Why God Kills Christians

Tonight I want to speak on the subject that God or the Bible kills people. Well, they have to kill you. This morning I want to speak on the subject why God kills his own people, what we call Christian people.

I invite your attention to the fifth chapter, the first epistle of John. And I want you to keep your Bibles open, those of you who have them with you. We'll be turning to other passages as we progress in the message.

Does God kill Christians? If he does, how does he go about it and why? Does he kill people who are members of his family, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? In the fifth chapter, the first epistle of John, beginning at verse 14. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we desire of him.

If any man see his brother sin of sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall praise for it.

Before looking into the message, I want to make three statements. If you wish to know how hard it is to come by truth now, when we've never known much about the fullness of the Spirit, that he alone who can teach people the truth, then just look at that verse, verse 16. Face the fact that perhaps none of us, I know this for a person, would know how to go about doing what this verse says to do and not to do.

It tells me that if I see a brother sin of sin which is not unto death, to pray for him, and the thing will be remedied. But it further says that there is a sin unto death, and we are forbidden to pray for anybody who has gone that far. The problem is that I wouldn't know, I'm too far from the fullness of the Holy Ghost and a real understanding of the word of God, to know when a man has so sinned that there is just one thing left for God to do.

That's killing. Take, for instance, the usual pastor, he won't get mad at me. I watch you, and it's forbidden to confess our, or we are told to confess our false ones or another, and so forth.

And I go to a brother, and they begin recovering the scriptures, or something like that. And I go to Brother Kirkman, and I say, Brother Kirkman, so-and-so, so-and-so. And he doesn't get mad, and we have prayer.

But that would be with the understanding that the sin he presently caught in is not a sin, the penalty of which is death. How would I go about knowing whether Brother Kirkman has sinned the sin, and God is just going to take him on to glory, he's going to have a premature funeral and die before his time. I confess to you that I come then with some sense of humility to my message this morning, because I don't know how to handle that problem.

But whether I know how to handle it or not, the Bible here says there is a sin unto death, and it's talking about physical death, and it's talking about physical death visited on a child of God by his heavenly Father. There is a sin unto death. And if Ralph Barnard commits it, then there is nothing left for him but a premature grave to go on to glory.

The second statement I want to make is this. Brother Kirkman says, I'm not preaching now, I'm telling the truth. For the last 20 years, I have had a terrible fear on this.

I've been afraid God would kill me. I don't know why he hadn't. I don't know why he hadn't.

But the matter as we approach this message from the Word of God, when I find out from people who did sin unto death, and then I look at my shabby love and service and response to the love of God in Christ for me, it makes me wonder if I'm a Christian. If I am, why hadn't God killed me? The third statement before we get into the Word of God, and I want you to listen carefully to what I say now. It could be that the fact that you are alive this morning is the best evidence that you are not a Christian.

Let me repeat. It could be that the fact that you are alive this morning is the best possible evidence that you are not God's child. Those thoughts are solemn to me.

In this day, when Baptists are known all over the world for a carnal doctrine of what they call the security of the leader, you say, we aren't what most Baptists are, that have produced a brand of something they call Christianity that's filling hell full of people whose souls they say are saved, but their lives are lost, and that cannot be. The very best evidence that you have missed the Lord could possibly be, and I include myself, and that's the reason I wondered why God hadn't killed me, that you're still alive. There are just three things that God could possibly do for one of his children who willfully said, we'll learn later that God's people sometimes sin out of ignorance and the weakness of the flesh and temptation, but God's people also, with their eyes wide open, willfully sin.

What's God going to do with one of his children found in a state of willful sinning against him? He could do one of only either one of three things. First, he could send them to hell. Whether we like it or not, he can do what he wills with his own.

And he could send a sinning child of God to hell. It wouldn't hurt to be faced with that just a little while now. When everybody's a Christian and banking on a perverted doctrine or a furious confession of some kind of an experience instead of a relationship to the Holy Son of God, God could send one of his children to hell.

But in the word of God, he has promised that he won't do so. Thank God. My sheep hear my voice.

It doesn't say they ought to, it says they do. And they follow me. They may make crooked steps, but they're going in the right direction.

It doesn't say a Christian ought to follow Christ, but he does. And I shall give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Thank God.

He promised not to send one of his children to hell. In the second place, God could, in dealing with his child, the sin in that child's life, he could ignore it and apparently let them go on in sin. I kind of wish that this was the teaching of the word of God.

