How God Gets A Sinner To Know He Is LOST
by Rolfe Barnard

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pen the Word tonight, and, if the LORD anoints me, I do want to preach some. For I am constantly aware there is no substitute for preaching. We must have a balance between teaching and preaching. One of the greatest concerns of my heart has been, and still is, that whatever reproach we suffer, should be suffered for truth's sake and not for error. I realize that it is tremendously easy to so handle what we call the Doctrines of Grace as to make them the enemies of the Gospel and the enemy of the sinner; they are not. I can call to mind so many preachers who think they suffer for the truth they preach, when in reality they suffer for the fact that they do not sit down, and study until the Holy Spirit clears their own minds and hearts. Then they can be clear in their expression. I want not to butcher the Gospel, but to proclaim it.

We preach the Law and the Gospel to the unsaved, for I do know that by the foolishness of preaching, it pleased God to save those whom He saves. I'd like for us to read first of all from the book of Ezekiel, Chapter 34. Try to find out, not simply in our heads, but in our hearts and experiences what the Bible means by the word LOST. I want us, this week, God willing, to rediscover the teaching of the word of God on how we got LOST, and what possible chance there is in being recovered from our lost condition. Tonight, I want us to think together on how God proceeds to get men LOST. Tomorrow night I want to deal with when we got LOST.

I had the blessed privilege of studying under the man who I suppose was the greatest student of Theology, the study of man and God, that this generation and the two before has produced: Dr. Conner. He has gone on to glory. He was the worthy successor of Dr. Carroll and Dr. Mullens. It is said the two greatest thinkers the Baptists have produced in "The South" (USA) were Dr. E. Y. Mullens (who has been in glory for some time now,) and Dr. Conner. I sat under him when he was the head of the Department of Theology.

I had a terrible time when I entered the seminary. I had been preaching about two years, and I was pretty much an authority on the Bible. I find the less we know, the more we think we know. Now that is so. The folks I have trouble with are the folks that never read the Bible, but certainly know all about it; folks that have built up a philosophy that's not Biblical, and they are hard to deal with. I remember this teacher (it was pitiful how "dumb" he was when I was going to school under him, but he improved a lot after I got out.) He really did, and I have been sitting at his feet for twenty odd years since I got out of school. The things that he would try to pound into my dumb head then, twenty years later, I'd find out what he was talking about. And the memory of many of his statements, stays with me; one of which I want to use to introduce the message tonight.

He used to say, "Young gentlemen, you can't find out the meaning of a word in the Bible by consulting a dictionary." He said, "Words mean what they mean in the Bible, not what the dictionary says they mean." He used to repeat that over and over again, "Words mean what they mean in the Bible, not what the dictionary says they mean." That word that we have before us tonight means what it means in the Bible. It doesn't mean what we think it does or what the dictionary says it does. What does it mean to be LOST? What does it mean to be LOST?

We are commanded in the scriptures by the LORD Jesus Christ to give not Holy things to dogs. Or to cast the pearls before the swine. What is the meaning of that? One meaning, of course, is that the sooner we quit trying to wish a savior off on people who are not LOST, the better we will redeem the time. We want to look at this word LOST, and two or three things will guard us. We want to look at it, and try to find out what it means if it takes us all week. Maybe we will have some conception of it, and remember two or three things if we come anywhere near the Bible meaning of this word LOST.

And the first thing is we have to remember that, whatever our text that we take says, where they use the word "lost," none of them does violence to those two or three truths. The first truth that I lay before you is this: that, if this Bible teaches anything, we can't read it at all, even haphazardly, without coming smack-dab face-to-face with this truth: that the God of the Bible saves "lost" people. He saves lost people.

We'll just miss the meaning of this word LOST, unless we have got enough of the truth of the Bible in our heads and hearts to find out that God saves LOST people. And we are going to have to find out again that God saves everybody that is LOST. There is not going to be a single person who is LOST that God does not save. That's right.

