Are You on God's Side? — Rolfe Barnard

The Hallelujah of Salvation and Judgment

I read verses 1 and 2 of the last book of the Bible, chapter 19, and after these things I heard a great voice of much, and they were saying hallelujah, and they were crying salvation and honor, they ascribed things to him, and they finally found out what they tried their desperate way to believe in this life, salvation was of God, share it with no other, and that honor and power is almighty, and if anybody has any salvation, it's a gift, if he has any share in the glory of God, it's a gift, if he has any honor, it's a gift, if he has any power, it comes from God, these folks shouting hallelujah, but the main thing they are shouting hallelujah about after these things, when the wind up has come to pass, when the war is over, when the last battle has been fought, they are shouting hallelujah over something that is the most difficult thing between the eternities for any human being to shout about now.

The old timers hadn't been privileged to live in this giddy day, where salvation has been divorced from discipleship, and were split hell wide open depending on something they say happened to them 30 years ago, instead of depending on a living Christ and a daily walk with him.

The old timers knew we weren't plumb saved yet, the old timers never dreamed a man could get to heaven if he absented himself from what they call the means of grace, wonderful now that we've improved on the old timers so much, people do not need to attend divine services.

Whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, certainly was behind time, but he thought it was terrible, he said, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but rather encouraging, exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

And strangely enough, that verse of scripture that the Bible teaches us to have so much trouble with, follows it, for if we sin willfully, after we receive the knowledge of the truth, our fathers could tell us what that meant, but these folks that have got saved, and they do not need to sit under the preaching of the word, they are going to split hell wide open.

They are sinning willfully, they are making of salvation what the scriptures know nothing about, they are the folks who crucify Christ afresh, and put him to open shame, and they do it by neglecting the means of grace.

That is a tremendous thing, that certainly is a reflection on this Sunday morning itis we are suffering with all over America, these Sunday morning Christians are going to go to hell fast, they will kick up dust in the devil's face.

Folks that honor God with their presence one hour a day, they know nothing about the salvation that comes from God, to have a touch of the succine of glory, gift of God, to be empowered from him. The old timers knew we were not plumb saved, they thought that there was something for us to do day by day, they had read in the Bible about work out your salvation, your own salvation.

They did not know anything about this generation of church members that got converted 30 years ago and said goodbye to Jesus and said we will see you in heaven if you make it. And the only salvation they can talk about is one they said occurred some time when they had a dream or a vision or shed a tear or said a prayer and had a feeling and called that salvation.

The old man A .D. Mews, whom I loved as no preacher in his day, used to say immediately, somebody start telling me about his experience of salvation, I know I am listening to an unsaved church member.

Christ, Not an Experience, Is the Gospel

Tomorrow night we are going to speak on what is the gospel and that is the bad subject, it is who is the gospel. The gospel is Christ and a man saved if he has Christ, not an experience but Christ. But Christ is alive and if he has Christ he has a living Christ and if he is alive so are you, there will be daily communication.

But back to my subject, the old timers knew that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. But they knew nothing of what to call salvation today. So they could enter into a little bit of the subject tonight and they could understand how difficult it would be for a mother to shout hallelujah when she watches God send her own boy to hell.

It would be awful tough, wouldn't it? A man walked up to me in Texas the other day and he said, Brother Barnes, do you reckon it is so that this generation of Christians have not seen the last of this generation of lost people?

I said, do you reckon we will have to witness against them at the judgment? I said, we sure will. And at the judgment God's people are going to be on God's side and they are going to be able to join this hallelujah what you are shouting about.

Verse 2 says, for truth and right after these things the patience of God has worn out, the grace of God has been suspended. And God's people are shouting hallelujah. What God does is true and what God does is right.

And they could quote with Abraham years ago, the just do right. We don't believe it now. You and I happen to be lived in the silliest, most sentimental, mawkish generation God ever had to put up with.

It's a pity that man up in Shady Gap or whatever it is, Pennsylvania, we're going up there pretty soon. My wife says, glad that's over. She's afraid they'd catch her. We're going pretty close. Well, that man abducted the young woman.