For if it isn't, millions of church members who are sitting listening to somebody preach this morning, going to split hell wide open, because apparently for about 99 out of every 100 professional Christians in America now, they are the Lord of their own lives. They decide what's right and wrong. They are outlaws against God's enthroned Son and against his headship in the church.

Every man does that which is right in his own sight. And apparently they're getting by with it. But a child of God can't get by with it.

God will not allow one of his children to live like and talk like and act like professional Christians do today. He won't let them do it and get by with it. This is a scarce proposition.

I don't know whether it fits anybody but scarce me. It is amazing the lengths that this generation of professional Christians will go to to keep from minding God. They'll get an alibi.

If you tear that down, they'll get another one. There's one thing apparently professional Christians are not going to do now. They're not going to mind God.

And God, I suppose, could let his children conduct themselves like most of the professional Christians, I'm afraid, do now and let them get by with it. But the Word of God won't let us believe that. And for that reason, anybody here this morning who has any marks on him of the chastening rod of God Almighty or to first be mighty thankful that's a little evidence you're one of his children and you ought to have something in your heart that makes you long to be of help to this generation of deceived church members who are living just about as they please and calling themselves God's children not suffering the chastening rod of a heavenly Father whom the scriptures plainly say chastens everyone that he loves.

On Tuesday, January 31st, I was in Texas and that night my wife finally reached me loved ones had reached her and she reached me and my baby sister's husband out in Montana had dropped over dead with a sudden heart attack that afternoon. And I talked with my baby sister, she's 47 years old I haven't seen her much in many years now and wrote her, I couldn't go to the funeral.

Last Tuesday, this week, this past week the phone rang and the husband of my oldest sister went to be with the Lord on Hill 1, 320, Tuesday morning in a month's time, exactly four weeks both of them died on a Tuesday four weeks apart my baby sister's husband, 51 my oldest sister's husband, 79 and both of them have gone from this world of probation and as the tree falls, it'll lie I've had the matter of the fact that people die brought again, fresh to me I couldn't go, I didn't leave this meeting and go to my sister's side she said, I don't want you to leave the meeting but you must come to see me as soon as you can now what's this all about, brother Barney? don't misunderstand me in this present mixed up stuff they call Christianity I know that we cannot judge the relationship of people

to Christ we're forbidden to do that but both of my sister's husbands all they know is what passes for Christianity today you might think you get a little puffed up around here if you do, I hope God will kill you that you've been exposed to truth a good deal of it but the multitude of people who are as sincere as you are in this world, haven't my two brother-in-laws that died within the space of a month and if they knew the Lord, they had to know him in spite of what they'd been taught and in spite of what they'd heard preached good men, church men, oh yes I don't know whether they say it or not God does but they showed none of the marks of the chastening word of God I wish God would visit this generation and confront it with Christ in the truth I don't want to see my loved ones go to

hell I don't want to see anybody go to hell that brings me to the third thing that God could possibly do for one of his children in sin he could send them to hell, he's promised he won't he could ignore their sin, he's sworn he won't he could bring his chastening rod upon his child and that's what he does a shepherd who loves a sheep will break a sheep's leg rather than see the sheep jump over the precipice and the heavenly Father and Lord of the Lord Jesus Christ and God's people's heavenly Father will chasten everyone whom he loveth by two kinds of sin the same people under temptation they're penitent, they confess and they're forgiven and by the done doing they get to confess willful sin it'll not get the job done to say about willful sin the word of God's crystal clear God almighty

takes his child out behind the wood house and chastens his child when he sins willfully the remedy is not confession that's for sins of the weakness of the flesh and temptation the remedy is not prayer the remedy is the chastening rod of God and let's read of course that tremendous chapter again, the 12th of Hebrews and look at what God says again about his dealings with his people he dealeth with them as with sons turn to Hebrews chapter 12 I'll have to read this chapter but it scares the daylights out of me beginning in verse 1 wherefore seeing we all so encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and of course that unbelief willful refusal to walk in light that thing that dogs the steps of every child of

