The Heart of the Gospel by Rolfe Barnard — E.A. Johnston

Returning to Scripture and the Holy Spirit

I believe if we would just put away all our church growth books and stop following the modern trends and the church and just get back to our Bibles, we would all be much better off. I believe if we could just focus our attention on eternity and allow the Christ of eternity who saved us to absorb us entirely with his life, we would all be much better off.

And I believe if we turned off our televisions and spent that time on our knees and in our Bibles, we would all be better off. And I also believe, friends, that if we just studied the life of Jesus more and applied the aspects of his life to our lives, we would all be better off.

And if we would rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to do the work of God in our churches today, we would all be much better off. When I study the life of Christ in my Bible, I see that Jesus had a life of holiness.

He was without sin. Jesus had a life of yieldedness. His main aim was to do those things which pleased the Father. Jesus had a life of prayerfulness. He made time to pray to the Father. And Jesus had a life of purposefulness in the salvation of men.

Christ’s Mission to Seek and Save the Lost

He came to seek and save that which was lost. He just didn't make salvation possible. He's actively saving sinners right now. His life came with a purpose to fulfill, to seek and to save the lost boys and lost girls and lost teenagers and lost men and lost women who were sunk in sin.

One of the biggest crimes in our churches today, friends, in this country in the last 60 years, is that we have taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men. Men save themselves today.

Listen, friends. The main distinction between a false professor and a true convert is this. A false professor makes himself a Christian. God is not involved. A true convert has the activity of the Spirit of God through the act of regeneration, God taking the heart of stone and making it a heart of flesh.

Election and God’s Activity in Salvation

My message today, friends, is on the doctrine of election. And I have a story I want to share with you today in an incident in the life of the evangelist Rolf Barnard. So stay with me and you will hear it at the end of this message because it sums up what I'm about to preach on today.

And that's the activity of God in the salvation of souls. Our text today is found in John's Gospel. You can turn in your Bibles there now. We will be in chapter 10 and let us now go to our passage in John's Gospel beginning in chapter 10 and verse 1.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he put forth his own sheep, he goeth before them. And the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.

Jesus Christ as the Door of Salvation

Then Jesus said unto them again, verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door, by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come, that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I will stop there. There are several statements made by Christ in this passage which bear our attention.

Jesus compares himself to a shepherd whose voice his sheep hear. Jesus compares himself to a door, and he states that the only access to God is through him, that he is the only way to find in peace with God.

Through him, he is a door, and that door swings on the hinges of repentance and faith. If you want salvation, friends, you must go through that door. You must turn from your sins in repentance toward God, and you must exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only way, the only door, the only shepherd of our souls.

It is those sheep who hear his voice that come to him in saving faith. Listen to me, dear friend. When I preach, my main objective is for you to lose sight of this poor preacher, and to see Jesus standing there instead, his arms outstretched to you, beckoning you to come to him and drink, that you hear his voice speaking to you through my poor, ragged voice, and that when you hear his voice, you hear it with all its attended power and authority and majesty as the Spirit of God speaks to your soul.

Preaching as an Instrument of the Spirit’s Work

My goal when I preach is to be an empty vessel for God to use in the transforming power of his Holy Spirit, transforming the lives of men and women and boys and girls. I must decrease so he can increase.

It is God through me that is the only effectual change in the lives of others. Like I said, the main difference between a false professor and a true convert is that a false professor makes himself a Christian.

He does it. God is not involved. Let me read you verses 26 through 29 from our passage today, friends. But you believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. As I said unto you, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. When you come savingly to Christ, friend, it's because God the Father has given you saving faith, and you see a revealed Christ, you hear his voice speaking to you through his gospel because the Spirit of God has taken that preached word and applied it to your hearts in a saving way.

God is speaking directly to you through the preacher or through his written word. I recall reading a sermon by Solomon Stoddard where his text was, ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, and his theme was the doctrine of election.

Like I said, the difference between a false professor and a true convert is a false professor makes himself a Christian. God is not involved, but when God is involved, dear friend, you hear his voice, and it comes to you with conquering power.

A saved individual is someone who has experienced change by the Spirit of God. He is born from above. We live in a day of a diluted gospel, a powerless pulpit, and a compromised ministry. How can you hear his voice through his preached gospel if the gospel being proclaimed is a perverted one?

Sin, Spiritual Death, and the Necessity of the Gospel

How can you realize your great need of a Savior from sin if you don't see yourself as a sinner in the first place? We evangelists today tell a person how to accept Christ without first showing them why they need Christ, why offer the remedy for sin before diagnosing the sin problem.

Will a man who is well and in perfect health see a need in an offered medicine? But if that man is beset with a grave illness unto death and he finds a medicine, a cure that will save him, he'll go out and sell all he has to obtain that medicine to be cured.

A man is sick in sin, dead in trespasses in sin. He cannot raise himself to life. Only God can raise a dead man and give him life. My Bible declares that God is the author of salvation, not man. You cannot save yourself.

