How Rolfe Barnard Witnessed

I really believe, friends, that there are a good number of church members all over this country who've never sat under the true gospel of the Son of God. They walked an aisle and made a decision and joined the church, but they never were awakened to their lost condition, never were convicted of sin, and never were born from above through a work of regeneration upon the heart through the new birth. We are in the sad condition we are in because we as a church have made it too easy to become a Christian.

We tell a person he's saved when he's not. We heal wounds slightly and make our false converts. We omit the need for repentance and fail to preach up the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We tell folks they can have Jesus as Savior, but they don't have to have him as Lord. We don't even mention the demands of discipleship and all the rights and claims that the gospel has on a person's life. Instead of being honest with folks and telling them that if they want to be saved, then a self must be dethroned and another enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ, that a crucified Savior must have crucified followers who are dead to sin and dead to this world.

Instead, we soft-soak the gospel and dilute it to make it more palatable to sinful man so he can swallow it a little easier, and we broaden the way to salvation even though our Lord Jesus never did. Jesus said the way was narrow. You had to strive to enter it and few there would be that find it, and I believe, friends, there are some evangelists out there more interested in counting heads and bragging on the results than they are about a soul's true condition.

I was sitting at my seminary graduation dinner banquet, and one of the students got up on the platform for testimony time, and he said that he just got back from a crusade in a certain city, and during that week he had over 1,100 people get saved, and everybody in that room at that dinner clapped their hands and shouted amen. That is, everybody except me. I didn't shout or clap.

I was just thinking to myself, how in the world does this young man know if even one of those persons is truly saved? All he knows is that over a thousand people walked in and out and made a physical response to his invitation. Even D.L. Moody said, never tell a person they are saved, that only the Holy Spirit could do that, but we have many in our churches today, friends, who've made themselves Christians without the activity of the Holy Spirit. Did you know, friends, that the gospel has to be interpreted and applied by the Holy Spirit to a person's heart? Did you know that the Spirit of God is the one who takes the heart of stone away and makes it a heart of flesh, but they don't teach that much in seminaries anymore? And in seminary, you probably won't hear about how to shut a sinner up to God with the law until he realizes his lost condition.

But in former days, preachers were wiser in their dealings with sinners. Both Wesley and Whitfield preached the law before grace. They believed that a sinner must be confronted with his rebellion against an almighty God.

In fact, George Whitfield used to comment that a sinner must first be brought to Mount Sinai before he can be brought to Mount Zion. But today's evangelism simply says, God loves you, friend. Only believe and you will go to heaven.

Is there no wonder that our congregations are mixed herds of sheep and goats who cannot get along and bite each other's tails? And even many pastors today want to fill up the seats in their sanctuary and cram as many bodies in there as they can and have a building program going on all the time. We make it real easy to come to Christ and fill up our congregations with baptized heathen who will stand and sing on Sunday morning how they love Jesus but live like the devil on Saturday night. Listen, friends, the modern gospel doesn't have the power to save a flea, let alone a poor wretched sinner.

If you claim to be saved, let me ask you, where is the power? Where is the victory? Where is the desire to witness? Do you desire holiness more than recognition? Is Christ your complete master? I was flying home from Boston one time and the plane encountered a bad storm and we had to fly up above the clouds. Finally, we came out of the darkness into glorious light as sunshine was all around us while the storm clouds were gathering beneath the plane. And as I looked out the window of that plane, I looked down at that swirling mass of darkness below and it seemed to me I was hovering over an abyss and it was like God said to my heart that that's what the pit of hell was like.

And it seemed almost that I was looking at hordes and hordes of multitudes of people standing there over that abyss. And as I imagined those multitudes of people in my mind standing at that lid of that abyss ready to topple into it, they were suddenly all consumed by that darkness. And it made me more conscious of being a better preacher and preaching the full counsel of God so to warn sinners not to go to that place of misery and torment called hell.

And I believe, friend, that every God called preacher and witness of the gospel has a great and grave responsibility to do people good and not harm. We should be careful not to make false converts just to boost our numbers. I really believe, friends, that the most miserable person in hell is not the atheist but the baptized church member who thought he was saved yet died in his sins.