Now I want to show you in the Scripture, where the scripture uses the same word, but has an entirely different meaning. In Ezekiel 34, and then in Luke 19, we'll find out that the Bible interprets itself, and the word "lost" means one thing, and then we'll turn to Corinthians, and find out the word "lost" there means something entirely different. That's why you can't use your dictionary, now, if you are going to find out what the Bible teaches. You better let the Bible interpret itself. In Ezekiel 34:16, we have the plain statement that God says, "I will do my dead-level best to seek." No sir, it doesn't say that, does it? It doesn't say, "I will make an effort to seek," no sir. This is an absolute statement of God; no ifs, ands, or buts about it. "I will seek that which was LOST." And He will not seek them just to turn them a-loose, but He will bring again that which was driven away. He WILL do it. There is no condition here. There is no, "if man will meet the proper terms." This is the plain statement of a sovereign God. He is saying, "this is it. I am going to do this very thing. And we'll bind up that which was broken." Now God says, "I will do that."

Now you can't read that scripture, and do anything like honor to the laws of interpretation, without seeing that the word "lost" does not refer to everybody that ever was born. It just can't do that, because we've got enough sense to know that God, so far, hasn't sought in such a way as to find, and bring again to Himself that which was LOST, and that which was driven away. He says, "I'll strengthen that which was sick," and then He says, "but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment." Here is the plain, unequivocal statement of God: that word "LOST" has a peculiar meaning.

In Chapter 19 of Luke's Gospel, at verse 10, we have another statement that we need to read again. We need, in particular, to read this in view of the fact that, taken out of its context, it has been so used as to make a defeated Christ, the One this world thinks about. I was reading in some Baptist paper that one of the editors was calling attention to this fact: (everybody seems to have more sense than us preachers) that the sissy pictures that adorn the walls of what we call our church buildings, now, and are attempting to picture what the LORD Jesus looked like, are doing a great deal to corrupt the Christian forces of America with an effeminate sissy Jesus that wouldn't hurt a fly. Now this text, think how it has been abused: "For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." And there you have that scripture applied that Jesus Christ is standing outside the door of every man's heart, and He is striving, but He can't get in. Thus you have this generation fed on an effeminate Jesus who can not move except as man allows Him to move. And that is not anything to argue about, but to weep over. The Son of Man is come to seek, (not to make an effort to seek, but SEEK,) and to save (not make an effort to save, but to SAVE) that which was LOST. No, you can't get around that kind of language. This word "lost" means something peculiar. We better find out what kind of a person a LOST person is.

Now we will turn to 2 Corinthians, and here we have a passage of scripture that, for the sake of being as broad as I can, we have to admit that, the word "lost" here means an entirely different group of people. In verse 3 of Chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, "but if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." In that sense the whole world of Adam's ruined and fallen race is described in the word "lost." They are LOST. Do you follow me now? In Ezekiel, Luke, and in 2 Corinthians, the same word is used, but they aren't talking about the same crowd. They are dead-sure not. In 2 Corinthians, everybody, as God looks on the fallen race of Adam's loins, every human being is LOST and away from God. Is that right? But in Luke, the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was LOST. Now I grant you that we are not doing violence to the scriptures if we interpret that scripture to say that He came, His ministry was in the direction of going out after, and bringing to Himself, the lost race of Adam. But it means more than that. It means a great deal more than that. We have to qualify these words, and say He came to seek and to "make an effort to save" if that word "lost" means "everybody" there. No sir, this word "LOST" carries a world of meaning in it. Everybody that is "lost" in this sense ... He will find them, and the LORD is going to save them. I wonder what this word means! I wonder what it means!

