love in whom I am well pleased.

And we must become well pleased with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there are certain things that give you a sense of satisfaction, joy, and complacency in life. If it weren't so, you'd go crazy. Maybe you have a great sense of satisfaction, rest, and joy, and complacency in your job, your home, your community, your country, your friends, or your recreation.

You just like to think, working at that old well machine, what did you do to make a living, boy, Saturday? I ain't going to have to work. I'm going to do so-and-so. And you think about it. You get a lot of joy out of just thinking about it.

I'm away from home, been away from home most of my married life. I can just close my eyes and see my little old home and my wife. Those things are just as real to me as Visarion, and I get a lot of kick out of it.

When I get home, you can't hardly get me out in the backyard. I'm so glad to get home. I get a great joy out of it. The Bible speaks of love in two ways. There's the love of benevolence, in that sense God so loved the world, in the sense that he has pity.

There never was a wicked sinner that God didn't love. With a love of benevolence, he would do him good. That old drunkard, you may love him with a love of benevolence, you would do him good. Beneath, volunt, will to do him good.

But you don't get any joy in his company. You pity him. You could give help to him, ain't it? Then the Bible talks about a love of complacency. That's when the Lord looks at Ralph Barnett. I'll tell you what's like.

He's proud of me. He's the proudest thing of me you ever saw. He loves me with a love of complacency. Don't you folks tell me he likes to be around me. I'm not blasphemous. I've been the object of that kind of love from God since before there was ever a star.

And I'm one of millions who are of his inheritance in this thing. We'll talk about what we're going to get. We'll think what he's going to get, his inheritance. And he just likes to associate with his people.

Now he pities that old vile wretch, and would rather save him than damn him. But he gets no joy out of looking at that old boy out there in rebellion, kicking his fist at God. God loves him with a love that would do him good.

But he don't get any joy out of it. And we don't need to pity the Lord. We don't need to have a love that would try to help him out to the Lord. The love the Spirit's talking about here is that affection for a person.

He's already enthroned. He's not in the deck. We can't help him out. He doesn't need our pity. But oh, just to feast on the blood of his justifying blood and to bathe in the splendor of the glory of his enthronement.

Brother, if that isn't your cheapest joy and satisfaction, if that isn't your rest, you don't know what it means to know my Lord. This must be supreme. While you're washing dishes, deep down in your subconscious, you're just feasting on that eternal cross, because there was a cross outside the city of Jerusalem in the heart of God from before the foundation of the world.

As old as just one minute old, it's the time of just having a good square meal, feasting, delighting in, reveling in, finding joy and rest and satisfaction and peace. When all hell's popping, when I survey that wondrous cross.

And we must come to so joy in him and rest in him and find our satisfaction in him on the job. Now here is where the boys and the girls have to separate. Let me see if I can illustrate again what comes of this.

There were seven children in our family. My mother, I can hear her when I was a kid of a boy, making up the beds or cooking or, you know, around the house. There was always something to do. She wouldn't be conscious of it.

She was just a singer. Singing. I'm going home. I'm going home. I'm going home to sin no more. And she'd say to me, Mother wasn't conscious of this thing. You know what I mean? Down at work, under your breath, just singing.

Working at that old tool shop or something. But what's real and deep and abiding satisfaction here? It's just finding our joy and our peace, our complacency. Like the little girl in the song of Solomon, I lie on my bed at night.

Oh, where's my beloved? Is my soul got to love? I rise up from my bed and I go out the street and seek him whom my soul doth love. And I'm not even knowing the Lord. But you must love him like that on the job.

John F. Kennedy is one of the most dynamic personalities America's ever known. He left his mark on this country. I had a secret admiration for him as a man. I did not like him as a president. But you can't do Jesus that way.

You can't have Jesus if you won't have him on the job. You can't separate Jesus from his job. You see, the trouble about me liking Mr. Kennedy personally and not liking him as president is a political matter.

But you see, the trouble was he was president. And you couldn't go see John Kennedy without going to see President Kennedy. You see, Houston's full of people who think a lot of Jesus, but they don't love him on the job.

The Cross as God's Holy Judgment and Mercy

They love him on the job, hanging, not as an example, but as a bloody sin offering in the agony of the heart of God, nailed to a cursed tree by the sovereign holiness of God. Most times I go for a long meeting, I'll just take one theme and preach for a month.

If God is my judge tonight, I don't want to have to deal with God's holy law in my strength. If I don't get that Jesus is my substitute, I'm going to have to grapple with God's holy law myself, and it'll slap me in hell.

