The Biography of Rolfe Barnard

For the remainder of our time, friends, this afternoon, I want to continue in our study of men who God has used in former times in a mighty way in the preaching of his word. And I want to talk about this afternoon, an obscure individual that many people just have never even heard of. His name is Rolf Barnard.

And I wrote Barnard's biography entitled God's Hitchhiker Evangelist, which is published by Revival Literature. And what I'd like to do for the remainder of our time is just to read you the introduction that I wrote to this biography to kind of give you a glimpse of how mightily used this individual was and what a grasp he had on preaching the gospel. Barnard was a remarkable man.

Let me go ahead and start by reading you my introduction to this work. Rolf Barnard was an evangelist who lived in relative obscurity and died without even a public notice of his death, but of whom it was said that he was the human means of divine mercy to 100,000 souls, the fruit of an itinerant preaching ministry that lasted over 40 years and canvassed much of America. To say this man Barnard was a controversial figure is an understatement.

A Southern Baptist and a fundamentalist, Barnard's ministry alienated him within his own denomination and fundamentalist circles. Pulpits were closed to him and peers spoke ill of him. What did he preach which drew such ire from so many? Rolf Barnard preached the unvarnished doctrines of grace, the gospel of God's glory.

He believed in sovereign grace and defended its doctrines to his death. He saw its reality within his own heart and proclaimed the sovereignty of God in the salvation of men. This was the message which upset so many.

This was also the message that God seemed pleased to save so many throughout the ministry of Rolf Barnard. His primary message was repentance in a day when most preachers no longer believed repentance was necessary to faith and salvation. Even within the sovereign grace movement, which he was primarily instrumental in its formation and served as its figurehead, he came down hard on those who only preached the doctrine of election and did not preach repentance and the need for a changed life.

Addressing a group of reformed pastors during this period, he commented, we must put first things first. The first emphasis is repentance. This generation doesn't need to learn the doctrine of election.

This generation needs to be called to repentance. This generation needs to bow to Jesus Christ. But what alienated him most within his denomination was his prophetic voice which cried out against the spiritual deterioration of Southern Baptist life, the dilution of the gospel to make it more palatable to the masses, and evangelism which relied more upon man's methodology and emotional appeals more than God's sovereignty and the Holy Spirit's activity in convicting the heart of sin.

Rolf Barnard was not afraid to take aim and shoot down what he saw as the treatment of grace and the perversion of the gospel, and he simply ruffled some feathers of his peers. Thus he had his enemies. One man was so mad at him that purportedly he came to a meeting with a gun to shoot Barnard.

Providentially, there was no shooting. Historian Leon Macbeth referred to Rolf Barnard as the pioneer of Calvinistic resurgence among Baptists in America. It was said of Barnard that he was one of the first proponents of getting Banner of Truth's Puritan books known in the United States before many began to support them.

Yet when I asked my friend Ian Murray what he knew of Rolf Barnard, he replied, I heard of him, but nothing more. I asked another Calvinist friend, Richard R. Roberts, who has canvassed much of America in his own itinerant ministry, what he knew of Barnard, and his reply was, I have heard the name, but know nothing else about him. Why has Barnard suffered from such neglect? To those in the Sovereign Grace Movement of the 1950s, Rolf Barnard was simply a giant.

He mentored many young preachers, and he had a wide radio ministry for years, yet few today know of him. In his own day, we have the following story. A local radio personality had heard Barnard as a boy, but over the years, despite much traveling, had never met anyone who'd ever heard of this preacher.

To the world, Rolf Barnard was a nobody. He never made a name for himself. He never formed an institution bearing his name, and he authored no books.

However, he has over 270 sermons on sermonaudio.com and over 180 sermons on sermonindex.com. These are his main legacy. Some friends published three volumes of his sermons in the 1980s, and these 68 printed sermons are representative of Brother Barnard's ministry, and the Rolf Barnard Library on sermonaudio maintains much of the Barnard legacy. When I began to study the life and ministry of Rolf Barnard, I was shocked at how greatly this man was used of God in the salvation of souls.

In many ways, he was the Azahel Nettleton of his day. In fact, Barnard and Nettleton shared much in common. Both fought for orthodox religion of their day and faced fierce opposition for their stance.

Both preached man's duty for immediate repentance. Both sought great movements of God's grace. Nettleton witnessed more because he labored during the Second Great Awakening, and both men were private persons and walked alone.