I want you tonight to study from David Brainerd a little bit. I usually carry with me two books, besides the Bible, where I have room. I carry MacChain's Memoirs, the Scotsman who was so mightily used of God, died when he was 29, and I carry David Brainerd's journal. I think if I have to throw every other book I own away, besides the Bible, I'd keep those two. I read them for my own soul's need. I read them because I am constantly hearing that the old message is no good now. The old methods are no good now. I read them for my own need; for something to feed my own soul. And, in David Brainerd's journal, he mentions the four things that made him mad at God before God saved him. David Brainerd is the father of modern missions. Through reading his exploits, William Carey had a vision of a lost world. Hudson Taylor, those men, all the great fathers of the modern mission movement, studied at the feet of, and drank of the example of, David Brainerd. He was engaged to marry the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theologian America ever produced, but he felt called to preach the Gospel to the Indians up in New York state and parts of Canada. He, too, died when he was 29. You have never read his journals, how he took this Gospel we believe is the Gospel, and preached it to those heathen Indians, and how the Gospel conquered among those heathen? You read it, and it just makes you a little impatient, but it makes your heart leap within you as you think about what can be done now. If in the unevangelized, as we call it, unreached territories in the world, and there's still plenty of them, we can get there first with the Gospel, and those heathen had never heard the perverted Gospel that most of our missionaries give, that would be the message.

A man came to me in North Carolina not long ago, a pastor, and he said " Brother Barnard, do you know of any foreign missionary that preaches the Gospel?" And I said, "Let's take that word 'foreign' off. I don't like that 'foreign missionary,' and just use 'missionary:' someone sent from heaven with the Gospel, makes no difference if he preaches in China or Kingsport." I'd like for us to drop those terms 'foreign' or 'home' or anything; I do. So he said, "I am rebuked, you are right. Do you know any man across the seas anywhere, that calls himself a missionary, that preaches the Gospel?" And I said, "I am sure there are some, but I am personally acquainted with only one. That's the only one I know. I know there are others. There aren't many. Most of your missionary money is going to tell the Chinese and the Africans to save themselves just like they are being taught in America. I don't see any use to go over there, and lie to the Chinese any more than we do here." And he said, "Give me this man's name and address. Our church has come to the place that we'll never give another dime to anything that we do not believe, with what little bit of brains we've got, is being true to the souls of men." That's right. This thing is coming, it's coming small, but the LORD is in it. So that church is helping this dear man, Brother James Stewart. They are helping him.

Now that may sound a little pessimistic, but how many do you know preach the Gospel? Now, our church supports missions. That is so, but what are they preaching? That's pretty serious, isn't it?

Isn't it serious that God's people are taking God's money out of their pocketbooks, and sending folks over to China to poison the Chinese in the name of Jesus Christ. This thing is getting serious! David Brainerd died about 30, and his "to be" Father-in-Law, Jonathan Edwards, is the only preacher America has ever produced that earned a Doctor's degree. He is the only preacher America ever produced that made a contribution to religious truth. That's right: his treatment of the human will. There had never been anything like it before: the greatest brain we ever had. He is the man that got fired from his church for insisting the church ought to be composed of Saved people. Did you know that? This church dismissed him; oh yeah!

Jonathan Edwards preached David Brainerd's funeral, and made this statement that just burns in my brain as I go up and down this country. He said, "Any interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the belief of which will contribute to the church of Christ one 'David Brainerd' in any century's time, is worthy of our investigation." I am saying that to brother preachers as I meet them, and they talk about how crazy we are. I say, "How about your congregation? Are they striving after Holiness?" No Sir! This generation of churchgoers is terribly afraid of this word. Do they give you the impression, brother pastor, that a work of Grace has been wrought in their lives that has changed them? No!

I look my brother pastors in the eye, and I meet a lot of them, and I say, "It's about time you boys started thinking about this: You just as well better quit trying to whip people, and make them be good. This thing has got to be an inner transformation of character."