I believe how we preach and how we witness to folks should be of utmost importance to us. I have an app on iTunes called Evangelism Awakening in which I preach up the great doctrines of ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration. And I teach a church body how to witness the right way to bring a person under conviction of sin and to awaken them to their lost condition.

And when I was conducting my research on the life and ministry of the Baptist evangelist Ralph Barnard from my biography on his life, I learned more about the gospel from studying Barnard's ministry than I had learned from the two seminaries in which I graduated. And I want to take time now, friends, to relate to you a story from the life of Ralph Barnard because I believe we can learn much from it in our witnessing and how we share the gospel with folks in our day. Ralph Barnard believed in ringing doorbells and sharing the gospel with folks and I want us to listen carefully to his words from this incident in his life.

Years ago, I went down to Mississippi Wednesday night through Sunday night at the request of a friend. He said, I will pay the bill and help you if you will go. So we set it up and I went down.

The young preacher, a student of a Baptist college there met me. He was pastoring a small country church on weekends. So I preached on Wednesday night and Thursday and the young preacher who was a go-getter came and got me early and we went out to knock on doors.

I preached Thursday night and on Friday we spent all day knocking on doors and talking to folks. We spent all day Saturday visiting around in the community just talking with people. Saturday night after the service was over, I was already gone to bed and a knock came on the door of the room where I was being entertained.

I said, come in and that young pastor came in. He said, Brother Barnard, I don't know what to do. You're a much older man than I am and you're here as my guest.

I'm just a young fellow but I'm going to ask you not to preach tomorrow. I don't want you to preach for us anymore. He said, I just can't stand the way you were doing.

I asked, well what on earth am I doing that's hurting you so? He said, well Brother Barnard and all our visiting, you just talked about the gospel to only one person. I said, well I haven't found but one sinner. You see, I am forbidden to sow among thorns.

I take that pretty seriously. I am forbidden to give holy things unto dogs. Matthew 7, 6 says, give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.

I remember we had gone into lots of homes and they were all right. Some of them would try to come to the meeting one night before it closed if it didn't rain. Some were aiming to come last night and just as they got ready, friends came in.

I just heard all the excuses and everybody was just fine and dandy. So all I could do in such homes, I asked if it was all right for us to have prayer. They would say it was.

So I would pray to them and I would preach them a sermon in my prayer on the holy demands of a thrice holy God. I wouldn't invite any of them to come to the meeting or anything else. I would just leave.

But we came to one place and we talked a while. Then the pastor said we had to go. Would it be all right if we had a word of prayer? So we led in prayer and then I prayed.

And while I was praying, I noticed a woman was crying and I quit praying. I thought the Lord would forgive me. And I said, what's the matter with you? And she said, I wish I could be saved, but I can't.

I asked, why can't you be saved? She said, I'm such a big sinner. I've sinned so long. There's no hope for me.

Now that's the kind of folks I like to find. And I told her about the Pearl of Great Price, the son of the living God who came to justify the ungodly. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.

But God commanded his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But let me show you something. I was forbidden to tell those self-satisfied in for help church people about the Lord.

I'm not going to sow among thorns. I preached to them the holy claims of God's law. And as I explained that to the young preacher, he said, I understand.

I said, young man, if you will let me help you instead of going into homes and trying to get them to take Jesus, do what the scriptures say, break up some fallow ground and use the holy demands of a holy God. No man will ever receive Christ as Lord and Savior until he is stripped and slain and conquered by the claims of God's holy law. And we are just butchers of souls if we ignore the fundamental truth that God gives his best and that is Christ to prepare hearts.

You know what that boy did? He took me literally. And his visiting from then on was scriptural. When he found nice little secure people, he just shot them with God's holy law.

If God's holy law won't route you out of feeling how good you are, then you just have to go on to hell. That's his weapon. And in six weeks after the meeting, he had 37 grown people in that little county community come to him asking, is there any hope that we might get saved? Well, I like that story about Ralph Warner, friends, and I've learned a lot from his mighty ministry.

And I think we should too shut sinners up to the law and show them the strictness and severity of that law and then show the pearl a great price once they realize their need. Jesus says, he came to seek and save that which was lost. You got to get a man lost, friends, before he can be saved.

Let us take this time now to go to our knees and go to God and ask him to give us the grace to go out and witness more, to tell folks more about Jesus Christ and how it came down here so they can go up there. Let us take this time now and go to God in prayer.