God that's your besetting sin unbelief unbelief in ignorance it willful refusal to walk the way God says it that's your besetting sin that camps on your tail you let that deal with it every day of your life one way or the other let's lay aside this sin which doth easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that's set before us the race set before a child of God and as we do it we do it looking into Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be weary and think in your minds here's a tremendous verse ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin people

sometimes come to me and say brother Barnard you preach christian perfection certainly the bible does yes sir yes sir one day God's child is going to be perfect amen that's what the bible says anybody satisfied until that happens gives evidence he's not a child of God and then they say brother Barnard can a christian live above sin I said you've come to the wrong person I'm not an authority how would I know I have never yet resisted unto blood striving against sin have you I wouldn't be so quick to say well I well I know a christian can't live above sin you don't know you've never tried neither have I to the point where it costs you blood huh if I could stand here and say my body is hemorrhaged like the body of my lord as he strove resisting sin striving against sin resisting at the cost

of blood vessels breaking then I might have some authority to talk about whether a christian can live above sin but I never have been able to do that brother Curtin so I just have to say well I never have I never have and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children my son treat not lightly the chastening of the lord don't just ignore it uh uh then on the other hand don't faint when thou art rebuked of him too dangerous to pay no attention to it there is the thing for whom the lord loveth he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth if ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sons for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not well there just aren't any brother but if you do without chastisement whereof all are partakers all the father

loveth then you're bastards and not sons furthermore we've had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father's spirits and live for they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness now no chastening for the present seems as to be joy but greed nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are what exercised by this is what bothers me so much chastening no exercise by it does a good it's good for the person who God chastens if that person is exercised by he's caught up sure he examines himself as you'll see a little later wherefore lift up the hands which hang down the feeble knees make

straight paths for your feet lest that which delaying be turned out of the way but let it rather be healed follow peace with all and holiness apart from which no man shall enjoy or see the law if God chastens everybody he loves as a son if there are no exceptions how does he bring his chastening rod on one of his children in the old testament you'll find case after case for instance sometimes he brings takes loved ones away from his children because of their sins in the book of 1st Samuel you'll find where David confessing that he sinned against God and that sin with the wife of Uriah and God tells him well fine that's good but you brought reproach and shame on the name of God that's what it hurts so bad it brings shame to God's holy name on one of his children and says because of that

the child is going to die and so David he called a meeting and he fasted and prayed but it didn't do any good the child died the chastening of God almighty when I was first born was taken at the age of three and a half years I remember how my wife stopped for about two days when we got a letter from one of the church members that was fighting the preacher so hard that poor woman but we had to examine her she said that because I wasn't doing this that and the other God took my child one day she was right broke our heart I wouldn't exercise much about the causes of venomous nature of that paratheical woman but David sinned and the child died he fasted and prayed but the child died in the book of Amos God over and over again reminds his covenant people at least that he'd taken their property

away from them because of that thing sometimes he does that it'd be wonderful if he takes your burns your home up and you're exercised by it you say I wonder what's going on around here is this God's wrought upon me? is it? for God's sake don't ignore it don't treat it like the book of 1 Corinthians sometimes people lose their health because of sin the 11th chapter I do not know your procedure so forth about the Lord's supplications or whatever I say there's nothing personal about it because I just don't know but I do know one thing that coming to the Lord's table is a tremendous event and I do know that in connection with coming to the table of the Lord the Lord has given us here in the 11th of 1 Corinthians that men and women are warned for instance in verse 27 wherefore whosoever shall

eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily can mean that they come being worthy but unworthily they didn't come right they didn't approach this right we'll learn later that they didn't examine themselves before they came they're too busy examining somebody else but when we come to the table of the Lord brother we leave everybody else alone amen this is the time to examine ourselves that we do not come to the Lord's table and be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord for a man is to examine himself and then let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Christ is just but to himself fine not discern the Lord's body I don't know your interpretation of this mine is the Lord's body is assured that's what I believe

I don't know what your position is you don't agree with me, you're wrong but this is serious oh my what's the penalty for not discerning the Lord's body having examined yourself thus coming to eat of these symbols worthily well it says for this cause many are weak many are weak oh the tragedy of the Lord's suffer all the world and the penalty weak, weak spiritually, weak little babies it ought to be done what's the penalty some are sickly among you can't care a little about here I am up until two years ago nearly six years I didn't know what it meant to be without torture and pain doctors, people prayed for me late, hands on me anointed me with oil, maybe you don't believe in that but you're hurting like I did brother you could ever doctor anybody on earth, you'd act like there's a