My sister showed me a card from a church where she worships in Florence, AL, where they had Church Loyalty Day; everybody was supposed to be there, and sign their names (and if they weren't there, they were visited, you know, and put them on the carpet.) The church I go to makes you sign a Pledge Card, and agree to do this, and agree to do that, but I don't agree to any of it. I am not a good church member. They are trying to make people be what they don't want to be. Did you get what Jonathan Edwards said? "Any interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the belief of which will contribute to the church of Christ one ‘David Brainerd' in any century's time, is worthy of our investigation." No such Christ-like character perhaps has ever walked on the stage of American Christianity. It would do you good to throw away some of the foolish things you spend your money on, and get you his journal, and soak your soul in it. Learn the language of the Bible. See how that man demonstrated what we have not yet learned. We are proud of the fact that we are misunderstood, but he took this great Gospel to those heathen Indians, and saw it transform them in all their unspeakable filth. It had to be preached through an interpreter. He couldn't put on any sideshow, or use human persuasion there, just the Gospel.

In reading his journal, I came upon these 4 things that made him so mad at God before He saved him (or in the process of bringing him to the place of lostness,) and made him awfully mad. Now, I have been studying it for months, and I have come to a conviction that God, who is sovereign, (and none will have the same degree of experience,) goes about getting people LOST exactly like the way he did with David Brainerd.

I want to bring this message, tonight, and introduce what we are to be speaking on all week, and I want you to follow me a little bit. I want to give you these 4 things. To preface them, I want to make this statement: Thousands of preachers are in America who preach the truth about the virgin birth of Christ, multiplied thousands of them fight you about the fact of the inspiration of the Word of God, multitudes of preachers, today, will faithfully proclaim the awfulness of Hell that awaits the Sinner, multitudes of preachers, today, will preach that the sinner is guilty, and that he is deservedly guilty, and there is no salvation at all possible for any sinner except that which is in Christ Jesus. This generation is faithfully being warned (perhaps as faithfully as it ever was) of the awfulness of Hell that awaits the sinner, and the certainty judgement, of the fearfulness of sin, of the fact that salvation is alone in Jesus Christ. This generation is being told from pulpits all over the country that they have in their own pocket the key, and that anytime they wish, they may get up, and unlock that door, and save themselves.

The one thing that this generation is NOT hearing, and the one thing that marks what we are trying to do, what we are willing to live for, and die for, is this: What this generation is not being told is, not only, that sinners are on Death Row awaiting execution, condemned already, the door locked, locked in the dungeon and bondage house of SIN waiting for the stroke of Death to hurl them out into the hands of a "Sin hating" and a "Sin punishing" God - the issue that we need to make burn all over this country is (God help us to quit trying to prove something) we should shut men up to this fact: that sinners are not only on Death Row, that sinners are not on probation, they have been tried and condemned, and they are under the wrath of God Almighty, and nothing but His mercy keeps them from being sent to Hell. The door is locked, they are bound with the cords of their own sin, and they haven't got the key. They can't get out. It is not up to the sinner to decide whether he will walk out, or not. It is up to the sovereign Christ as to whether He will let him out, or not.

That's the difference, dear ones, that's the difference, isn't it? You are just wrong if you don't see that. I can cite preacher after preacher that preaches the Blood of Christ, that will make you sob like your heart will break, and preach on the terrors of Hell, and all of that, but the one thing this generation is being lied-to about is that they have within themselves the "where-with-all" to get out of the dungeon any time they make a stand.

I want us to see how God locked up old David Brainerd; the way He got him plumb LOST. Ah, that's the issue. We are too interested in proving we are right, we are too interested in standing for the truth. We had better learn to be the friend of the Gospel, and the friend of sinners. I say that the fellow over there in the jungles of Africa needs to be told the truth about himself. The folks in Kingsport need to be told the truth about themselves. The one truth this generation is not hearing is the truth that, in Adam, we lost the key; we lost the key. Let me illustrate it this way: suppose somebody hollers "Fire!" And then someone else says, "The house is on fire, but the door is unlocked, and it is not burning much yet. We should finish out this service, because we got the key." But then let us suppose the smoke starts piling in, and we all rush to the door only to find out that there is no key in the door. We all reach in our pockets, but we have no key ourselves. We would likely get a little concerned.