Shame that fella got killed. They ought to capture him. And then millions of people in America probably would sign the petition to let him off. This is a day. Exercise authority. This is a day when God's run in this world.

Silly generation thinks it ought to be run. And against that awful background, people need to be brought face to face again. That God almighty and that God ought to be against sin. And that God ought to visit men's sins with the terrible pangs of eternal hell.

God's Holiness and the War Against Sin

Because God is holy and sin is unholy. And one of those has got to win. The word of God tells us there are two sovereigns. That word sovereign is a big word that means whatever you want it to mean. It simply means two absolute rulers.

And the word of God personifies S-I-N, sin, and speaks of sin as if it were a person. And the book of Romans, we'll read, where sin. In the life of unregenerated men and women. Now something's happened.

And grace reigns, not apart from, but through righteousness. Grace being the rule of God's righteousness in his life. And grace isn't a substitute for holiness and righteousness. It is the great master hand that establishes Christ's rule in a man's life.

And that's what salvation is. And there's a war going on. And the Bible warns us that every man and woman, boy or girl, that's been privileged to be a member of that precious body for whom Jesus died and purchased with his blood.

To be one of the people of God, or members of the body of Christ, of the snatched out men and women who've not been appointed to wrath, but to God's glory. The Bible is crystal clear that while that's the greatest privilege that's tied to hell or heaven, it also brings tremendous responsibility.

The responsibility of not driving our stakes too deeply in this life, remembering that we're just camping down here, and we're on enemy territory, and we're under orders, and our King is the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're not to give comfort to the enemies of God's grace, and we're not to show the yellow flag and turn our backs and settle down and just take the spirit of this generation.

With all this criticism of just one attribute of God, everybody would fall head over heels in love with God tonight if he weren't holy, and if he didn't demand righteousness. The Bible warns anybody that God saves, that he didn't save you to say everybody has to say amen.

He saved you to make you an ambassador, to live down here on unfriendly territory, and to be on God's side in the war. There's a war going on. I do love to turn to the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I need to turn to it every once in a while and find out how the war is going to end.

When I was a kid, I started school when I was four years old. My dad was a schoolteacher, and I cheated. I graduated from high school when I was 14. I was a smart little fellow. I was ahead of my time, you know, and got algebra, and that's tough.

I don't remember just how it was, but somehow or another I got a hold of a key. I know none of you folks ever did this, but I got a hold of an algebra key. Those problems are sure easy to work if you got a key.

Learn the answer and then go back and apply it, you know. Oh, I like to read in the Bible and find out. I got a key, brother. I done looked in the back of the book. I know how the war is going to come out.

Christ's Certain Victory

We are one day nearer today than we were yesterday to the final victory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All hell can't stop it coming, brother. He must reign till his enemies have made his footstool.

And he's going to subdue this world. He's going to win the war. I like to look in the back of the book and find the answer, brother. Give me a big jar of star navy spit and tobacco and spit amber juice in the devil's face and tell him to go back to hell.

He ain't going to win. He's not going to win. I know how the war is going to end. Which side are you on tonight? Which side are you on tonight? I want to ask you two or three simple questions. Do you believe God ought to punish sin?

At the judgment, God's people are going to say, Hallelujah, you did right. Hallelujah, your judgments are true. This isn't just trying to fill up a little time. Listen to me. God knows, listen to me. If there is any group this side of eternity that needs to run from the lawless, that needs to run from the temptation to turn the grace of God into an excuse for unholy living, it is the people who have been privileged to learn that salvation is by the grace of God.

Listen to me. God only knows what a fool a Christian is to get too much interested in this. His spirit is of the devil. His prince is Satan himself. Spirit crucified the Son of God and would do it tonight if it could lay its hands on him in the flesh.

Oh, my soul, when's Mr. Wet Eyes and Mr. Amen going to start coming back to God's house? When are we going to begin to face up to the fact that we're representatives of a thrice holy God who sent his Son, raising your hands and mine?