Christian but it's the pain wouldn't quit here's one preacher that did just a little bit of examining, not all sickness is the judgment of God on the pain but some of it is and I don't know which is which but the point I'm making it is and I bet you brother Kirkman will say amen to this you've examined yourself for that sick body I didn't mind, I don't know what I came up with the answer but at least I was exercised by it gave me a little hope, made me a child of God when the screaming was pain I have to watch myself so closely now oh many are sickly among you, many are surprised saying brother it's a sin not to discern the Lord's body when you come to the table, amen it's a sin to come there unworthily and yet we are commanded, this isn't an option God's people are commanded this do no

discipline is in this connection but if I'm talking strange language to you, you're akin to 99% of the Baptist in America they wouldn't know what I'm talking about either they don't know nothing about examining themselves and they have the Lord's Supper as quickly as they can to get it over with and they usually have it when nobody much will show up and then it's as seldom as possible it's a necessary evil but oh no it's the heart of the Christian wall and the life blood of the church of Jesus Christ and weak fleshly men and women, some of it because of this awful outrage against the same teaching of the word of God about coming to remember his death till he comes what's the penalty and some sleep at death of having premature funerals in Corinth brother people who died for this post sent

unto death nothing to do but remove them look again in verse in the 11th chapter and hold on to your feet verse 31 for if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged one or the other now take your toy if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged, watch it but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord in order that we should not be condemned with the world, that word condemned is crisis, is damnation is judgment, there's no way on earth you can get around it dear this Baptist preacher this is true before God will let one of his children so sin that he'll have to send him to hell he'll kill him and take him on to glory he's not going to let his child be condemned with the world and the reason he killed some of his people is either got to do that or allow them to fall into

the crisis k-r-i-s-i-s damnation, judgment that falls on unfaithful, that may not square that little nice doctrine but it's the God's truth I'm reading out of God's word, God's got a right to do what he will with his own he's promised not to send one of his children to hell he'll kill ya if his chastening doesn't bring the peaceable fruits of all innocent righteousness and you're not exercised by it and you keep on before he'll send you to hell he'll take ya premature death there is a sin under death let me give you two or three examples of men who committed to sin under death, Uzziah, perhaps the finest king that Israel ever had but the people gave him so much glory and he took it Isaiah couldn't see the Lord and God killed Uzziah so Isaiah could see the Lord in the year that King Uzziah

died I saw the Lord Moses, the best man that ever lived the greatest man that ever lived, according to the Bible Ha!

Ha! the tithe price Ha! killed and nobody found out his burial place Michael, the devil had a fierce fight over the body of the Moses Moses! the man that God used to bring through him the law Ha! killed and he never crossed over Jordan Joshua Joshua got to Jordan leading the people to the promised land Moses lost that one he sinned a sin under death and God killed him the Apostle Paul read carefully again the 21st chapter of Acts when you get home greatest evangelist missionary maybe the greatest Christian that ever lived read it Moses sinned a sin under death Moses died Paul died before he should have Paul died a premature death he would not listen to the counsel of Israel God brought a prophecy through a man named Agabus and the brethren met with Paul and said don't you go old Paul like

Rothbard I'm a going I'm a going and he went and they say if you do you'll go what they said so listen it's a terrible thing to act against the counsel of your brethren if you say I'll believe what you're preaching now don't get mad at me I believe it but we'll not argue about it but the thing is dead certain that the Apostle Paul knew he was going to die go die and he called for the elders of the church you'd have to come over and meet me I'll not see you anymore here's a man who knew he was headed for death he disobeyed he'd gone against the counsel of God through a prophet and the brethren through their advice and in his zeal God brought him home to glory there is a sin under death if Paul could commit it if he did we'd better not laugh at it if Moses committed it and I know he did

we'd better not be so cocky oh why does God kill his people damn them for disclosing them he's not going to let one of his children crucify the son of God afresh and bring him to open shame he's not going to do it he'll kill them first for if we tend willfully Hebrews 10 after we receive the knowledge of the truth this is the child of God there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin nothing but judgment now brother God huh but what does remain is certain fearful looking horror of judgment and fiery indignation which will shall devour the adversary the old Calvinist and Puritans they say this is fulfilled it almost got paid but no no this is plain talk to a child of God there is a sin unto death willful sin brings a chastening rod to bring death what does remain of certain fearful looking

horror of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary he that defies Moses' law died without mercy unto two or three witnesses how much sore of punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under the foot the son of God you can put it down God not going to let one of his children do that he'll kill you before you do and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was set apart an unholy thing and hath done this under the spirit of death for we know him that hath said vengeance belongeth to me I will recompense the Lord and again the Lord shall judge his people it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God