If you will follow me through the messages this week, if you want, I will help you, if you want, to change your witness to lost people. You aren't getting anywhere trying to prove a doctrine to lost people. You had better, listen to me now (don't you know I am a friend to doctrine now. I'll stand up and be counted if it is attacked, but it is to be taught to God's people.) What the old sinner needs is to keep telling him where he is, he is on Death Row. He may be the next one. He's right down there on Death Row. He's there because of his own sin. And he is guilty, not to be pitied, but punished. And God help him, he can't get out. He lost the key. He can't unlock the door. Why, you walk out here the streets of Kingsport tomorrow, and everyone will admit they are sinners. And they will say " Sure I know I'm lost." They don't know any such thing! They don't know they are lost like the Bible says lost people are, that are going to get saved.

In the first place, David Brainerd had God to show mercy on him, and He showed him the strictness of His Holy Law. I think that this is right, that, in the process - for it is a process, as we time-conscious people have to consider it - the process that God uses to bring a sinner to his recognition of his lost condition, for a man, when he finds out he is lost, is going to start screaming for someone to find him. The reason men are not screaming for my LORD to save them is they do not believe they are lost. They need a little help, but they are not LOST. They are not LOST. As I understand the way the LORD proceeds, He arrests a man, and puts him under the clutches of the Holy Law. And if he is going to bring that man to salvation, he'll show him the spirituality of the Law: that it is a matter of inward motive. And he will show him that God Almighty will not save anybody at the expense of the least demand of His Law not being fulfilled. He will show him that God will send everybody in the world to Hell before He will violate the least requirement of His Holy Law.

This generation never heard of the Law of God. What we call fundamental preachers are always bragging about that we are not under the Law: until this generation of school children couldn't quote "the 10 commandments" if you were going to fry them in oil before sundown. How many of you can quote them? The Law of God is the big term that no one is concerned about. That's right. And yet, were it not for the Law of God, no sin would ever be imputed to anybody for where there is no law, there is no sin. This generation has as much respect for the Law of God as it does the law of man. And that's: not any. And yet, God Almighty, in bringing a fellow to his lostness, as old Zacheus was in the text in Luke, puts him under the law, and shows him that he will by no means clear the guilty. Did you get that? I don't believe you did. He will by no means clear the guilty. Let me repeat it. The only people that God is going to save are people who are absolutely without guilt with reference to the law. That means that there must be a union in eternity between the Savior and the sinner, and the Savior take upon Himself the guilt, absolutely take upon Himself the guilt (so that it's not on that sinner,) He will not clear the guilty. He will not do it! He will by no means, no hook or crook, there's no way to deal with him about it. There must be this union with Christ Jesus. A fellow gets a little smattering of the Law, and he feels a little uneasy. He isn't plumb LOST yet.

The second thing that made David Brainerd mad at God was he found out that God requires faith. The point of God's dealing with a soul is that salvation is applied to man through the channel of faith. God requires it. God will save no man apart from that man, as an act of his own will and intelligence (of course he has got to be worked on by God,) embracing Christ; laying hold on Christ; receiving Christ; surrendering to Christ - what ever term you wish to use if it is biblical. The sinner, like a starving beggar, has got to reach out and lay hold on the LORD Jesus Christ, His person, His work. The thing that made David Brainerd so mad was that God required faith, but he found within himself no ability to exercise faith.