I'll tell you the sovereign, holy, righteous character of God's reason, my Lord, hung on that cross. On a Sunday afternoon picnic, he is there satisfying the character of God. God will send every one of you people to hell so fast you'll kick up dust in the devil's eyes before he'll do one thing to tarnish the purity and the sincerity and the strictness and the severity of his holy law.

My Lord hung there by the pastor in the clutches of the holy law of God. No wonder he cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? There he suffered and bled and died. So while he says, into thy hands I commend my spirit, we still say to men tonight, you must lay hold of him on that cross.

You must come to find him there, in beholding him there, your supreme rest. His body is torn. He agonizes in Gethsemane. He began to be sorrowful. He said, except a grain of corn to put in the ground and die.

His very heart was torn open. My darling is delivered into the hands of the dogs. He's exposed to the vulgarity and brutality of men. Ladies and gentlemen, you must come to find your supreme joy in him, hanging in that agony of body and soul as a bloody offering for sin.

More than the love of God. Hanging there, he tells us of the strictness and severity of God's law. Every drop of his blood assures us that God's going to judge sin and that every eye is going to be dotted and every tee is going to be crossed.

Every transgression, every transgression, every transgression is going to be dealt with. Thank God in guilt, knee-deep in sin, with a smitten conscience, you're going to have to come to see the mercy of God there.

See the forgiveness of sin there. See his provision of pardon there. Come to where you can sing from the heart, dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more.

Down at the cross where my Savior died, you'll find joy there. The world's bloodiest sea is going to become the place that you go back to time after time to find joy and healing for your wounds and peace and rest and satisfaction in the bloody wounds of my Lord hanging on that cursed tree.

In baptism, you take a plunge by faith into the blood of that cross. In the Lord's supper, you eat as a delightful thing the very flesh and body of my Lord. You're going to have to love him at work, love him on that cross, love him on that cross.

Christ Enthroned as Lord and Savior

And then you're going to have to love him where he's working now, in the throne, sitting on the throne, Prime Minister of God. All God's plans in his hands, he'll carry them out. You're going to come to have a great joy out of closing your eyes and thinking about him.

There he is, high, exalted, installed. The majesty of the right hand has caught on. Every principality and everything under him. Oh, he's not there by our permission. He's there whether we like it or not.

He's there by God's act and God's decree. God thinks he ought to be on that throne. God delights in him on that throne. You're going to come to delight in him on a throne. That's the love that if a man has, all right if he don't.

When Jesus comes, he's going to damn him. And you can't whittle him down. My body's worn some. I used to be a very vigorous preacher. I'd kill myself. Of course, I'd forget myself and preach too hard and take you out of my body too much.

And I suffer for it now. But I've been battling this a while. All the days of my poor little ministry have been spent on organized Christianity and trying to whittle Jesus down to where people will take him.

But you can't whittle him down. If you preach of Jesus, anyone except that one who was a bloody sin offering on a gory cross, that's not the Jesus of the Bible. And if you preach of Jesus who's not sitting enthroned in the majesty on high with the reins of the world and human beings in his hands, you're not preaching the Jesus of the Bible.

You can't whittle him down. He's God's commander-in-chief. He's the executive of all God's laws. And even while he's here, and this has greatly humbled me, when he was here as God's prophet, he just had one sermon just preached on himself.

Nobody else was preaching about it. He preached about what he was going to do on Calvary's cross. He told men, Except ye eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, there's no life in me. He said, Except the grain of corn dined with planted and so forth, there's no life.

He constantly proclaimed himself as the great priest hanging on the wrong cross, the one mediator between God and man. But he didn't preach his lordship so much, he demonstrated it. Demonstration is better.

Boy puts out a sign, I'm a carpenter. Well, he better if he builds a house, but he's a lawyer. Instead of Jesus going up and down saying, I'm the Lord, I'm God's prime minister, he just demonstrates it.

Be out on the sea in the waves, threaten to kill everybody, be still. Meet disease. All healing, whether by the doctor, or prayer, or whatever, all healing is from the Lord. And disease is found them to be their master.

Even death, Lazarus comes forth. Demons said, we know who thou art, thou holy. He demonstrated his lordship. You say, I believe that preacher, but I don't believe that he holds the reins of my heart in his hand.

But he does. He's your lord, too. He'll come to a man named Levi, tax collector.

He says, get up, follow me.

He'll look up at a man in a tree, come down out of that tree. He'll come down. As the son of man, he'll weep at the graveside of friend Lazarus. For he'll weep over the holy city of Jerusalem. As almighty God, he'll arrest a man by the name of Saul, strike him blind, leave him prostrate.