So our passage speaks of Jesus as the only way to the Father. And if you want heaven, you must pass through Christ the door, and that door swings on the hinges of repentance and faith. Now I want to share with you this story about the evangelist Rolf Bonnard because it pertains to our passage of Scripture today.

Preaching the Doctrines of Grace with Spiritual Power

And I believe, friends, that if we preach and witness like we really believe the Bibles and believe what God says about salvation and point sinners to Christ and shut them up to God and God alone for salvation and pray that the Holy Spirit will get men lost so they can see their need of a Savior, then maybe, just maybe, we may start having folks tugging on our coatsleeves again and asking, what must I do to be saved?

We might just see the power of God in a meeting again if we began to preach the great doctrines of grace with the anointing of the Spirit of God upon us. But we don't necessarily need lectures and essays spoken to the intellect to be considered as much as we need preachers with a tear in their eye and a sob in their voice as they proclaim those great doctrines of ruin, repentance, redemption, and regeneration and preach those great doctrines with an anointing of the Spirit of God to the hearts and consciences of men.

Rolfe Barnard’s Testimony of Election and Christ’s Lordship

I want to read us from my biography on the life of Rolf Bonnard because he knew the Gospel of the Son of God and he was used of God in powerful revivals, friends. God used Rolf Bonnard to shake entire towns and often folks would try to run him out of town.

It was said of Bonnard that in the course of his 40-year itinerant preaching ministry he was the human means of bringing 100 ,000 souls to Christ. It is important that we listen to his words for we can learn much from this man, Rolf Bonnard.

Here now are some extracts from his biography and they are in his own words. I once knew someone who was greatly disturbed that I preached election and the responsibility of man. I want to sound a word of caution that Baptists are likely to fall into, into the same pit as the Jewish elect nation did and brag on ourselves and crucify Christ at the same time.

It's a Bible fact that a perverted conception of the doctrine of election led to the crucifixion of the Son of God. God help you to get it right and keep your mouth shut unless it grows extremely missionary, evangelistic, intercessory churches.

The most solemn thing I have faced for 30 years going up and down this country is that a life is absolutely in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. There isn't any life anywhere else. I have had men cuss me.

I've had them to storm up on the pulpit with their Bibles. I've had them to have all night prayer meetings praying that I would get the light as I have tried to press upon men and women this truth. The only way on God's earth that an old preacher knows there's any hope of an eternity bound sinner is to recognize and openly confess to this godless world that the Lord Jesus Christ is my Lord and whether I ever get saved or not, God has appointed him to be my Lord.

I know it is so and I want you to know that I am in his hands. I am subject to him and he can do with me as he pleases. I am dead and he's got life. I will never have life unless he gives it to me. Life is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hell is full of people who believe the fact of the death of Christ but heaven will be full of people who have been joined by faith to the Christ who died and rose again. My ministry was ruined I supposed of ever being a popular preacher or making any money and getting anywhere while I was a student in the seminary at Fort Worth, Texas.

The Gospel Revealed Through Scripture and Seminary

One day I went down to a second hand bookstore and browsing around I found a book of sermons by Brother B .H. Carroll, one of the old giants of the faith and founder of the school where I was going then.

I bought the book for a dime and I still got it. I was reading a sermon by that dear man of God and just like a key that unlocks a door my Lord revealed a truth to me. I was rebelling against what my professors were teaching me.

My professors believed in the great doctrines of the word of God. What little I have learned about them I was taught by those men. I was taught that the gospel in Southwestern Theological Seminary was based on those doctrines.

I was a student there from 1928 to 1930. I haven't changed a word of my message since. Those old professors taught us boys the gospel of the glory of God but at the first I rebelled against them. My professor told me that election was God's purpose in redemption and he actually taught me that God chose people in Christ, the ones who would be saved.

Why everything in me hated that so I rebelled against it and I argued with them. I had been a pastor of a big church and I baptized many, many people. I was a big shot in those days to hear such teaching from a Baptist professor and all the attendant things that go along with the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I couldn't take it. I fought them and I was miserable. I read this sermon from the pen of our dear brother Carol and in that sermon he preached he was preaching on the voice of authority and he quoted John 525.

Verily, verily I say unto you the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live. One sentence the dear man said is this, I will know said brother Carol that is my voice is the only one you hear in this gospel service.

You will go away from here nothing bettered but if in the providence of God you hear his voice speak to you. He has authority in his voice and if you hear him you shall live. That's the heart of the truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dependence on God in Ministry and Evangelism

Well friends those are the words of Evangelist Barnard and they underscore our text today from John's gospel. Let us who preach the gospel and witness for Christ realize our utter bankruptcy apart from God's activity through our preaching and witnessing and praying.

Let us go to God and ask him for a touch of heaven on our ministry so that when we preach to others they will hear the voice of authority as it comes in saving power. Let us pray.