Oh, my soul, I feel like a dog when I am at home, and go out to the house of the LORD. My pastor, bless his heart ... I don't believe a word he preaches, and he knows I don't. I don't know what to do. I feel so sorry for God's people in all of the section where I live. I don't know where you could go to hear the Gospel. I have been to them all, on the Sundays when I am home. The last time I heard my pastor preach, he said, "Sinner, if you will open your heart, Jesus will come in." I just sat there, and said, "Oh, my soul, that was an enemy to that sinner. That sinner will go away from church never dreaming what a desperate condition he is in. Oh, how that sinner needs to be faithfully told by some Godly pastor, as he sits there, that God must open his heart. He cannot open his heart. The man or sinner that heard that was left to believe that it was up to him. Of course, as long as this is up to me, I have got the ability, there is no reason to get unduly concerned about it. If I can open my own heart today, there is no reason why I can't do it tomorrow. Don't try to scare me, and try to say that maybe I'll be dead tomorrow, because I am in pretty good heath: I'll be around, I expect. And preacher, I don't intend to go to Hell. I am going to lay hold on Christ one of these days. I know there is no salvation, except in Him. But since it is up to me to open my heart, I'll get around to that later.

You see that there is no conviction. Who is scared? How can they be, beloved? How can they be? The LORD opened Lydia's heart. But sinners are being told now you just do it yourself. David Brainerd found out he couldn't open his own heart. You see, David Brainerd sat under men like Jonathan Edwards, those old-timers that believed the Book. And he studied it and he found out that God required faith and he could not exercise it. He got mad at God. It wasn't right for God to require something of him that he couldn't produce. And he found out, whether it was right or not, it was so. It was so. And that David was getting pretty mad by now. And a little bit lost....just a little bit.

The third thing that made him mad at God, as God was bringing him to salvation, and getting him lost, was that he found out that God could give him faith, or withhold it. That is right. God could do either one. My heart just bleeds as I travel up and down the country. I say, "LORD, are you going to let this generation go to Hell trusting in itself?" It is not sour grapes, but I look God's people in the eyes as I sit in their parlors, and I talk to them. I lay on them the high crime of supporting the "so called Gospel" that doesn't shut sinners up to the fact that they are on Death Row, and the only way to get out is through faith, and they haven't got the ability themselves. God can give it to them, or withhold it as He pleases. Old David was mad. He got mad, and said, "That's not right." I don't know if it is right or not, but it is so. See, I am not interested in proving something. I wish I could get some of you millionaires to give me a billion dollars tomorrow to buy up every network in the world, and give just one sermon. I'd try to preach it, and tell this generation, if I had one chance (whether they believe it or not is their business,) that they are on Death Row. We'll see tomorrow night in the message that they got there of their own free will, unhindered by God, and undeceived by the Devil. That's right. But they are down there on Death Row, and the only way out is through faith in Jesus, and they haven't got it themselves; it cometh by hearing; it is the gift of God. God can give it, or withhold it.

Oh, if Kingsport could hear THAT from the pulpits next LORD's day morning, somebody might get a little concerned next Sunday afternoon. The only way I can keep out of Hell, and the only way I can know God, is to lay hold on Christ, but I can't. Where would I lay hold of Him, where is He? Where is He? Job said, "Where is he that I might run to him;" just where is he? Is He at the mourner's bench, or is He in the inquiry room, or is He in a chair? Where is He? He is not here in the flesh. Coming to Jesus doesn't mean some physical act, but it is a spiritual act. Faith ... God can give it or withhold it.

You mean to tell me that a sinner like you or me, unaided by the Spirit of God, could lay hold on a spirit? My LORD is not here in the flesh. You can't shake hands with Jesus. You can't come to Him in the flesh. That is not the way to be saved. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. The only people that do believe that He is the Christ are the folks that have been born of God. You have got to have the new birth before you can believe. Nobody, but the one that has been born again, believes that Jesus, born out of wedlock, lived in Nazareth (no good thing ever did come out of Nazareth,) is the Son of God. Nobody that was anybody ever heard of Him. Never was 30 miles away from home. Didn't live but a little while. He was crucified as a criminal ought to be, not inside, but outside the city while the "religious" people were going to church. You mean to tell me that you believe He is the Son of God? You could do that yourself? (Why, that is silly, isn't it?) Oh, it takes a miracle for men like me to believe that.