Oddly, although Rolf Barnard was much loved by the sovereign gracers, some could be at odds with him because he gave a public invitation and had a tendency towards too much preaching means when his peers believed all power to regenerate sinners was in the sovereign spirit of God, who operates as he wills. Some said he was too much like Charles Fanny in the methods he at times employed. He was a maverick, a prophet, and a trailblazer.

Listening to a Rolf Barnard sermon is an experience in itself. You'll find yourself startled, alarmed, amused, convicted, and occasionally brought to tears. Take time to read his 68 printed sermons and you will stand amazed at this man's comprehension of human nature and his understanding of the lost sinner and infidel, and admire his great ability as an effective communicator of the great doctrines of the Bible.

Barnard knew full well the windings of the sinner's wicked heart, for he was once an infidel himself, and knew all the excuses and objections a rebel makes so not to stack arms and throw down his shotgun at the feet of a sovereign. Evangelist Barnard possessed a deep desire to see man submit to the claims of Christ in his lordship through repentance and a life of faith. He was a man of prayer who regularly interceded for the lost, but most of all he believed a Christian was someone who had experienced change through a new birth from above and had entered into a union with Jesus Christ.

He firmly believed that Jesus saved sinners from their sins at conversion. He did not hold to the theory that someone could take Jesus as savior now and at a later time take him as lord. It grieved him to see so many church members living in antinomianism.

He believed in being a doer of the word, often ringing doorbells in the dead of the night and in the dead of winter to personally invite the lost to a meeting he was holding in their town. He was a man's man, but not afraid to weep real tears over the lost church members seated on the front row of the church. Those who were fortunate enough to become converts under his preaching are among his most loyal supporters today.

How can one describe his preaching and still do him justice? I don't know if it can be done, but I will try. Ralph Barnard preached with a bible in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. As the demands of the holy law of God were pressed upon his hearers, a combustion began to occur, and as the passion of the preacher rose, sparks would begin to fly as listeners sat spellbound as they drew closer and closer to Sinai on a smoke until they could sense the terror of the Lord and were confronted with the wickedness of their own heart.

At times, this spiritual combustion could be too overwhelming to some of his hearers, and they would have to be removed from a Ralph Barnard meeting on a stretcher. This occurred on more than one occasion. Do you know anyone who's preaching does that? There were times when some of his hearers were so overcome by the truths they heard they became insensible and landed in mental institutions.

In his younger years, his preaching could literally shake an entire town. His preaching could be so powerful and gripping under the right circumstances, and that was Ralph Barnard at his best and most effective. He could also be quite ordinary as a preacher, but he kept a lifelong willingness to preach what others would not and face the consequences for his convictions.

He was a man jealous for God and His glory, but one thing was certain. If you went to a Ralph Barnard meeting, you did not leave without a strong opinion of the preacher, good or bad. His preaching disturbed people.

If I could sum up his preaching with one word, it would be disturbing. He was a disturbing preacher. He had a way of getting under your skin like a splinter beneath your finger which gnaws at you and makes you wince.

He could get you mad, get you under conviction, get you to the foot of Calvary and at the feet of the Savior whose fountain of blood can wash all sins away. He preached the gospel in its purity and proper order. He believed in total depravity and preached often on the doctrines of ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration, with the voice of a prophet, warning of a judgment to come, and a Christ who ruled with all authority from a heavenly throne.

His was not a politically correct gospel. His gospel had power to save. A little is known of his early childhood.

His daughter Joanne recently died before I could contact her for information on her father. What is known about his early life can only be culled from his sermons. He left no autobiography or diary, with the exception of some personal recollections of friends.

The information on Rolf Barnard herein presented is drawn from his sermonic material. Therefore, we will let the man speak for himself throughout this biography. Rolf will tell us about himself, what he believed, what he preached, and what God accomplished through his itinerant and radio ministry.

You will enjoy his Southern colloquialisms and his humble transparency as a poor sinner saved by grace. Evangelist Barnard had his share of peculiar traits and flaws, unlike the time he turned his Baptist church in North Carolina into an experiment which ended in chaos and disaster and his sudden departure. He demonstrated on more than one occasion that he had feet of clay.

He was an imperfect man who preached a perfect Christ. As you read this biography on Rolf Barnard, God's Hitchhiker Evangelist, we hope that the ride will be rewarding, although often bumpy, as such was the man known as the Hitchhiker Evangelist. Well, friends, I want to challenge you to find a Rolf Barnard sermon and listen to it and experience yourself the mighty hand of God which was upon this man and learn the gospel that Rolf Barnard preached, for it was a gospel mighty and powerful to save.