Talk that song. Job of the name of Stephen asked him and said, we haven't changed our mind. We demand a reign over us. God's going to have a generation of people who profess to love him, who are on his side about this sin question and about the fact that sin is going to put God out of business or God's going to put sin out of business and God's people are to be crystal clear and there be no doubt about it which side we're on.

Which side we're on. You think God ought to send people to hell? You think so? You think sin ought to be punished? You want God to win? You want anarchy to sit on the throne instead of the Lord Jesus Christ?

You want to get rid of God and let every man do that which is right in his own sight? America's in the niche of that tonight. And if there's any institution this side of hell that's just a bunch of lawless rebels, it's the average church.

I speak to God's truth. We know nothing of authority and respect for it. God help us. This is the time to take sides about whether sin is against God for it is against man and whether God can stay God and not win the war against sin personified, reigning in homes, in nations, in churches, in civilizations, and in human hearts.

Taking Sides in the Spiritual War

You've heard the story of the Civil War days when in the state of Kentucky, not very far from here, Kentucky, some of the Kentucks were Yanks and some were Johnny Rebels. And one time they were having a little skirmish out in the cornfield and some of the Johnny Rebs and the Yankees were shooting at each other.

And an old grandma, the Yankees, had killed her husband and four sons and had come and raided and taken everything off the farm that was loose at one end except the poker that she used to start up the fire.

And she looked out the window and saw the little battle going on and she pulled her specks down off her fart and put them on her eyes and fastened her bonnet and put her skirts up with one leg, one hand, and so she could walk and got that poker with the other.

The skedaddle out the front door and down the front yard and opened the little latch at the gate running down the road. And a neighbor came walking along, where are you going in there? Said, you playing fool, don't you see the war going on?

Said, what are you going to do? Said, I'm going to get in on it. He said, why, you can't put in a war with a poker. She said, by the grace of God, I'll let them know which side I'm on. Oh, which side are you on?

Listen to me now, making more money than you ever made in your life, living like hogs the whole outfit of it. Listen to me. Listen to me. Where in God's name did we forget there's a war on? And it's awful wonderful not to have to worry about going to hell because Jesus said my sins are taken away.

But it's also tremendously challenging that he left us down here as his representatives. God knows I wish God could turn our hearts and our churches into sackcloth and ashes. Where in the name of high heaven is real measuring up to what it means to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ, meeting with men, to be reconciled.

The Judgment of the Unsaved

Whatever our condition, God's people one day are going to be present at the judgment when two things are going to happen. First, every unsaved man or woman, boy or girl that's brought to the judgment bar of God is going to have to say amen to his own condemnation.

God Almighty will have a few million years. If it takes that for eternity, well, all there is a rolling. It can take a few million years to examine each case. No man will spend a long eternity in hell for the judgment of God.

And another thing is going to happen to men and women who live if they work instead of God. Men and women who know God are going to have to be witnesses. And they're not going to argue with God. They're going to praise him and say hallelujah for true and righteous are thy judgments.

The Bible tells us there's a time of judgment coming. The Bible tells us it's an appointed day. The Bible uses language something like this, to me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Their foot shall slide in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

The Bible, quote, will have words like this, because he hath appointed a day in which he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised them from the dead. The time of that judgment is said to be a day when sinners shall be punished.

We're told in the word of God the Lord, knowing how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. This time of judgment is described as a day when God shows his power and none can successfully resist.

The prophet Ezekiel in language make your hair stand on your head will say can thine heart endure or can thy hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee. The Bible speaks of the character of this time of judgment.

Last night I pointed out that you live in a generation that doesn't believe that God's going to judge sin. And tonight I come back and say what a tremendous responsibility it is to know the authority of God's word that judgment's just around the corner.

See men plunging over one another's backs. See who's getting the hands of an angry God the quickest. And there you stand helpless but by, and you can't stop them, but God knows you can warn them with tears and you can't let it get out on you that you actually believe that they're headed straight into the hands of a sent angry God.

It's a fearful pain to fall into the hands of a living God. The Bible speaks of the character of this judgment to which all men will be brought and we're one day nearer to it today than we were yesterday.