The fourth thing that made David Brainerd mad, and got him plumb lost was, not only the strictness of God's law, not only that God requires faith, and he didn't have it, but that God could save him or damn him. This generation doesn't believe that. Therefore this generation isn't under conviction either. Do you know anybody that is screaming for the LORD to save him? That thing has broken my old heart (I recognize my faults, my bluntness and all that, but for twenty some years I have been trying to evangelize in our churches; I am badly fooled unless I am telling the truth now: I've seen the Spirit whittling sinners down, and this has aroused the most awful opposition,) it seems that in church life today, we will not tolerate Holy Spirit conviction. I have seen it when they couldn't eat or sleep. I have seen them in the throws of Holy Ghost conviction, and it would seem to me that people would rejoice, but they don't. They don't! So I think the only hope is to build new works, and I believe until we get our hands on them, that God will get glory out of them. This is where the Holy Spirit would be welcomed to come, and take an old proud sinner that knew the 10 commandments, and NOW make it real to him. That way he is hemmed up with no way to get out, and has to have a perfect substitute, perfectly satisfying the law in every detail, or he'll have to be sent to Hell.



The Holy Spirit could come down, take this truth, and apply it to you; showing you the only hope is in Christ, and in laying hold on Him. You haven't got it in yourself. He could show you the way the LORD can give you faith, or withhold it, save you, or damn you as He pleases. This generation hasn't heard that. No, they won't tolerate the idea that God can be a perfect God, and save or damn as He pleases.

Picture Rolfe Barnard sitting down on Death Row, and can't get out. It finally dawned on him that God didn't have to get him out. Oh my soul, Psalms 107 says "then those that were in trouble cried unto the LORD." Oh yes, old David Brainerd got into trouble, and he found that he couldn't get out. God had no obligation to get him out. There wasn't any way he could make God come down, and unlock the door. All David Brainerd could do was sit there on Death Row, and cry, "Oh, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." Walking down the corridor of Death Row, "While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by." Do not pass me by! Let us now stand, and sing that song.

Pass Me Not
Frances Jane (Fanny) Crosby

Pass me not oh gentle Savior, hear my humble cry
While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by

Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry
While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by

Let me at a throne of mercy, find a sweet relief
Kneeling there in deep contrition, help my unbelief

Trusting only in Thy merit, would I see Thy face
Heal my wounded, broken spirit, saved me by Thy grace

Thou the spring of all my comfort, more than life to me
Whom have I on earth beside Thee, whom in heaven but Thee?

Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry
While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by



Rolfe Barnard was born in 1904.

After setting the course of his life, he was stopped by God, and turned to Christ. He made a career change, and became a preacher of the Gospel.

As he began to preach, God fixed his course, and put him in direct opposition to many of the widely accepted views of his day. As a result, he saw many of his preaching opportunities cancelled. He persevered, and gave us some of the most heart−searching messages of the twentieth century.

Once, he was asked by a group of churches to preach for a few weeks on the radio at their expense. His only subject was to be how sinners are to be condemned, and sent to hell for their sin. There was to be no pleading for them to do anything. As a result, many were convicted of their sinful condition. One man (a banker,) having heard the radio broadcast, ended up in prison when he confessed to embezzlement. He couldn't live with himself knowing he had only hell to look forward to if he didn't change. This man came into the meeting, and fell on the floor before the preacher, and begged for help in finding forgiveness for his sin.

Rolfe Barnard was unique in many ways. Few have displayed a compassion for sinners the way he has. This shows specifically in his refusing to compromise biblical principles for popularity. Some may take this to be hardness against sinners. However, an "anxious inquirer" into things of God does not need a watered−down Gospel. He wants, and needs, the truth of God so he may find what he MUST place his faith upon (what faith God has entrusted him with in his seeking God's mercy.) Christ came, after all, to save sinners who are LOST and need a savior! Those who need God are not satisfied or helped by a counterfeit. The empty promises made to sinners by religion today are no balm for a sick soul.

Brother Rolfe Barnard went to be with our LORD in 1969.
This sermon was transcribed in 2005... (the Editor)