Paul’s Crucified Christ and the Lordship of Salvation

What wilt thou have me to do? Oh, ladies and gentlemen, if you would accept Christ, you must accept him as the Christ of the bloody cross and the glorious throne. The apostle Paul went over to the city, wrote a letter to the church at Corinth, wicked.

He said, I want to remind you how when I came over there, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, the one having been crucified. He went over there and talked to him about this person I'm talking about tonight.

And he identified the one who's now at the right hand of God as being the one that was on that tree as a bloody sin-offering. You test him at gospel preaching. It doesn't begin with the virgin birth and work up to the throne.

You test him at preaching, at presenting Christ where he is now, working back to that cross. Who is this one who now sits with the reins of men's hands and hearts in his hands? He's the one who humbled himself, became obedient to the Father, up to the point of death, even the very death of the cross, poured out his soul.

You know what came of that fellow? He's at the right hand of God with the reins of your heart in his blessed hands. And if you want him, you'll have to start with him where he is now, bow to him at the throne, pleading just one thing, that on that cross he suffered in your stead.

I'm glad he's there. I trust him. A sparrow doesn't fall, he doesn't watch it. An empire can't exist without him. I'm glad man's not in charge. I'm glad Satan's not in charge. I'm glad he's got the whole world in his hands.

He has. He has. My lovely Lord, the future's in your hands. And if any will accept him on the job, you'll be saved. But where is he? He's on the throne, demanding absolute submission. How'd he get on that throne?

God put him there. Why'd God put him there? Because of what he did yonder on a tree outside the city of Jerusalem. You can't take him off his job. You can't whittle him down if you don't want him to be your absolute dictator and master and your only savior.

You can't have him, because that's what he is. He's Lord. And because he's Lord, he's been given the task of saving a people, the numbers of which no man can number. From every tongue, tribe, and kindred, they'll be coming.

Receiving Christ as Submission to His Lordship

Praise the Lord. I was in a little town in North Carolina some years ago, and I experienced one of the most shocking things that I've ever experienced. I was preaching along, and on Wednesday night, the first week as I recall, a lady walked up to me after the service and it turned out she was the sponsor, I believe that's the word, for the GAs.

I've forgotten all those As. The GAs. Some kind of As. There were girls about 16, 17, 18, or something like that. RAs or some kind of As. And she said, we meet tomorrow, and the girls want you to come and talk to them.

And I said, well, what time do you meet? She said, so-and-so. And we meet here in the church. And I said, well, what would they want me to talk about? She said, just get something out of the Bible. And I was on some radio stations, and I'll never forget, the next day I was kind of busy, and I didn't have much time, and I didn't take much time at least.

It came time to make a radio tape. It came time to go over there. I grabbed up my Bible. Here I went and went over there. And I sat here, and the sponsor there, and the girls. There were 17 of them, as I recall.

And they sat sort of making a ring around the rosary. And I said, well, I suppose we'll just have a little Bible study. And I said, let's turn to the gospel according to John, the first chapter, and let's read some scripture.

He was in the world, and the world didn't even know it, and you and I never recognized it. Lived here 33 years, the Lord of Glory didn't know it. He came unto his own Jewish nation, and his own, his own household, received him not, but to as many as received him.

To them gave he authority to become children of God, who were born. And I said, let's read that. I believe I made a mistake, and I read it like this. He came unto his own, and his own received him not, but to as many as received him.

To them gave he the authority to become the children of God. They said, no, that's not it! But that's what they've preached for the last 40 years, that salvation isn't it, but salvation is Christ! You don't get salvation by trusting simply in what he's done.

You get salvation by being united to somebody who has done it. Salvation is in Christ. They didn't object to his dying on a cross. They objected to his claiming his crown rights to their lives. After they killed him, they sent a messenger, I think it was Stephen, I won't argue about it, and said, when you get to heaven, tell him we haven't changed our minds.

We will not have this man to reign over us. You don't object to somebody keeping you out of hell. You just don't want Jesus Christ being the absolute Lord and Master and Dictator and Ruler of your life.

You're not going to go to hell because you're ignorant. You're going to go to hell and split it wide open because there's a dirty spot in your life and you don't want it to be cleaned up. You signed a treaty of peace with some two-bit sin that's going to land you in hell.

And they said, that isn't right. I said, well, let me read it again. He came into his own and his own received him, not but to as many as received his. Oh, they said, that's not right. Well, I thought salvation was something the Lord does for us.