Scriptural Witnesses to God's Righteous Judgment

In the book of Isaiah God will say according to their deeds. Accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies. Or he'll say behold the Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire.

Or the Bible will say therefore will I also deal in fury mine eyes and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice yet will I not hear them. Isn't that awful language? Awful language. The Bible speaks of witnesses at this judgment.

The men of Nineveh will be there and they'll rise up and condemn. The men of Christ on day. The folks in Sodom and Gomorrah haven't seen the last of them. They'll be at the judgment says our Lord. They'll rise up and condemn the cities that heard the Lord Jesus preach and did not repent.

The Queen of Sheba will be there at the judgment. She crossed the world span to set the feet of a man by the name of Solomon. Behold a greater than Solomon has come and men put him on a cross. Now we haven't seen the last of the folks in Sodom and Gomorrah.

They'll be at the judgment. We haven't seen the last of the cities that Christ pronounced his woes upon wherein he'd done his mighty works when here in the days of his flesh. They'll be at the judgment.

The sons and followers of Korah. You remember God opened the earth and sent them to hell without time to pack a suitcase. They'll be at the judgment. Scientists tell us perhaps three billion people were destroyed and sent to hell in the flood.

And they'll be at the judgment. Oh, people don't believe this. But after these things, I heard a great voice of much people saying hallelujah for true and righteous are thy judgments. God's going to do right.

God's going to catch up with everybody. Nobody's going to escape. I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it. The whole room all there. Heaven and earth sought to run away, but there wasn't a place for them to go.

Saw men stand before God. God's people are going to be there. Then we shall see that sin should be punished and rebellion for that. Then we shall share God's infinite hatred of sin. The scriptures speak of God as this language, thou art of pure eyes and thou canst look on sin or behold iniquity.

And we'll look at it like he does at the judgment. Then we shall see and believe that God's right when he declares that men that commit sin are worthy of death. Then shall we be called upon to rejoice.

The book of Deuteronomy says, Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people, for he'll avenge the blood of his servants and will render vengeance to his adversaries. You know, if I believe what I'm preaching tonight, I expect my hair to stand on my head and yours would too.

Prayer and Tears as Weapons of God's People

Ladies and gentlemen, being a Christian ain't all a joy ride. We've got to wit as people of sin today. We've got to stand up and be counted and say amen to God's goodness. I remember when I was a student in the seminary, I went out to a little town called Dundee, Texas, a little old cow town to host a meeting.

There was a man there that owned about half the county. His name was Jot, J-O-T, Jot Smith. He was a hard-cussing, hard-drinking, rough, wealthy cowman. He hadn't darkened the door of any place where the gospel was preached in 30-some odd years.

Strange as it may seem, for all intents and purposes he had a godly wife. And I remember that during that meeting, the poor woman got to where she couldn't go any longer. She had been worrying everybody in that country and everywhere else for years, asking them to join in prayer for her.

I don't know what it looks like, but all on God's earth weapons we've got left for a child of God is prayer. And she just wore herself out, praying to God to save that old devil of a hood for her. And during that meeting, the poor woman got to where she couldn't eat.

She didn't decide to fast, she just got to where she couldn't eat. We had day services and night services. She'd show up, and when they'd have the request for prayer, pray for my hood. And she got in such desperate shape, she had to be brought to the services.

She never missed it. Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. Wasn't put off. Finally, they had to bring her in a cot. They had to bring her in a cot. She came. Her husband didn't show up. The last night of the meeting came, they brought Miss Smith down.

I'd see her there on the couch now. She was almost dead, looked to me like. I had begged her to try to eat something, something. Or she could do sob about her husband. God knows I wish we could have a little of that some more.

You better listen to old brother Barnard. You can't get the job done by just trying to found truth in people. It just don't work that way. Isn't that right? Something else, something else. God knows our truth must be saturated in prayer.

And I preached that night. I stood up to preach. I saw a booted spur on the front step and I kept looking and John Smith had showed up the first time in 30-odd years. And he got there and he couldn't get in and he stood there, stayed there, one booted spur boot on that step and listened to me preach.

And I preached the best I could that night. And directly we stood for an invitation. And somebody whispered to that woman that Jock was there. And she got two women to help her up. And while we were singing, they kind of half drug her to link to that little building and old Jock didn't run.

And that poor little woman went back there and faced her husband. She got up strength enough to put her hands on his shoulder. I don't know what she said to him. She was too weak to say anything out loud.

She just sort of stood there and wept. And directly old Jock took his hands, took her wrists, put them off of himself, turned her back over to the two women, turned around with a curse, went to his California, rode off into the night.

Guess he went home and got his jug. Two days later they found him one foot in the dirt with his brains all dashed out as his pony wandered around on the plain. And that little woman will be at the judgment and she'll take sides with God and her tears will be gone and she won't be praying for her husband.

She'll be saying hallelujah. Jock ought to be sent to hell. It's either send Jock to hell or God to have to keep. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. True and righteous are thy judgments. So far as I know, I can't save anybody.

Neither can you. This September I'll be preaching 40 years. I can close my eyes now and hear the sobs of wives for lost husbands, little children who didn't understand much of what they're talking about yet they break your heart crying for their love.

Between now and the time when we're going to say hallelujah over the judgments of God, we have two weapons left. In the Old Testament, the Bible talks about God taking a bottle and catching the tears of his people.

In the New Testament, God talks about taking little vials and putting the prayers of his people in those vials. I believe that. I believe that. I was in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina in the fall of 1947 in what's called Citywide Meeting.

I was preaching five times a day. The first three weeks I was awfully busy answering criticism, people coming to me trying to straighten out and all that, and then the meeting broke and I was awfully busy dealing with soul.

I kept getting a letter about every other day from some dear woman saying, I'm listening to all the radio and I'm sick at bed. I can't come out. I sure would love to see you. And I kept promising tomorrow I would go see her, but I didn't go.

I had fairly good excuse in how I didn't go. The last night of the meeting came and I was sitting watching the crowd gather and a young woman, about 35, came down to me and had a $5 bill in her hand and she said, my mother wanted you to have this little gift.

She said, do you remember getting letters from a woman saying she's sick and she's hearing you over the radio and hoped you'd have time to come see her? And I said, yes. She said, I'm sorry I didn't go.

She said, she went to Be of the Lord this morning at 11 o 'clock. And said before she died, she had me get her pocketbook to take this $5 bill and said, now daughter, tonight my body will be in the undertaker and I'll be in glory.

And said, you haven't been to the meeting. I want you to go and listen to the preacher and I want you to take this $5 and give him and tell him who it's from. Tell him I wish I could have seen him. But I'll be listening to him preach tonight.

I kind of believe that. I told that story sort of to close with my message and we stood and started to sing. And the crowd had overflown the tent that last night way out in the country. Somebody began to sob.

Directly he came splitting down the middle aisle through the sawdust, big old 240-pound boy about 40 years old. And here he came and just fell, sprawled face-fart in that sawdust. The whole body just wrecking with sobs.

Directly I went down there by him, dealt with him the best I could. I don't know what happened to him, but that's why I stood up and confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord. Looked like the glory of God settled on his countenance.

Guess whose boy that was. It was that woman. Many a night she'd shed tears for him. She thought they were wasted. They weren't wasted. God caught them in his bottle. Many a time she'd prayed for a miracle to happen, God to arrest that wayward boy on the Damascus road to hell.

Looked like her prayers were in vain. She had many glory, but a little while did the Lord fool around in his pantry. Saw the tears that woman he'd stored up and the prayers she'd made for that boy. I think he just said, I'll make her first day in glory especially good.

He just uncapped that bottle of tears and took one out and let it drop. It split that boy wide open and he dropped a bombshell of her prayers and that did the work. And here he came. I can't believe that, folks.

I can't believe. I can't believe it with all of my heart. Oh, Father, wait for that time when we're going to be on God's side and we're going to say your judgments are true and righteous. We've got the weapons of concern nested.

Prayer. I want to sing my song tonight past me now to old General Saver, Brother Henry, if you will. Let's stand to sing.