No, salvation ain't something the Lord does for us. Salvation is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The way it's spelled, salvation is C-H-R-I-S-T, Christ. And the Christ not in you is not yours. And then I said, well, how does it read?

They said, it's hell. Oh, I said, it's hell that is a sore spot. They wouldn't receive hell. Hell! They said, you can't rule my life. I never met a man that objected to keep out of hell. You say, well, now, won't you take Jesus right now?

Well, brother preacher, I'm not ready. He knows more theology than us poor personal workers. He knows that if he ever submits to Jesus, there's going to be some changes around there. And he's not ready.

He'd rather take his chance splitting hell wide open than to have Jesus invade that dirty spot and clean it up. He came into his own, his own received him not. But this man has received him. Says, them.

Gave the authority to become the children of God. I said, let's find out who that fellow him was. So we turn to Acts chapter 2, 36, the conclusion of the sermon on the day of Pentecost. The apostle Peter says, Therefore, let all the house of Israel know as a matter of fact that God hath made this same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both what?

Both Lord and Christ. That's who that him was they wouldn't receive. And then I said, let's turn to one other scripture and find out what that word received means and let the Bible interpret it. Brother Pastor, all my life I've heard now just receive Jesus or I ask you'll receive him in the Bible way.

Okey dokey. Here's what received in him means. Not here, not something he can do for you, but him. We turn to the 10th chapter, Romans. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer is that the God for Israel is that the night is saved.

I bear them record they got a zeal for God just won't quit, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

Righteousness is not an attribute. Righteousness is Christ. And I said, do you see it? Let's read it again. He came unto his own and his own submitted not to him, but to as many as should have the shotgun, cast themselves on his mercy.

It's submission, brother. We had a little prayer and I went back to my room and got all fixed and I was just busy preaching away or radio messaging directly. Somebody knocked on the door and ruined my tape.

Made me mad. I had to get up. The tape was ruined anyhow. Opened the door and there stood one little girl just bawling like a baby. And she said, you've got to come back over to church. I said, what for?

She said, never mind. She said, just come back over to church. She said, they sent me to get you. I went over. And there was a sponsor, fifteen girls and a girl going along and they were just all bawling like their hearts were breaking.

The Church’s Need to Hear Christ as Lord

I walked in and I wondered what on earth to do with the tape. I flipped over to the sponsor and I said, what's going on? Ladies and gentlemen, this is the thing that I'm going to tell you and you're not going to believe it.

This is the back of the church in the old Bible Belt of America where you can buy a Bible at the drugstore or a ten cent store. A nation that is founded by men who believe in God. And here's a Baptist church with a so-called fundamental pre-millennial pastor.

That's the only kind they'd have. And that sponsor said, brother of mine, none of us had ever heard that Jesus is Lord. So this house ran about and people didn't come into hell but went to church Sunday after Sunday and they never did hear about the one of whom the angels said unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

Oh my goodness. For grace and power. I wish I could say something to set this generation of nice little spectator church members on fire. My soul is full of church members that never even heard that God Almighty met the death of Christ by putting Him on a throne and turning everything over to us.

And that the way to be saved is by coming to Him by faith and stretching yourself out before Him at His throne and saying, Lord, can't buy it, don't deserve it. If Thou will, Thou can't make me whole.

Invitation to Submit to the Throne of Mercy

Our Father, we've done the best we could tonight and as far as we can go now. We can't enter into the hearts of the people but the Spirit can take the truth, the truth as it is in Christ, and get inside of people and we've hoped in our hearts and cried as we preached that again tonight we might see evidence again that Thou art alive and that our able and willing to save and that hearts might be opened by the Spirit of God and grace might be given for men to sweetly bow to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now is the time of invitation. Deal with people. Beg you to, Lord, for Jesus' sake. I've never learned how to give an invitation. I don't want to ever learn. I don't ask you what you will do. I ask you what you're able to do tonight.

Can you walk this aisle as a signatory of an open heart to cast yourself at the blessed, blessed feet of Him who's now enthroned in glory and been given authority to save or damn every human being? Some of you ought to come and cry for mercy at that throne.

It's the throne of mercy. People have been coming to the prayer room and these services and the next service they come with victory. I don't say they're all saved. I can't look inside but I bet some of them have been.

And I wonder how it is with you tonight. At any rate, if you're here and you ought to ask for membership in this church, you ought to ask for baptism because God saved you, or you want to ask for mercy or anything, you want to walk this aisle and practice yourself.

We invite you to do so tonight. While we sing, pass me not, O gentle Savior, let us stand, and you come if you will.